Sunday, June 29, 2008

BRITAINS got TALENT

I have been busy. But I'll like to share these phenomenal and inspirational videos first! I'll be alway for the next few days, but enjoy!

The following clips are from "Britain's Got Talent" reality TV show, and some of the performances are just amazing!

Britain's Got Talent SEMI-FINAL 2008 - George Sampson




Britain's Got Talent 2007 - George Sampson Streetdancer (!!!!!)




George Sampson - Winner - Britain's Got Talent 2008 Final




Britain's Got Talent 2008 - Signature (WOW)





"Strike" on Britain's Got Talent 2008 (Great stuff!!!)





Britain's got Talent SEMI-FINAL 2008 - Cheeky Monkeys (amazing!!!)



Flava Hip Hop Dance Group Britains Got Talent 2008 week 6 (Nice)

Posted by MK at 8:02 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Shokudo Dinner

Dinner after work today was a splendid fare with some of my friends, each of us ate $25++ worth of food @ Shokudo. A Japanese restaurant styled like Marche, where you can order as much as you want in a kitchen-type store layout and all your orders are recorded into a card.

I don't have to say how much food we ate, but it was a lot! Dinner was very satisfying.

Posted by MK at 9:56 PM

Monday, June 23, 2008

The damn Web2.0 protocol

The damn Web2.0 protocol is killing the human touch in interpersonal relationships. In the past, friends used to really meet up. Then the ubiquitous hand phone came along and everyone started going "call me", then 2.5G came along and everyone started saying "sms me"..

IRC came along and everyone started going "AUTH me..", then MSN came along and everyone said "msn me". Then friendster came along and everyone said "write me a testimonial", then Facebook came along and people started going "add me".

Now apparently it seems that from actual physical seasons greetings cards have become E-cards on www.bluemountain.com and then birthday wishes became mere sms-es and now sms-es are no longer being replied to! You gotta WRITE on someone's SuperWall in FaceBook so that everyone knows you wished that person a happy birthday.

It's these Web2.0 techs that are making Java/ flash look like mere HTML.. of course it uses the standard CSS or RSS style-sheets, but how the hell are laymen like me gonna do that?

So you have sites like photobucket, Facebook and Flikr with Web2.0 tech, and soon it will be Web3.0 where the web content actually predicts what you want making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. Don't you think FB already does something similar to that?

So the human touch has deteriorated to this stage where interpersonal interaction is coveted and wishes are sent via FACEBOOK! I though sms was bad enough, maybe someday someone will propose on a social-networking site like FB?

I am stuck in a generation that saw the good ‘ol days of the human touch, and seeing the changes before my very eyes, and seeing the kids growing up these days getting more spoilt and more ignorant.

I know it doesn't sound like me, but I hate sms-ing and all that stupid superwall, superpoke shit in Facebook... I dunno whether it's me, but nothing beats a good night out with friends, a sumptuous dinner and a nice drink to spend the night...

Don't you think so?

We humans are becoming too impersonal with all these gadgetry all around us. I know it doesn’t sound like me, but I hate sms-ing and all that stupid superwall, superpoke shit in Facebook...

We humans are becoming too impersonal with all these gadgetry all around us. There was a time when I was the only geek walking around toting a PDA. But now I have friends all around toting pda-phones and umpcs and wondering why I am the only one still using a desktop. Like.. HELLO? It looks as if I am the dinosaur tech-illiterate around here toting an "ordinary" handphone and using a "old" desktop for my computing needs.

Like... "what? You're still using Windows XP?"

Or "hey look at my iPhone... oh you're still using that same phone..."

Does that mean I've fallen behind?

Okay good for all you guys with "advanced tech"

Okay maybe my tech really suck now.....

Posted by MK at 6:49 PM

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Korean BBQ Lunch

Today was nice, I had a nice lunch @ a Korean BBQ, Ju Shin Jung Korean, serving almost authentic Korean food. Makes me think of the days back in Korea. The place is rather secluded, situated opposite the old Haw Par Villa, but it serves buffet lunch with unlimited orders till 2.15pm.




