A Kungfu Kid Film Badly Named as Karate Kid (2010)

Long, long time ago, in the wonderful 80's, a film was made about a kid who got beaten up bad enough that a neighbourly old Japanese guy came to his rescue, taught him some moves and made him a champion. The storyline made the movie a hit, and created a cult following.

Zoomed into 2010, some Smith family taught it was time to push the boy in the family forward and made him the next famous Smith. So, Karate Kid was remade with 2010 storyline and allowed us to see the kid, who was expected to be beaten up, followed his mother to stay in China. Now, how this film avoided to be a racist film was an effort to be understood. Actually, I did not.

What I did see was the film director, producers and story-writers wrote how Chinese liked to kick the ass of a little black guy who moved to China. I wonder how many nice Chinese people would be shown in the film. So, conclusion - one. Jackie Chan's character. Sure, there was that little girl, with strange hair, and way too bigger size for the skinny little hero. But she was not qualified to be counted because she was supposed to be blinded by crush.

And that was another issue. With an older teenager played by Ralph Macchio in the original film, it made sense that a boy that age was experiencing teenage love and such. But in this 2010 remake, a 12 year old having a crush and doing that kissy-kissy thing?? It was like watching a Hallmark film badly made. There was no click in the film for a boy not-well-known to have this lovey-dovey moment. Like, seriously.. who cared? My friend who sat beside me commented like it was already almost 2 hours and hardly there was any fight, because we kept watching meaningless blossoming of two mismatched kids in I-don't-even-know-what-to-call.

So, we have a bunch of Chinese kids who beat up a black American kid. And a merciless Chinese martial art teacher who did not have sympathy for a shaken, beaten-up American kid.

So, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) had to teach Dre how to hang up his jacket, which sounded so ridiculous, compared to the original wax-on, wax-off move in the original film. And then took train to go somewhere to climb up staircase and to drink some kind of water, which guaranteed winning streak. I mean, the poor Chinese boys did not stand a chance now that Dre drank the water and they did not.

And I knew Dre would win. Come on. He got to train on the Great Wall of China, and those Chinese kids did not.

So, how did the movie end? It was about a black American kid going to China to kick the Chinese people's butts and won. I mean, kungfu, not karate - Chinese martial art, and not even one Chinese was able to uphold their pride and got beaten by an American who was there in China in less than one year. And that snake move? Puh-lease....

Hateful Friends. ;p

I'm probably a bad person. I mean, I just realized that I have been around, in a social environment where I meet more than 200 new people each year. Given that it has been more than 13 years, that should be 2600 people. And I had more than 1000 friends in Facebook. And yet.. and yet.. I realized these 'friends' don't have any potential to introduce to me. Or is it that they don't want to introduce anyone to me 'coz I'm not good enough?

If only I had someone, I would not have got myself into the mess of broken-heart I am in all because I was desperate and lonely to be tricked into a life of short-lived romance.

I think my friends hate me. That must be it. It's impossible that they don't have anyone to introduce to me. I mean, all 1000 plus of them?? In the past 13 years????

I deleted them off my Facebook list. I really loathed to see a long list of people who don't even know I'm sad.

Feng Freaking Shui

I read several articles here and there on the net.. seriously, who reads magazines now when Google filters for me what I want to read???... that pipes should not be leaking in the house. It drains out your wealth. Not that I have wealth. My godbrother complained to me before that his cousin did not have savings. I kept silent. If only he knows that I don't have any too. Shhhh.

Anyway, I have a leaking in the toilet. It had been leaking for months. Well, although I am not superstitious, perhaps this is true. I'm broke because things are leaking in my home. So, I spent money to fix it. Another RM120 down the drain. The fixer-man offered his service to service my air-con too. Another RM300 spent. And since then, birthday, birthday, birthday. Birthdays are not cheap. It is expensive to be a lecturer now - colleague's birthday. Student's birthdays. Sigh. And another ex-student's wedding is coming.

Any change in luck? Apparently no. It was suggested that I shut the door to the toilet. I did. And then, I smelled something bad a few hours later. Apparently I forgot I leave my dirty laundry by my washing machine, in front of the toilet. So, the odour could not escape. Just to be sure, I open the toilet door, and my small living space of my flat is breathable again. Phew.

So, any change of luck? Erm. No.

As for my bedroom, seriously, I need to rework on it. I am not feeling it since I have changed the arrangement of my bedroom. It felt empty and hollow.

