Monday, December 20, 2010

jeep

public service announcement:

my friend zeineh the warrior princess is trying to win herself a jeep and needs everyone to "like" her photo, apparently she will throw a beach party and buy everyone booze if she wins, hooray!

you'll need to "like" the page jeep australia and then "like" the photo itself
check it

Thursday, December 16, 2010

educate




"In fact, 15-year-old Chinese students in Shanghai out-performed all students internationally in all three categories, including math, science, and reading. According to Time Magazine, this is the first time China participated in a PISA study, and the results are stunning because researchers did not expect the country to do as well as it did." - Ana Kasparian of Young Turks



I really don't think these studies mean too much. Definitley that Math, Science and Reading are the foundations of a good education. But the quality of education is not and should not be defined by these basic building blocks. As far as I can see, the building blocks are there, but no one knows how to put everything together in the right way.

So what if the 15 year old kids in your country can do advanced calculus? if they're not going to pursue a career or life that will utilise their education, then it is useless.

Kids in China are not given a choice of specializing in their secondary education and only recently were tertiary electives introduced.

I asked my parents a question, I know many people that excel in areas that my parents do not consider as part of a traditional education. Now some of these people chose to drop mathematics and sciences in favour of subjects like Visual Communications or Studio Arts, they excel and gain recognition and proceed to have a prosperous career doing something they love, should they be forced to do Mathematics and Sciences instead?

I think the problem with the Chinese education is a completely different problem from what we face here in the "Western World", its more so that people are being shoved into jobs that they never had a passion for and thus mediocrity breeds more mediocrity and new ideas are always one step behind, because that person who had a passion to be innovative and creative in a field they love was forced to do subjects they didn't like and is probably in a tertiary course they have no love for and is now stuck in a job they hate.

Now this doesn't just apply to professions that require artistic creativity, but a good example is indeed jobs that require artistic creativity. During my time working with designers in Shanghai, I have never seen such uninspired work coming from profession designers. The skills are technically all there, but there is no passion. This is mainly due to the fact that most of these designers did not get into design as part of their passion, but as a last resort for a career due to failing at something else they were forced to do.



To demonstrate the macro-effects:

When you think of America, you think of Apple, Ford, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google etc
Japan: Honda, Sony, Nintendo, Toshiba etc
Germany: Mercedez Benz, Volkswagen etc

these are some of the world's largest economies, China ranks above all except America...yet there are no brands (at least that we know of, Lenovo would be closest) that has become synonymous with industry defining innovation, possibly due to lack of creative marketing skills or possibly because that most people in the workforce are uninspired. If China's education system is not revamped, then China will be stuck with copying the rest of the world forever.


(however, I am also aware that the Japanese schooling system is also very strict and arbitary, I am not familiar with the details, but its interesting that their schooling system can produce so many talents and innovative companies...curious)

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

watchmen

i've been watching the watchmen movie again and also in light of recent issues regarding wikileaks has got me thinking.



freedom of speech and transparency is something we often take for granted in a country like Australia, but do we really have freedom of speech and how transparent are our systems really (thats a topic for another day)?

now many politicians in the USA have condemned Julian Assange, some going as far as calling for his execution.

our own prime minister, Julia Gillard has stated that Julian Assange and Wikileaks have conducted illegal activities (though remained silent when asked what laws Wikileaks have breached). Paypal and Mastercard have suspended Wikileaks account and donations towards the organisation.

show you how far our freedom of speech really goes. if wikileaks has been engaging in illegal behaviour then every single news source that has since reported its leaks are also engaging in illegal behaviour.

how can our own prime minister be so irresponsible, condemning a fellow australian who has yet to be convicted of any crime to be a criminal?

how is this any different from China or Iran (or any other country that does so) censoring the media to potray the government in a favourable light?

again...how free exactly is our freedom of speech?



classified information is of course kept secret for a reason, keeping the population in the dark in regards to certain topics and issues insures peace and stability.

so whats better? violence based on truth? or peace based on a lie?

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

arnuld



i should start by saying i am by no means a fan of 2pm like the hordes of asian girls out there, but i saw this a while ago and oh man did i crack up.
so this is a song called "i'll be back" and yes the reference to terminator is intentional...

this is probably the worst attempt at looking...post apocalyptic bad ass, instead they look like anorexic pandas shuffling to a song a few writers wrote whilst watching terminator drunk

oh man did the choreographers get lazy with that stupid running on the spot move and that thumbs up whilst slowly sinking into the molten steel move... oh dear lord

heres something thats actually worth your time:

Sunday, November 28, 2010

emi hinouchi

through my random wanderings through youtube, you discover many new and interesting things.

i love discovering new/old music that i haven't heard or wouldn't ever be put into contact with otherwise, example include:


apparently this has been a meme for a while but i've only discovered it, musical genius!!

but humour aside i discovered this japanese vocalist, whose name is in the name of this post.


