Billy's Sake Teriyaki Chicken Don

I had an urge last Saturday to have Japanese for dinner, so decided t cook Teriyaki Don and invited Jay over for tasting. I actually wanted to try and make Katsudon but is a hell lot of work to make deep fried battered pork, so I used Teriyaki Chicken instead. I went to local organic store, Macro, to get some ingredients that I need. I bought a bottle of Soy Sauce for Sashimi, can't use chinese Soy Sauce cuz it has different taste, a bottle of Sake rice wine for cooking and some sesame sprinkles which can make a big different while serving rice. The teriyaki chicken tasted pretty good, especially the flavor from Sake rice wine with Shitake Mushroom blended really well. Love cooking, just wish I have time to experience more often.

Next page for my illustrated recipe on how to make Sake Teriyaki Chicken Don.

Ingredients : Sake cooking rice wine, Sesame Sprinkles, Sashimi Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce, 5 Eggs, 4 chicken breast, corn flour, 1 onion, green peas, 4 big Shitake Mushroom, salt and pepper to taste. 1 cup of Rice (steam cook, you know the deal).



I marinated the chicken 2 hours before cooking. Cut the chicken in cube size, marinate with Oyster Sauce, Sashimi Soy Sauce, Sake rice wine, pinch of salt and pepper.



Soaked the Shitake mushroom in hot water for at least one hour to get the moisture back into the mushroom. Drained the water, squeeze the mushroom to get all the salty taste water out then sliced into strips. Any hard bits, get rid of it.



Fried the chicken till golden brown, pour in water together with corn flour along the way to make a thick sauce for it. Add in the mushroom and bring it to stew in low heat.

Sliced the onions, and fry it till soft, then beaten the eggs with bit of water so the omelette will be nice and fluffy. While the onion is cooking, pour in the egg mix to form the omellette. Before the egg is set, sprinkles some green peas on top which I totally forgot!!

Flip the omelette only once, and dont overcook it. Add more Sake rice wine to the chicken to taste. You can smell the aroma is sweet and alcoholic.


Put the rice into a ricebowl to form a nice half round shape rice ball while flipping on plate. Sprinkles the sesame seasoning on top of the rice. Serve the chicken on the side together with the omelette. Traditionally, normally it serves in a bowl, rice at the bottom, chicken in the middle and omelette on top with sauce dribbling down the side, but on a plate will do.

Sideways

"Let's drink through our nose..."


I think everyone in town is talking about the Academy Awards nominated films and trying to see as many as they can and have their little own prediction which film will win the best film, who will be the best actor/actress etc. So I've invited Jay over for dinner (next entry) together with Pete, then headed to see Sideways at Westfield chatswood. I've seen a lot of good reviews about this movie, and the trailer does look good with simple no big star casts and funny humour. The anatomy of wine tasting isn't really my strongest field but I do appreciate a good wine every now and then.

Two middle aged men embark on a week long roadtrip through California's wine country both with different reasons and purporses. Miles (Paul Giamatti), a failed writer but a wine enthusiast, who knows everything about wine from inside out, just wanna spend some great time at the vineyards with his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), who is getting married in a week time. As Miles always feeling depressed towards the divorce with his wife 2 years ago which he has been trying real hard to get back together which leads him to a wine drinking frenzy. And on the other hand, Jack just wanna have his last freedom before the marriage, meeting local girls for some good shenanigans by using his ex-actor charm where he met up with Stephanie, who coincidentally is Maya's best friend, a waitress in the restaurant who Miles has the hot for.

Throughout the whole movie, there will be lots of wine metaphor as reference towards Miles' life and relationship. Alongside, of course I do pick up some good lesson on wine tasting, the age of a Pinot Noir. I really enjoy the humour in the movie, but even though Pete didn't really enjoy it much. I think is because there is really no high or low peak throughout the movie and thats what make the audience feel bit uneased with the humour keep coming on screen. Despite the a few good laugh throughout the movie, but actually it is quite a depressing movie by seeing how sad Miles' life is, is so genuine and honest. I love the bit where he just sat in a fastfood joint drinking a good old vintage wine, showing him finally let go of the last relationship and realise is time to move on and not going to hold on to it, just like a good old wine. It is wonderfully portraited using wine characteristic to reflect on someone's relationship. The idea is fresh and unique and I think that's why it is receiving good reviews and being nominated as best picture. I like the movie but I don't think it is a brilliant movie. One side of me saying it can simply be a 2hours TV movie length drama, maybe is the simplicity of filming set and the casual jazz sountrack.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 7.5/10

"Hey Mr. DJ, don't put the record on..."

