Double Dutch

My CDs have finally arrived. Light, upbeat, rhythmic indie pop. The lead singer has a nice clear and youthful voice. Actually that's the reason why I bought the CD.

Check out my earlier post to get the links where you can download some of their free music.

Rating: 4/5

Movie Review: Spider-Man 3

I managed to attend the gala premiere for Spider-Man 3 at GV Vivocity yesterday. That's courtesy of 'free' tickets from Buena Vista Columbia TriStar Films. The New Paper will be doing a week of Spider-Man 3 coverage for the movie, which opens on 1st May.

If you love Spider-Man 1 and 2, you'll love 3. Sam Riami has maintained the level of standard he left with Spider-Man 2.

At US$350 million, Spider-Man 3 is currently the most expensive movie ever made. Keep that in mind as you watch the movie, which is around 140 minutes. Every minute of Spider-Man cost a whopping US$2.5 million.

Cinematography of Spider-Man 3 is exceptionally. The composition is excellent, as usual. Although so much money is pumped in, you do feel at times, the computer graphics (CG) modeling could be better. But those moments are few and far between. You probably won't even notice when you're drawn into the action.

Character development for Flint Marko, aka Sandman, is fantastic. You'll feel sorry for Flint Marko immediately after the incident that turned him into Sandman. That's the brilliance of Sam Riami's direction. You'll also get to see Harry's transformation. I won't post the spoiler but Spider-Man 3 really tied up all the loose end to make this seem like the last movie in this franchise.

The final scene with Sandman, Goblin and Venom is pretty intense. That alone is probably worth the price of the ticket.

This is not just an action movie. If not for the story and most importantly, character development, it would just be another mindless thriller. I don't think it's better than Spider-Man 2, but it is definitely as good as it. Spider-Man 2 is great because the movie really brought the emotional turmoil Spider-Man had to go through. And in the end when Spidey triumphs in the end, the satisfaction can't really be described in words. All great movies create emotional attachment with its audience.

Rating: 4.5/5

Ratatouille

Disney/Pixar has began uploading Ratatouille promotion podcast onto iTunes. Check them out on iTunes.

Some books for sale

This book sale is only for Singaporeans.

All are in very good condition. I'm selling them to clear space.

If you mouse over the Amazon links, you can see the price on Amazon. Prices are lower than Amazon, and definitely lower than any bookshop (Kino or Borders on their discount days) in Singapore.

If you're interested, just contact me at 9245 7470. Collection at Bukit Batok/Bukit Gombak MRT (before 4pm) or Bradell MRT (at 5pm).

If you want to deal by mail, just add an additional of SGD 10 for registered postage. I'll refund you the remaining if the postage cost comes under SGD 10.

This post is last updated on 22 Dec 2008.

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Comic and art books
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Newspaper Comic Books
- Mutts vol. 1 to 10 without 2 and 3
- Dilbert vol. 17
- Excuse me while I wag
- Baby Blues vol 14
- Motherhood is not for wimps
- Sherman's Lagoon: Poodle: The other white meat.
Price: SGD $8 per book

Art of Naruto
Amazon link | My book review
Price: SGD $25

Art of Bleach
Amazon link | My book review
Price: SGD $25

Dragon Ball: The Complete Illustrations
Amazon link | My book review
Price: SGD $30

Art of IDW's Transformers (softcover)
Amazon link | My book review
Price: SGD $30

The Dark Knight: Featuring Production Art and Full Shooting Script
Amazon link | My book review
Price: SGD $25

Flight volume 1
Amazon link
Price: SGD $10 (All three Flight books go for $25)

Flight volume 2
Amazon link
I accidentally folded the cover so there's a fold mark at the bottom right.
Price: SGD $10 (All three Flight books go for $25)

Flight volume 3
Amazon link
Price: SGD $10 (All three Flight books go for $25)

Angel Heart
Comics from Chuangyi vol 1 to 3. Pages are a bit yellow.
Price: SGD $10 for all three books.