i first heard her in this song with the teriyaki boyz and thought it was pretty chilled out and energetic at the same time, i thought she was cute but didn't look into it too much.
but recently, whilst going through my old favourite list, i found it again and decided to listen to it, and then decided to check out some of her other songs. i don't know if she writes her own songs but the girl knows how to sing


i decided to check out her solo stuff which reinforced my impressions of her vocal abilities.






now i know theres a lot of people who don't like to listen to music of a language they can't understand. it'd be great if i could understand what shes singing and would definitely increase my appreciation for the music, but good music transcends language and everyone should keep an open mind :)

i think i shall do more research into this young lady and acquire more of her music

Thursday, November 18, 2010

muzik

so i've been trying very hard to get my mind off stuff lately, in that process i stumbled upon this, check this out


i can only pick out 6-7 of these, some of them are pretty obvious, some of them aren't. how many can you name? (don't say lady gaga for all of them even though thats a perfectly good answer)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Thursday, November 4, 2010

nokia



Extreme disatisfaction and dissapointment does not even begin to describe my feelings towards Nokia.

My first phone, like many people my age and older, was a Nokia. I was very fond of Nokia phones, they were extremely user friendly and were very robust in design. I dropped my Nokia countless times and it continued to work with no problems.

Eventually came a day when I lost my Nokia 3200, heartbroken I was. My parents did not want to buy me another Nokia phone and decided to purchase me a Panasonic due to pricing, it was the crappiest phone I had owned to this date. I was so unhappy with my parent's decision, I really liked Nokia phones.

There soon came a period when the operating systems on other brands started catching up in usability, when eventually it was obvious that my panasonic was no longer useable, I obtained a Sony Ericson which I was quite content with. It looked nice, fitted nicely in my hand and more importantly the user interface was pretty reliable (like a Nokia I thought).

After 2 years, it was time to renew my contract and finally, Nokia has some great phones out with great reviews, pffft who needs an overpriced iPhone when my Nokia E71 looks and performs better (cheaper too).

Oh how I was wrong, don't get me wrong, I still think iPhones are overpriced luxury goods that are more pleasing to the eye than reliable, but Nokias? hoho.

Recently, my Nokia started freezing (I've had it for just over a year). The off button had become my best friend, the interface was so slow that I would often assume it had just frozen. Not only that, it has stopped displaying the names of the people who sms me and also just today, an error message saying I don't have enough memory to accept smses starting appearing even though I have a 16gb memory stick in use. Sometimes I would press the accept call button whilst a call was coming through just to have the phone freeze on me.

e71 is also meant to have a multilanguage dictionary which is hardly multilanguage at all. I downloaded dictionary languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean just to see that my phone could not display the characters. Ridiculous I thought, must be some sort of mistake? I contacted Nokia just to have them tell me that these languages will only work for their region that use East Asian language operating systems, which means they can display English as well as any language that uses the Latin Alphabet as well as their native languages, whilst we can't view them. I searched for language patches and hacks to no avail.

But what was puzzling was, this explanation was far from satisfactory, Nokia had no operations in Korea durring the development of the e71 as far as I know. But there is a downloadable Korean dictionary. According to them, the only place with phones that would be able to view Korean was Korea, but Nokia didn't have phones in Korea...what the hell is the point of having a downloadable dictionary when none of your phones can display the characters?

There is also no Timer on the e71, this basic function just simply does not exist on the phone.

Bottom line is, Nokia software (Symbian) is crap. It seems to degrade overtime and is far from reliable, especially for an e71 that is meant to be a business phone.

As a result, I have lost all loyalty towards Nokia and will be moving to HTC Android phones as soon as my contract expires, somehow I think Nokia's new open source project is too little too late. Its a shame, a company once known for its reliability and innovation has ended up like this.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

ka yoot ness

there are times when cuteness can overwhelm an otherwise logical grown male


i am still finding it hard to grasp that this is not a doll

Friday, October 29, 2010

accents



very interesting. though i do claim that english is my first language quite commonly to avoid confusion and also for the same reason cenk stated, i don't actually speak english as a first language.

english is the language i speak and write most fluently in, but i speak a dialect of Wu chinese at home (Shanghainese) and was the first language i learnt to speak in. (though english was the first language i learnt how to write in)

i think accents and fluency is also something to be set a part, i have met many individuals with a strong accent but with extreme fluency. my parents on the other hand, have a strong accent AND poor fluency, which means they speak in an ..."odd" grammar?( i'm not sure what the proper terminology is, but that'll have to do). the way they arrange words orally and in written form sounds strange, though my parents have lived in Australia for more than 10 years, their fluency hasn't increased as much as i would expect, possibly due to the nature of their employment (not having the chance to interact with locals)

I agree, discrimination does exist, but i do think that at least in Australia, you are less credible not because your accent/lack of fluency reflects your heritage but more so that it is a requirement to have fluency in that particular role.

