Minor Adjustments

28th July 2010, Wednesday

July seems to last forever.
Though it was hardly a whirlwind of a month, there had been some notable events and more importantly minor adjustments looming over the horizon.

First of all, the World Cup ended in a rather pleasant fashion for yours truly especially with the 2 finalists being both my supported teams.
I know Holland was doomed to be forever the bridesmaid but sure was hoping that the Oranje could do it.
Now it is over I just wanna put it behind me, even abstain from the very little transfer dealing trickling now. Hell even do away with the octopus from Germany

In the latter stage of Red Dead Redemption, and now suffering from the usual "laid off the game at the brink of completion syndrome".
It looks likely that "Lost Planet 2" might be the next game in the pipeline for me although there is a certain degree of curiosity looming for "Starcraft 2".
Sadly the good ol' (barely 2 years) PC is still not in the most stable of state.

What had been preoccupying my free time of late began with a galore of movies on the backlog and now in the midst of a "The Office" marathon which I never wanted to end.
As they said laughter is the best medicine and the antics of David Brent or Michael Scott with their respective motley crews definitely kept me in the pink of health of late.

It seems like La Tendo would be out of Kallang Leisure Park even before you can spell out the full name, so another adjustment I might need to make in the near future.
Pretty anticipating of the new store as well.

Lastly my webpage on my hobby of collecting figurines looked destined not to last 2010.
I had ran out of space with the 1GB space limitation and when the system wiped clean my index page, it was the last straw.
However I am thinking of starting a blog as a replacement and even managed to rope in a few others, so it should be a even more spectacular project.

Japanese word of the day: 調節 ~Chou-Setsu~(Adjustment) One definite adjustment I would love to make is a new traveling route to work without the madness of the crowd

South Park- The Unchartered Territories

7th September 2009, Monday

Spent another weekend confined at home.
While it was great way of damage control to the wallet, I really had nothing in view that would pry me away from the comfort of my room the entire weekend.
In truth, I was conserving myself for the hotel stay at Conrad this coming weekend with the buffet dinner with my buddies and their partners certainly the reason that got be through the days for the past fortnight.

So back to fixating myself to the LCD monitor, trying to work my brain cells to write in my most eloquent command of English for my prime passion of late, story-writing for my game of Football Manager.
It really works as a form of therapy, for what exactly it was left to be seen.

It also enabled me to go through the fast burgeoning playlist of my K Lite Media Player which always bring me all sorts of entertainment, be it from Hollywood, Japan or the more ecletic world cinema.

Of course I needed my weekly dosage of laughter and I decided to keep some true Frat Pack classics as last resot for rainy days, I turned to one which had been sitting around for a while, Trey Parker & Matt Stone s' "Team America: World Police".

Similar to South Park, the duo would satirise on the folly of the Big Brother of the World, the United States of America on how they always thought they did the right things but in the end brought about more distraught and created more chaos with their interventions.
The movie made with an entire marionette cast definitely was a breath of fresh air back in 2004 and even perhaps now when CG animation rules the scene.
It left no stone untouched in poking fun of some of the world's most notable personality, surprising no previous President of USA, the joke known as W.

It of course reminded me a lot of "Thunderbirds" which I had only caught one TV special of the British series when I was really young and was blown away by it (back in those days I was blown away by almost anything); however when you have the duo of Parker & Stone, the focus of the film would be more on the madcap jokes and insults.
It was low brow but I am loving it like the double layer McSpicy.

The show definitely was stolen by Kim Jong-Il (with no effort to parody the name as of all the characters based on real people like the actors in Film Actors Guild (F.A.G)).
Voiced by Trey Parker, there was a strong remnants of foul mouthed Eric Cartman from "South Park:" with the stereotypical aspect of Asian conversion of "l" to "r" though I thought that should purely be owed to the Japanese.
Kim was a badass with a hefty ambition with a emotional side..heehee
But the "North Korean medley" which he put up for the world leaders during the supposed "World Peace Summit" was the one that really pushed me off the cluff into controllable fit which my missus though I might had been possessed or something.

After the movie, i was yearning for more foul mouth low brow joke from the duo and led me to get myself acquainted to the entire series of "South Park" which i had been abstained for a while since everyone back in my college days were very much into it.
There was all 13 seasons (season 13 is on a sabbatical of late) to catch up but I wonder would I get tired of the vulgarities hurled by those kids in the fictitious red neck town in America and whether I might just felt unsympathetic over the deaths of Kenny McCormick.

