For One More Day

I feel really soppy now.

I've heard this guy before. Mitch Albom has been praised from more than one quarter among the various ppl I've mixed with. Finding this book in my house when I popped home this summer, I decided to see what the fuss was about. Pretty dangerous, considering this is how I got interested in Harry Potter.

It was well worth it.

The premise is simple. A man on the verge of committing suicide after a wreck of a life, wakes up to see his mother. The only problem: his mother's been dead 20 years, marking the downward spiral of his life.

What would you say to someone if you could have them back all over again?

On hindsight, I suppose a lot of what was written could be called corny and a rehash of some movie or other. But the fact of the matter is, I liked what I read. Simple sentences, nothing complicated. Not pretentious, no cringe-worthy moments, you never get the sense Albom's trying too hard to get his point across. Plus a twist at the end.

A short book that left me feeling good at the end. Not good as in feel-good, but good knowing that authors like this still existed and books like this were still being written.

And I want to read his other books.

HarryPotter (the end of...)

The last Harry Potter in the series. This one had me all excited way before it appeared, to the extent of preordering it (!) and going up all the way to town to collect it the night it was released.

An overnight reading later, and I can say that I'm somewhat disappointed. Possibly being slightly harsh here. I mean, this is the fastest selling book of all time, plus bringing fame and fortune to 3 kids and a 40-something year old lady (hats off to Joanne).

Its different from the other books (and here's hoping you've read them) in that Harry Potter is now on the run. Yup, no Hogwarts, Quidditch, lessons or dodgy toilets to worry about. Instead, we are presented with a older Harry, a couple in the form of Ron and Hermione and a more- actively-evil Voldemort. Chase scenes, spell duels and flashbacks are the theme of this book.

Speaking of which, people DO die here. A lot. Which is somewhat fitting given the grim nature of the book. However many of the death scenes were somewhat perfunctory I felt. Plop, ooh he's dead. That kind of stuff. And a couple of people did die that I wasn't expecting, too.

If you're wondering whether reading the last book is enough, you'd be in trouble. References to the earlier books in the series abound, and the end-story is only going to make sense if you've read (and understood) book 6. Maybe its cos I'm slow, but I only really understood things after reading through the ending twice.

I expected a longer, more fleshed-out story to end the series. In the end, I got a different sort of tale. One that starts off with a bang, which dampens slightly in the middle, and picks up near the end. All the characters from previous books make an appearance, btw. And its good to see the what-happened-to-so-and-so chapter at the end.

Now all we have to do is to wait for the movies, which seem to be getting better and better.

I miss the black and white

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss playing. And this from a guy who loathed lessons and the sight of sheets of classical music from a young age. Not that I'm any good, in fact, I'm probably even more inept from a technical point of view. It's been a while since I've toyed around with scales, arpeggios, 7th and 9th chords and exercising my 4th and 5th fingers, which were always my weakest ones. It's been even longer since I've played any classical music. The latter years were filled somewhat with playing for church, which I also miss.

One of the things I've been semi passionate about

Over the last few years or so: Taking photographs.

I know, I know. It seems a slightly weird statement to make. In the light of today's society, possibly a slightly creepy one too. I mean, a slightly geeky looking guy wandering around with a camera surreptitiously taking the odd shot when no one else is noticing reeks somewhat of.....nevermind.

I guess I do this simply because I personally get a rush of emotions (wow..strong eh?) upon looking at snapshots taken in the past. Even now, looking back at family photos taken when I was in secondary school and when we went out as a family in those days, I still feel warm and tingly all over. The phrase 'brings back memories' really does mean something then.

aND i think its pretty cool to have a way of keeping in some form, a trackback of the times that have gone past. Tell me if I'm wrong, but don't people generally get a kick out of looking back and remembering all the goofy things that used to happen around them in the past?

See? And all perfectly innocent as well..

Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, now he's got an interesting story to tell. Born in 1892 in South Africa to an English family originally from Germany, he would grow up to write The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, the books behind the multiple award-winning movies of recent years.