In Australia, we've been missing out all the action. Apparently, for the last whole week, a popular american breakfast morning show on radio HOT 97 has just been flamed.... BADLY! People are furious with a famous DJ, Miss Jones, who is an african american, by playing a disgusting, humiliating, racist 'We are the world' imitate piss song to make fun of the Tsunami Victims in Indonesia. It caused quite a big stir in US at the moment, and then Miss Jones and Miss Info even had a big argument on air, and Miss Jones claiming, "you feel superior, probably because you're Asian." So far, the morning show has been suspended indefinitely and they trying to cover their coward act by deleting the mp3 song and pulling down all the links etc, I even noticed some blogs are down just because being active over this issue. MacDonald's and Sprint unfortunately who sponsored the morning show got flamed as well and they have to pull out all the campaign ads etc and announced they have nothing to do with this racism act and not aware of it. Everyone is signing petition against racism, but some would like to bring the morning show back. And some people even made a new song to Anti-racism back at them and the station really trying hard to make things right by keep playing it over and over again. So now Miss Jones has been claimed the first African American KKK biatch. Here is part of the lyrics from the song, and I have to say is pretty low whoever thought of this song, and think is funny. What were they thinking??

There was a time, when the sun was shining bright

So I went down to the beach to catch me a tan

Then the next thing I knew, a wave 20 feet high

Came and washed your whole country away



And all at once, you can hear the screaming chinks

And no one was saved from the wave

There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away

You can hear God laughing, 'Swim you bitches swim.'



[Chorus]


So now you're screwed, it's the tsunami,

You better run and kiss your ass away, go find your mommy

I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head

And now your children will be sold to child slavery



Download the disgraceful racism tsunami song

Download the diss back racism song by Jin

And the best, Download the bitch fight on air

You will never win!!! NEVER!!! you hear me?NEVER! !!!

Recently moved my blog to a new hosting, I thought that's the end of the drama and my blog is in good hand. With the old host, the server always down for maintenance (lame excuses!!) every few hours till I fed up with it and decided to switch over the the new host. To transfer the site to a new hosting was a nightmare. Took me few days just to get everything running, even some images are still pointing at the old site.

And when I woke up this morning, my outlook filled with spam emails from the spammers who attacked my blog! There's over 400 of comments been sent to my blog. Frustrated because the comment blocking plugin wasn't working after I transferred the hosting so this morning had to quickly fix it to stop those fuckers keep coming in!!

Listen you fucking texan casino cunts!!! YOU WILL NEVER WIN!!! NEVER!!!!

Long list of madness

I swear I am not a social butterfly... maybe a beautiful cocoon...

Lose Weight, Fat C*nt!

BEFORE



AFTER

Just went to Five Dock and got my driver license renewed. I was pretty pleased with the last mugshot on the driver license and this time it was horrible! I look so much fatter than last time... sigh.... lose weight....... but I still can blame the photo machine need to have the color balance adjusted, the photo looks so dark and I look like a bloody indian... goodness gracious me...

P/S: just noticed the new one called "Driver License" and not "Driver's License" anymore.... doesn't make much sense to me... I love Engrish! No wonder the stuff in RTA all indians.

Les Choristes [The Choir]

Jay got his PR last week, one step closer to becoming an Australia so we decided to go out and celebrate. As planned to go dinner at Yardhouse which is pretty close to my place and then movie at Orpheum. The meal at Yardhouse was so so, well at least my Thai Chicken Skew was, bit tasteless and the chicken half cooked. Dave and Pete ordered some Beef stewed in Dark Beer which I had a taste which was pretty good. Then we drove straight to Neutral Bay Orpheum and found there was already a long queue of crowd getting tickets! We all decided to go and see Sideways but by the time we got to the counter is already sold out. And trying to make a quick decision what other movie we can see without holding up the queue, I just quickly picked "Les Choristes", another film in my wishlist. Or I could have chosen "Motorcycle Diaries" just to pisss Dave off cuz he is anti-notorious people flick, funny.

The movie is set in 1949, a new teacher has just assigned to teach at Fond-de-L'Etang boarding school at the countryside of France where "Action-Reaction!" is the motto of the school on how to teach the student a lesson when they did something wrong. Slowly, the new teacher discovered there is a passion of music in the students' heart and started forming the students into a group of talented choir, especially the soloist, Pierre Morhange, who can sing like a nightingale. When he sang, I can feel the whole cinema gone quiet and admiring the kid's singing. Ok, this all might sound like "Sister Act 2", but I swear there is nothing cheesy like having a black woman with a big fro disguising as a nun and teach a bunch of school kids Gospel. The soundtrack in the movie is so beautiful that you don't even have to understand French to feel the rhythm.

The story line probably bit too close to other music movies like "Sister Act 2", "Mr Holland Opus" etc, to reform a bunch of schoolboys through music and changed their live but foreign films always have a better style of story telling to make the movie 10 times better. Although some people hated it so much which I don't understand. [derived from SMH] All the little details in the movie, different schoolboys with different story to tell makes the movie more enjoyable. Apart from Morhange, the talented soloist in the movie who took the whole show, Pepinot, a 10yo kid who really stole my sympathy towards him. Pepinot will always wait at the front gate every Saturday, for his parents to arrive to pick him up and bring him home, and of course the parents who already passed away during war time would never come. Seeing the strong message of hope within a 10yo kid is powering, and seeing him accepting the fact and ran away from school to be with the teacher is very emotional, I think alot of people in the cinema cried. Overall, love it, love it, love it!! There is something about foreign film with Orphanage, or kids, set in old time, you can never go wrong with it. From Kolya, El Espinazo del diablo [The Devil's Backbone], and now Les Choristes, they are all my favorites. I've been downloading all the tracks from the movie and enjoying every single piece. I highly recommend it.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 9.0/10

Yeah but no but yeah but no.... Shut up!!