My colleague told me of a tv series on haunted incidents. He said that the si fus did go to Thailand and looked at how oil was extracted from the corpse's chin. Applied on the eyebrows, it would help those in relationship.

Tempting.

Iron Man 2 : Needs Ironing

So, the hype was there for the return of Tony Stark and Iron Man in Iron Man 2. Despite anything, this is a movie to be watched just to see how it stands up against the good first Iron Man film. I, for one, had already learned my lesson well from Pirates of the Carribean 3, Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3 and Harry Potter 6 films to know that sequels to earlier great films did not translate to an equal or better sequel.

So, I got my ticket and watched. I tried very, very hard to bypass my growing dislike for Tony Spark's arrogance and fast-talking. But then again, I did not really see the need to follow the dialogs or arguments between Tony Spark and his pathetic Pott. I did not even see the need for the disagreement.

Man, you have to give it to this film to play a superhero in his suit drunk. You'll never catch Batman doing that. Not Superman in his red trunk. Nor Spider-man no matter how ridiculous (and fat) Tobey Mcquire was in the third installment. Tony in Iron Man suit drunk?? I wish I got my money back. He was not entertaining. He was irritating.

And there was hardly any worthy action-packed. What a waste of money.

I am not a big fan of Scarlett Johansson, but thank goodness for her role. Her less than 5 minutes fighting scene was worth the 2 hours boredom of the movie. Please say no to Iron Man 3.

I KCUF-ing Hate MSN and People Who Asked Me to 'Add Me in MSN'.

Seriously?

When ICQ was popular, my ex-colleague scolded me for not being online, although I had an account. So, faithfully, although I did not know why, I did. I saw her coming online, and then, she went offline. That was fast, I thought to myself. Maybe connection problem. After a few times, I figured that she was clicking herself to appear offline. When confronted, she laughed admitting guilt, and complaint that her ICQ icon - the eye, was staring back at her. It was freaking scary, she said.

Years later, I still have childish people who ask me to MSN with them. I was wondering.. what was the point? My experience taught me that no one would be honest about being online. They would choose to be offline, so that they would have the discretion to choose when and if they would want to chat with you. So, I would be helplessly be at the mercy of those who are hiding.

KCUF-ing elohssa.

What a waste of my time.

That's why I prefer to say that I don't do MSN. It's not a friendly place.

Me Hearts Gay Cows

Spent my weekend shopping for decor stuff to place in my newly-cleaned-up bedroom and decided to head to shops that offer cutesy items. So, of course Living Cabin of AEON was one of the few places for browsing. And I have to say that I was so proud of Living Cabin. Why? For openly supporting gay decorating items.

Are you surprised? I was too. Maybe it was not intentional. But cows with horns? That's bull. No, not bullshit. Just bull. Or bulls.

That got me and my colleagues into little argument in the office on whether cows have horns or not, or we were just basically looking at two male cows in a basket, suppose to look lovingly as a couple.

Googled it, and I was able to come across an article that quoted City of Austin Library - In some breeds both sexes have horns, such as the Danish Red, White Park, and the famous Texas Longhorn. But in other breeds neither gender has horns like Angus, Polled Hereford, and Red Poll. Lots of times, the animals have had their horns removed.

Still, I should not ignore the fact that these cows are with spots, which means that they are not Danish Red, White Park or Texas Longhorn. They are Friesian cows. With horns.

So, I ended adopting these two bulls. Aren't they cute?

Oh, by the way, they are salt 'n pepper shakers. How cute!

No one remembers the gay sheep. :(

Avatar Film and DVD

By now, you should know that Avatar is the top grossing film of all time.

In the international market (as in without America), it earned USD1.972b.

In America alone, it earned USD0.7452b

That means overall it earned USD2.7172b

That is almost half of what Zimbabwe earned in 2008 in a year.

And this just came in - 'Avatar' Sells 6.7 Million DVDs in 4 Days. This is some kind of record-breaking.

I popped my Avatar film in into my player. Around 10 minutes later, I switched it off. Seriously, this film is overrated. It is boring. I mean, to imagine the people in that beautiful planet never figured out how to ride that big red-orangie flying dragon on their own. James Cameron was trying to say that non-white people are stupid? And then, uniting the tribes. I was excited about this - but then again, there were only two other tribes - one which flies, and then other one which horses around. The funny thing was that the main tribe was already doing both flying and horsing.. so, what was so different from the other tribes?? The whole planet and there were only three tribes? Even Chinese has more clans than those Avians.