The man behind the books, has a life mirroring his writings, I discovered recently on wikipedia. As a child, he was bitten by a spider, the effects of which would be written into his stories. And as a sick child, he was treated by a family doctor, who was later thought to have influenced his idea of Gandalf the Grey. And much of the life of Middle-Earth, the universe in which Lord of The Rings was set, was drawn from his interest in English history. Interestingly, this love was also shared by his close friend, C.S. Lewis, who at the time, was an atheist. Tolkien's devout Roman Catholic faith, it seems, was instrumental in the conversion of C.S. Lewis to Christianity, birthing one of the most prolific writers and thinkers of the Christian faith.

Tolkien even entered the war with the British Army, which provided a first-hand experience for his writings. The love theme between immortal elf and mortal man in his stories was also mirrored in his love for his wife, whom he waited 6 years to declare his love to, after advice from his Catholic priest.

The other stories he produced are not easily found for mainstream readership. Leaf by Niggle, and Farmer Giles of Ham are two of his more well-known works, the first an allegory to the ultimate pursuit of purpose in life (it reads better than it sounds!) and the second, a comic folktale parodying an ancient kingdom under attack from a ferocious dragon.

His first major novel, The Hobbit, was apparently written for his own children, but C.S. Lewis urged his to publish it. And as a sequel was requested, Tolkien began work on the Rings trilogy.


This was the first set of 'real' books that my father got me to read. I still remember the set of grey-bound volumes, dusty from having shared top shelves with the like of The Lost World, The Secret Garden and The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Reading it, I thought it was boring to begin with, having just graduated from the Enid Blyton masses. The fellowship's trek through the Mines of Moria was my favourite bit in those days. Even now, reading the scene where Gandalf reads aloud from the journal detailing the destruction of the dwarf colony by the orcs still sends shivers down my spine.

I would go back again and again to read those books over the next few years, each time rereading bits that previously I'd thought boring. In this way, the world of Middle-Earth took on new form and seemed to grow bigger with every rereading. Even now, I think the world Tolkien created has no comparison with any other fantasy world I've read about. From new languages to a complete history of the lands, complete with family trees and accounts of characters' forefathers, the Lord of The Rings was pure genius, even to a 16 year-old hoping to make it through secondary school unscathed.

I'm glad that the movie was such a hit. Sure, the characters were fleshed out slightly different to my imagining of them, but Peter Jackson and his cast really brought the book to life. However, my love for Tolkien's work is something else altogether, something I know will remain and will manifest itself everytime I go back to read it. Wow, that was deep.

***

I generally don't express strong feelings in my blogs, I've noticed, so this post surprised myself too.

The impossible has happened

We've been waiting for this a long time. By 'we' I mean the gaming community the world over who experienced the visceral combat, tasted the grittiness of post-nuclear survival, laughed at the in-game jokes, scratched our heads while deciding whether to free the slaves or walk away from a potentially dangerous battle with the mutants and grasped at Fallout Tactics as a stopgap measure to fill the void previously left empty.

After Fallout 1 and 2, many were left waiting for more. Now, the waiting has been justified.


I recall joining an online poll asking that a sequel to Fallout 2 be made. Left a comment saying that even if it was a flop, people would still buy it to try it out, so there was no way it would be a futile venture. Or things to that effect.

Now we not only have Fallout 3 to look forward to, but yesterday, another long-awaited sequel reared its head.


Starcraft was a fiendishly difficult game for me. I remember being so frustated upon reaching the final stages that I'd just type in the cheat codes to see how the ending was like. And now they've made a game that looks good, while retaining everything that made the original Starcraft brilliant; the cutscenes, the intricately balanced units which said funny things when clicked, the sci-fi setting and the reliance on resource management.


