cantonese banned in singapore!

Believe it or not, all non-Mandarin Chinese dialects are banned in cinemas and free TV in Singapore! All Hong Kong films are dubbed into Mandarin, and apparently, this is sometimes done very poorly resulting in lost nuances at best, lost ambient sound at worst! Some Singaporeans actually troop to JB to catch Hong Kong flicks!

first flights

My first training flight was supposed to be to Sydney on the 26th of May, but now it’s been changed to Tokyo on the 25th of May due to reasons I can’t disclose on any blog (not allowed to blog about work-related stuff). I’m scheduled to fly to Auckland on the 30th of May and Nagoya on the 15th of June.

Lot’s of interesting stuff has happened at work. How unfortunate that I can’t blog about them. I’ll tell you personally if I’m in the mood.

cybercafe nearby

Yay! An affordable cybercafe has finally opened near my apartment. Finally, convenient Internet access!

back for good friday

Yay! Good Friday is a holiday here in Singapore. That means a long weekend and a good time to go back to KL. Unfortunately, it’s peak period and most of the bus tickets have been sold out, so I’ll be taking a shuttle bus to Larkin and trying my luck from there instead. If all works out well, I should be back in KL by Friday morning….

Posting on this blog has been difficult as I don’t have convenient access to the Internet and each time I’m actually online, I don’t really know what to blog about, since so much has happened in between I don’t even know where to start. I think I’ll have to start jotting down my thoughts on a notepad and refer to it eacxh time I have the opportunity to blog….

blogger snafu

I’ve been trying to post from Singapore three of four times before this but something seems to be wrong with Blogger. Let’s see if it works this time….

bye bye kl

I should be leaving for the airport in less than 2 hours. I don’t know if I’ll have regular access to the Internet in Singapore, so this may be my last post for a while….

bijan mmm mmm

Had dinner in Bijan last night. The food was excellent, the price not so. Definitely the best Malay food I’ve had in a nice restaurant and the best Malay food in KL. The rusuk panggang at RM55++ was heavenly; it was almost like pork!

apocalypto

I enjoyed watching Apocalypto and would recommend it to anybody who’s not a Mesoamerican historian. I really liked the colourful depictions of the Mayan city.

Apocalypto official website and on IMDB.

another photo blogged

Another photo of mine has been blogged here and here.

censorship goood, communists baaad

Malaysia has banned another Amir Muhammad film because it “distorts historical fact”.

front page news

Guess what? I’m on the front page of The Star today, together with hundreds of others, no thanks in part to my soon-to-be employer. See if you can spot me….

the departed should be interred

I watched Martin Scorsese’s The Departed recently. A rather decent movie on its own, but it pales in comparison to the original Infernal Affairs, directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. Why, oh why would anyone remake an excellent movie that was released barely 5 years ago? It was not just inspired by Infernal Affairs, it is Infernal Affairs combined with some parts of Infernal Affairs III, set in Boston instead of Hong Kong, and with a slightly different ending. Very, very disappointing.

If it wasn’t based on a vastly superior original, I would have given The Departed a score of 6.5 out of 10; but since we already have the very well-made Infernal Affairs series, I would give it a 2 out of 10. It shouldn’t have been made in the first place…what a waste of precious resources! By comparison, I would rate Infernal Affairs 8.5 out of 10, Infernal Affairs II 8 out of 10, Infernal Affairs III 7 out of 10, and the entire series a solid 9 out of 10 (that's synergy there).

So, if you haven’t watched The Departed, I would highly recommend that you watch the entire Infernal Affairs series first if you have not already done so. If you have already watched The Departed, and have not watched the original Infernal Affairs series, please watch the original Hong Kong version as well (and let me know what you think).

The Departed official website and on IMDB
Infernal Affairs official website, US distributor website and on IMDB
Infernal Affairs II official website and on IMDB
Infernal Affairs III official website and on IMDB

anjing pegi, babi mali

My favourite SMS greeting of the season:

Anjing pegi, babi mali,
Sueh pegi, ong mali,
Untong-untong manyak kali,
Hali-hali suka hati,
Kena ekor, kena loteli,
Gongxi gongxi lu sama famili!