Grass is always greener on the other side, first americans fall in love with Chinese Kung Fu, every single movie will have a piece, then Australian, just put on your Australian accent and everyone will fall for you. And the latest trend is English Comedy, they pray David Brent [Ricky Gervais], like god after showing The Office in America, and now is Little Britain, great slapstick pommie jokes. It is soooo good until Matt Groening would like to have a few characters from the show to pay a visit in The Simpsons. I got so sick of Simpsons when they start putting on repeats over and over again at 7pm every night and on cable Channel 8 24/7!! To have Little Britain characters on Simpsons probably one good excuse for me to watch it again.

moving server

The server I am with now is slow and always down, so I've decided to move to another one. Hopefully the new one will be bit better. But then is such a pain, that I might have to reset all the settings in the blog to point to rright direction etc... I hope it still work!!!

UPDATE:
Fuck! Looks like transferring my blog over to another server is more troublesome than I anticipated. I might have to stick with this slow server which goes down almost every few hours..... sigh... what to do when is free and before Pete got all arsy at me again when I whinge about it? heheeh :P

Alexander

Alexander: "What's wrong with my hair!? I used Loreal! Am I not worth it?!"

I was blogging this entry while the server crashed and lost everything. So I couldn't bother to write the review for this movie again. Overall, it sucks, and dont bother to go and see it. It is 3 hours way too long. I will give it 2 stars for Colin Farrell showing his 2 nuts on screen.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 2.0/10

My iHomie

Got those cute little iSocks from my brother last Christmas. Some people use it as a coin purse, and some for mobile phone, quite nifty.

Virgin is a cheap Ho!

If you are thinking of holiday, try Virgin Blue. At the moment they are having this Hot Deal offers on their airfares around Australia about half the original prices. Some are as low as $1!!! (yes there is a tax charge but still is fucking brilliantly cheap!) This deal will run on their website everyday from 1pm to 2pm until all sold out. Better be quick, as I don't think there is any good one left for Sydneysiders.

Morning Pal

Fluffy the cat.


View from the walk at Cremorne Point. Opera house and Ocean Liner.


As mentioned this year resolution is to lose weight, keep fit before I burst another pair of jeans. So, me, Pete and Dave been starting this new regime every week. Me gotta wake up at 6am, then drive to Dave's place and will have a 5 km walk, then back to Dave's place for some kickboxing, weightlift and situps. The morning walk is refreshing and always have a good view of the harbour. We normally walk from Neutral bay all the way to Cremorne point and back. Everytime I walk pass this house and this cute little fluffy cat, called "Fluffy" will come and greet me. She is so friendly and always an attention seeker, such a tart! Pepe and her will be a good pair.

I tickle sister bear on my butch fairy

I have been real busy with work lately and haven't got much time to really update the blog. But yesterday when I got home, there was a parcel waiting for me. I didn't know what it was until I opened it, I was so happy to know that one of my blog friend, the Shameless Prince has sent me this little phrases mix and match fridge magnet. It made my day, thank you thank you! Already having fun making my own Shakespeare's poet. Well, I am working on it...

Like a Virgin, touched for the very first time.

Don't get the wrong idea by the heading. :P As some of you might aware that I've spent hundreds on clothings just to attend this AWARD night last December. It is one of the most important advertising award ceremony in town, and was pleased to be part of it. And not just that, our company had claimed 3 awards out of the 7 in Online Media category for the Virgin Money campaign that we did. Me myself am pretty proud to be part of the creative team to win the awards. We've just received the very expensive AWARD book with all the winners printed inside, and pretty arrogant to say that I am very delighted to see my own name inside a book like this. Now who wants a website designed?! *wink wink*

Sunday Yum Cha

I don't go to yum cha as much as I would like to, last time probably 3 or 4 months ago. Today I meant to join Pete and bring my workmate Jay along, for another flying adventure on the Cessna 172 around the coast, but we've changed our mind with gustly wind heading our head from the south. Instead, we headed out way to Chatswood and had Yum Cha instead at Chequers in Mandarin Centre. While waiting for Jay outside Chequers and saw this article cut out from SMH rating the top 5 yum cha place in Sydney with Sea Treasure at Crows Nest came first, Marigold and Silver Spring came 3rd and 4th, and Chequers came 5th. Not sure how old this rating is, but I do like yum cha at Marigold, Silver Spring and Chequers. I find Marigold has more authentic variety like chicken feet and cow tripes things you don't see very often. Silver Spring has better value, they even come with a All you can eat dim sim for around $18 per head I think which is a real bargain. Chequers is small, but is closer to where I live which is convenient rather than have to head into city, and they do have nice dim sims full of flavour. Jay is the regular, so he should know better than I do.