The first night I got the original Starcraft to run, the first few games, about how a futuristic human civilisation investigated, then struggled to fend off a mysterious alien threat kept me enthralled. Playing chess with a giant scorpion, or listening to a mole-rat's plans to take over the world kept me playing Fallout 2 late into the night during my pre-uni years.

Here's hoping both Fallout 3 and Starcraft 2 can recreate their magic.

Chicken on a can

It looks a bit strange...but I assure you its easy. Chicken on a can, aka beer-roasted chicken is a recipe I borrowed from my cousin's website. When I announced my decision to follow through with this dish, my housemates' main concern was that the beer can wouldn't fit. Thankfully the beer can fitted fine, as you can see. And with a marinade of cinnamon, pepper, chilli and some other stuff, the skin had a pretty interesting flavour. It's a good thing our oven was big enough.

Anyone who's interested in the recipe, feel free to check it out!

Falling Leaves

Strange to say, up till now, I have refrained from reading books which have anything to do with where I come from. Apart from the odd Malay novel that I was bound to read during my SPM years, and the Legend of The Monkey God which someone gave to me even earlier than that, I don't think I've ever read any books based on an Asian culture/upbringing, less still anything to do with Chinese culture.

I'm not really sure what made me pick this book up from my GP's waiting room. It's been in my room for 2 weeks and I only picked it up today as a break from reading about the kidney this afternoon.

Surprise, surprise, its pretty good. I read 2 chapters, then tried saving it for later. After doing some questions online, I started reading to the end, only stopping for dinner. And so I think its pretty darned great, not only for attracting and holding my attention to the end (when its basically a biography), but for making me want to tell others about it.

The title is Falling Leaves The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter. It starts off pretty unusually, with the family gathering to witness the execution of the author's late father's will. An execution which is in itself surprising. The reader is then transported back to the beginning, following the journey of Adeline Yen Mah, growing up in the lower half of a wealthy family in Shanghai prior to the First World War. Amidst anecdotes of family life, she gives a evocative picture of flourishing China before the inflation.

I like the fact that she didn't pull any punches, showing bluntly a picture of a pretty scary family background. When I thought about it, I guess many families in China had that sort of background as well, which does not diminish the story in the least. On the contrary, I felt I'd opened a window into which I gained a view of the background from which my grandparents were from. Being able to relate to a few of her experiences was pretty interesting as well, though I thank God wholeheartedly that my parents are not that old-school.

Beyond the looking back, its a story of persevering amidst adversity, a common theme in the movies and novels through the ages. We've all heard of how hard work and not giving up brings its own reward; seldom do we hear it being told through the aloofishness of a Chinese paternalistic society, or with the nuances of a culture steeped as much in filial love as it frowns upon dishonour and going against traditions.

Bottom line: there are a whole bunch of similar books out there I'm sure, but this is definitely one of those which will stay with me long after I pop it back to my GP.

Shopping

On eBay that is. My latest purchase was a mouse for GBP5(postage was 4.99). A really small one that was supposed to replace the optical one I had many happy memories of. I've played some of the best RPGs ever on it, spent ages surfing and writing for different events/articles/letters. This new one's got a lot to live up to.

Though I didn't know it would be that small. That's one thing with buying stuff from eBay. You don't always get an accurate description of it. I could probably fit about 3 of them side by side in my palm and have room for another across the bottom of my palm. The real selling point though, that sealed the deal for me, was the retractable cable. My multimedia station is getting pretty cluttered up, so any space saving device is always welcome.

How long it lasts though is another biggie. Having seen it and messed around with it for a bit, I'm going with a year at the most. Anything above that is a bonus. Hopefully the next one I buy will be with my paycheck when I graduate (!)

Some street where puppets and humans coexist

Just an odd bit of nostalgia here.Happened upon the wiki entry for Sesame Street and was drawn back to that period where the street between Mr. Hooper's store and Big Bird's nest was all that mattered.

Was surprised to see that the show got nominated for so many Emmys, but on hindsight, well deserved I think. The fact is that I've met so many people who can recall watching it, and each has their own memories triggered by the theme song, or a voiceover of one of the muppets.