I had a chat with an international student and she said that it was extremely difficult to find a job in Australia as an international student, she assumed it was because of discrimination.
I don't think thats true, I think that even if you have an accent, when you show fluency and articulation in your language skills (along with all the other requirements for the job) there is no reason not to hire you.

take eg. Telemarketers
i'm a pretty open minded guy, a part from when i was in high school and sent a telemarkter on a wild goose chase by giving them a false address, i've been quite nice to them. but i think i am definitley more inclined and a lot more likely to hang up on a caller from india, not because i hate indians, but because its just takes that much more effort to understand them.


so if you're an employer, its natural that you hire someone you can understand more efficiently.

If discrimination was the issue here, Australians of ethnicities other than white, would have just as hard of a time finding a job, but i don't think thats the case.

get your engrish skills on yo!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

pop culture

so watching the newest snsd video got me thinking (ironic).

When we say 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s styled theme party, what we really mean is USA themed party or maybe UK.

Why is that the case?

Might it have something to do with that most other countries were busy with revolutions, political turmoil etc?

Did people in the 60s have 30s themed parties? What did they dress like? I wonder how this will change in 50s years time, as Asian economies and influences rise, will we ever have an 2010s party based on how people dressed in China? Korea? Japan?

Sunday, October 24, 2010

here we go again



now, true love dictates that i love taeyeon no matter what (lol so sad). but i cant help but think this is slightly "wondergirlish".

btw if anyone has a cure for this disease of snsd, please help me thanks

Sunday, October 17, 2010

the one

i know this stuff is old but man, is it just me or is this stuff hilarious?




Saturday, October 2, 2010

student internationale

decades ago, international students, exchange students from China were always the best and brightest the country had to offer. Without your proven academic success, there was no way for you to be accepted into a foreign university.

Sure, academic results are not definitive indicators for your intelligence as a whole, but even so...how times have changed.

I have met many international students who are very bright, very cosmopolitan and very open to new ideas. Unfortunately, these students are a very small minority.

The motivation for many Chinese international students do not come from within themselves, but came as an ill concieved contingency plan for failing academically in their own countries.
The irony of it all is that if they fail academically in an enviroment where academic results is everything, where you are forced to study...how would you succeed with no one to control you?

Given the situation in Australia, we love these international students, they come here, make up a large portion of intakes for most universities, often pay more than twice the fees local student do.

Is it ethical to be benefiting like this?

Universities often lower their english language skill requirements to increase international intake, again, is this ethical when even students who achieve 7 on their IELTS test sometimes have trouble linguistic problems at school and at work.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

regent

so a few days ago, at my train station, a woman was crying as she waited for the train.
upon closer inspection, she was on the phone.

she didn't realise I was there, but she yelled into the phone to the person on the otherside,

"IS IT MY FAULT THAT I'M PREGNANT WITH YOUR BABY?"

amongst other revelations. she hung up and sat in her seat, sobbing loudly.

if someone sat down next to her and patted her on the back, it would have probably meant the world to her.

so why didn't I do it?

was I afraid that she would get the wrong idea? was it because I didn't want to seem creepy? was it because she looked like the crazy cat lady from the simpsons? was it because she smelt funny? was it because she was carrying a suspicious looking suitcase that was probably full of drugs?

all of the above? none of the above?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

purchases


Team Noble (Jorge, Kat, Carter, Emile and Jun)
Sculpt very detailed, i'm loving it, unforutunately you can't take them off the platform and they're not poseable, but otherwise still awesome


mum's 50th present

text reads "longevity" in chinese

i am now a long way into the negatives on my credit card account

Monday, August 30, 2010

Rolando Mendoza



If you didn't know, roughly a week or two ago, a disgruntled, highly decorated ex-cop in Manila decided to take a bus load of tourists as hostage. He had alleged that he had been wrongly discharged out of the force and wanted his job back.

It took 12 hours to kill this man, 12 hours and 8 dead tourists, some of who's deaths could possibly be attributed to the police rather than the Mendoza.

This story has angered on so many levels.

Not only was the assault poorly managed, anyone who's played a game of CS could have done a better job.

The first assault resulted in a retreat as Mendoza fired towards the police entering, police are expected to show courage and determination when faced with these situations, however after the first cop was wounded, instead of pushing forward to kill the hostage taker, they all retreated
(keeping in mind that this was inside a bus)

At this point, what was stopping the hostage taker killing some hostages?

The second assault which happened hours later, was even more poorly managed, a group of SWAT members assaulted the bus, first by smashing windows...and then...not much else. They did not have ladders to enter the bus after smashing the windows, nor did they have an effective plan to prevent Mendoza from killing any hostages. Footage reveal police throwing smoke grenades... into a bus full of hostages.

Again, there was nothing to stop Mendoza, who has nothing to lose at this point, killing everyone on the bus.

After revealing his position inside the bus by firing his M16, snipers were able to pick him out.

The reckless assault wasn't even required, when a sniper could have just shot this guy at any given moment in the 12 hours.

Mendoza was out in the open without his M16 raised many times during the day with negotiators, yet no attempt was made at either disarming him or killing him.