Everything has its own etiquette, here are some etiquettes I think is necessary when you go for yum cha:

1. If you've organised a group for yum cha and they haven't arrived, wait outside and don't just go in and tell the waitress how many people you have and got the table and sit there all by yourself for hours, it will only make you look like a kiasu fool.
2. Since we all know the peak hour is after 12pm, highly suggest to go around 11am or 11.30am. Not just that, they normally push dessert trolleys around 12pm so they can get as much customers out as possible for others waiting outside to have a table which means if you come around 12pm, you will have to wait for another half an hour before u get some decent dumplings.
3. Decide what kind of tea you like before sitting down, instead of everyone asking each other and look fucking stupid.
4. When ordering, ORDER WHAT YOU WANT when the trolley comes. Don't let the one who sits outside closer to the trolley to make decisions. You either miss out what you really want, or he normally will order what you don't like. I've had experience ordering chicken feet and ended up no one dared to touch and I had to eat them all, fuckers.
5. To refill your pot of tea, lift the tea lid and reverse it or just half tilt on the side so the waiter knows it needs refill.
6. DON'T RUN TO A TROLLEY few tables away just because you see something that you like. That's just fucking rude!
7. If you are waiting for something you want and hasn't come but the dessert trolley just pass through you, GRAB IT! Because normally you will never ever get the want you want and at the end you will end up with nothing!
8. Bring camera along, if you see someone eating the noisiest or making weird facial expression while chewing the chicken feet, snapshot it and post it on the blog!
9. Don't fight for the bill. If agree to pay evenly, sort it outside after someone settle the bill.
10. After the meal, let the garlic breathe stinks the whole house.

The New Inventors

Pete managed to get 3 tickets to be live audience at the New Inventors show for year 2005, so thought would be interesting to go and check it out. I think last time to participate something like this was at the Good News Week show. I used to like that show alot and always good to be live audience in it cuz there was always so many things going on which wasn't show on TV.

Not sure when this new series of New Inventors will be on ABC, all I know is Wednesday as James O'loghlin did a few takes for the promo while we were there. He is a funny guy, and very good with the audience. They shot 2 episodes in one night, so we stayed there for a few good hours and finished about 9.30pm. For this 2 episodes, the inventions weren't that exciting. Most are very hardcore construction environment friendly inventions. But there are few funny ones, especially the invisible undies. During the shooting, they joked about how silly the undies look like and I think the inventor, she got a bit upset and very quiet most the time. But I have to say, it is a very weird looking undies and I am shocked to find out she already invested $300,000 into this invention. And some other inventors expecting 1 million for their machines and expect $4million turn over in a year! It sounds crazy to me. However, I think the show has its own flaw. The winner for both shows of the night are both invented something environmental friendly device. And the poor 18yo girl who invented an expandable dog kennel to suit a growing dog through its life stood no chance just because the other two inventions are just too hardcore. So I think the show should put the inventions into categories like, A) environmental friendly, B) Young Talent, C) electronic, D)creative perspective... etc so everyone stands a chance to compete when the inventions are in the same field. To finish the night, 3 of us pretty much coming up with all the stupid inventions like "silent velcro" from Garden State, and what about a solar power torch: it won't work in the dark at all, but if you use another torch to shine at it, and then it will work. Get it? hahah

Chicken Laksa

Thursday night, Foodcourt night for me.
Normal hangout : Chatswood Westfield Foodcourt
Food : Chicken Laksa

I think I put too much dried chilli paste in it, my lips was burning after I finished drinking all the soup. Lesson learnt.

烏你媽叉！！

如果你見到我寫中文既話，即是話我有不滿，有唔想俾D鬼佬知道我係舒篤背脊。由其是我波士間中都會CHECK吓我既�波羅家�，所以要特別小心。我勸大家如有寫關於工事D野，最好就用中文來寫。从今日開始，我要篤背脊， 我要罵叉佢！ 仲要吊到你屎忽開花！！

Fat Kid is always funny

When fat kid sings, a guarantee top 1 hit!!! Watch it here. And is damn catchy....

Mai la eee...... Mai la oooo......

And if you can't get enough of that song, download here! Lyrics next page for Karaoke purpose.

Chorus A 2x
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haha

Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc,
Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

Chorus B 2x
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum,
Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

Chorus B 2x

Chorus A 2x

Chorus B 2x

iPod Shuffle

Apple finally revealed the new generation for their beloved popular iPod. From a cigarette case size down to credit card size, and now the brand new petit iPod Shuffle, just as big as a chewy. A little tiny gadget, comes in 512mb or 1Gb capacity of storage which holds up to around 240 songs. The technical part, everything works the same, but without click wheel nor a screen display to see what you are playing cuz it is called "Shuffle", so the whole idea is to listen to songs randomly and just enjoy.