Speaking of which, I went to YouTube and found a whole set of Sesame Street clips, many of which I'd never seen before, others which really brought me back years back. Some favourites are below.

Showing Big Bird dealing with Mr Hooper's death. Notable for featuring all the adults in Sesame Street together at once.

The classic opening theme song, followed by some of the major characters welcoming Spring in Sesame Street.

Ernie and his rubber ducky. Need I say more?

Ernie and Bert; my favourite combo back then. Still remember watching this sequence way back and feeling so sorry for Bert.

And another thing that made Sesame Street so popular; celebrity cameos.

See, now I've told you how to get to Sesame Street...hahahaha!

Scrubs

How gaya do we look? More here.

Maybe its because it's the first medical related series I've watched, maybe it's because Sarah Chalke is too quirky and neuroticly hot for words, or maybe its the lameness-laugh-out-loud moments that hit like bullets.. JD's ongoing monologue is so lame at times it even gets to me.

Anyway, for the past few weeks, exams notwithstanding, I've breezed through the 5 seasons of Scrubs like Jack watching 24 24 hours a day. Favourite episodes included the one in season 1 where all 3 of the main characters face death, the one in season 5 where Dr Cox faces his religious sister, and the repeat of the season 3 episode in season 5( I wonder if the deja-vu scenes were reused).

Don't get me wrong, Scrubs is not deep, in fact I thought it was pretty superficial..'dinnertime material' as Squeaks puts it. But it never fails to entertain, and me being the slightly-prone-to-develop-connections-with-main-characters-in-movies kinda guy (which is also why I hate horror films), Scrubs pulls me in every time, whether its about JD's current relationship, or about Dr. Kelso's putting on a brave face and making tough decisions at work.

In fact, it's been interesting enough that I've done some random internet searches on it, and came up with this website where a father wins a walk-on role for a Scrubs episode and brings his family along for the ride. Check it out here. Besides being a great intro to how Scrubs is backstage, its also interesting reading.

The good thing is, since season 5 is as far as they've got, I can finally study my heart out now. Whipple's triad, here I come!

Ultimate Frisbee

The game that takes up my saturday afternoons... I didn't know frisbee was anything more than some flat disc people throw around at the beach/when they're bored/at picnics/for dogs and suchlike animals to catch.

The fact is that Ultimate Frisbee is a pretty wild game, played by 2 teams who need to pass the frisbee towards their opposing goals. Goals/points are scored when a player passes the frisbee to his teammate standing in the opposing goal. Its also kinda like netball where players can't move after catching the frisbee. Read about it here.

Imagine playing this on a wide open field, with gusts of wind blowing the frisbee every which way and adding to the strategy of the game. Do you make a long throw, or wait for the wind to blow in your favour and throw short passes in the meantime? Think lateral; throwing into an empty space is viable if the right height is reached - a well-thrown frisbee has plenty of hang time in the air. The downside? It allows more time for opposing players to gather under the falling frisbee to block the catch.

Actually, saturday is sports day over here in liverpool. Tmrw games begin at 1030 when someone has booked the hall for badminton all the way to 1300 when basketball starts. If people can stand the 2 hours, frisbee begins at 1500 all the way to 1700 depending on the weather and the people. Here's hoping I can finish enough of my SSM to avoid feeling guilty spending most of sat outdoors.

Most-read author since arriving in the UK

The first time I heard this guy's name was when I bought 3 books for 5 pounds from Works. It was on the spine of some war fiction which looked vaguely interesting...It claimed to be based on real life facts, which is always more interesting than reading things which you know to be untrue. And I have to admit it I guess, I'm a sucker for fiction. Call it escapism, call it a waste of time, call it unrealistic, but I'd still choose a fiction over a non-fiction anyday..except a certain select few authors..

