Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Wanna hear Johnny Depp sing? Turns out he's a fantastic singer. I was mesmerized by his talents when he belted out a few ballads throughout this film. Oh wait, the whole casts sing.

I love Tim Burton's work since Edward Scissorhands in 1990. The collaboration between Burton and Depp has always been a wonderful experience that resulted to a successful flicks e.g. Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. Now, they're back with this awesome take on a classic musical film.

This movie isn't really for everyone, mind you. There are gory scenes of decapitation that may give quite a bit of a shock, unless if you think of it as an art form, like me (bwhahhahaha!!!). But overall, you'll enjoy this film because its also delightfully funny, and has a strong cast of stars singing their hearts out, they're really sweet to watch. And hey, it's a Tim Burton film, with Johnny Depp in it. What's there not to like?

Death of Australia's Finest

Finally, I've managed to return to blogging again. I had a terrible diarrhea last week, but thankfully it's all over. By the time I recovered last Sunday, I knew I should start watching over what I eat. Perhaps I should consider Fine Dining.

So many things happened last week. Ex-president Soeharto died pretty recently after months of being hospitalized. And then there was another death earlier last week, and it was a shocker in the Entertainment industry. Heath Ledger, best known for playing as the gay cowboy in the sleeper hit 'Brokeback Mountain', died in his apartment in New York. He was found dead after a reported accidental overdose. He was 28.

Heath Ledger in 'Brokeback Mountain'

It's a tragic loss for this young Australian actor. I have seen his potential in several of his movies, beginning in '10 Things I Hate About You' back in 1999. He had just recently completed his role as The Joker for the next Batman Flick. 'The Dark Knight' is currently in post production with the trailers already rolling in, and we see Ledger as The Joker and what looked like a promising feat of this talented young actor as one of the most awesome villains in Gotham.

Heath Ledger as The Joker in 'The Dark Knight'

Clearly, when I watched the trailers, my anticipation didn't actually go to Christian Bale as the dark knight, but more towards Heath Ledger as the new Joker. Sadly, his tragic death somehow affected my perception towards this upcoming film, because of Ledger's potrayal as Joker that looks very deranged and freaky, kinda ironic for a recent tragedy.

Here are several of his notable work over the past decade:

Rest In Peace
Heath Ledger
1979 - 2008

Bad Weekend

I feel like shit. It must have been something I ate yesterday at the canteen. It seems that I'm suffering from food poisoning or diarrhea, I dunno. I feel weak and restless thanks to constant urges to go to the toilet. I gotta see a doctor. :S

Another Book In My Collection

Just bought this enlightening book yesterday after lunch. A continuation of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Well I know it's an old book, but I've been waiting for so long to actually wanna get hold of this. Something to read during my off-peak hours or during Mr Masaki's class. Hahaha :P

Some Kind of Monster

Well, I had a great time last night. I never expected this movie's gonna turn out to be huge. The first time I saw its poster hanging outside the halls of every cineplex a month ago, I thought it was just another disaster movie that's gonna end up as another box-office flop. But then the trailer told a different story, which made me even more curious to watch.

A word of warning though; this movie is not really for everyone. The shaky camera could cause some people insane dizziness and (probably) vomiting as most of the shots are taken via an amateur handycam. But that's the whole point of the movie anyway; taking us in the view of a civilian. It just feels so real you just couldn't help but looking everywhere for the director's chair and the lights. The last time I watched this kind of movie was less than a decade ago; The surprise hit The Blair Witch Project.

I'm not gonna spoil the movie for you though. I highly recommend you watch this flick, but please don't complain about the shaky camera bit, its meant to be that way. Not many moviegoers expected that last night and there were already people who made complaints at the ticket counter after watching the show. But again, I didn't say this movie is bad. I was at the edge of my seat for every scene in Cloverfield.

The World's Thinnest Notebook

There's Something In The Air

In 2007 last year, Apple unveiled the iPhone and rocked the world. The year 2007 was declared the year of the iPhone and Time Magazine called it the technology of the year. So what's in store for 2008?

Yesterday at Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Apple unveiled its latest product, the MacBook Air, and according to Steve Jobs, it is the world's thinnest notebook. The MacBook Air measures 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, while its maximum height of 0.76-inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks on the market.



The MacBook Air has a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support (similar to the iPhone's multi-touch) so users can pinch, rotate and swipe.

The MacBook Air is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with MB L2 cache, and includes as a standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. This ultra-portable notebook is designed to be fully 'wireless', so the optical drive isn't included.