Towels are served in these interesting "tablets" that expand when you pour water over it.


Absolutely sumptuous!

This place is recommended if you are sick of Marina's buffet Steamboat, and a very welcome gastronomic change of cuisine.

Actually if you are reading this, you are one of the privileged few whom I entrust my blog url to. Please do not talk to me in real life about my blog. Because you may be amongst others whom do not know that MK has a blog. The existence of this blog is to help my close friends understand me better, having something like this has caused me much grief in the past.

So just take it that, this blog and I are completely different entities existing in the same time plane, but not in the same dimension. =)

Posted by MK at 12:12 PM

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Being Spied on.

Yesterday I was amazed by how some people know stuff about me that I've never talked about before...

I was really impressed when they mentioned my past accolades like where I studied from and that i was from the Airforce, I didn't even know the guys name! I really wonder where they get their sources from, =( i've been spied on...

Okay Okay, I got requests from people asking about the new notebook I got. (I wonder how did they even find out I got one.) I finally opened it out of the box, powered it up and charged the battery.

Here it is.



http://www.acer.com.sg/products/extensa4620/

The specs vary slightly from the Acer website, but the specs for my system are as follows.

# O/S Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium
# Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T5550 (1.83GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
# Intel® 965GM Express chipset
# System Memory 2GB DDR II RAM
# Display/Graphic 14.1" WXGA colour TFT LCD
# Intel® 965GM Express chipset with integrated 3D graphics, featuring Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100
# Storage Subsystem 160GB HDD with Acer DASP (Disk Anti-Shock Protection)
# DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer drive (DVD+/-RW)
# 5-in-1 memory card reader

Cost me $999. I got this laptop IN CASE I needed one in the near future. I don't really need one and would MIND spending $1,000++ on a laptop as I have done so in the past.

Mini-review:

For a budget laptop, the laptop feels sturdy and looks very sharp, (it's got a magnesium alloy casing). The keyboard is tactile enough and the stereo speakers are sufficient. The laptop's performance not too bad even with Vista Home Premium installed. (Of course can never match my rig.)

The 14.1" CrystalBrite screen is nothing fancy, viewable but not at extreme angles. i.e 180-degrees. There are laptops with higher screen contrast ratios but this one is good enough.

Vista hogs resources, but this one does word/powerpoint/firefox applications just fine. I've not tested the battery life, but I don't think it's alot for a 6-cell battery.

All-in-all, I am quite satisfied with this laptop. Now it's going back into the box till school starts or something...

Posted by MK at 12:24 PM

Friday, June 20, 2008

Bottled water

Posted by MK at 9:42 PM

Thursday, June 19, 2008

"The difference between right or wrong?"

Sometime ago I had an argument about moral values, I've been meaning to write this entry for a long time and here it is:

Okay it all started with the half bottle of vodka and dad insisted on declaring it and paying duty tax on the bottle at the customs. I was the one who objected it. It's not a damn crime, it's a half-drunk bottle of liqueur from a family member! And it was given free on good intentions and out of the blue you want to go find trouble and declare a half-drunk bottle of liqueur at the customs and pay a hefty sum for it for nothing.

There was like a mere 2 glasses of Vodka left in the bottle. In the end, the customs officer just let it go for free and I felt like an idiot for going in to declare something like that in the first place.

So begun our debate of the "The difference between right or wrong?"

One example is such a scenario:

There's this criminal committing a grievous crime of threatening a hostage at knife-point and is in the act of stabbing the person. A cop sees it and shoots a criminal, killing him in the process. No I am not shielding any criminal activity of any sort.

At first glance it would seem that the cop is right in shooting the criminal, but when we take a step back and look at the scenario at another perspective, what gives him the right to take the life of the criminal? The cop may think he's doing right, and in the eyes of the public, he's right. He's most probably right. But is he really right?