Apple is not the first one who came up with the idea to have mp3 player the size of a chewing gum as there already tons of them in the Hong Kong market. Since I already got my iPod 20Gb, so I won't worry about too much to have one of this. However, to alot of trend followers, whatever released by Apple is a 'cool'! Right? Admit it, gadget will always be a trend statement, showcasing the status of coolness, chic, and won't be long, Sydney sidewalk will be full of wankers with a white chewing gum hanging on their necks, listening Shannon Noll, "what about me?"...

Updates:
This is funny. http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif. I rest my case.

Shiok!! 好吃兼正

Loh Mai Kai 糯米鸡 (glutenous rice chicken), one of my favorite.


After being in Australia for so many years, now kinda starting to miss the authentic Malaysian Chinese home cook meal how my mum used to cook. I've been prying on the delicious food in this weblog, images by images, served up by a talented chinese Malaysian girl, who now lives in Singapore. Her weblog, Shiokadelicious, has to be one of the best food blog around, and apparently even her blog got featured on Yahoo somehow. Everyday, I just keep browsing through her home cooking skill and trying to learn a few tricks, but I am a lazy bugger who can't really bother to mess up the whole kitchen for a dinner meal. Thank to the blog for showing the local stuff cuz there are a few delicacies I almost forgot I used to have when I was a kid!!! oh.... feel nostalgic and missing the food..... I must go back some time again...... yummm....

蕃薯糖水 (sweet potato soup dessert)	腐竹白果薏米糖水 (soya pastry, white nut and barley water soup dessert)
海心冬菇 (mussels, sea cucumber and shitake mushroom)	猪仔饼 (little piggy biscuit)
羚角 (ram's horn, a kinda of nut)	鱼生 (four season, fortune dish for CNY)

Communist tyrants = 21st Kitsch??

I just saw this article on SMH and instantly I had a laugh thinking how Dave would react to this article. A quick reference in Wikipedia, A tyrant (from Greek τυραννος) is a usurper of rightful power, possessing absolute power and ruling by tyranny. And Kitsch is a term categorizing art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. That's what this article is all about, where young culture turning communist mass murderers into chic motifs of popular culture superheroes.

As being a designer myself, I couldn't agree more with Louis Nowra, the author who wrote this article. Sometimes I do see people in Sydney streets wearing the infamous mugshot of Che Guevera on a t-shirt as if it was a statement of "trend". And famous designer even created action figures based on him and fetched hundreds of US dollars on the market. I wondering does it make a different to wear a shirt with Hitler on it and a swastika sign at the back? Alot of Australian treating Ned Kelly as a superhero, where he was just a bandit who led a predatory life. But Australian definitely has a different point of view for his notorious bravey by putting his infamous signature piece of helmut on portrait, paintings, movies and even part of the Olympics open ceremony event. There are not just Ned and Che, there is even a shop in Surry Hills dedicated to the Chairman Mao, selling artefacts and gadgets with his image printed on it, where Mao himself, a communist leader who tarnished and wanted to take over Tibet as part of China as a result, Dalai Lama who doesn't believe in Communism was being forced to leave Lhasa and hid in India.

I personally do feel upset to see people portraiting the notorious mass murderers from the past as an icon of chic. Like in the article says, "If Che is regarded as chic, monstrous Mao is seen as kitsch and his image crops up on badges and as a beaming Buddha-like face in paintings and even on curtains. Again, imagine if Hitler or the swastika were used." However, I don't see there is a problem for having a movie about Che, or Ned and his past life. I watched Ned Kelly the movie several times, especially I like to tease Dave by bringing over the DVD to his place, he will hissed at me in disgust cuz he will never ever watch something about a notorious person turn into celebrity. And I do looking forward to watch Motorcycle Diaries about Che's past life before turning a violent cuban revolutionist. I appreciate the art form of films, the cinematography as whole instead of infamous character in the movie as part of the reason why I watched or will watch it.

Designing for 21st Century

Without Foxtel, ABC was pretty much my new best friend for the whole last year. One of my favorite show on ABC was the new Inventors by James O'Lognlin. This show was on back in 80s and been canned for so many years and finally they brought it back on TV. I love product design and seeing the new innovative inventions by normal everyday people like me is fun and interesting although there are some crap ones and not practical. Not just that, I think some of the judges are bit opinionated and only based on their own taste, especially some stupid blonde bimbos who only came up with some won't leak Kotex tampon and becoming one of the judges.

Then, Pete bought the new Inventors magazine month ago and not long it become my toilet reading material. I always had a quick flick through while doing no. 2, and saw some good design books recommendations inside. One of the book I would like to get is this one called "Designing for 21st Century" (pic above). Don't get confused with another new released cookbook which just released recently, totally with the same rainbow color cover cuz you might end up with a stir fry chowder with your toilet bowl. I am waiting for the next pay then I will order it with a few others I have in mind together on Amazon. Graphic design books in Australia are always with ridiculous prices. I highly recommended search around on internet before you pop into your local graphich design bookstore and pay high price for it.

By the way for The New Inventors TV show on ABC, you can now ring up for some tickets to be live audience. I've got 3 for this Friday, can't wait to check em out!!