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DVDs
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The Rainmaker DVD (Code 1)
Amazon link
Price: SGD $6

Panic DVD (Code 3)
Amazon link
Price: SGD $6

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Computer books
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Weekend MBA for Dummies (UK Edition 2007)
Amazon link
Price: SGD $25

Ajax the Definite Guide (2008)
Amazon link
Price: SGD $25

Adwords for Dummies (2007)
Amazon link
The $25 coupon is not used yet.
Price: SGD $25

Pro MySQL (2005)
Amazon link
Price: SGD $25

CSS The Missing Manual 2006
Amazon link
Price: SGD $25

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies 2008
Amazon link
Price: SGD $25

Leech?

What would happen if there are no guns

This is what would happen if guns were banned. Nothing.

It's only eight years since the Columbine shootout. Apparently, nobody learned anything. I won't be the least surprised if such an incident happens again in the future.

2x Resurrection

After working on the PC for more than 2 weeks, I've began to truly appreciate how truly remarkable OS X is.

The Windows keyboard really isn't optimized for hardcore keyboard shortcuts. Maybe I'm wrong, but is it right to use the little finger to press the Ctrl button while doing a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+S? I do keyboard shortcuts a lot and I'm really beginning to feel my little finger cramp after few hours of non stop work.

And today, Illustrator crashed on me 2 times. Kudos to WinXP for not crashing with it. I must take my hat off, for I had complete faith that it would crash. Illustrator crashed on me and I had a moment of silence. You know those silence people get when they are involve in an accident, where time "slows" down? Luckily I like to keep copies of current working files.

It's not that Illustrator doesn't crash on the Mac. In fact, I get messed up preferences often. But hell no, it's not as often as how much Illustrator messes up in PC.

I think I might have to map my keyboard keys to the Mac keys.

Naming files on a bad work day

graphic140407
graphic140407b
graphic140407c
.
.
.
graphic140407f
graphic140407f_rev1
graphic140407f_rev2
graphic140407f_rev3

It happens.

25 Reasons You Might Be A Hardcore Graphic/Web Designer

25 Reasons You Might Be A Hardcore Graphic/Web Designer

I think I'm more of a frustrated PC user.

Roma disgraced

7-1?! Man U knocked 7 goals into Roma's net. My mind was racing with the thought of how much work there's going to be. After watching the goals, I must say that the defense's a bit ridiculous. Doni's mind doesn't seem to be on the pitch at all. Roma's a total disgrace to Italian football, at to think they play at home at Rome. I don't think Milan will fare too well in the semi final too.

Little Miss Sunshine

I've been wanting to watch this since its release primarily because of the rave reviews it received everywhere. As far as sleeper hits go, this is definitely one of the best. The script is simple but the interaction between the characters is amazing. It left me with an amused looking face throughout. You'll definitely feel the warmth at the end of the road trip. The ratings are well deserved.

The Eames Era

If you like indie pop, you'll love The Eames Era. They are currently my favourite band at the moment. Their music's upbeat, light and has great rhythm. Only got to know about them from one of their songs, Could Be Anything, which appeared in the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. After hearing their other songs from pandora.com, I'm pretty convinced that I should buy all their 3 albums.

You can download a few of their songs from their website, and some from here, and here.







And this is funny.

Maybe I should run like this

Darn. Every time I want to go for a jog, it rains. Maybe I should run like this.

Fonts look better on Macs

Below are screenshots I've taken from the new PCs and the "old" Macs. Can you guess which one of the screenshots are from Mac and which are from PCs?

Children of Men

This movie was released around the end of last year and I only gotten to rent it now. The director tells a powerful story through long single takes. One of the long take scenes of the car journey reminds me of the car escape scene from Spielberg's The War of the Worlds. Both are shot to perfection and gives you a sense of urgency and real time. It's amazing how it is put together considering what would happen if there's going to be a retake. Brilliant choreography.

High -pitch Perfect

I went to 優客李林 concert yesterday. They were the popular Chinese group in the 90s until they disband. 15 years later, they come together again to put together this concert. I still remember the good old songs for I have one of the compilation CDs.


Lin Zhi Xuan's the lead singer and he was pitch perfect throughout the concert. And might I add, high-pitch perfect. The high notes at which he goes to really amazes anyone.


This is Li Ji, the guy who wrote most of the songs for 優客李林. The lyrics are really good. One of the difference between Chinese pop songs and English pop songs is the lyrics. Chinese pop songs have less 'rubbish' lyrics back then.


These are just handphones waved by fans. There were people who did brought light sticks, but not a lot. His fans are not really the light sticks kind of fans.