Efficient bus trip

Wow..I didn't really expect stuff to go so efficient for my "tour" bus. Eric and me went as usual taking the green bus to KTM Nilai and then to Seremban. Ohhh, and it is so convenient to travel from KTM Seremban to the Seremban bus terminal, courtesy of the new covered walkway and tunnel. So, there's no need to jaywalk and cross the crazy busy streets of Seremban. And THAT is how and what the BN government should spend their millions of ringgit on and NOT on new Mercedes cars for overfed exco members.

Both of us went to get the bus ticket from Plusliner since that's like the best and most reliable service in the bus terminal. The price is kinda good, only RM19.80 =p. We reached there about 11.20 am and we're pleased to get the 12.30pm bus. While waiting, we eat and chatted at Dunkin Doughnuts. Woah, I'm impressed that Eric has quite a good knowledge on his favourite football club, Arsenal. FINALLY, I've found someone with a decent amount of football knowledge in the law faculty =p.

The Plusliner bus is actually good, clean and well-maintained for a 40 seater bus. It's kinda squeezy compared to the regular Grassland buses but still, it's comfortable. And it's very fast and doesn't waste time stopping in Yong Peng for the bus driver to makan. Within 3.5 hrs, we're already at Johor Bahru. And we reached the checkpoint at a time when there's no crazy crowd to fight with and the MRT ride was also comfortable with no balik rumah gang.

Nice to have a homely environment after so long staying in hostel. Most importantly, I get access to a refrigerator..haha. Ohhh, juz now I was also watching the channel 8 dramas at 7pm and 9pm. It's Felicia Chin gracing the screens once again at 7pm and I'm surprised to see Fann Wong reprising her role as a schizophrenic character again at the 9pm show. She's gonna be a master at portraying characters with mental cases..haha.

Anyways, woot! I get to have the chance to cook stuff for myself to eat..haha. Stan will cook for food and have unlimited supplies of iced drinks to enjoy these few days!! =)

Slacking Period

Oh well, I'll begin my "tour" for my slacking period of 2.5 weeks tomorrow. I'm feeling quite tired now because I spent half the day in clearing and cleaning my hostel room..haha. Other than that, I also need to consider what stuff I'm going to bring, especially which law books. I'll most probably be bringing those that are small and light books which covers the main points and some of the subjects would just be paper notes. If I were to bring the detailed textbooks, I'm going to have trouble bringing them back and forth around. With the guitar still needed to be transported, I had to really limit what I'm putting in my bags..haha.

I have a feeling I'm going to miss *someone* a lot during these two weeks..haha.

FA Community Shield 2008

Back-in-action Captain Gary lifts the Community Shield for Man Utd

The new competitive season for English top division clubs kicks off with the community shield between Premier League champions Manchester United and FA Cup Winners Portsmouth. Man Utd are without terror duo Rooney and Ronaldo. Saha is out injured (once again) and so, the only striker up front is Carlos Tevez. I'm kinda pleased with Man Utd's general control of the game. The defence is kept tight nicely and the passing and game reading was kinda good. The dominant style which United used during the game had been running onto space and getting the short burst of speeds upfront when needed.

Ryan Giggs operates as the ghost striker and occassionally switches the role with Nani. So, on the left wing, they are 3 lanes in operation - Giggs, Nani and Evra. This kinda makes the left wing quite congested..lol. Nani played superbly well, a big improvement when he first started out last season. His dribbling skills and ball control were well done and he links up nicely with Giggs. He literally danced around the Portsmouth box and there's a couple of times when he made Glen Johnson tangled and slip on his own foot..lol. Tevez looks sharp on the ball and he made a few good runs past the defences. Tevez did everything right as a supporting striker but I can't help feeling that Man Utd desperately needs a striker who is a marksman that is specialised in sniping balls into the net. Berbatov or Huntelaar would fit in the role nicely. Other than that, it's nice to see Captain Gary Neville back into the squad. The fans truly missed his presence in the squad and his dynamism on the field. The defence looks very assuring now and it's pleasant to watch Neville running down the right flank to support attacking play or challenge the attackers.