You already know what they say about people with big feet, right????

They have big shoes. ;p

Glee S01E15 - Like A Virgin

YES!!! to the best tv show on the air now, and to the best episode it has produced so far - Power of Madonna. I thought the whole 40+ minutes were cool..

And then, I realized that Like A Virgin was wrongly sang by Finn, Rachel, Emma and possibly Jessie. I mean, it was supposed to be sung by someone who had lost virginity and now, found a new lover who made them feel brand new. Like duh

Madonna Like A Virgin
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The Carrier Man Can.

Yesterday I am screwed. By the plumber. Who was also the air-con serviceman.

The same toilet which I paid RM100 for a repair was to be repaired again, since I had left enough dripping into the toilet bowl for months. It needs to stop. It only made sense. It's my home. I should have things moving on tip-top shape. So, there went RM110 for repair, which interestingly, a sum that I did not even try to negotiate for. Why??? Was I blur in the morning when he quoted me the price?

And then, he said that he does air-con service too, which is another way to say that his hired help does air-con service too. Well, since moving into this place at the end of 2000, I have never let my air-cons be serviced. Each air-con service is RM90. I am stating this down for record-keeping. If there is any other serviceman charging me cheaper, screw this handyman.

And to move my 2nd room's air con to my sauna-ish living room, it costed RM110. I'd better not be ripped off badly. And now I have a hole between my living room and my second room.

Damn, I'm gonna eat grass for days.

That said, I had a fun experience bargaining in Kek Loh Si (Pagoda) Temple recently. I was seeking for some decors to place in my room, and bumped into these Mandarin ducklings. From a RM18.50, by the time I was done walking away, I was offered by a friendly old man at the price of RM5. The same goes for my new windchime. He said RM7 but I told him I would take both the ducks and the windwhime for RM10. Take it or leave it. Okay.. so I did not exactly say that, but I did get my stuff for a tenner.

Mama Rings!

Well, Mother's Day is coming. Yeah.

What is your ringtone for your mom?

I used to use this song - Mama Mia. Well, me and perhaps 145,633,211 other handphone users in the world. All for the sake of "Mama Mia, here I go again.. My, my, how can I resist you?"

Oh look. How groovy. Bet your mom don't wear like this when she was in the 70's.

Of course, I believe many in the generation x and xx has the song Mama by Spice Girls in their handphone as the ringtone. I would have, if I happened not to think that the song was too cheesy.



Mama, I love you? Too cheesy.

I wonder if anyone listed Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen as the ringtone to identify calls from their mothers.. That would be creepy.

"Mama just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life has just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooh
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters..."

A check on the keyword 'Mother' through SongMeaning.net and I find several songs on the first page of search results that listed songs I am not aware of..

Knife, The - We Share Our Mother's Health
Pink Floyd - Mother
Dead Weather, The - Treat Me Like Your Mother
Danzig - Mother
Crystal Castles - Mother Knows Best
Coheed and Cambria - Mother Superior
Beatles, The - Your Mother Should Know
Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother
New Radicals - Mother We Just Can't Get Enough
Tori Amos - Mother
Paul Simon - Mother and Child Reunion
Queen - Mother Love
Decemberists, The - My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist
White Stripes, The - I Want To Be The Boy That Warms Your Mother's Heart

Your mom would love the second last song. LOL. I did a same search with the keyword 'Mama' and I got this -

My Chemical Romance - Mama
Kanye West - Hey Mama
Ozzy Osbourne - Mama I'm Coming Home
Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama
Genesis - Mama
Tupac Shakur - Dear Mama
Cursive - Mama, I'm Satan
Elliott Smith - Wouldn't Mama Be Proud?
2 Live Crew - Hoochie Mama
Bob Dylan - Mama, You Been On My Mind
Pixie Lott - Mama Do
Alexisonfire - Hey, It's Your Funeral Mama
Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Mama, Won't You Keep Those Castles in the Air and Burning
Morrissey - Mama, Lay Softly on the Riverbed

Nope. Keep away from the song from My Chemical Romance - it started with "We all are going to hell...". Not by Scissor Sisters too, unless you want your mama to know you are coming out. I think 2 Live Crew has a different person in mind when they sang about hot mama. And please avoid Alexisonfire.

Me? Now, I am going with this oldie - Mama Said by The Shirelles.

Yeah, I like it. There are often too many days like this. Thanks for calming me, mom.

Or if you want to be different, then go with the ringtone my ex-colleague had chosen -