The pinoy government has defended the actions of the police at the scene, apparently the gun-man had not shown signs of wanting to kill the hostages (despite taking them all hostage with an M16).

The Chinese Central government as well as the Hong Kong SAR government has expressed their anger at the situation and has refused to host a delegation in Beijing and Hong Kong to "explain" the event, and has rejected the pinoy president's press conference explanation.


Now sure we can all say that this is the short comings of a corrupt and immature government, the people are just as fed up with this sort of incompetence.



I know you all want to be billionaires, but can you please not seek your 15 seconds of fame at a place where 8 innocent people were just murdered?

Sure a bunch of naive school girls do stupid things. I'm sure the government and the police department would condemn such behaviour, possibly even go to their school and give them a lecture...oh wait...




(theres even a picture of a policeman posing WITH a high school girl, but I can't seem to locate it.)

I hope everyone around the world can learn something from this incident ...apart from don't go to the philippines

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

i've been missin your devilicious?




did anyone know nikki webster is doing this rubbish these days? this is like a crappier version of kylie minogue x keisha

Saturday, August 21, 2010

grandmaster kia and the furious 5


i was eating my food before and i heard "the message" playing on my tv
the message about urban youth struggling through a unfair and racist society...playing in an ad about some white guy who forgot to buy his nappies?

"...from beat street to commercials for micky d's..."

Saturday, August 7, 2010

power catalyst



this is showing some promise, im glad kanye has finally gotten over his emo-ness and even more glad hes gotten over autotune.

according to wikipedia, his new album will include production work from RZA, Q-Tip, Pete Rock and Souljaboy...what? Souljaboy? oh dear...

i am slightly curious though to what souljaboy has to offer kanye in terms of music and how hes feeling about himself being placed along names like RZA, Q-tip and Pete Rock. Will be an interesting album

at the same time



i like this song a lot more than "what i've done" and "what i did/what i've done again" aka new divide. very different from anything thats been done by them before. rick rubin is co-producing with mike shinoda himself. this album should also be interesting

Saturday, July 24, 2010

i dream of corea

martin, cissy and I were somehow high school students in Korea, but cissy was of billionare status. whilst we were just chilling out on a beach in Korea, we realised that cissy had some stalker fanboys around who was in love with cissy and her friend whom was nameless but lets call her taeyeon (at this point martin wasnt in the dream)

we decided to move locations as cissy only likes to be bukkaked by people she knows. we get in the car and they approach us and asked cissy if they could come along, i was disapproved but, since they introduced themselves, cissy now officially knows them...so yea.

we are driving to another beach and more fanboys are chasing after what appears to be our carriage pulled by automatic robotic super horses. the two fanboys inside our carriage are naturally sitting next to cissy and i'm sitting next to taeyeon. the fanboys outside soon grab a hold of our carriage and are trying to climb in so i had to defend the carriage from being breached whilst cissy is flirting with the other fanboys, soon enough i succeed but the fanboys next to cissy are so happy and nervous that they vomit all over me, i get pissed off, and to cissy's dismay i throw the other two fanboys out of our carriage and make a turn back to our boarding school so i can go shower.

this is where it got all "asian high school drama".

so i am taking a shower to get all that vomit off me and martin comes in and tells me there seems to be a big group of people waiting outside for me.



a bunch of those dudes walk into the bathhouse and scout around and are speaking to everyone there, one walks up to martin and asks him in korean, if he was korean and if he wanted to beat me up, i chuckled and martin chuckles and says ok but continues showering, one of them looks at me and walks off.

so i walk outside and theres a whole bunch of guys sitting outside waiting for someone, most likely me but i ignore them and approach taeyeon to chat with her. as the conversation is going great, one of the fanboys i threw out of the carriage earlier interrupts my conversation and is like

"YA! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" (all dialogue is in korean too, i miraculously speak and understand korean in my dreams)
"chill buddy, i'm just speaking to my friend"
"why did you throw me out of the carriage? you are stupid!"
"you vommitted on me buddy"
"i will beat you like a drum with all my friends, you do not deserve taeyeon" he whispered to me



i gave turned around whilst they were all staring at me ready to fight, i walked up to taeyeon and kissed her. martin realising that this was a signal, punches about 10 guys in the head whilst i'm fighting the more agile ones in a fashion similar to this:






me being the guy in the black except there were about 20 of them and 2 of us and we actually win the fight

end of dream
(images courtesy of young and dangerous and temptation of the wolf (worst movie ever))

Thursday, July 22, 2010

who wants to be a billionare?