When: Every Second Friday

6:30pm-8:30pm (dates below)

Where: ABC studios, 700 Harris St Ultimo

* 14th JANUARY * 28th JANUARY

Phone (02) 8333 2652 to book your free seat now!

The end of Figuro

After managing an online toy busines all by myself for 2 years, finally I am giving it up and is time to get my life back together. I've been spending way too much money and time into this business, and it's been making my life hell. Although it was a pain in the arse to manage it, always have to go to post office to post the parcels out almost every week, the business does generate an impressive income. Before my house turning into a toy junkyard, and my credit card debts getting deeper, is time for me to get rid of it. So this weekend pretty much staying at home doing stocktake and quite amazed how much toys I got left in the house. Some are pretty rare too which can fetch for hundreds. Oh well, once I got rid of it, then I will venture to another kinda venture. I would like to turn some product design into reality, since design is my passion. It is one of my dream to have my own line of products.

FOXTEL! Go To Hell! Pt 2.

After a few confrontations, finally I gt my Foxtel Digital yesterday. As I won't settle for the rescheduled date (25th Jan 2005) they could come up with last year, they finally gave in and pushed me forward to 5th Jan 2005 and offer me a month free subscription. So I thought I will let them get away this time, and if they don't come back on the next appointment, then they just have to keep giving me monthly subscription till they come. Surely enough, I got my Foxtel Digital yesterday. 2 technicians came over, and they almost not going to do it cuz whined about how tall the building is and they needed a "longer" ladder. Is not like this is the first time they install a satellite issit? But anyhow, I just had a quick flick through last night over all the channels, and settled on "Bargain Hunt" while I was on my training bike. (I know! I am a lifestyle channel whore! HA!). Alot of good movies on Box Office but is pay per view cost about $6 each movie. So will have to choose sparingly before over my viewing pleasure budget!

2046

"哇。。。搏晒蒙!"

Wong Kar Wai's new film, 2046, finally released on DVD last december and sold out quick here in Australia. I managed to own a copy after ordering it weeks before hand and watched it last Saturday. Wong Kar Wai is not your normal kinda of director from Hong Kong. His films are normally subtle, artistic and beautiful with great script to portrait a love story. 旺角卡門 and 阿飛正傳 are both his earliest production which I could hardly remember and not even sure who he was. And then his name started to get noticed when 重慶森林 [ChungKing Express] released in 1994 with Faye Wong trying to find a pubic hair on the bedsheet. It probably was one of my most watched HK film until the song California Dreaming buzzing in my ear. I wouldn't say myself as a fan of his as I haven't really watch all the films that he has made but I do respect he who doesn't follow the market and make some slapstick HK low budget films but something more essentric and receives recognition internationally. And I do love his work like 重慶森林 [ChungKing Express], 春光乍洩 [Happy Together], 華樣年華[In the mood for love], they are all great arthouse films.

As for 2046, it is a story about a writer, He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention ... to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back - except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.

2046 the movie itself kinda links back to Wong Kar Wai's previous film, In the mood for love but is definitely not a sequel. Once again, the music score in the movie is essentric like others and Wong Kar Wai's filming technique can clearly be seen throughout the whole movie with slow motion on objects, strong focus point emphasizing the characteristic of each role. He definitely can rub shoulder against Jean Paul Jeunet, the director of Amelie. The 1960s backdrop is nicely done and the sci fi scene is not over exagerrated as well which I like. Not to mention the top class castings in the movie, all excellent performance in the movie. I feel sorry for the character of Carina Leung (劉家玲), and love the bitchiness of Zhang ZiYi (張子怡). I did manage to save all the high res images from the film as the cinematography definitely gets a thumb up from me.

Enough said that, after watching the movie, I felt bit confused and unsatisfied. Me and Pete exchanged weird look when the movie finishes and not quite sure what the director was trying to achieve. So, I did bit of research online and found some sypnosis of the movie and trying to understand the love story behind it. It is quite a complicated sci fi love story and not everyone can really understand. It is just one of those movie, either you love it or hate it (was funny to see the fans at IMDB fighting with their own opinions) even though I know there are some fans out there would definitely gives two thumbs up for it. I think I need to watch it the 2nd time when I am really in the depressing mood to really know how to appreciate it.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 7.5/10

The Phantom of the Opera

Phantom : "I'm a music genius, how could u fall asleep while I am singing?"


The Phantom of the Opera is another movie in my list to watch this holiday season. I pretty much staying low key after the Tassie trip, staying at home, watching DVDs or go out watch movies. So I will probably just bore you with a few more movies reviews on my next few blog entries. :P

I quite like musical, is easier to digest compare to a powerful opera performance fills with the intensity of high notes, and the octave, sharp, fret, tenor, alto is almost like a posh a la carte french cuisine filled with oure durf, foi grois, escargot and caviar but when I just feel like a cheap and cheerful buffet of sirloin steak, salad and cheaps with great satisfaction.

