Mini-marathon against drugs and lucky draw

Like last year, I participated in the mini-marathon on the international day against drugs on Sunday. I got up at 5.15 am thinking I could just waltz over to That Luang Square for the commencement of the race at 6 am. I thought that the start would be delayed but got a shock when I saw everyone lined up by 5.45 am. The organisation was absolutely chaotic (as usual) and t-shirts and number tags were flying off the back of the organiser's fan at the last minute. What a mess. I ended up with a shirt which looked suspiciously different from the rest of the participants.

I was all geared up to run 10 km and even put in special training for the whole of last week. I steadfastly stayed away from beer and other intoxicants while cleaning the system with fruits coupled with 48 hours of carbo loading prior to the event. Turned out to be a bit of a let-down because the organisers trimmed the route to just 7 km. So the run was pretty much a breeze. Unlike last year though, I didn't win a medal though. However, I get to run the whole of Lanxang Avenue while police blockaded the side roads making the run still an enjoyable one. I also managed to bring my Apple Ipod this time round and it was nice running to Goldfrapp "Ride on a white horse". Some of the Lao runners also ran barefooted which was just awesome. The rain drizzled which also helped to cool down the 42 deg weather which Laos had been suffering recently.

After the run, the Lao organisers commenced the lucky draw. This was the part when it got all freaky. They had 15 prizes to give out to lucky participants. Mind you, this year's lucky draw gifts were quite sad, only petanque balls. There were motorbikes as lucky draw prizes last year. For those who don't have a clue what is petanque, it is a game played widely by the French. Photos are from http://www.angkasa.ccop/




The Lao love to play petanque. I am not sure about the rules but it involves throwing a ball to hit your opponent's ball further away. Someone told me that the Lao side may introduce this game at the 2009 ASEAN SEA Games which Laos will be hosting. In which case, Laos will stand a good chance in winning a gold meal in this field - that is if it could overcome Malaysia and the Philippines which also have a fine tradition in playing this game.

Anyway, the prizes are petanque balls (image from www.poorandstupid.com).

It may not look like a big deal for you but the hundreds of Lao participants at the lucky draw were clutching their raffle tickets as if they were airtickets to the US to meet busty Carmen Electra. I am not sure what was the big deal about the petanque balls but the crowd was basically hopping on their feet whenever a number was called. There was this group of aunties which were yelling at the organisers everytime a number was called.

Organisers : And the lucky number is . . . . . 2791!

Aunties : Noooo!!!!! I got 2792. Can or not?

Organisers : Errr . . . No. Sorry.

Aunties: Please?!! Only one number difference?

Organisers : What's this? A fish market? Does it look like we can bargain here? (okay, I make the line up).

Seriously, the whole crowd was so hot about the lucky draw that the entire drawing process took even longer than the race itself. People running forward to claim their prizes only to discover that they had heard the wrong number (duh), crowd waiting for an eternity for the lucky runner to show up and collect their prize only to find out that he had long left the parade square or never showed up in the first place . . . etc. By the time the whole she-bang was over, my hunger had long since dulled and went home to continue my nice long sleep.

Harry Potter books I to III - summarised

This is embarrassing. I still haven't finished the sixth book in the Harry Potter series i.e. HP and the Half Blood Prince. It has been what, 2 years? I just couldn't finish it because it is so fucking boring. It has been laying on my table for the longest time, taunting me in a nonchalant manner, forever a mark of my incompetence. It wasn't like this, you know. I read the other books in the HP series within days once they were out because they were fantastic but ever since the shitty book "Order of the Phoenix" came out, I just find the whole story line painful and draggy. Half-Blood Prince is just . . . . a fucking pain in the ass and I am just not motivated to finish it. Speaking of which, someone said that Harry Potter Books are difficult. Please. Allow me to summarise them:

HP and Philosopher's Stone

Dumbledore : You, the boy with the scar on your head. Come to magic school.

Harry : My parents are wizards? Cool.

Ron : Hi. I am poor and irritating.

Hermione : Hi. I am smart.

Harry : You are irritating also.

Hermione : Yep, I know.

Voldemort : I wish everyone would quit calling me you-know-who. I got pride, you know.

Harry : You killed my parents. Prepare to die. When I find you, of course.

HP and Chamber of Secrets

Dumbledore : You are late for school. We are looking for a secret room.

Harry : ssdssrdisdosdsddssssss (parseltongue)

Lucius Malfoy : Say what, bitch?

Ginny : Hi. I love Harry. Save me.

Lucius : Bitch.

Voldemort : Christ, when am i going to get a proper fucking body?