Anyway, have now read 3 books by this chap and am in my fourth..I find his books are good for a light read before bed, not so engaging that you can't put it down when you reach the eyelid-drooping stage, but interesting enough that you can lose yourself in it within a minute of starting to read. Yup I guess its the simplicity of his writing, which is able to convey much more than apparent at first. Also good to read with slices of toast and HulaHoops after coming back from gpclinic!

His stories so far have been based around wars, normally WW1, but the one I'm going through now is based on a real life situation in Tehran. The storylines sound crazy enough to draw me in, and I generally find they live up to their expectations. Jackdaws tells the story of a group of civilian women inserted into France in WW2 to blow up a communications station to aid the Normandy invasion. Hornet Flight is about how the Allies managed to figure out how the Axis were so successful at shooting down their bombers during air raids. Triple attempts to explain away the mysterious disappearance of a shipful of uranium and possible links to Israel. While the book I'm reading now, On Wings Of Eagles, tells of a daring prison break by a group of executives to rescue two of their comrades when the US is powerless to help.

Haha I guess I'm just a sucker for this sort of thing:-) BTW, before I forget, the guy's name is Ken Follett.

I'd still much rather eat

This was supposed to be about how much I like cooking and how I enjoy preparing sumptous dishes for the gratification of the many-headed with consumate skill and efficiency. However, my conscience tells me, and I agree, that I still can't cook to save my life.

It's true that I've graduated from the deep fryer stage. The stage where we fried chicken, fried fish, fried potatoes and meatballs and sausages and bread and hash browns and everything under the sun that came from the FROZEN section of a supermarket. It's also true that I've learnt since that vegetables need chopping, dicing, slicing, and every other knife skill known to man, and that onions don't come in cans, and that garlic isn't the best thing to handle before going out. Also that ingredients need buying, the oven needs heating up and the chicken needs dissecting.

But at the end, I'm still substandard. Undercooked vegetables, disastrous trifle, mediocre curry and sticky rice are the hallmarks of my culinary skills. I have a problem with cracking eggs...the eggshells still get stuck sometimes and I have to fish them out with my fingers. Chopping chicken is a recently refined technique that I find very tiring and irritatingly necessary, considering the amount of chicken we go through in a week. In short, if someone is catering for a dinner party, J Ling is not where he'd go.

But still, I retain some small pride in being given the responsibility of feeding 6 ppl dinner once a week, and of being able to whip up lunch for myself without much trouble. And though my attempts at desserts usually go awry, my housemates are generally truthful, and it makes a good laughing matter at the end of the day. So at the end of it, I guess cooking is not something I'd turn to if I had a spare hour or so(unless I'm hungry, which typically seems to occur about 12am daily), but I guess it's worth noting I'd probably still be uneducated about the finer points of stir frying had I not come to the UK. So my sad attempts are glorified in this space, if not to entertain you, then at least to serve as a warning to anyone that dares cross the threshold of I3.

Sorry am feeling really sleepy now. For some reason.

First CRPG

Its pretty old, and looks pretty bad as you can see from thE screenshots. This is definitely NO Elder Scrolls Morrowind, or FEAR. But, it is still the first CRPG(computer roleplaying game) I ever played.

A heady mix of realtime and turn based, its set in the far future when everyone has bombed each other into non -existence, save for some farsighted ppl who sought refuge in underground Vaults. I get to play someone from these holes in the ground, a so-called Vault Dweller who is part of a village who has survived the holocaust and is now living in a post-nuclear wasteland. I get the dubious honor of going to find a cure for a disease thats infecting my village, a cure weirdly named the GECK(Garden of Eden Creation Kit). So off I go, making new friends along the way and killing others.

This game really stuck with me through the years somehow(I can even remember the rather crappy story). Mayb its the wide range of ppl that I get to meet, the array of weapons I get to upgrade myself with, the points I can use to increase my talking skills, my repair skills etc, the situations I find myself in(betting on a mutated pig contest, assassinating a mafia boss by stealing his oxygen mask, investigating weird noises in a deserted canyon etc). You even get your own car to drive, as you can see here...

