The Holiday

Once, Rufus wrote an essay for Stanley that went something like this.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's two. Please forgive my excessive use of words.

Then he drew two pictures. And at the bottom he wrote,

(2018 words)

He really did. But she made him rewrite.

Anyway, here's my 14000++ word blog post.

It's about The Holiday. Like The River, minus the guitar solo.

Juinn: So who sang this song?
Jun Ian: Bad Charlotte. No wait... Better Charlotte.
Shern: We should make a band, call it Better Charlotte.
Kevin: When we meet the originals it'd be like... You're Good Charlotte? We're Better.

On stage we'd probably look something like this. We're actually on top of a boat on the water but you can't tell from this picture.

Clockwise starting from the Vodafone: Kevin, Me, Shern, Juinn.

We'd play songs about white sand, clear water, colorful fish and sunsets.

And volleyball. At least half the album would be about volleyball, considering the inordinate amount of it we played on the island.

Actually, we played lots of bullshit/bluff and mafia (you know, with cards), but I didn't take any pictures of that so here's a picture of us splashing water at each other.

We went places and did things.

Not sure if you can tell from the snaps, but I got amazingly burned. I am really dark now.

Group pictures, of which we took a lot.

We found this boat in the jungle!

Trying out the indian movie thing.

We took the boat all over, to swim and see fishes and corals and stuff.

Just another picture of Kevin, Lin Rui, Wei Yi and Joo Lee.

My eyes are closed, but it's still one of my favorite pictures.

All that and more in just three days? This holiday's tricked already and it's just getting started.

Points Of Interest

Zhi Mei: You and I are inseperable!
Sha: But what about Marcus?
Zhi Mei: Marcus is inside me.

Chemistry tomorrow, but this won't be long, and besides, it looks like you don't need an education to do well in this country.

Just get into politics.

I'm not sure how accurate this is. I have enough to do without tracking the state of our ruling cabinet's tertiary education. But my dad says it most likely is. I trust my dad.

Sort of.

And I don't normally read mail, but this one caught my eye. I thought it was a chain letter from the education minister.

Here it is, reproduced in full except for the colors of the national flags (dutifully added by me).

It is not to say Singapore is really good, (it says) but looks like our cabinet ministers are really teruk!

Singapore Cabinet	Malaysia Cabinet
PM Lee Hsien Loong Cambridge University – First Class Honours (1974) Harvard University – Masters (1980)	PM Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi University of Malaya – Bachelor of Arts Honours (1964)
MM Lee Kuan Yew Cambridge University – First Class Honours (1949)	Deputy PM Dato' Sri Najib Razak University of Nottingham – Bachelor of Arts Honours (1974)
SM Goh Chok Tong University of Singapore – First Class Honours (1964) Williams College, USA – Masters (1967)	Minister of Foregn Affairs Syed Hamid Albar (can someone tell me his univeristy?) – Bachelor of Arts [UITM]
Minister for Law Prof. S Jayakumar University of Singapore – Bachelor of Law Honours (1963) Yale Univerity – Masters (1966)	Ministry of Works Dato' Seri Samy Vellu (Education Unknown) [Form 6, Anderson School]
Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng University of Singapore – Bachelor of Arts & Business Admin (1977) London Business School – Masters (1979)	Ministry of International Trade & Industry Rafidah binti Aziz University of Malaya – Bachelor of Arts Honours
Minister for Foreign Affairs BG George Yeo Cambridge University – Double First Class Honours (1976) Harvard Business School – MBA w/ Distinction (1985)	Minister of Agriculture Muhyiddin Yassin (Education Unknown) [Polytechnic Ungku Omar]
Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang Cambridge University – First Class Honours w/ Distinction (1976) Harvard University – Masters (1986)	Ministry of Domestic Trade Shafie Apdal (Education Unknown) [Form 5, Failed English]
Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean University of Manchester – First Class Honours (1976) Imperial College, London – Masters w/ Distinction (1977)	Minister of Education Hishammuddin Hussein (Education Unknown) [Bachelor of Arts, Social Science]
Minister for Education Tharman Shanmugaratnam London School of Economics – Bachelor of Arts Cambridge University – Masters Harvard University – Masters	Minister of Home Affairs Radzi bin Sheikh Ahmad (Education Unknown) [Kolej Islam Malaysia, Diploma]

Then it says,

**That is why they are so desperate to get Khairy Jamaluddin up so fast, because he is from Cambridge. God knows how he got in!

Okay, maybe you don't need a whole bunch of fancy degrees to head a nation. But this guy here... it says he failed english? In form five?

How do you fail english?

Maybe we should send all these guys back to school or something. Just to get a better looking testimonial.

No one's perfect though. If you read the thingy closely, you'll notice the guy who wrote it mispelled univeristy and foregn.

Though I would like to, I'm not going to show you a photoshopped picture of Samy Vellu sitting in Chemistry, getting chewed out by Haslina. I've got exams.

During English, I fell asleep. I had this weird dream where I think I was planning a party. I remember calling up this malay guy and asking, "Encik, siew pao ada?"
I was thinking about it so much I wrote the words siew pao into my essay.