Now this is how ultra-portable should be. Rather than sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch screen, you could still get the slimmest and lightest notebook to lug around. This is a high-performance notebook without compromising all that. The MacBook Air is so thin that Steve Jobs pulled the laptop out of a manila envelope during his keynote!

Snapped Belting

On my way home from school this afternoon, my air-conditioner belting in my car snapped. It made a 'clack-clack-clack' sound as I was driving on the highway. Glad I got my car towed to the workshop to get it fixed right away.

I hate car breakdowns. (well, doesn't anyone?) The unbearable heat, annoying passerby's looking at you, the hassle of towing the car all the way to the workshop, and of course, the fact that you missed whatever errands you had to be doing during that day just because of a breakdown. And then there's the finishing touch to all that; the cost of repairs.

Whew, I gotta start reminding myself to keep my car maintenance in regular check.

HSBC's 60th Anniversary Banquet

I was at ICC last night for the HSBC's 60th Anniversary Banquet. I didn't actually take a lot of photos because I was too busy at the mixer handling the projector & screen for the event. A lot of VIPs attended the show, including His Majesty The Sultan. Several HSBC staff performed on stage, 2 of them happened to be my cousins. Local artist Maria was also there belting out her hit song.

Near the end, there was a guest performance by Rossa from Indonesia. She brought her own band along and they were awesome.

Thanks to Kamal Fahmi for helping out backstage on the mics. Great job bro. \m/

Knowledge Is Power

Though I wasn’t among the brightest students in my secondary years, what made me inspired today to be who I am is the motto from the college where I used to go less than a decade ago, written by the late Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III (father to His Royal Highness Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah). The words were pretty bold and clear; “Knowledge Is Power!”

Every time I walked down the flight of stairs through the main reception of Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien College, I tend to glance at the late majesty’s portrait with those words engraved on a plaque below the frame. At that time, I took it literally for granted, not having the sense of knowledge of how those words could empower me to apply the knowledge of the world and incorporate it for my future success and a more meaningful life.

After leaving the college to pursue experience in the working field, I thought that I had forgotten that message, as I was too pre-occupied to make ends meet. One night, I was browsing through some old books on my shelf in my room. I was delighted to have found several old college yearbooks of SOAS College from the years 1997 up until 1999. As I opened the cover page, there it was, the mighty words of the late Sultan written in big italic fonts; “Knowledge Is Power!”

From that point on I realized how it all finally made sense to me. Glancing through the pages of the old days, I couldn’t help but regret the times I have wasted throughout my early days, not applying those words for great use. “I could’ve been the best,” I thought in my head. “I could’ve done better.”

These turn of events had encouraged me to take up studying once again, and by doing so, I’m giving myself another chance. Back in the days in SOAS College, I was too playful, lazy even. Now I know that time is of the essence, and that by obtaining more knowledge I’ll be able to change my course of life for a better future prospect. Whenever I meet up with a few teenagers who have just somehow completed their O levels and decided to quit studying and seek for a job, I always encourage them to continue studying as far as they could go. And, of course, I’d share that wisdom which the late Sultan had passed to the Bruneian students for generations, “Knowledge is Power!”

Indeed, Knowledge is Power. With knowledge, you possess great power, be it the power to lead and influence, the power of gaining wealth and happiness, the power of greater wisdom and faith, etc. The more knowledge you obtain throughout your life, the more powerful you can be in the future. The more you learn, the more you know. The higher your education, the higher your career opportunities could be. The harder you work the more experience you’ll get. Knowing more is the greatest asset a man could have in his lifetime. It’s priceless.

Never underestimate the power of knowledge. Don’t stop learning, for knowledge dictates where you’ll be in the future.

Reflections

Just got out of the meeting room for our Business Project meeting. Apparently the whole school yearbook project has been brought up. (most of us thought the idea was scrapped). Looks like this is gonna be the toughest year for us. It's what 'final year' is all about.

Only less than 5 months until our final exams. My statistics class is still crap. If I don't score my stats well, I wouldn't make it for the work attachment. I've already planned out where I wanna go after this course, but it seems that the whole stats issue has been a huge barrier that's been getting in my way.

And now we've got 3 huge projects to organize within a period of 4 months; Social Responsibility, Main Event (Mini-Expo and Consultation Week in campus) and the Yearbook. The Yearbook is probably the most challenging task ever to be given to students in the history of the Business School. What's more, I'm elected as the lead designer for that project. Whew, there's just so many things I have to do at a very limited given time!