Sometimes we have to do something wrong to do right. This scenario is very similar to the incident that happened not too long ago, a drunk man flew into rage and attacked two cops with a knife. The cop shot him on the spot and near point-blank range. The police commended the cop for his efforts, but our ever cynical public questioned him, wrote in forums. (Singaporeans are just too damn free to mind their own business) or is Singapore just too boring that one single bullet fired will make a woo-ha?

The public questioned the cop whether there could have been a less lethal way to taken down the man without taking his life. What would you have done had you been in the cops shoes? Would you be able to react? I bet most won't be able to. Our cynical society questioned and judged the officer who fired the shot. Could he have taken him down in another way? The cop's life was threatened in that split second!

Some of you may think the cop is right, some of you think the cop is wrong. So what is truly right or wrong? Don't you think the law is very flawed in the first place?

Or given another scenario:

A family of 3, the dad, the mom and the son. The dad comes home one day after one long hard day at work to feed his wife and son, he finds that the wife hasn't cooked anything for him and just for the son and just returned home after meeting with an insurance agent for a home policy. Lets say NONE of them has done anything WRONG. The wife went to get an insurance signed and the man offered to send her home.

The husband see this, flies into a rage and hits the wife, the young son seeing this, sides the mom and hits the dad in self-defense of the mom. The dad loses consciousness and subsequently dies in hospital, the mom goes crazy at the loss of her husband and the son bewilderedly loses the love of both his parents.

Who was wrong? From the way I see it, none of them were wrong! All of them acted upon love, the dad worked hard for the family instead of screwing other women, the mom looked after the family and son, and the son tried to protect his mom.

Okay, never mind, the above scenario was based on true events as well. Very sad. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

Or lets say in another scenario of a very impoverished family who sleeps hungry every night, the wife toils hard for meager pay in a sweat-shop factory, the dad toils in the field. The young son tries to steal bread from a shop and gets caught, the dad tries to get the son out and gets killed in the process. The mom loses everything.

I know everything I mentioned above has loopholes or faults at any perspective. I am sure you have a different view as well.

I am not citing with criminals or injustice, they deserve to be punished for their wrongs. Of course there are clear-cut wrongs.

But if you are question, my point is that there is really no right or wrong. Just a point in perspective, sometimes what may seem wrong to someone else, may actually be the best right to another person. Or what may seem right to someone, may seem sinful or wrong to another person.

Lets talk about minor sins. Bringing ONE pirated dvd across the border or watching ONE downloaded movie. Is that right or wrong? In the eyes of the law, it's wrong, but people still do it. You and I have all done it, it may seem insignificant, but everything has a price to it, whether it's right or wrong.

What about a girl dumping a guy? Or a guy dumping a girl? To their respective friends, both of them could be right, and both of them could be wrong, there are too many variables at play in the equation to make a complete or faultless judgment.

Who gives you the right to judge? Or who gives the right for a judge to judge? Or sentence someone to death?

After all we humans are flawed, and THE LAW IS WRITTEN BY HUMANS.

So then again, it's not wrong if you're not caught right? So if that's the case, you can say, if it's not wrong, then it's RIGHT!

But is that correct thinking? Then if the above statement is true, then if it's not right, then it's WRONG.

But what is truly right or wrong? I am sure there are many scenarios where people act out the best course of action with the least wrong. What may seem wrong to some one, may actually be right or the best course of action to another person.

There are also scenarios where it's right. BUT. It's also wrong. OR. It's wrong, BUT also right! Confusing isn't it? But it all boils down to individual perspective, morals and ideals.

There are too many scenarios and variables for me to list out. But you know what is wrong and what is right. Or do you? Your wrong could be someone else's right and vice-versa.

Maybe sometimes the decisions we make are to follow the path of the lesser evil. Sometimes both choices have rights and wrongs, it's up to you to choose the path with the lesser wrong, or is it just you?

Life is truly a paradox.

I made the mistake of opening my mouth, and that's how we got into that right or wrong argument, and all the points I brought up showed his flaws starkly that he couldn't deny. He lost. But did I win? I lost as well by winning...