That was fun. On to my second topic of interest...

I have to tell you about Spiderman 3 again. Some of you didn't like it. That's fine.

Myself, I really enjoyed it. But check out all the scenes they deleted from the movie!

- Following up on his firing, Eddie goes to see Gwen to ask her out. Gwen wants nothing to do with him and explains that they’ve only gone on one date, not counting the time they bumped into each other at a coffee place. Gwen admits that they did kiss, but is confused when Eddie insists she told him that she loves him.

- At the Spider-Man appreciation ceremony, Peter runs into a little boy with toy web-shooters. After getting sprayed on, Peter shoots a little webbing on the kid’s shoe as the boy’s walking away. The kid sees the webbing, turns around and points to his mother that he just met Spider-Man. The mother sees some guy in a ****py suit nearby and figures that’s what he was talking about.

- Some of the Eddie/Jameson dialogue got cut, including a great exchange.
“What’s that smell?”
“Brock, sir.”
“What kind of cologne is ‘Brock’?”
“No, sir. My name is Brock.”
“Why are you named after a cologne?”

- Harry goes up against Venom one-on-one for a round, not counting the impaling scene.

That's just a sample. There's lots more if you clicky clicky.

There's also a petition for the release of the director's cut DVD, which would be pretty interesting if it did include all those scenes.

I really wanna see the last one (Harry and Venom).

Yeah, that's it for now. Just thought you should know.

junian: i just had an idea
oh! ky: what?
junian: one day i will get you and esther ho to stand together
junian: and i will say
junian: look! its OH AND HO!
oh! ky: uh yeah, we wanted to put that on our jerseys
oh! ky: xP
junian: gosh
junian: you beat me to the lameness

Educational

Because the first season is almost done.

The finale is during the exams. Damn!

If you have time to read blogs during the exams, you have time to watch this video.

It's only five minutes, and it's educational, in a way.

Before you proceed, there are a few things you should know.

• The main religion of Israel is Jewish.
• The coalition of the willing are the countries that followed the US into the Iraq war (Mainly the US, the UK and South Korea).
• America lost the Vietnam War.
  
• The United Kingdom, also known as Britain's official currency is the pound.
• Fidel Castro is the president of Cuba.
• Kofi Annan served as the Secretary General of the UN until January this year.
• Tony Blair is the prime minister of Britain.
• The axis of evil consists of North Korea, Iraq and Iran.

If you did not know all these things before, it's fine. If you're reading this you're (most likely) still in school, but you should probably pick up a newspaper or something.

Now watch this.

It's called Why Americans Are Geniuses. Click to watch.

Reporter: How many world wars have there been?
Man: Three.

This morning I watched an Inconvenient Truth. Yeah, it's almost the exams. So?

It was pretty scary. If you watch it you'll see a lot of graphs like that one. That's carbon dioxide levels in the past 60-ish years.

I thought it was good, but there was too much biography on Al Gore. Did we really need to see so much of the farm and even the road where he crashed his car?

Overall, it's really something everyone should get to know about. The pictures of disappearing glaciers and ice caps were just chilling.

Apart from that... I don't have anything serious to blog about.

Yeah okay! I get it! My chinese is bad!

Colour by numbers. Somehow coloring an all-black spiderman isn't as fun as I thought it'd be.

Seriously lame jokes.

On the EST paper.

Azfar: If you add a L-A-M in front, it becomes the LAMEST PAPER!

On Tim Tams.

Lih Fern: Where's Tam? Behind TIM!

Lame enough?

Peako: If Azfar and Lih Fern got married their children would be born with crutches.

Unlike so many others, I don't have a friendship quiz for you.

But you can always take THE IMPOSSIBLE QUIZ!

Take it with a friend. Remember, impossibility shared is impossibility halved.

Credit for the discovery of this insanity goes to Joey.

And if you get past question 50, props to you.

These Are The Days

... that we really should be studying. And not, say, drawing things in our sketchbooks. Well I haven't inked it or colored it yet. And I'm sure I'll be really tempted to.

Spiderman and Rhino!

Hit the books dammit! Hit them! Stop blogging and stop drawing!

Sigh.

Spiderman <3 MO and Heroes + 5

Hiro: Should I stop time?
Peter: No. I haven't had a good fight in years.

What happens next? Something cool no doubt.

Okay, okay. This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS about Spiderman 3 and Heroes.

I had to make the text bigger and emphasize this fact because three people already told me they spoiled themselves.

Spoilers are not good for your health.

If you want to enjoy these shows, leave now and come back after you've watched them.

Cause they're so much better unspoiled.

I warned you.

First, we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a picture of pandas doing handstands. On a tree.

Picture credit to Fox. And now we return.

Spiderman <3 MO

The first thing you have to know about Spiderman 3 is that it's...

Yup. EMO! Notice anything different about this poster? I did it myself.

Look closely dammit.

There are three things you should keep in mind when watching this movie.

1. Forget the comics.
2. Don't sit next to Li Wen.
3. Refer to 1 and 2.

The movie and the comics are two different things. If you get them mixed up you're going to end up making comments like this.