Harry : You killed my parents. Prepare to die. I am going to kill your memory first.

HP and Prisoner of Azkaban

Dumbledore : A killer is loose. He killed your parents. Er, we think.

Harry : He killed my parents. Prepare to die.

Hermione : Let's go back in time to save a horse.

Cho Chang : Hi.

Harry : Woah.

Sirius : I am your godfather. I didn't kill your parents. Although I am also a dog.

Voldemort : I am not even really in the fucking book. Some respect here, people!

Dementors : OOooooooooohhhhh.

Hmm, can't even remember much of the rest of the books. The Half-Blood Prince book is looking at me again. Drat.

Dragon Dynasty

I regularly submit movie review for movies (especially B-grade crappy ones) on IMDB so that people can heed my warnings and avoid watching movies which could scar viewers for life. For some reason, my review for Dragon Dynasty is mysteriously rejected again and again so heck, I am posting this here instead.



I am supposed to sleep early last night but as I got up from the sofa to switch off the TV, I noticed that HBO is showing some movie called Dragon Dynasty. Being a sucker for any movie involving dragons and warriors being burnt to a crisp fighting them, I of course parked my ass down on the sofa again and watched the movie past 1 am.

You will notice that the movie is a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. Most times it means that the movie has a low-budget and is crappy. Think Skeleton Man and SS Doomtrooper. Dragon Dynasty is no different in terms of budget and crappy acting but I will say that the movie is surprisingly . . . decent.

First the bad news.

The plot is as wonky as a drunk fat man on vodka. It is about Marco (Polo?) and his brother Giovanni running helter-skelter back home to some place in Spain or Italy while being chased by two bad-ass dragons from China. So far, so good. However, somewhere in the movie, the director decided to add cultural and gender diversity into the movie by throwing in a token Chinese actor (typical American Chinese who actually can't speak Chinese) and a female actor to be the love interest of Marco. The female lead Ava, also pissed me off no end since she was a feminist, refused any genuine help from the guys and was stuck-up like hell. I would have happily push her feminist ass in front of the dragons in order to save my own skin. The dragons would also think twice about eating her since they may get a tummyache from all the bitching. The dialogue is crappy as everyone tries to talk with a stiff upper lip while pretending to be medieval explorers. They all end up talking like dumbasses of course.

The token Chinese actor, whose only job is to walk around like a white man's bitch and mispronounce every Chinese word (he pronounces "Huo Yao"(gunpowder) as Hu Yao), is a disgrace to all Chinese actors in Hollywood since Jackie Chan's role in Cannonball Run II (1984). Ooh wait, is the actor even Chinese? It turns out that his name is Dion Basco and he is of Filippino descent. I don't understand Hollywood. They hired Filippino actors to act Chinese even though he can't speak Chinese. He can't even do kungfu kicks right. Why don't they hire Chinese actors straight? Don't tell me that the director couldn't find one English-speaking Chinese actor in the entire Los Angeles? Worse come to worse, they should hire me instead. I speak English and Chinese perfectly, with a good sprinkling of Thai and Lao thrown in.

Marco : CO, go make me some tiny arrows with Huo Yao (gunpowder) so that we can fight fire with fire against the two big-ass dragons who can destroy a village in one breath!

CO : Ni mei you si guo ah? (You never die before is it?)

Well, the good news is that for a crappy, low budget movie, the CGI of the dragons are cool. There is one memorable scene in which the dragons attacked the galleon at sea in the moonlight. It was brilliant as Marco heard the shrieks of the dragons and looked up to see their shadows in the moon-lit sky. The dragons then dove through the night clouds and proceeded to unleash jets of fire on the galleon at sea. There was one spectacular shot underwater (beneath the galleon) which showed a dragon flaming the ship.

All in all, the movie was decent simply because the dragons were cool-looking and the battle scenes were ok. If you need to know, Marco finally defeated the dragons using a portable cannon with Chinese gunpowder technology invented by the Chinese slave (Filippino descent of course). Yeah, that's right. Marco actually used it like a LAW rocket launcher which had me laughing at the sheer absurdity of it. The dragon was also pretty shocked at the ending I think. I think he never thought that he would be facing Terminator with rocket launchers. The last thing in the dragon's mind before he took a cannonball in his chest must be "Where the fuck did that come from?". A fun movie if you could ignore some absurdities.

Loose vs Lose / Prrinciple vs Principal

I was waiting for an important work call at the office which was stressing me out. To take my mind off the shit, I was blog surfing - clicking from blog to blog via their links. I noticed that age of the blog writers got younger and younger until I was literally looking at some angsty writings from some 7 year-old bloggers. I really think anyone under the age of 15 shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a blog. The ONLY exception I would give is if the kid is Anne Frank who wrote about her struggles under the Nazi occupation during WWII ("Dairy of a Young Girl").