Posted by MK at 4:18 PM

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

R8 and my Altis

Check this out! After work, whilst having supper @ Dempsy road, I parked right next to an Audi R8! Just the two cars side by side. Whoooo! Yeah, there were Porsche's and Ferrari's all over the place, but nothing beats an R8 man...

I know it may sound childish, but I wouldn't have bothered about even taking this picture had the car been a Porsche or a Ferrari... They're just too.... common...

But an R8? There's like only 40 in Singapore man! I WANT ONE! It's only got a price tag of S$500,000...

With or without this R8 parked next to my mere toyota, the dinner and supper was great, ambiance was refreshing and the night was fabulous. =)





Number plates have been obscured to protect the individual's privacy.

Btw, Dempsy road is a great place for F&B and for chillin out man... You can go check that place out one day. 24/7 F&B locale.

Posted by MK at 10:47 PM

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

the "Black Book", Zwartboek

Today I managed to catch a Picturehouse special movie the "Black Book" (Zwartboek in Dutch), and I gave it 4 out of 5 stars!







You know how hard it is to pry out a 4/5 star rating for a movie from me. But this WW2 flick is based on true events, and it is actually very touching. I've watched many WW2 movies in my time, but this is another perspective that I've not seen before. It's a MUST-WATCH.

Black Book (Dutch: Zwartboek) is a 2006 Second World War film directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, and Halina Reijn. The story is about a young Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II, when tragedy befalls her after an encounter with the Nazis. The film had its world premiere on September 1, 2006 at the Venice Film Festival and its public release on September 14, 2006 in the Netherlands.

The movie centers around this Jewish girl Rachel Stein, who renamed herself Ellis De Fries to pass off as a German. It talks about her courage, her mental strength, her determination and resolve.

It's actually heartbreaking, she had to go through so many sacrifices, sacrificing her friends, her dignity, her self-respect and all the hardship and betrayals she went through.. Can you imagine sleeping with the man who killed your family?

A lesser person would have crumbled. I admit, I would have crumbled myself if I was in her position, I would have just wanted to kill all the damn Nazis. This character Rachel Stein aka Ellis De Fries went through all sorts of hell, but she's one tough nut.

Much of the situations she got into, she managed to survive by pure luck. But she's smart too, conversant and fluent in up to 3 languages. (German, English and Dutch, possibly other languages too) to be able to masquerade as a German and spy on them, later the Germans found out that she was a spy and made it look that she betrayed her own people!

She escaped and went into hiding, can you imagine you fearing liberation and branded as a spy when the Allies took over?

This movie is a special Picturehouse viewing, only imported foreign movies are shown and you can only view it at Cathay towers. Catch it while it's still airing!

Picture house details: Here.

You may view a preview Here.

Posted by MK at 9:00 PM

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Post PCshow happiness

Hooray, just a minor update finally replaced my two reliable bulky CRTs with dual 19" WXGA widescreens LCDs plus a Maxtor OneTouch4 Pro external HDD. Whole main-computer setup looks much better now eh?

Posted by MK at 8:50 PM

Thursday, June 12, 2008

PCshow 2008

I am just back from the PC show 2008 after work and it's starting to get crazy over there! For those who are planning to go, better go fast! DON'T GO DURING THE WEEKENDS. You are crazy to go during the weekends.

Anyway, organizers this year are expecting 1 MILLION visitors to the PCshow 2008.

Deals were tantalizingly cheap as usual, with many laptops going for $1,199 - $3,000 at steal-prices. Good and cheap laptops for just over a $1,000 will be selling like hotcakes at the show. So are monitors and LCD TVs.

If you wanna see brochures and what other booths are offering, you may visit VRzone or HWZ and browse through yourself. But here's what caught my eye.
But external harddrives are just too hot to resist!

Maxtor 500GB external harddrives are going for $149! With Western Digital 1TB drives going for $280!!! ONE TERABYTE for $280! I remember spending almost $600 for my 1TB system over a year ago.