Travis "Travie" Mccoy (not so) new song is really starting to shit me. This song not only has no substance but flamboyantly preaches...nothing.

according to the video clip, travis mccoy gives someone a car, a new skateboard and some new spray paint, i dont think you need to be billionare to do any of those things for one, and two, travis is definitley rich enough to do all those things though i doubt he has.

i was sitting at melbourne central, just eating some food before work and theres a group of high school kids sitting next to me, this song comes on and as if the(their) national anthem had come on, they all started singing

"i wanna be a billionare sooooo frickin baad"

i don't think any single one of those kids will ever be on the cover of forbes magazine next to opera and the queen (as far as i know, i don't think they've been on the cover of forbes? could be wrong, not gonna pretend i read forbes regularly)

as far as materialism goes, i think this song is the epitome, but its covered up to make it seem like its got some sort of hipster substance (oxymoron?) when its full of ignorance typical of its target market.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

smoked

now I don't know if i should present this story as a serious issue or as just a humorous happening.

an acquaintance of mine from work, who shall be known as "pree" recently took up smoking, i'm not sure how old he is but if i had to guess i say hes about 21 or 22.

"it still hurts my throat a bit," he says "but i am getting used to it."
"so why exactly did you take it up if it hurts your throat?" i asked
"because i need a girlfriend man, all the smokers have girlfriends, girls think its cool"
"HAHA" i chuckled due to the humour of that statement
"what are you laughing about? its not a joke"
"HAHA" i continued to chuckle as i was still under the impression he was making another obviously ridiculous statement to further his initial humourr.
"its not funny"

At this stage, my mind considered the odds of this guy actually genuinely believing his statement in regards to cigarettes being the reason for female attraction to males.

"so explain your theory," i said in a very worried yet curious tone

his theory is as follows:
he has never had a girlfriend nor has he had much luck with girls relationship wise and sexually. now he attributes this situation to the lack of cigarette addiction on his part. he thinks that it is extremely attractive to the opposite sex when a male walks around with a cigarette in his hands. "it looks cool" as he likes to put it.
to justify this theory, he said surveyed 10 people he knew and discovered that all the ones who don't smoke have never had a girlfriend, and those who do are either in a relationship or are "successful with the ladies" as he likes to put it.
he proceeded to demonstrate this theory was real life examples in the room, he pointed to person A and person B who were both smokers.
"neither of them have a girlfriend..."
"yea but they are both successful with the ladies! they told me!"
"i see, they told you they were successful with the ladies did they?"
"no not exactly, but they tell me stories about their chicks all the time."
"so you think, the reason why they are successful is due to cigarettes...?"
"yes"

our conversation pretty much finished there, i saw him again the next day and someone looking to exploit him due to the tax hike on cigarettes asked him for a smoke, he kindly replied that he has not officially started yet, but he will start buying decks soon.

"let me know when you start buying decks yea?"
"for sure man, for sure," pree said with a confidence in his voice

i think he attracting more cheap guys who can't afford to smoke than he is girls.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Avatar

I've acquired avatar to view at my pleasure but you know, the more i watch this movie, the more i realise something crucial that was overlooked by many people.

there are some very obvious themes to this movie such as colonialism, racism etc. this movie has been praised for dealing with these themes.

however, i feel there are points that need to be critisized. one very outstanding point needs to be considered, an american made this movie. a very rich white american came up with this story and filmed it.

it seems funny to me that Jake Sully (a white male), mastered the arts of the Na'vi, that usually take a whole life time of training and conditioning within a few months. and it's ironic to me, that though there has been only 5 Toruk Makto's throughout the entire history of the Na'vi, Jake Scully was able to capture a Toruk with 3 months of training.

This suggests to me a few things:

The white male is far more superior than any other ethnicity or race.

The Na'vi are stupid and only 5 of them have ever thought about flying higher than a Toruk to capture it.

It is even more ironic that the Na'vi, a culture rich in history and traditions, needed a White Male to lead them to war. Yes, he was a US Marine Corporal, but apparently a US Marine Corporal is better than anyone native to that entire planet.

Jake was able to defeat Tsu'tey, apparently the finest warrior who has trained all his life in the arts of the Na'vi, in hand to hand combat with ease, didn't even need his knife.

Not only did he tiger knee Tsu'tey, he stole his girl too...



James Cameron, instead of debating an issue, subconsciouly reinforced all the negative imperalist stereotypes of Western Culture.













"the last samurai, starring tom cruise, get the hell outta here"

Thursday, April 15, 2010

fashion promotion

for those of you who are any interested, i am doing fashion promotion as a subject this year and i decided to start a blog to track my progress

here are my attempts at designing/marketing/being cool:

likeled.blogspot.com

i'll be updating it regularly and i'll probably make the blog more presentable
in the near future

Thursday, April 1, 2010

analogies

now i read these when i was in year 11 but i discovered them again last night...enjoy:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

the king of mimis

a friend of my (matt pastor) just released a new movie, its a short film about a japanese girl, check it out yo:

Thursday, March 25, 2010

dreams from beyond 2

so i just woke up from some...interesting dreams again.

part1.

so i was working at roymorgan research, except it was at an old secondary school that was converted into a call centre. i also had samuel l jackson as my supervisor. halfway through the shift, samuel l jackson says to me that he is mfckng hungry and he wants me to get him a mfckng whoop.
what is a whoop? i asked him, he was like a mfckng whoop, english mfckr do you speak it? after some pointless ramblings about how hes never heard of a country called what and threatening to shoot me, he explained that a whooper = whooper. he ordered hungry jacks before and ate the chips and drank the tasty beverage but left the burger under the seat because someone came in and he didnt want them to see.