Why are all the 7-12 years old kids in Singapore so angsty about? It is not as if they have to work for a living, scourge around for food, live in a Nazi concentration camp, watch their parents get executed by Nazis or suffer from scabies like Anne Frank. Everyday, they go to school to study, talk during class, visit McDonalds with their friends, take bo liao photos with their friends at equally bo liao photo booths, nerd bitch about Pokemon/Naruto/Gundam, makes a nuisance of themselves at the arcade playing Tekken 5, then go home to their parents and have dinner. Watch TV, do homework, sleep. Everyday is the same. Boo hoo, my father cannot afford to buy me a new watch to match my school bag. Awww, really? How about a sidekick to your throat to go with your bag? All these emo and angsty kids should have their hands cut off the minute they start wandering near the computer keyboard. Blogspot should have a special security feature that does the following:

7 yr-old dumbass (7yod) : I should now register a blog to bore everyone to death by blogging about my colourful pencil box, my hatred towards my father for not letting me go to Jane's birthday party simply because I funked Chinese (he is so mean!) as well as my worthless opinions on Pokemon and Naruto.

Blogspot : Before we could process your registration, please answer the following question. Naruto's good friend Sakura Haruno was sensitive about something during her early days in the ninja academy. What was it?

7yod : Easy. She was sensitive about her large forehead.

Blogspot : Correct. It proves that you are below 12 yrs old. Please go away (emit electrical shock to the keyboard).

7yod : AAAAARGGGGHG . . . . . . . .

If they want to bitch, at least spell some shit correctly. Like if you want to bitch about your principal as a mean old hag, don't mispell it as "principle".

Principal = the head honcho in a school e.g. mean old hag which you want to bitch about.

Principle = a rule or law about something e.g. against my principles to be nice to kids.

I have lost count about the number of people who kept spelling these two words wrongly. To add injury to insult, they also managed to get "loose"/"lose" mixed up. I think they should have a new rule. Any one who can get "loose"/"lose" mixed up e.g. Liverpool "loose" to Arsenal last night, should lose their hands instead.

I don't understand horror movies - American Haunting

Before I talk about American Haunting, I suddenly remember something about haunted houses and the difficulty of heroes "setting fire to them". Someone told me that there are a lot of haunted houses in Singapore. Places so evil that the authorities could not even demolish it. Please lah. I like to see how spirits in a haunted house can stop a 5-ton wrecking ball or better still, withstand C-4 demolition explosives. Either that or get a plane to drop a ball on the haunted house. All the ghosts with angry grudges in the world couldn't stop gravity. Gravity rules.

- - - - -

So, An American Haunting.

(Nice poster from horror movies.com but another bad ghost movie)

This movie on HBO came highly recommended by the fim reviewers. Supposedly based on a true story in the 1800's and the only case in US history in which a ghost actually killed a person. Former US President Andrew Jackson who visited the victim's house in the 19 century famously told everyone that "I rather face the British Army again stay one night in the Bell's house." The story is simple. Between 1818-1820, the Bell family in Tennessee, US was haunted by a spirit which came to the daughter's room every night and slapped and tortured her. The family tried its best to exorcise the ghost but failed and someone died.

So, based on a true horror legend - check. Good actors with Donald Sutherland - check. Sweeping landscape of rural Tennessee - check. Spirits and posession like the Exorcist - check. So was it a good movie? HELL NO.

They should call this movie "American Rubbish Movie With a Stupid Family". It wasn't scary, at all. When you see the door opened, the blanket being pulled down and the daughter being dragged on the floor and slapped, yeah it may be scary the first time you see it. But the ghost did this like 10 times with all the same action sequence. All the ghost did was to just pull the blanket off the daughter and drag her and slap her. Oh yeah, real interesting, loser ghost. You are a bloody disgrace to all spirits out there. Sadako from the Ring and the other boy ghost from the Grudge could kick your American ghost's ass. At least Sadako appears now and then, crawls out of TVs and made an effort to scare people. In fact, American Haunting is actually quite funny. I give it 6 out of 10 for sheer comedy just to see the same thing happen again and again.

Step 1 : Door opens quietly.

Step 2 : Blanket got pulled off the sleeping girl.

Step 3 : Girl wakes up screaming.

Step 4 : Girl got dragged by her hair around the floor.

Step 5 : Girl got slapped by invisible spirit presumably angry. Or horny. I don't know which.