Or mayb its just the fact that I do get to choose. And that I find myself in an alternate universe where I get to let loose and explore and kill at will. Sounds evil? Well, in my years of gaming, I think it's these alternate lifestyles that drive people to game addiction, and for me, it was a new experience I'd not felt till the first time I heard the lonely desolate soundtrack of this game coming out of the speakers of my dad's Pentium 2.

It took me a long while to run through every city and meet everyone in the game. This was during my Form 6 days, and my parents started to wonder if their son was ever going to make it into university at the rate he was going. So it was with some determination that I settled down one night at the computer after coming back from tuition that day. I was close to the end...I sensed it. It took me all night, but at last, in the early hours of the morning, I FINALLY found the GECK! Triumphant, I bore it back to the village.....only to find no one there. I ran around the whole village, frantic, until I discovered the old shaman who lay dying. He told me the villagers were abducted and that I had to go rescue them.

Weary, I lay back in the chair and rubbed my eyes(the real me), and heard the cock crowing. I'd been playing for around 12 hours straight, and it was already the next morning...and I still had about half of the game to go!!! I'd never done anything else for 12 hours straight before, up till a few weeks ago.

Just a moment there that I've not had with any other game since. Also, Fallout 2 has its quirks and easter eggs....there's numerous references to present world pop culture(mike tyson vs evanderholyfeld, knights of the round table, modern birth control(see below), plus the NPCs(non player characters) spew lines from star wars, indiana jones and countless other movies.

Its really great for a laugh. And really bad for the way it got me hooked onto computer games. Am still waiting for Fallout 3, which doesnt look like it's coming out anytime soon. Actually thats pretty good news. Mayb then I'll have a chance of finishing med school without dropping out!

First One

The first is always the wierdest for me, somehow I feel like there's this image of something I want to present and that it's very important for me to get that image across. So this time, I'm not going to think so much about it, and just talk about:

The first Christian album I've ever heard(and still one of my favourites).







Let Your Glory Fall - Don Moen












I'd been going to church for some time before this...playing in the music team and hearing odd bits of music here and there(mainly Vineyard and Hosanna). This was just before Youth Alive came out with the album that changed contemporary Christian rock(in my opinion and in Sitiawan Wesley at least) - Jump To The Jam. Hillsongs also let loose with All Things Are Possible a bit later(never heard the earlier ones yet).

But amidst all these new and wildly radical sounds(to me at least), Let Your Glory Fall stood out. Firstly, cos I loved the instrumentation - the first fast track - We've Come To Bless Your Name, is a perfect example of how a big band worship still can move people around as much as an all out rock ensemble! And for some weird reason, some time after that, we really used songs from this album in MYF(the youth fellowship back in sitiawan)...for dances and sketch presentations. At least 2 songs were MYF Camp theme songs, sung and resung to punctuate the high point of worship in various music sessions (mention Hallelujah to The Lamb and Deeper In Love to any ex-MYFer and they'll know what you're talking about).

Music that was good to listen to while studying on my dad's old cassette player, music that would cause me to stop and ponder on the lyrics while the song played, that's what makes a good album, IMHO. Planetshakers, Hillsongs, Michael W Smith were still to come, but for that period of my life, and as something that pushed me to play more music and listen to more cassettes, Let Your Glory Fall filled the spot in my cassette drawer as the 'Most Played' one.

First post

I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be even considering starting another blog. How things change. This one, as opposed to NewCreation, is where I'll bore you with details of what I find interesting and appealing. Basically where my hobbies will be dissected, what books/movies have caught my attention, the music that drives me nuts, and mayb, a little note about the place I'm in at the time. It's also noticeable that the same old brown scribe template is being used...well, that's hopefully gonna change. Soon.

And if I ever feel disposed to write about what I study and feel passionate about(not necessarily the same thing), I just might pop a post up too.

Change is good. Especially if it's for the better. Thanks for stopping by.

Jon