So if you really need / (or don't need one for that matter), an external harddrive, now is the time to get one. Even if you don't need one, just get one to dump all your files / precious photos / videos into it and leave it as a backup.

Posted by MK at 9:05 PM

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A "chilled" water cooling loop experiment

Well, ykl and I conducted a small experiment to explore the possibilities of using a peltier element to chill a water-cooling loop to investigate if such an approach was feasible to chill the water down.
I've heard many suggestions using a mini fridge as an active cooling solution to a water-cooling setup, and have found it intriguing myself. We decided to try it out, why not? You'll never know if it’s a feasible cooling solution till you try it out .



You may visit the following link for details of the full story!

HERE

Posted by MK at 10:46 PM

Monday, June 9, 2008

MS sucks always

Just as I pressed my hot-key to access my MS Outlook, an error message greeted me on the screen instead and just like that. My outlook crashed. Along with several of my other applications. Okay, never mind, so it's probably a small glitch, nothing a simple restart won't solve right?

Wrong, when I rebooted, the o/s kernels couldn't even be detected! Wth? My O/s crashed just like that for no apparent reason. I then wasted another 2 hours re-installing the O/s and all my other applications. Luckily I have several computers to run my applications when one is down, and though the o/s installed in record time of 30mins, it's my other more complicated applications that needed to be reinstalled.

Don't even bother ghosting or doing a RAID. This is not a hardware failure, it's just the damn unreliability of the o/s. How are you gonna ghost when you can't boot? Even if you ghost, the problems may have ghosted back into your backup file as well. So I've found that a cold reformat and a fresh install is the best way to go. Wasted my 2 hours before everything was back online.

I've had enough of this stupid Microsoft shit. 1 file corrupted and then the whole o/s is useless, now I know why I love Ubuntu so much, O/s installation in 5-10 minutes with all the drivers available? 700mb installation file when compared to the over-bloated 2.6gb Windows Vista O/s ?

Ubuntu is nice, but I can't really do 3D-rendering on it, programming or CAD. So it's still back to XP. Server 2000 is nice, but I can't play games on it. Mac is nice, but I can't do a hell lot of stuff on it either.

Should I even bother getting a mac? A $2000 investment, but what's the point of getting a nice flashy mac when you can't do programming on it or any of the other stuff I do for that matter. Still since Microsoft has monopoly on the o/s market, we all have no choice but to bite out tougues and continue to use sucky o/s-es.

Stupid. 2 hours wasted. That reminds me, I am getting another hdd to create a third level of data redundancy for backups. Microsoft Sucks.

Don't even get me started on Vista.

Posted by MK at 1:23 PM

Sunday, June 8, 2008

The Imperial Cheng Ho cruise

Wow, look, guess where am I? Am I still in Singapore?

In my quest to find unique and isolated, serene, pretty, quiet, (out-of-the-way-of-noisy-usual-public-hangouts), roof-top gardens to rest in Singapore, I found this place!

I am one of those tired of the constant noise, hustle and bustle of Town, Suntec and now Vivo, I am on a constant look-out for special (lesser-known) roof-top gardens in Singapore.

Okay, some of those that I've found before have now become public knowledge and are no longer viable to go to for some peace and quiet.

1) Wisma Atria "secret" rooftop hangout - Discovered 2004 - (Now too many people know about that place) and I've only brought 1 special person up there.

2) Fashion street building (opposite Bugis junction) - Discovered 2006 - Great place! "still quite unknown", cheap drinks for sale @ $2 / bottle, with bean bags and tables. Perfect for star-gazing.

3) *still classified*

4) THIS PLACE.





Nice green patch of grass to rest/relax and enjoy the sun. (note the lack of crowds)



It's got 4 wooden-benches, and a cafe that's not really open all the time.



Actually this "modern" looking structure Marina South Pier, (betcha didn't know that). It's actually hidden by all the Marina-IR construction further in, and is not visible from Suntec City, (except for the Singapore Flyer).