"That's not how the symbiote came to earth! Venom doesn't die that way! I thought Eddie Brock becomes Carnage later how can that happen? Why hasn't Gwen Stacey died?"
- Ben Kane

Personally I think Spiderman 3 was awesome. A couple of others said that the second one was better, but I don't remember it as being that good, and I don't feel like watching it again. I feel like watching 3 again though.

Peter with the black spider suit is completely badass and it is so good.

Out of costume, he has a towering mountain of personal issues. It's not all his fault, but life has a way of handing Peter lemons at every turn. There's a permanent residence in Springfield and then there's life as Peter Parker.

"OMB his life is so screwed up! I mean, I always knew he was a loser... But I didn't know he was that big a loser! WTH!"
- Li Wen, on Peter Parker's life

Okay I don't think he actually said those things but it was close.

If you fell down the social ladder of the Marvel Universe, at the bottom you'd find Grasshopper, a character so unfortunate he only appeared in one issue of the Great Lakes Avengers before being killed almost immediately.

"Five point eight seconds. A new record for shortest membership on ANY team."
- Monkey Joe, team sidekick, on the fast life and tragic death of Grasshopper

Well, Peter Parker isn't at the bottom of that ladder. But his life can and does suck.

This is fact.

So when the symbiote finally gives him a chance to take a walk on the dark side - basically his ticket out of loserville - it's not surprising how his behaviour changes.

I wanted some caps of his wardrobe, but I love this guy as an emo.

Remember the bar scene? When he gets his John Travolta on and then sexes up Gwen Stefani - whoops, Stacey - in front of MJ just to get back at her? As soon as I saw where they were going I knew it was gonna be good. Love his line when he slips the hostess a bill and tells her to "find us some shade".

Well this picture is okay but in the bar she looked so much better.

And when he takes it to the streets as Black Spidey he's ten times as hardcore. Example, the second time when he fought Harry, when they were in the secret room in Harry's mansion. Harry threw a goblin bomb at Peter's back and he just ducked, snared it with a webline and casually flicked it back into Harry's face which was off the charts and probably illegally cool.

You know what they say... once you go black, you can't go back!

Not that he doesn't have his moments as regular Spiderman. The way he destroyed Venom? Driving hollow bars into the ground to make a cage, rattling and banging them all the time to paralyze the symbiote with sound... that was... well.. I'm out of superlatives. Not really. I guess there are the regular ones like extraordinary or delightful. But those aren't extreme enough and besides I always wanted to say that.

Harry is cool as the New Goblin. Too bad he gets impaled on his own flying skateboard.

There was one fun little scene that gave us a hint of Carnage in the future movies. When Peter was using the phone and flirting with the landlord's daughter ("get me some milk" -D), he was doing his best not to pay attention to what Dr Connors was saying but if you did you would have noticed that he did have a sample of the symbiote with him. Spiderman 4, anyone?

If you had a choice, Gwen Stacey or Mary Jane Watson?

The one thing I took issue with was the unreliability of the goblin bombs. Peter's taken a bomb close to the face and all he lost was part of his mask. Harry took one in much closer proximity and developed burn marks not unlike the map of Australia Mahadi's got on his arm. But when Harry launched a bomb into the Sandman's head the resulting explosion had a mushroom cloud.

Maybe Harry's arsenal had a couple of duds. ROFLcopter.

One thing we all agreed on was that the movie at times had a decidedly MCR look to it. The scenes from the bar and the church could have made a video for The Black Parade or maybe I Don't Love You. Any ideas?

Heroes + 5

Five years gone. This episode is a look into a world where the heroes never saved the cheerleader or stopped the exploding man. This world is so much darker and more dangerous, which leads us to more powerful heroes and more intense battles.

I'm already out of blogging steam and I wanna get this to my publisher so I'll be quick. (Promise not to publish any spoilers?)

The future is wow. But it's also... very dead.

1. Nathan (killed by Sylar after becoming president and powers taken)
2. Candice (killed by Sylar after going into hiding and powers taken)
3. The Haitian (stabbed in the neck by Mohinder)
4. Claire (killed by Sylar pretending to be Nathan and powers taken)
5. Mr Bennet (shot by Matt after revealing Claire's location)
6. DL (killed by Sylar after going into hiding and powers taken)
7. Molly (killed by Sylar after going into hiding and powers taken)
8. Micah (died when the bomb exploded)
9. Ando (died when the bomb exploded)
10. Isaac (killed by Sylar and powers taken)
11. Hiro (shot by Matt while trying to teleport)
12. Hana (shot by Matt for helping Mr Bennet)
13. Zane (killed by Sylar and powers taken)
14. Dale (killed by Sylar and powers taken)
15. Charlie (killed by Sylar and powers taken)
16. Eden (shot self in the head to prevent Sylar from taking powers)

At least we have some super super heroes.

1. Peter (completely kickass)
2. Sylar (like Peter, but evil)
   

Okay, not that many. But Niki's a stripper now. And Jessica tragically disappeared somehow

I have a GIF file of Peter and Sylar fighting. Or at least, firing up their ice and fire powers. But for some reason I can't get it to move on blogger. Hmmm?