Step 6 : Stupid family who is waiting for the ghost downstairs (dunno for what?) rush upstairs only to have the door magically slammed into their faces.

Step 7 : Abuse ended.Family brought the girl to the living room. Ghost decided to walk in and throw some books around and shatter a window. Family grieves.

Rinse and repeat 10 times and you get the idea how incredibly dull is the movie.

The movie was tense for only about 10 minutes and then went down faster than a fat man jumping on a slide at the Wet N Wild. It basically breaks down into an incoherent mess punctuated by long, tedious periods of no shit happening. Ghost comes, ghost leaves, family cries, blah blah. The acting was atrocious as none of the chracters seemed terrified. For some parts, it got so draggy it looked as if the movie was dragging a truck. The plot was uneven and you could tell that the director was trying to hide a twist to the ending. Yeah, right. I don't understand why every movie needs to have a twist. Why can't a ghost movie be just a simple movie where the ghost just wanders around and scares the shit out of people and heroes trying their best to beat the shit out of the ghost? Does the 1973 The Exorcist need a twist? Hell no, and it is the scariest movie of all time. The twist in the American Haunting is pure stupid so I am not going to even talk about it. I wish the ghost in American Haunting would haunt everyone involved in the movie.

I don't understand horror movies - Grudge

It is not that I am particularly brave or anything but it is a mystery to me why people are scared shitless by horror movies like the Grudge aka "Ju-On".

I caught it on HBO and decided to watch it because of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer aka Sarah Micheller Geller. She is cute.

(I have no idea who the above woman is but she needs David Gan to take a look at her hair. She also reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. I thus have this urge to elbow her and give her a black eye.)

A brief recap for those not familiar with the Grudge or Ju-On. Basically, some violent shit happened in the family in a house and the spirits stayed in the house causing havoc and death to all who crossed their irritable paths. So far, so Poltergist. Nothing special. This woman in white with long hair (yawn - again?) comes out of no way and just walks unsteadily around grabbing people. She also like to gap her mouth, mouthing soundless death rattle while showing her big eye with the darkest pupil. By the way, the Japanese likes to use "long and messy hair" as a fright tool just as they are obsessed with the concept of water/well/mirror as gate to another world. I am ok with this female ghost since under the right circumstance, this could be scary as hell. It is just that you see one Sadako, you see them all. I just wish directors could be a tad more creative; like having blood stains on her white dress or at least make her wear a Liverpool shirt (oh god, the horrors). She could also bash people to death with her first generation LV bag (made of Japanese yen) which would be frightening as hell.

Woman ghost : Ooooo, I am going to grab you and look at you with my big eye till you die of boredom because my husband killed me because he thought I was unfaithful. Which actually, I was since I was obsessed with this cute, angmoh professor at the university to the point that I was stalking him and collecting photos of him to paste in my ugly scrap book.

Hero : What the fuck has that got to do with me?

Woman ghost : Don't know leh. Grudge mah.

Hero : And why is your son ghost peeking at me in the bathroom?

Woman ghost : Aiyah, don't know lah.

What makes Grudge funny for me is that there is this little boy with dark rings around his eyes. This boy can be found in the strangest place; staircases, under the fucking blanket and I think in Grudge 2; under the fucking desk peeking at girl's panties.




People told me that the boy is scary but shit, I find the boy funny like hell. Fucker is clearly a peeping tom and has serious issues. Why would he be scary? Everytime he appeared on screen, I was yelling at the actors to slap his ghost ass around or throw something at him.

I found the movie a waste of time. Thank goodness, I watched it on HBO so I don't have to spend money on it. People said that this was an excellent movie which built up on the eeriness, employed an excellent use of sound and music as well as innovative use of cinematography. Maybe, but having a heavy, creepy atmosphere also requires some proper scary ghosts as well as a good storyline to carry it through. Sad to say, employing an out-of-job Sadako (maybe it is a slow day at the video store?) and a peeping tom of a boy ghost did nothing for me. As far the storyline, violent spirits roaming a house and taking vengeance on the living? It has been done to the death (pun intended).

Last thing, I always wonder why the heroes always have problem SETTING FIRE to the haunted house. The same shit always happened. They walked into the haunted house, got distracted or attacked by the ghosts, dropped the matchstick or lighter, and then the whole plan went to shit. I mean, what the F? How difficult is it to set fire to a house? You want to set fire to a house, you just pour gasoline on the walls on the outside, hurled a couple of molotov cocktails into the house and sit back and enjoy the barbeque.

They better hope I don't die of rage after watching the movie because my violent spirit is going to haunt my TV and house forever.