i try to use the elevator but its not working and lucky for me theres a industrial elevator, i head down and i see two guys with assault rifles aiming at me, i was like wo what the hell, whats up. and they thought i was the one thats been causing some disruptions in the city today, i had no idea what they were talking about so i went to find the whoop.

funny enough, i found two burgers, one was a quad-mighty angus pretty much and the other was a quad-bacon whooper, i was hungry too, so i decided i was gonna eat some of the quad-bacon whooper and tell samuel l jackson that thats how i found it. just before i do that, a supervisor on the bottom floor (i cant remember who or what they looked like) screamed out NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. and warned me of the dangers about eating a whoop like that, i said i was hungry but i was only gonna take two bites and give it to samuel l jackson to finish it off. and he was like "oh samuel l jackson? why didnt you say so, carry on"
so i take two bites out of it and almost died, took the burger upstairs, samuel l jackson didnt even realise that there were two bites missing and then....something goes wrong (continue to part 2)












samuel l, the fact that i can understand what you are saying renders your query about my english speaking abilities obsolete.

part 2.

the aliens from district 9 attack. those commando guys earlier were refering to them when they almost shot me. now the rest of the dream was a bit of a blur, now someone i know gets stripped by the aliens, samuel l jackson is no where to be seen so i had to help her out. she just happened to be wearing extremely sexy lingerie underneath her work clothes and i was like yo, thats dope. so we're running for our lives and im fighting off prawns. one prawn latched onto her ...bottoms and ripped them off, so we had to like go into a small shack and ask for the kind villagers for some pants. thats as far as i can remember...









bloody prawns, get off my planet.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

stories from abroad

so i haven't really made a blogpost about the humourous and exciting stories that happened overseas when boon and danh came to visit in shanghai and then i subsequently escorted them to korea. Heres one story that i've been telling:


The Dump:

So my mate Chester tells me that hes got some friends at Richys on a friday night and I decided to take Boon and Danh to this balla club. At Richy's, there is no entry fee, the dance floor is like the size of my room so if you want in, you have to book a table. To book a table, you need to spend 2000 AUD on alcohol that night, and thats why it is baller.

Initially we couldn't really get in, because my mate's table was pretty damn full, so we decided to head somewhere else first and come back later when there is less people. (we also bumped into people that we knew....sorta from melbourne this night...weird)

We arrived at this rip off white person bar called Rendevous at Xintiandi, where cocktails were 85 Yuan each (i had the same cocktail somewhere else for 25 Yuan) and decided to just have one cocktail there and move on, Danh got very drunk and generous and shouted us 4 rounds of cocktails. As the night progressed, 2 ladies approached us speaking Chinese and said "hey you guys wanna play together?", i realised the status of these "ladies" fairly quickly and directed them towards boon and said he was our boss for tonight, they broke into english and asked him to by them a drink so they would "play with us" for the rest of the night, boon did not buy them a drink and thus they did not play with him.

After a generous amount of long island icetea, we proceeded back to Richys. This is when the trouble started. Boon and Danh were very drunk and getting drunker. When i checked up on Danh, i thought he was getting pretty into it, chatting to women and playing drinking games. Boon on the other hand, just kept saying that he lost his jacket and camera for about 20 minutes, womenless might i add.

It came to a time eventually when neither of them were in my sight anymore, eventually I became a little worried for their kidneys and decided to look for them. Danh was easy to find, he was in the toilet vomiting in the sink with 10 ignorant people behind him thinking he was just taking a long time to wash his hands. Boon was outside crying (no joke) and vomiting into the gardens at the same time, he did not have his DSLR. I searched for about 30-40 minutes for it in the club and eventually found it under a pile of clothes. There was music, more alcohol and plenty of women...I did not want to leave, Danh and Boon on the other hand were close to death, (Danh did not win a single round of drinking games with that Shanghainese girl).

In the cab ride home, Boon started crying about how no one appreciates him, Danh was trying to calm him down. When we arrived at the apartment, Boon was still crying about how no one appreciates him, I eventually pulled out a picture of Sunny and said "BOON! LOOK AT THIS FACE! DO YOU WANT HER TO BE SAD BECAUSE OF YOU? SHE WANTS YOU TO STOP CRYING AND GO TO SLEEP" and not suprisingly he did...

but wait a second...where is Danh? Perhaps he fell asleep in one of the two bedrooms? nope, i opened the toilet door and there he was: pants down, fresh from a number 2, passed out and feet soaked in his own vomit.

"Danh", i said "what are you doing? wipe your arse and go to bed!"
"I Can't..." he replied slowly "just leave me"
"Danh, you are sitting on a toilet, there is vomit on your foot, your faeces is in that bowl and probably on your arse, you can not stay here!"