I assume most of the people out there would probably have seen the musical of The Phantom of the Opera or read the book. In fact, it was probably the first musical I've seen in my life back in 1997 in Melbourne at the Royal Princess Theatre with Keith. The musical was an excellent show with great performers and amazing settings. The golden statues, the shiny chandelier, and the phantom's lair were awesome, mind you I was a theatre virgin back then. However, when I watched the Phantom of the Opera again but in cinema this time, it just doesn't seem right.

The movie follows the original musical play very closely except a few extra music scores and some extra sequences derived from the book. The movie started off pretty well with the auction being held at the French Opera House in B/W when suddenly turned into full color mode by revealing the most exquisite chandelier that once used to hang in there and the whole opera house back to life. The settings of the movie is a thumbs up from me although it looks nothing like the real French Opera House as I've just been there last April. The outside is totally different, inside where they performed Masquerade is alot smaller in real life, and the chandelier is of course different with the ceiling painted by Marc Chagall with some surreal modern paintings. As we all know is a "musical" movie, putting it on cinema I don't think it works as well as on stage. If you are familiar with musical then you would know normally the music score are most the same but just by changing the majors, and the lyrics to fit into certain parts of the play which is a real issue when you are in the cinema. The whole movie you pretty much will listen to the same tune over and over again, and the love story just being dragged so long for a good 2 hours.

The main reason that really bugged me I think is because while watching a musical at the cinema you pretty much missing out all the mechanism behind it. If you have been to theatre, you will be able to see the backdrop change from scene to scene, the real singing performance, and the atmosphere just astounding. That's why I feel there is lack of anticipation when you can notice casts just lipsynched to the songs, and the computer graphics to make the picture looked grand. I even felt bit funny to see Phantom and Raoul had a Karaoke fight over Christine at the end while Raoul could still sing while being stranggled on the metal fence. Ha haha! Sorry if I am too anal and getting abit too technical.

After watching the Phantom of the Opera again in cinema, I have to say it isn't the best musical play that Andrew Lloyd Webber had come up with. I might be bit bias here but I prefer "CATS" better with energetic casts and more variety of songs. It doesn't matter whether I like it or not, but there will always a group of fans who would always support Andrew's work as most of the audience in the cinema was over 50s. And I don't even understand why the movie has a few nominations in Golden Globe Awards.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 6.5/10

Pepe, the diet coke balancing cat!

HAPPY 2005

My flight touched down in Sydney early morning around 830am, Dave picked us up and I pretty much spent the whole afternoon snoozing in bed after the trip in Tassie. Since Dave has moved to an apartment in Neutral Bay and it has become our annual New Year's Eve fireworks viewing platform. No exception this year, me and Pete walked all the way from Crows Nest to Neutral Bay to celebrate the New Year. As usual we kept it pretty low key since we had all done the crazy things like setting up tent at Cremorne Point to reserve a spot, waited since morning and ended up with sunburnt just for a good 10 mins of fireworks, and then fight with others to get back to the car and stucked in traffic for hours. Never again....

This year's fireworks was pretty so-so. I had to say the organisation did a pretty bad job this year. The whole mirror ball idea just doesn't work. It is a big ball, but in ratio to the bridge, it was nothing and you hardly can see it. It meant to be a mirror ball, but I don't think the reflecting metal and the spotlight is good enough to turn the whole Sydney Harbour into a dancefloor. Not to mention the controversy National Anthem remix they played during the fireworks...I thought Pauline Hanson on "Dancing with the Stars" was way much better than that. Last but not least, the fireworks seems to be out of synched, and not really color cordinated. Just million dollars blown up in the air. Funny thing is alot of audience didn't even know the fireworks had finished, and there was silence for good few seconds before people realised it was finished and then the cheers came later. But anyhooo.... I am sure the whole sketch just to show to the whole world that Sydney always has the best fireworks display in town.

This year, my main resolution will be "LOSE WEIGHT!" I've been putting on so much weight last winter, and lack of exercise ain't helping, not to mention the Thai and Vietnamese food every lunch time at work! Even my brother bought me a t-shirt for Xmas present with the size of "XXL"! (Thanks Steven!) NO MORE MISS SAIGON (local hangout vietnamese restaurant in Balmain)!!! MORE EXERCISE!!

Another resolution will be career wise as I am still not sure what I am doing yet. Recently been thinking might go back to Malaysia and start a new business since the web industry is still young. But I won't count on it, I hate the hot humid weather! And last but not least.... MORE TRAVEL!! I already planned my next trip, hopefully will be going to USA visit my brother, touring east and west coast and then stop by Japan for a week or two. Ohh yesss.... I think I got the travel bug in me... HELP!


Anyway, I wish you all a Happy year 2005, and whatever your resolution is, getting into it cuz we are all superheroes and we all are different with different talents, only time will tell! Mwahahaha!!!!

The Incredibles

The Lycra fetish family.

I've been waited long enough and finally the new Pixar animation film, The Incredibles, has arrived in Australia on Boxing day. I was in Tasmania for Christmas at that time and Pete and I been making fun of Taz as they might still showing the Lord of The Rings part 1 down there. Fortunately, the local scene wasn't as bad as we thought, and the movie releases are pretty much the same. So we've decided to gatecrash the Tasmania scene and checked the movie out in the small little Launceston town.