Another surprisingly good show I caught was "Smiley Face", a stoned out indies movie which might made people who do not understand the marihuana culture of North America turned off as the lead portrayed by Anna Faris was in constant state of stoning, forcing her to just drifting around and at some part very unlikeable.

While she was backed by a great supporting cast of Danny Masterson (Steven of the 70's Show), John Krasinski (Jim of The Office), John Cho (Harold & Kumar) & Jane Lynch), it was definitely a break out show for Anna.
Then again she had always been typcasted as dimwit simpleton like her guest role as the woman that gave Monica and Chandler her baby in Friends, the mother in "Scary Movie 4" and in the "House Bunny".
But Anna is still very charming and like actresses like Amy Adams, Emma Stone, Elisha Cuthbert who I have been following of late, is very pleasing to the eyes.
Will look out for more movies from Anna for sure.

Japanese word of the day: 下品 (Vulgarities) One thing that truly turned my missus off...I can empathize with her though

Welcome back David, Seeya Around Jimmy

18th August 2009, Tuesday

Last evening, there was a major shake-up in Star World's weekdays scheduling.
Being an avid follower of the Asia premier English language channel on cable owned by STAR TV, I had always liken to get myself entertained especially with a good laugh from the myriad of comedies, realty TV programs and of late TV talk shows after a "hard" day of work.

Gone was the back to back episodes of "Friends" which had made like its 20th re-run on the network but it's popularity is still undiminished especially to a sucker like myself who can laugh at the same joke over and over again, same case for "Seinfeld".
In replacement, the programmers astutely replaced the 7.30pm slot with re-run of "Everybody Loves Raymond", the multi-Emmy winning sitcom about a poor chap Raymond Barone (played by Ray Ramano) caught in between his wife and his overly-disruptive family which basically stolen the show in many instances.
I had caught an episode here and there of the 9 season long series but surely it was a tasteful addition to the daily broadcast of sitcom re-runs in tune of "Seinfeld,"Friends" and at times "Two and A Half Men".

After weeks of intense advertising, the network also welcome "The Late Show with David Letterman" or at least the "Best of" episodes for 2009 before the normal syndicated show, aired one day after the telecast in the States.
Back in 1995 to around 1997, the previous incarnation of Mediacorp's "Central (no okto)" known as "Premiere 12" used to show the CBS late night talk show that could rival NBC's "The Tonight Show" on daily basis.

From 11pm to 12 am, my buddy TW and I would stay tuned to the telecast and that together with several sitcoms (like "Friends", "Seinfeld" etc), were our first foray into American style sense of humor which had been a intrinsic part of my everyday life now.
Not that I am pro-star-spangled banner or anything but I could relate more to the humour of the American and usually of the dry humor of the British more than our local type which lacks form and characteristically shallow.

Back in those days, Letterman like many of his late night contemporaries would tend to make fun of anything and everything happening and current affairs in the United States.
The politician namely the incumbents in the White House are always at the brunt of the ribbing..back in those days, Bill Clinton was known as "Big Bubba" and his Lewinsky-gate could not escape the constant hounding by Letterman and we simply dug that.

When TCS (Mediacorp's previous persona) ended their reign of "Late Show", an important part of our lives had been disrupted but by then I was in the army and had not much time to watch TV.

Over the next decade, David Letterman can only be seen on youtube but it kind of defeat the whole purpose being a daily night talk show.

When Star World decided to bring in ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" since 2008 (or was it late 2007), I was enchanted by the energy of late night talk show and Jimmy being a young upstart in the field as compared to Leno, Letterman or O'Brien got his writers to make jokes which incoporate a lot of actual scene editing which really satirized the actual event.
Since the show is based in Hollywood, the guests are usually directors, actors, comedians, musicians etc who plug their latest works which surely was up my alley as it gave me a glimpse of some films that might ultimately come to Singapore.

I would have hoped Star World to place "The Late Show" alongside "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" but it was simply wishful thinking as they felt the viewers in Asia are not prepared to watch 2 late night talk shows side by side, so Letterman literally bumped Kimmel of the late night slot.

I have grew an affection to Kimmel and his motley crew of relatives and security guards like Uncle Frank, Guillermo, Cleto and the Cletones, Cousiin Sal etc, now I just need to reacquaint myself with David Letterman again with his Top 10, Paul Schaffer, Rupert Jee, Biff Henderson etc.

Japanese word of the day:夜遅く (Late Night) You don't expect me to sleep so early do you?