It's nothing actually, some-what a mix of the new Woodlands causeway and a mix of unique structural engineering, but it's a new "rooftop garden" that I've discovered.

Now since it's VERY out-of-the-way of normal public transportation, I highly doubt this place will be bustling with people anytime soon. Only 1 public bus goes to this location, and it's still mainly a transportation pier for workers working offshore.

But it's got 1 nice factor - Little public movement, less people, more quiet. =)

Since I was already there, I got the chance to get onboard the "Imperial Cheng Ho cruise".





It's a short 2 1/2 hr cruise at the South of Singapore actually, with a buffet dinner provided, and the company offers 4 different cruises at different times of the day for different sights. (e.g Kusu Island).




A nice-indoor "restaurant".


You can roam about, but it's a very small vessel, not much larger than a ferry to Batam.


Magnificent views at the sea. This is a view of the Marina area, the Singapore flyer, the CBD and you can see the DHL balloon afloat on the right. Overall, the boat chugs along very serenely, and rather slowly so that you can enjoy the sea breeze and the sights.

The night cruise leaves the pier and heads towards Sentosa, where you will have dinner, then will see a short firework display for "Songs of the Sea" @ Siloso beach, then after that it just heads back to the pier. If you are friendly enough, you can peek into the boathouse and speak to the captain (or pilot) and chat with them, asking them to linger around and area for a while or to detour a little off, they're quite friendly with such requests.

Nothing much though, but an interesting day nonetheless, this could be in one of the "Things to do in Singapore", our little boring island...

Hope you enjoyed this entry!

Brought to you by - The MK Alternative.

For more information, you may visit http://www.watertours.com.sg/ for details.

Posted by MK at 8:19 PM

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Selling my Shuttle SN25P XPC

I am selling my old Shuttle XPC SN25P SFF rig. I've had this XPC for a few years, served me well, but recently not using it anymore (doesn't serve my purpose anymore). I am selling this item as a combo.

I have formatted Maxtor 120gb hard-drive and pre-installed WinXP SP2 to show that it’s working and bootable. (O/S sold separately), original Microsoft WinXP SP1 o/s available for sale upon request. Drive bay covers are slightly sticky; internals are slightly dusty (due to age), all components working well. The SFF is old but still in good condition, working well. 7 days warranty.

Contains:

1. Shuttle SN25P Casing and motherboard with drivers and manual, and connector accessories
2. AMD 64 Socket939 3200++ processor
3. Kingston 1Gb DDR-400 RAM
4. EAGLE Geforce 6600GT 256mb graphics card with drivers
5. Maxtor 120gb IDE HDD
6. MSI 52x CD-ROM drive

You may wish to visit my garage sale forums for more items and details.

Here

Posted by MK at 11:44 PM

Computex 2008

Singapore's ITfair 2008 is coming up this 12-15 June 2008, but Taipei Computex 2008 has started exhibiting.

Computex makes Singapore's ITfair seem ancient and primitive. Singapore's largest IT show is COMEX, but it is just a 4-day farce of ugly Singaporean's in a mad rush and jostling for the latest deals and sales.

This year's Computex has never been bigger, with this year's show spilling over to a new venue, the Nangang Exhibition Hall. With up to 1725 exhibitors from 27 countries, this represents an increase of 27% in the number of exhibitors.

Computex is all about vendors show-casing their latest technologies and product offerings with most that are not available on the market yet. I'll be showing you some of the highlights that I think are significant for the near future and the trend of IT development into the next decade, without all the geek-talk of course. But you do know what a Gb (gigabyte) is right?

Pictures are courtesy from HWZ and VRzone.

Here is a demonstration by HIS, FOUR, dual-GPU Radeon 3870X2 cards in QUAD-Crossfire configuration. That's EIGHT GPU cores for extreme graphics!!! This will probably represent the epitome of graphics for enthusiasts, the day where the number of cores for graphics outnumbers the number of processing cores.