Mr Iswandi did, however, stressed out a very important message to us during the meeting. "If you're able to accomplish all the projects, assignments and your studies altogether, then you are able to do time management well, and that reflects how you're able to work under pressure because this is what's gonna happen in real life once you get a job."

He's right. I should be able to do all this. It's what I've dreamed of, to work under pressure. I realized now that I've been put under a test, and I should prove to them what I can really do. But simply saying it isn't enough. I gotta start doing something about it NOW.

Assignment Blues

...and I thought I promised to myself to end procrastination and get my work done on time. But noooo ~. 3 holiday assignments and all of them getting done in the last minute. The worst one would have to be my Business Accounting assignment, the toughest of all 3, covering on Ratio Analysis.

But on the positive side, the whole experience on analyzing accounting ratios on a particular plc sure pays off, as I began to realize out of all that... well, I think I've found a new hobby that I could consider venturing on; Real Estate. Hey, won't hurt giving it a shot. ;)

"Would you prefer Stocks, Bonds and Notes with that?"

Memory Lane: The Trip To Temburong

June 11th 2006. It was a beautiful Sunday. I went to this trip to Temburong in a group of several students of the Business School. It was a hiking trip to Bukit Peradayan where one of the most exciting mini-waterfalls or 'wasai' in Brunei is located. It was really worth reaching the summit. The journey took about half an hour. Of course, it was an extreme experience walking through the dense jungle, scaling rocks and hopping on rivers. In fact, it was perhaps the most challenging experience ever for the school, unlike the previous trip they had before.

The trip consisted of 3 of our tutors, Sir Fadzil, Sir Saiful and Sir Iswandi. Among the students that came with us were from the junior secretarials and the ND7 and 8. I was still a junior in Pre-National back then, along with my former classmate Wawa who also tagged along. Funny thing was, there were only 2 male students in this trip, which included myself and Sai.

I brought my video camera with me and got the whole journey on tape. We started off at Kianggeh BSB for our chartered boat to arrive. It was very early in the morning around 7-ish. I had to wake up really early. We reached Pekan Bangar sometime before 8 AM and rode all the way to the hiking spot via minivans.

Upon reaching the base of the hill, the excitement started rolling in all of us. We got all our backpacks ready and started jungle-trailing. The jungle was really dense and peaceful. The ground was so muddy and slippery because of the rain that fell the night before, so we expected a lot of skidding and slipping. It was a long journey, but as we reached several small rivers, we could already hear the sound of rapid water flowing from the distance. By the time we reached higher ground, the sounds became louder and tense, but the excitement grew even more. We even got ourselves wet from the splashes coming down at us, because the path we took to ascend was all flowing water from the waterfall at the top.

Finally, we reached the summit, where we had the most fun. It was a beautiful scene, and the water was really cold. We spend most of the time sitting on the rocks while the mini-waterfall came down to us like a cold morning shower. Such a memorable experience!
On our way down, I tripped a lot and even got a deep cut on my left hand for falling and holding on thorny branches for safety. Aside from the bleeding cut, I also had muscle aches on my left arm from accidently bumping on rocks. As mentioned earlier before we reached the summit, the ground was really slippery, even the rocks by the river. Though we were instructed to be extra careful, minor injuries did occur to most of us (not to mention getting dirt all over our shirts and backpacks).

After that we proceeded to visit this archaelogical site at the Labu Estate, an old, abandoned rubber plantation site where they store all these old machineries and equipments and old Japanese warfare artilleries. There were several old unused bombs used by the Japs in the 40's during World War II and they were really cool to look at.

We had lunch at a resthouse at the Labu Estate. Lambchops were served! (woohoo!) The one thing that we deserve from all the extreme hiking. It was already in the afternoon and we were still up for more fun. Just out of the resthouse was a pond where we went fishing there for another couple of hours. The afternoon was so relaxing. 3 of us caught some fish.

We got back to our chartered boat at approximately 4.15 PM and reached back sometime at 5. Everyone had a really great time. All those memories have been preserved in a video stored in my hard disk. Whenever I wish to head down memory lane, I just tune it up on my computer and relieve the moments.

Guess Who?

Self-Reproach

Late last night, right after new year's eve, I was in a state of deep remorse. I was fighting for my life to conquer one of my greatest weaknesses. Before instinct took over, I struggled with my reason. Fortunately, I managed to recover and prevent myself from further sin. To whom it may concern, please don't make me go over the edge, for I have changed, and I will not be going down that road ever again. Repent before its too late.