I took some toilet paper and put it in his hand

"Close the door..." Danh mumbled

I closed the door and waited for about 5 minutes with no response. I opened the door again, he had passed out in his attempt to wipe his arse and dropped the toilet paper in his vomit. I grab the toilet paper, making sure i did not touch the corners soaked in stomache acid and put it back in his hand. (Now this exchange actually went on for a few cycles, but for progressions sake i'll move it along.)

I reiterated that he was in a lavatory and could not spend the rest of the night in there. Eventually i closed the door and i heard a flush, that was good, he came out and i realised he only had one sock on. Passed out immediately on the inflatable mattress. I walked into the toilet and discovered one of his socks inside the bowl, clogging the toilet, i removed the sock carefully, making sure i only made contact with the dry part and threw it in the bath tub and hosed it down. I mopped up the vomit and finally went to sleep, the next morning Chester told me how they clubbed more and went to Karaoke and all sorts of crazys...damn you Danh and Boon!

here is a video of Danh the next morning (sorry Danh, haha)

Monday, March 15, 2010

racist

so what is stating a fact and what is racism?

i am asian. fact

but lets say i said, asians all have black hair... is that a fact? or is that racism?
maybe there are asians with different hair colours? but its accepted as fact

now you could say that its only racist if its offensive or harmful

now if i said asians are all good at maths which probably isn't a fact. but is it racism? its not offensive...or harmful, its potentially untrue, just like hair colour.


anyway, we had a very elaborate discussion of race and the concept of asia during my "modern asia tute", quite interesting, but i think the funniest/worst thing i ever heard during the tute was when a rich white girl said (after much discussion of indian students and having concluded that many of the attacks probably were not racially motivated, they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time):

"i don't want to sound racist or anything, i'm not racist, but i think the indian students bring it on themselves"

i think she was just lucky there wasn't any people of indian decent in the class haha.

what is more scary? being a racist? or being racist and not realising?

Friday, March 12, 2010

kaist poster boy

pretty soon, every korean mum who wishes their kids to attend kaist will be wondering who that handsome slightly blurred guy in their kaist poster is.



damn you lucas, you know the only reason they used this photo is coz you're white! haha

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

my key?

I, unlike most Melbourne commuters was joyfully looking forward to the statewide adoption of the new myki system. It is very similar to what I have become accustomed to in China and Korea. Leave the card in a wallet/bag, scan when you get on, scan when you get off. No more cheap frail paper tickets. I was even more happy to hear that you can buy passes that exceed a monthly, which meant I did not have to buy a new ticket every month.

One of the first things I did when I got back from overseas was sign up for a free myki card. One of the first problems I realised was that my concession Myki will be useless by next year because I won't qualify for concession status, I thought maybe they might work out some system where they could send me a full-fare card for free, no problem.

The day came when I finally had to use my Myki, I realised that I had no cash in my wallet, but then I remembered I could charge the card on the internet, so far so good, very convenient. I logged on, charged 10 dollars and clicked ok and thats when the second problem came up "please allow 24 hours for top ups to go through"... that should have been shown before i pressed ok, I potentially just wasted 10 bucks, but I thought it probably would go through and it says 24 hours just in case. But as a plan B, I asked my mum for some change. And I was quite right to do so, when I scanned the card it had "0 balance".

All those negatives can be mitigated with experience and planning ahead, but just a few days ago, I heard somewhere that Myki can not be used on trams and buses. Now this got me boiled up, apparently I am expected to purchase another ticket if I want to ride a connecting bus or a tram, that is just bloody ridiculous. I go to uni in the city with buildings all over the cbd and now they tell me i can't use this on the tram...

The bottom line is, this system would have been great if they pulled it off correctly, frankly I regret having jumped on Myki so early but lucky for me I had only purchased a 31 day pass, i shall be returning to metcards until they can pull myki off correctly.

Just to give you a perspective of some other countries.

Shanghai Public Transport Card:
I think it averages 50 cents Australian a trip, one of the fastest growing networks in the world and definitely one of the most used. I've only ever caught one metro that was about 2 minutes late. Metros come every 2-3 minutes during peak time and 4 -5 minutes at other times. You can also use the transport card in taxis.

(just another day in people's square station (so many people and yet...rarely any delays))



Hong Kong Octopus Card:
Now i can't remember how much it cost average a trip, but it definitely was not alot. You can use them on all forms of public transports, including ferrys. Similar to Shanghai in terms of scanning on and off, but you can also use the card to make small purchases at corner stores and fast food outlets like Macdonalds, I'm also aware that you are able to use it to pay for parking in certain areas. I think 3-4 million people use the metro every day, the same company that runs this system, currently runs ours. (the metro system, not the ticketing)

(parking made easy)

Seoul T-Money Card:
Not only could you get them in different colors and patterns, you could also get them in different shapes and objects. My "card" was a phone dangler and pretty much just scanned my phone every time I used the metro. 50 AUD lasted me a good month, keeping in mind that I made multiple trips back and forth a day, as opposed to a 85 Zone1-2 monthly in Melbourne. Also one of the most used. You can also use it to buy things from participating convenience stores, vending machines inside the station usually accepts T-money and like the other cities you can use these in taxis too. And I also think theres a push to get it running nation wide as I noticed some taxis in daejeon also accepted T-money, but not the metros.

dangles

In these cities, a car was pretty much only needed when the metro stopped running after midnight, even then taxis were affordable and i could use my card in there too.