Posted by MK at 1:19 PM

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Movie Marathon!

Talk about a movie marathon! I know this entry is late, but I caught 3 consecutive movies. Crazy right? But hell, it was nice!

First movie caught was "Sex and the City", followed by "Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian", then "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull".

My ratings :
Sex and the City - 4/5 stars (Excellent show! MK recommended)
Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian - 4/5 stars (Excellent show! MK recommended)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull 3.5/5 (Good show and humor, but does not live up to previous Indiana Jones movies)



Okay, lets talk about each of the shows.





Now I understand why this show has such a cult following for the popular TV series. It is just so fantabulously funny/hilarious/enjoyable to watch! This movie is a feature film adaptation of the hit HBO television series. The film will follow the continuing adventures of the series four main characters - Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda - as they live their lives in Manhattan four years after the series ended.

Stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon are all on board to reprise their roles. Additionally, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis will return as the women's love interests. Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson ("Dreamgirls") has also joined the cast of the film and will play Carrie Bradshaw's assistant, a new character to be introduced in the film.

Each of the characters are just so enjoyable, each with their own flaws and unique character. The main character is Carrie Bradshaw, a writer who has the most flawless smile like Anne Hathaway in "Princess Diaries". This movie portrays the ups and downs in each of the characters as they live their lives as best friends, love and sex problems, working and family problems and such, and the flow of the movie is so seemless, you just enjoy every moment of it. There are many parts of the movie which portray priceless friendship, seeming betrayal, bitterness, sadness and of course eventual happiness and you just can't help but feel for the character as well.

It's a drama with an infusion of comedy in it. A must-watch for the month. Catch it if you haven't already watched it!

4/5 stars.



The next movie is "The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian". The characters of C.S. Lewis's timeless fantasy come to the life once again in this newest installment of the 'Chronicles of Narnia' series, in which the Pevensie siblings are magically transported back from england to the world of Narnia, where a thrilling perilous new adventure and and even greater test of their faith and courage awaits them.

Actually I thought this movie wasn't as good as the first. But the plot, the action, the character portrayal, development, scene flow and scripting were all so well done, the movie didn't deserve a 3.5 star rating.

This time the 4 siblings are magically transported back to Narnia a thousand years later, in a darker period where the Telmarines have greater control. Think of it as war on a smaller scale compared to LOTR, also set in a fantasy world. This time a prince Caspian of the humans have been unlawfully ejected from his own kingdom as his evil uncle claims the throne for himself.

I found the 4 siblings acting sorely acting, and lacking their former charm as compared to the first movie. Peter wasn't assertive enough as the high king, Susan wasn't as confident, even showing a weaker emotional side by kissing Caspian, Edmund didn't seem to mature from the previous movie, only Lucy seemed to have improved from the previous movie by contacting Aslan. I thought that scene where she dreamt of Aslan very heartwarming.

Okay, all-in-all, I think Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) acting TOTALLY SUCKED. During the scene where the Narnians succeeded in raiding Miraz’s castle, he buckled and made stupid irrational mistakes based on emotions, not following to plan and causing half of the Narnian Army to be slaughtered. I think the starting covert infiltrating scene where Edmund used a torchlight to signal the army very hilarious.

Caspian's presence in the movie seriously detracts the original innocent story from C.S Lewis fantasy world of Narnia. He was portrayed much better in the novels. Having strengths, emotional soft sides but generally very courageous and chivalrous. But in the movie, he can't act for nuts. He had little facial expressions, little acting worthy of mention, the friction between Caspian and Peter is a departure from the novel.

Peter came back to Narnia expecting to be king again and that everyone would do as he said, and Caspian is unwilling to let him take over, so that causes some of it. That's really what happens. And it's a lot about humility. I think they both have to learn a certain humility and that's really what a great king needs is to be humble, to listen to his people, to be willing to compromise, and they start off as these sort of angry teenagers, and become kings at the end.