The match ended 0-0 and had to have a penalty shootout to decide the outcome. Lol, TG guessed it correctly that it would go to penalties while I actually predicted a 1-0 win for United.Portsmouth would have conceded a couple of time if not for some Lady Luck on their side. Funnily, Fletcher nearly become a double-goal hero. He had one clear chance to whack it into an open goal but he chose to pass it coz he thought he was offside. The other time was that his volley juz bounced off the crossbar. Anyways, David James is totally wicked in front of the goal. Time after time, he make excellent saves and denied United the chance to score. However, Portsmouth really ain't helping themselves in the penalty shootout. They are ultimate noobs in penalties! They had 2 people MISSING from the spot and not even testing the keeper. And 1 of them got saved brilliantly by van der Sar. Man Utd converted all their chances and even David James is powerless to stop penalties.

It's a wonderful start for Man Utd to get their first silverware of the season. Haha, there's a weird rumour circulating around the news that Fergie may be thinking of buying Thierry Henry. That'll be the shock of the century if that does happen. But in football, you'll never know...haha. Afterall, the Man Utd no. 14 shirt is still vacant and empty. =p

08/08/08

Yesterday's Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony was superb. The Inti China student's association organised the screening to be held in two lecture halls. At first quite messy because they assumed that CCTV would be screening but that was not the case. In addition to that, the Astro dish in the lecture hall is not subscribed to Supersport. Guess who came to the rescue - it's RTM 1! This one really Malaysia Boleh..lol! When Astro's not working, there's always good old TV1 to depend on. =p About a quarter had actually left while the China students were busy fiddling with the channels. But anyways, I was part of the three quarters that stay to watch the opening ceremony at TV1. Lol, the Digi advertisements that were spammed in TV1 were quite funny and creative.

The performances and shows during the opening ceremony were something of a gigantic massive scale. All of them were colourful and some of them were really beyond the audiences' wildest imagination when they think about the scale of creativity that is involved. My favourite part of the Olympics has always been to watch the part where the different countries march past the stadium crowd. The costumes that were worn by some of them were certainly very interesting and colourful..lol. Not only that, a portion of them also tend to syiok sendiri or zhi high and they started dancing or making funny faces at the camera. Got lots of pretty gals that are flashed on the screen, cos some of the atheletes really look great (and exotic..haha) while excelling at their sports and not to forget the background China cheerleaders (or dancers?). I wonder how they keep on doing the same action for 2 hrs and kept the same smile on. The music alternates between 3 types - the backpipes "Scotland the Brave", some well-known Chinese folk songs and then the African drums. Interestingly, the lecture hall did cheer at various countries that marched in. Taiwan is not one of them..lol. BUT Hong Kong was the first to receive the cheer from the China students..haha. Heres the list - Hong Kong, Malaysia (of course), Canada, USA, Australia, Singapore, UK, Spain and China. Quite a peculiar list and I leave it to the readers' opinion on why the lecture hall cheer at this set of countries..haha.

The other part I'm looking forward to is the lighting of the giant torch. Beijing does it uniquely from the rest of the other hosts. This time, they had an old apek suspended in mid-air and air running around the stadium at a height of about 20 storeys high!! When he reached his destination and lighted the fuse, the gigantic torch erupted into a giant ball of flame. And the fireworks pyrotechnics were awesome too! It's a wonderful sight to see. Now, let the Games begin!

Short Break Coming

This week is the last week for Semester 1. My classmates and I are a fortunate bunch since we don't have exams this semester. So, instead of having 2 weeks of holidays, we have 3 weeks. Wait till Semester 2 comes, I'm sure all of us will get "retribution" for being slack this semester..haha. There are still stuff to be concluded for Semester 1 though, like on Friday, there's gonna be an open book test on offer and acceptance for contract law and on Saturday, it's the Malaysian studies exam.