Well, Pixar animation is a must for me even though to some people, animation is always "childish" and not up to their coolest standard of movie taste, and some other people like my workmate despites Pixar production just because one of his ex now a director a Pixar! haha. One or another, Pixar probably is one of the best animation production studio in the industry, Dreamworks still chasing behind with its flop "Shark Tale".

The incredibles, just incredible! Alot of you might have seen the trailer about 1 year ago, as the director Brad Bird (Mr Incredible facial expressions are followed closely of Brad himself), did it mainly for promotion purposes and had nothing to do with the movie. I suppose we all know what the movie is all about. Good vs Evil, the good wins at the end, but of course Pixar always has its way to basically makes a plea against mediocrity, breaking with the politically correct idea that "everybody is special" (and thus nobody really is), and encouraging people to use the talents they have been given.

The movie itself is funny but it doesn't make you laughing out loud with their stupid toilet jokes. But the spoof and homage references to James Bond films like the gadgets, the evil secret island lair is classic. The characters in the movie are pretty much based on the characters in Fantastic Four. Strangely alot of people don't think much of Mr Incredibles the character itself, but instead of the others like Dash, the kid who can run very fast apparently is one of the favorite for many fans out there. My favorite probably Edna "E" Mode, the superhero costume designer who just won't take no for an answer, apparently is based on a famous designer who works in Hollywood for many years. I was quite surprise that the voice actually is done by Brad Bird himself, at first I thought it was by Mindy Sterling, who played Frau Farbissina, the german lady in Austin Powers. However, in the movie, I think Elastigirl is the one who stole the show.

The Incredible is an another awesome animation by Pixar after Finding Nemo. I think when Finding Nemo came out, it really gave Pixar a new hope, cuz it was just brilliant and no other animation can really beat it, just look at the Nemo merchandise as an example, there are still around!!! And Nemo the name will never be forgotten. Not that I am saying The Incredible is bad, but since the previous was brilliant, which makes the incredible excellent but more room to move. I probably will go and see it again when I get a chance!


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 8.0/10

Some trivia I found interesting at IMDB about The Incredibles.(The Incredibles is called "Hum Hai Laajawab" in Indian title). And some high res images I found online which you might like to save as your desktop wallpaper.

See Tasmania Pt 2.

Finally I am back from my Tassie trip!! It was a pleasant trip and I enjoyed it very much so. Took about 5 days to see most of Tasmania. From Hobart, up east coast to Freycinet National Park, north to Launceston then back to east coast of Strahan and Cradle Mountain. We have covered most of the hot spots in Tassie. We even managed to see the strandled whales at Strahan, Nicorette, the winning yacht of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the Kodak Minolta yacht which given up half way and stranded at Scamander. Apart from sight seeing, we pretty much spending every night in the motel room watching TV about the Tsunami tragedy that happened in Indonesia on boxing day. A bit irony to think I was enjoying my holiday in Tassie and people are dying on the other side of the world. Feeling somewhat guilty and decided to make a small donation but even though not sure it will make any difference really....

I flew back on New Years Eve finally today had the time to sort out all the pics and uploaded them online. There are too many of them so I only chosen the good ones. Click here to view the pics.

House of Flying Daggers

"I want 2 bananas, or else..."


Watched this movie in 2004 before I leave for Tasmania actually but just never got the chance to do the review so here it is. Since Zhang Yi Mou turned into a Hollywood junkie, most of his latest films are made for westerners who will praise for his work just because they never seen people flying in the air or walking on the water before and they called it an "art house" film. But most of the asians like me probably don't think much about it since we brought up by watching Hong Kong kung fu movies.

Alot of you probably thought Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was by Zhang Yimou just because it has the same style but instead was actually by Ang Lee. Hero was the only previous chinese martial art "art house" film by Zhang and the rest of his previous films are sad depressing dramas. But anyway Ang Lee did a good job in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon as it was a fresh idea to break into US film industry. Then the HERO, just because americans think is cool to see people fly but the movie itself was a disaster. And now, whenever American see chinese fly they want to bring it back to US and hence the House of Flying Daggers will be showing soon in US which already released in Asia 6 months ago that's how I got the DVD at Shinseido in Chatswood.

Zhang Yimou has definitely did a better job in House of Flying Daggers compare to the previous one HERO. The storyline probably more or less the same as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where martial art takes place in the whole movie but the focus point is the love story within. I quite enjoyed the martial art sequence in this one. Exagerration makes the whole movie more fun, the synchronise drumming sequence in the movie is beautifully executed, and I think it should be one of the Olympic event. And there is fighting scene turning spring time into winter blizzard, assassination through the bamboo forest. The whole movie is technicolor to the max. I am pretty much neutral towards the movie, I enjoyed it, but I won't called it brilliant just because I am immuned to chinese kung fu movie cuz I've seen better like "White Hair Demon Lady" by Tsui Hak. I prefer the story better than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but less wanky like Hero. So I think is worth watching.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 7.0/10