Okay, so Caspian had his own ideas about fighting, and Peter has his own ideas. I found myself favouring Peter's decisions rather than Caspian. And in the end when he was given the chance to kill his uncle, he slams the sword down on the ground and mutters a lame scripted line.

Before the Pevensies depart, Peter and Susan declare, much to Caspian, Edmund, and Lucy's dismay, that Aslan has told them they will never return to Narnia. Aslan explains that Susan and Peter have gained everything they could possibly gain from their experiences in Narnia and are no longer needed there. Susan and Caspian share a kiss, knowing they will never meet again. The Pevensies then go back to England, leaving Caspian as King of Narnia.

I could have given the movie 4.5/5 (Almost as high as LOTR), but no. Caspian has to ruin it all with his lame acting, nervous portrayal of his character and totally lack of flair nor individuality uniqueness.

4/5 stars.



NEXT! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull.

With worldwide anticipation at an all time high, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is brushing off his fedora, picking up his whip and re-uniting with some old friends to face all new enemies in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. The movie reunites Ford with directing-producing team of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. New additions to the cast include Shia LaBeouf of Transformers fame and Cate Blanchett.

The story begins in 1957, where Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) leads a convoy of Soviet soldiers infiltrating a military base in the Nevada desert containing "Hangar 51", where they force Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to lead them to a crate holding the remains of an extraterrestrial creature that crashed ten years before in Roswell, New Mexico.

The way he found that highly-magnetized box was very interesting, but very impractical. Magnetism decreases in strength in relation to distance exponentially. For him to have done that, the magnetic field would have to be linear and in the order of dozens of Teslas!

Still it was very interesting, very "Indiana Jones-like", and after a short fight, he escapes in style on a rocket test sled into the desert, where he then very conveniently stumbles upon a nuclear test town and survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator. Very implausible, but very entertaining nonetheless. Take note: in real-life, everything, including the fridge would have been vaporized, not conveniently blown away like debris as depicted in the movie. At that range, he would have been killed by heat and vacuum of the nuclear blast, not the radiation.

Still he goes on to find an extraterrestrial crystal skull holding great psychic power. (Also another implausibility), without a ferrous conduit for magnetism, a CRYSTAL object can never be magnetic. So anyway, in a series of chases and interesting archaeological finds, they go about meeting and fighting the Soviets which started with a very humorous and "Indiana Jones-like" humor of sinking into quick-sand and getting out only to return to square one.

To another very humorous and "Indiana Jones-like" lengthy vehicle chase involving sword fights and several Soviet soldiers being killed by army ants. (Again, creepy-crawlies are signature Indiana Jones movie stuff). Mutt, Marion, Mac, Oxley, and Jones ride an amphibious vehicle over a cliff and down three waterfalls, eventually finding the Temple of Akator. Claiming that he is a double agent working against the Soviets, Mac enters the temple with Jones and the group while leaving a trail for the Soviets to follow.

So after that it becomes so bland, and unnatural. Suddenly the movie is boring. The next scenes are predictable, and disappointing. The group enters the temple and the skull is returned, which turns out to be an Alien, then the baddie dies by an overflow of knowledge and disintegrates, an Alien portal opens up, sucking all the baddies in.

The heroes escape, the main baddie disintegrates; a flying saucer rises from the debris and disappears. Back home, Jones is made an associate dean and marries Marion.

WTH.

To actually use aliens and flying saucers and all that nonsense in the last scene is actually an act of desperation for the script. They are just running out of ideas. Just when the movie seemed to be getting along fine! The slapstick humor and action of the vehicle chase to the giant ants nest was actually very exhilarating and humorous, together with the "Three times it drops" waterfall joke. But after that, the plot and script just deteriorated to absolute crap and rubbish all the way to the Aliens scene.

Disappointing actually, but Harrison ford, Marion and up-coming and rising star Shia LaBeouf's acting were all stellar and worthy of praise, probably redeeming the whole movie itself with the corny and funny exchanges.

3.5/5 stars.

Posted by MK at 9:57 PM

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