Hmm..for the semester break, I'll spend a few days in Singapore to visit mama while the majority of the time I'll be at Taiping. That's cos I'll be bored to death in Singapore since most of my friends are in the army anyways. The only thing in Singapore that keeps me entertained is the super speed Internet and my drums. Mama and my bro would be busy with the normal schooldays. The Internet may not be so fast in Taiping, but at least I have Astro to watch history documentaries or get my dose of football action..haha. Not only that, if it's possible, I see whether I got enough time to proceed with my driving course. I think I'll most probably be heading to Singapore with Eric only on next Wednesday since I wanna spend some time clearing my hostel room and do some planning.

Btw, I added a games profiling application in Facebook and I realised that I spend more time watching TV, playing PC games, reading entertainment/football magazines and surfing the Internet compared to reading books or novels in my teenage years. People think that a lot of the knowledge and language skills I have come from books but that's so not true all the time. It's more like I "skim" through books rather than read them. Gosh, I had like 53 PC+Xbox games played (that's not even all) vs. 13 novels that I completed reading (which I can recall). Very often, I read books because I needed to research or study but other than that, I won't even read books for fun. Actually, I prefer books that are historical with lots of photographs and I read them more than typical novels. For me to sit down and read a book with loads of words and no illustration, I kinda need some inspiration (like some interesting philosophical concepts). And I take very long to finish one (so no Harry Potter please). But I thank God in giving me a gift in that when I read a book, those information that I gather don't really vanish but are retained in my memory for very long time..haha. I sometimes do wonder how come I'm so informed and knowledgeable about so many things eventhough I don't read much books. =p

Passion World Tour Kuala Lumpur

I was out the whole day yesterday, a blessed day I would say..haha. I went to church in the morning first and then when I reached back to Inti, I rested in my room for around 30 minutes before heading to the bus-stop to take the bus for the event in the evening : Passion World Tour - Kuala Lumpur. Inti Christian Fellowship booked one entire bus and had it fully filled for the event! (thanks to Eric..lol) Passion is originally a Christian conference/rock music event in the US for university students headed by Louie Giglio . In 2008, they are currently having a world tour of 17 cities in 6 continents. Several Christian rock band groups like Chris Tomlin and Charlie Hall are touring together around the world with Louie. You can check out their website at www.268generation.com. The verse theme of Passion is taken from Isaiah 26:8, hence 268.

Anyways, Passion KL is held in Sunway Convention Centre and we had to start moving from Nilai at 2.15 pm for a 6pm event cos of the distance and we also need to be early to queue up. At first I thought it was too early but woah, the place was fully packed already at the entrance. All 6000 tickets for the events were fully snapped up. And imagined almost 6000 of them are crammed outside at the door waiting for it to open. Quite stuffy at the front of the row of the waiting line but it was worth it in the end when I managed to get a seat in the center first front rows. I had a nice clear view of the musicians!

It was truly an awesome night with all the young people jumping, dancing and praising God. Chris Tomlin is a rocker for Christ! Everyone in the hall were feeling really high..haha. Charlie Hall has a great voice too and his janggut (beard) is most peculiar..lol. His band had lots of older fellas in them. I'm really inspired by the message given by Louie. He's really someone who can connect to young people..haha. Hopefully Passion would inspire Malaysian youths to rise up and do great things for God.

Ohh..and I'm glad that I had a digital camera which was capable to record a few snippets minute moments of the concert and loads of nice pictures of the musicians up close. Haha, now I going gaga over Chris Tomlin's "Sing, sing, sing". In any case, thank you Lord for bringing the Passion band to KL as one of their destinations. And God bless them for Passion Jakarta which is happening on 5th August tommorow :)

The Dark Knight

Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was....a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me and he says "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife,"Why so serious?" He sticks the blade in my mouth. "Let’s put a smile on that face!"

