An FF7 “tribute”?

The Cloud Song - by Nellie Melton

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Thanks for making my day, Kami.

From direcow:

The Guardian recently came up with a list of top 20 geek books ever (those that I’ve read in bold.)

1. The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell
3. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip Dick
5. Neuromancer — William Gibson
6. Dune — Frank Herbert
7. I, Robot — Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation — Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs — Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen — Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas — Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle — Philip K Dick
17. American Gods — Neil Gaiman
18. The Diamond Age — Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy — Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

How sad is that? All other online tests inform me that I’m not much of a geek. That in fact, I’m a pretty normal dude who’s a nerd/geek wannabe. And yet, I’ve read the top 8 books on the list. I must have stopped being geeky somewhere during my childhood.

I don’t think I need to write a review since Kakita’s written a pretty decent one on his blog. Except to say, that Cho Chang (played by Katie Leung) will now give non-Hermione fans someone to go ga-ga about. Or simply give people more reasons to hop on the Emma Watson bandwagon.

I’m with the former, of course.

And Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is arguably the best one yet. Don’t believe Xiaxue. I still can’t believe that director Mike Newell is only getting paid $1 million for such a great piece of work! Warner Bros. is so cheapskate.

Decided to catch Doom on Tuesday after my Math paper. Ironically, it was difficult to tell which was harder to sit through. Of course, in the end, the Math paper eventually won the fight between which was the more hellacious experience. But Doom came ridiculously close.

On the surface, Doom appears to be very true to the original series of games, especially the latest nightmare-inducing Doom 3. A rapid-response team of elite soldiers is sent to a research facility on Mars to deal with an unknown threat. The planet is on quarantine after an experiment goes awry and a group of scientists are in danger, believed dead. The soldiers, led by “Sarge” (The Rock), secure the facility, only to realise that the threat comes from within. It is up to “Sarge”, John “Reaper” Grimm (Urban) and Dr. Samantha Grimm to neutralise the demons of Mars before they invade the Earth.

The premise seemed worth the while, and to be fair, the initial build-up of the plot was rather well done. However, once the movie gets into the thick of the action, the whole piece just begins to fall apart. Now. I’ll chalk up the fact that the film felt chopped up to me to our ever reliable Board of Film Censors. But then I’ll have to blame the film’s editors for leaving so much audio and video unsynchronised. At places, one cannot tell who was responsible for toning down the film’s language, gore and violence - our local people, or the studio who probably wanted their target audience of young teenage boys to catch it.

Even The Rock, still my favourite wrestler of all time, couldn’t save the movie from self-destructing. Reports are rife on how he impressed many naysayers by turning down the “hero” role and choosing to go with the more original role of “Sarge”, thus proving that not only was he poised to be Hollywood’s next big action star, he also had the sense and maturity to pick and choose the roles he preferred. That being said, however, it was unfortunate that the screenplay writers didn’t do “Sarge” justice. Instead of playing to the natural charisma of the Rock, “Sarge” felt more two-dimensional that any of his previous roles. And indeed, when the twist (one that was spoiled by the Rock himself in an interview) came, not only was it unexpected, it was also unwarranted. I bet the spoiler was a necessity, given how the movie failed to foreshadow it.

Urban, last seen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, fails to impress here in his first major leading role. From the few movies I’ve seen of him, Urban plays the angsty, brooding stereotype to the hilt, but fails to deliver any other kind of emotion both as Eomir or here, as “Reaper”. One is forced to wonder if it’s the fault of the script and the character he’s playing, or if he is so emotionally-challenged as an actor that he can’t take on any other role. His lack of chemistry with co-star Pike is so apparant that it’s hard to believe they’re supposed to play twins.

Speaking of Rosamund Pike, you come out of the theatre wondering if she can do anything other than scream. In this age of pro-feminism and a move away from the damsel-in-distress stereotype, Doom turns back the clock and sticks out its tongue at the feminist movement by turning a capable, high-flying researcher into nothing more than a frightened girl who needs to be saved by her depressive, macho brother.

The movie’s saving grace, and perhaps it’s only reason for watching, is that it never tries to be anything more than what it was marketed as being: the movie adaptation of the award-winning game. Even the much-derided five-minute sequence of pseudo-”first-person shooter” action, which even included a little nod to the Doom 3 preview trailer, is nothing more than a reminder that this movie never set out to win awards or bothered to. And at the end of the day, Doom succeeds in being a waste of 100 minutes of one’s life.

A mediocre 6 out of 10.

Curvy and Naughty
Raw score: 62% Big Breasts, 59% Big Ass, and 44% Cute!


Thanks for taking the T and A and C test! Based on your selections, the results are clear: you show an attraction to larger breasts, larger asses, and sexier composures than others who’ve taken the test.


Note that you like women overall curvier than average.


My third variable, “cuteness” is a mostly objective measure of how innocent a given model looked. It’s determined by a combination of a lot of factors: lack of dark eye makeup, facial expression, posture, etc. If you scored high on that variable, you are either really nice OR you’re into deflowering teens. If you scored low, you are attracted to raunchier, sexier, women. In your case, your lower than average score suggests you appreciate a sexier, naughtier look. Kudos!


Recommended Celebrities: Supermodel Laetitia Casta and Actress Angelina Jolie.
Link: The Tits, Ass, and Cuteness Test written by chicken_pot_pie on Ok Cupid

Cute, neither Dark nor Light, and neither Artsy nor Stylish. This sounds like a blah category, right? Oh, my, no. The Girl Next Door has been the subject of more dirty fantasies than you could possibly count. She’s so sweet, and innocent, and infinitely corruptible. Every morning you glance out your window hoping she’ll have forgotten to draw the blinds. You may feel bad about it, but you know you’ll be doing it again tomorrow.

Link: The Your Type of Girl Test written by dgc20e on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Stand up and be heard! You’re 33% gay!You’re straight! You can choose whether or not you should be proud of that. You have just enough gay in you to not look like a liar, but too little to be really gay. You’re suprised, aren’t you?

Link: The Am I Gay? Test written by alone2gether on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

This post was originally written here by me last night and is reproduced below in its entirety.

I live in Singapore, so I literally woke up this Monday to the news of Eddie’s passing. Almost 12 hours later, and I still don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet. Eddie Guerrero was permanently entertaining (which is hard for any wrestler to be). In the ring, out of it, in person, in or out of character.

Much of Eddie’s magic comes from how real he is to fans. I still remember his little feud with The Rock, and how he spoke about how his daughters idolised him and not their own father. You couldn’t tell if Eddie was acting, or if he really was hurt by his childrens’ actions. That was how good Eddie was. He blurred the lines of reality and entertainment, and we ate up every word.

In the ring, Eddie was THE man to watch. In tag team competition, he was always the bigger star, but you never felt it. It was part of Eddie’s wonderful humility to see him never once upstage his partner, whether it was Chavito, Tajiri or Rey Rey. In singles competition, he defined the art of sports-entertainment. Face or heel, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. He paid his dues and earned every title he got. I’m glad he stood tall with Chris Benoit at Wrestlemania XX.

Here in Singapore, we’re three weeks behind on WWE programming… so I’ll get to see Eddie in action for another two weeks, including his last televised match. It’ll be surreal.

R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero, may angels guide your way to Heaven.