Myki...fail (so far)

my question is why did we spend billions of dollars developing this fail of a system, when we probably could have bought one of these very well developed and proven systems for alot less?
And how are hongkong (approx 7 million population), shanghai (approx 20 million) and seoul (approx 10 million) able to maintain such a good system and keep metros running every few minutes without delays, when melbourne which only has around 4 million population can't do it?

Saturday, February 27, 2010

philaharmonics

i vaguely heard something about this, but for all you who don't/didn't know, back in 2008 the New York Phillaharmonic orchestra did a show in Pyongyang that was broadcasted world wide. today i saw the documentary of their experience on sbs. Me, i have a huge interest in North Korea and would like to visit some day and have seen sooooooooo many documentaries on the country (recommend me one if you know any) and well the documentary about their performance was really inspiring. i hope you all have the time/gather the amount of effort to see it, here is a video of their encore performance of "arirang"



just beautiful given the context of performance

Sandara

i'm sorry but this picture has got to be the cutest thing i have ever seen. god damn



she broke her trophy and shes crying...god damn

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

employment

so i've had some friends who have graduated recently who are getting paid pretty good, now im 90% sure i want to work in Shanghai after i graduate, or maybe even Hong Kong and Seoul (unlikely because i can't speak korean...(yet))

looking forward to my last year of university, my electives are all pretty interesting:

fashion promotion
modern asia
mass media in asia
introduction to public relations
client relationship management


anyway...updated flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ji_ken/

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

소원을 말해...누구?

SNSD Copycats in China?!

A Chinese group very, maybe too similar to Korea’s proud Girls’ Generation is making headlines!

This Chinese group is called Idol Girls, and they are consisted of 9 girls. Okay, so the number of members can easily be the same, right? But that’s not it. According to a Chinese site, the Idol Girls are an average of 18 years old, and are supposedly talented not only as singers, but as actresses, models, MCs and more.

Meanwhile, cosplay cover groups other than the Idol Girls are making even the Girls’ Generation fans do a double take because of the amazing similarity.

So how similar is too similar? Look for yourself. A cover group is seen here posing in similar clothes to SNSD’s “Tell Me Your Wish” days!

SNSD copycats

Remember last August when a Chinese singer was called out for copying Girls’ Generation’s choreography? They were so similar that netizens started calling the dance not even a copy, but a parody. Regarding the group in general, Chinese netizens had commented, “If the Koreans saw, they would burst out laughing. I’m embarrassed.”

SNSD copycats

Girls’ Generation and the Korean netizens may feel bad, but don’t forget!
Imitation is the sincerest flattery after all.



-stolen from allkpop

Monday, February 1, 2010

the problem

so as many of anyone who reads this, i'm back home from my "year". i sit here quite satisfied with my rich experiences but at the same time hungry for more. it is a matter of interpretation and perspective how much i have grown in this year and how much i've learnt about the world around me and more importantly, myself. now no one wants to read a highly conceptual/abstract/impossible to actually understand blog about myself so heres about the world around me.

When I arrived in Shanghai, I preached tirelessly to my relatives and colleagues how great Seoul was and how much Shanghai could learn from Seoul. Both were huge cities with a huge population, one was classified as a developed, the other is still developing. In truth, both are still developing.

Something I noticed on the Seoul Metro is the number of elderly passengers, they seem to be everywhere. Seoul also has a pretty defined curteousy system, where of course you give up your seat for someone who looks over 50, usually female. Everyone does it, it is just a matter of fact. Of course that is a great thing but I found myself afraid to sit down as I probably have to get up for someone within a few minutes.

Now I preached how great that was in Shanghai and how rude it was of Shanghainese people that no one gave a crap about the elderly when they came on the train, especially if they looked like they were from the country side. Now I practiced what I preached in Shanghai and many times the elderly were unexpectly grateful. But eventually the spirit of the city seemed to hit me, when I got up for someone and they didn't see, instead a schoolgirl sat down. I thought to myself, if no one expects it and no one else does it, why should I do it? why should I be the one making sacrifices? ...and I stopped giving up my seat.

Another thing that was eating me was when I saw a limbless beggar on the metro system in Shanghai. People gave him change here and there and then when i reached into my pocket, i found it empty, i only had 100 yuan notes. I thought to myself, I was buying jugs of beer for 120 yuan each last night, jugs of beer that i don't need. 100 yuan is so much more to him, if i bought one jug less last night, i could have made this man so happy. But I didn't want to give him 100 yuan, it was too much, I could buy a drink to woo a girl at a bar...

we're all apart of the problem