There's so much of ideas and words that flashed in my head when I watched The Dark Knight. It's like Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby where every word that is uttered carries a whole load of weight behind it. I've never watched a movie that made me think so much after the Matrix! Lol, the philosophical and literature concepts in there is just overwhelming. Once again, Stan wants to put up a WARNING sign that there are SPOILERS ahead!

The movie starts off with a bank robbery and I got a tickle when I saw who was casted as the Gotham Bank Manager. It was Alex Mahone from Prison Break! Lol!! And he scares the pants out of all the robbers when he blasted a couple of them with his shotgun. That is until The Joker makes an appearance and left him with the words "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger."

The character at the center-stage of the movie is undeniably the Joker. The Batman had to take the back seat for this one. Heath Ledger's death may had played some part in propelling the film and character to global fame but the thing is, Heath is simply phenomenal in the role. His portrayal of the Joker embodies an individual being who's psychotic, erratic and ruthless. The imagery conjured into the audience mind is one which is terrifying the mind. Heath brought out the essence of the Joker, something which previous adaptations or even the animated series had not done as well as him. The Joker could literally have an entire section of monologues by himself because his quotes are just so profound. "Malicious silliness" and "saddistic humour" would be some of the tags that I'll put on the Joker. He's the anti-thesis of Batman, the very opposite what the Dark Knight represented and stands for.

The Joker is not a mere ordinary lunatic. He represented a higher form of destruction where he destroys for the thrill of it. He regards himself as an agent of chaos and the eerie thing is that he's willing to even become a martyr to usher in anarchy into the world. He has a taste for pure nihilism and as he puts it," It's not about money... it's about... sending a message. Everything burns." Interestingly, the Joker orchestrated a real-life Prisoners' Dilemma using two ferries where one contained a group of thugs while the other are ordinary folks. Lots of ethical questions are raised around here. The end result was that none of them pressed the button. I think in the real world, I'm sure there are definitely people who are willing to press the button.

The Batman is an interesting superhero which stands out from the rest. Unlike Superman, Spiderman or the X-Men, Batman does not possess any sort of superhuman powers. He's a mortal that is equipped with lots of cool gadgets but he's essentially vulnerable to death and emotional or psychological wounding just like any other man. In the Justice League, Batman stands out among the other members and the exco as someone who's rather difficult to work with, low sense of humour and a very emo person because of the dark experiences that he went through. In any case, Bale does well in the movie too as Batman, continuing the good work which he had in Batman Begins.

The "White Knight" of Gotham is Harvey Dent and the Joker is totally obsessed in demonstrating that he is capable of turning the best of men into a villainous character. And he succeeded in making Dent descend into madness and transforming him into Two-Face after the death of Rachel Dawes. I like this portrayal of Two-Face as compared to the one in Batman Forever which is played by Tommy Lee Jones. In Batman Forever, he's just shown to be a bad ass with no introduction that Two Face was once a defender of justice. The corruption initiated by the Joker in the Dark Knight is not the first because in the Batman animated series, he was also responsible in turning Detective Ethan Bennett into Clayface.

Despite the fact that both Batman and the Joker are nemesis to each other, both are not willing to deal the killing blow. For Joker, the end of Batman would mean the end of thrills for him while Batman's philosophy has always been never to murder criminals but to hand them over to the police. So, as the Joker had already mentioned, they can do the cat-and-mouse game virtually forever..lol.

The Dark Knight is a truly superb movie that lives up to all the hype surrounding it. The Joker was the last act by Heath Ledger and it was a befitting farewell. Take a bow, Heath Ledger. A magnificent performance before the curtains come down. It would definitely be very hard to find a replacement if they do want to have a sequel in the future. With that said, I would definitely look forward in getting the Dark Knight DVD in the future :)