~ilikeorange

So I come back here...after another one of my occasional absences, and everything has CHANGED ! AHHHH! lol...Okay...I like it actually.

Anyway, you guys HAVE TO GO WATCH RED CLIFF! Whether it's the 2 part asian version or the spliced western one...okay fine...you don't have to and it's not that great, but it's a pretty good movie. It's one of the better ones I've seen recently. It's definitely different from your usual chinese stuff, I personally think it has a nicer edge, a nicer feel. The only problems I saw were Lin-Chi Ling, or whatever her name is, the talking vase who plays Xiao Qiao, that horrible tiger footage and the lack of Da Qiao... There were TWO Qiao Sisters...and Cao Cao wanted BOTH... Even though that was not exactly true either, because it was a RUMOUR spread by Zhuge Liang...Oh well...The battle scenes were fantastic and you really get the sense of epic-ness of the battles...I can't wait for part 2.

On a more or less related note, I got Dynasty Warriors 6...which is pretty fun to play, a lot like the previous installments but fun nonetheless...they changed the costumes though, some for the better some not... weapons were changed too... but worse of all...THEY TOOK OUT DA QIAO... Oh well...

Yes, I was supposed to tell you about all the other stuff I've been doing...because I'm narcissistic like that... but there's just too much. Army has been busy - see here reason for absence - Anyway, I shall summarise the rest for you.

Books
So, Edgar Allen Poe's poetry gets so much better towards the end, because his first few were really quite bad... He's kinda soppy though.

The Purgatorio was slightly harder to read than Inferno but still interesting nonetheless

Mark Haddon - Hilariously funny and quite a brilliant book. I like the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime because the main character just pops up as real. Literally a real autistic kid and the way he views the world around him. Irritating, yes. Endearing, yes.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most amazing experiences. It's so fun and absolutely random!

Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk did a wonderful job and churned out a wonderful book, full of information, full of life. Great concept and story too... who'd a thought... A book about PORN and FAMILY together.

The Secret Garden has always been one of my favourite stories and I have to say it still is.

Movies, Prince Caspian was very underwhelming I must say...not the epic I thought it might have been

I caught Steel Magnolias and United 93 on TV...I guess they are pretty good for a watch...different genres but both are so real and down to earth. Steel Magnolias is such a nice story

TV, I watched all of Pushing Daisies and I have to say I'm sorely disappointed. Great Concept, but really boring... so utterly disappointed..

Ok got that off my chest....

I realise I need to write...lol...although I never can get tat into my head...oh well, till next time!

Clubs :

In the literary community, criticising Oscar Wilde's work would be tantamount to calling oneself stupid, ignorant, uncultured, useless and downright rude. Unfortunately, I find it imperative to subject myself to such a humiliation because after finishing The Picture of Dorian Gray, I am, very sadly, fairly underwhelmed.

Wilde has been lauded for his wonderful theories on life, how to live it and everything about it, and I was thoroughly taken by the whimsical musings of Lord Henry, a character Wilde based on his own person. His amazing conversational work, expected because he is after all, a playwright, was quite apparent and the conversations tended to suck one into a whole new world. His language was impeccable, each metaphor and image crafted like a short play in their own right. All these put together would have already made a novel so absolutely brilliant and yet, I found myself so highly disappointed when I had finished Wilde's only full length novel.

Perhaps it was because I came into it with such high expectations, or perhaps, if I may so boldly suggest, it was because of it that Wilde stuck mostly to short stories and plays, but I found the plot tedious. It didn't move with the grace that I had thought it would, nor did it find the depth of it's own tale. The plot seemed shallow, a mere medium for Wilde to express his opinions and views in a very dangerous novel. Explanations given for the actualisation of certain events were unsatisfactory: A mere wish to cause a painting to hold such power? A sudden rush of anger that leads to Dorian's greatest sin? It seemed merely to skim the surface of the issues brought forth by the plot, preferring to delve into the philosophies. Of course, one could read far into the minds of the characters and possibly derive the true causes for these events, and it doesn't take a lot of thought to do so, but still, the inferences are not definite.

Dorian as a character himself didn't really impress and Lord Henry stole the spotlight whenever he appeared in a chapter, and even when he was not, because Dorian was so captivated by him.

The thing that irked me most however, was that Wilde sometimes fell into lists. He listed the sins of Dorian Gray in a sprawling chapter, a list of pleasures that Dorian indulged in, separated nicely into categories. How it bored me; no matter how colourful a list is, it is but a list. Even worse than that, he fell into the trap of listing people present at certain events, running a small commentary about the people in a room before actually entering the life within it. Fitzgerald did it with much more grace in The Great Gatsby, preferring to introduce as Nick Carraway met them in turn.

Overall, while masterfully written, I really did feel underwhelmed by it, just as I did with Animal Farm, though, to a much lesser extent.

Enough of my admission of being an ignoramus, recently, I have been caught up in Persona 3 FES, a perfectly brilliant game that combines the elements of a typical RPG and a dating Sim. Fun, with a fairly intriguing story as well.

Also, wait up for a piece of prose that I'm currently working on, it's kind of finished but I want to look through it again...seems rather short for my tastes. Also, I would probably be working on Please Stay again... it seems to lack a certain something that I am trying to put my finger on.

So, tata for now



Clubs :

So, I've finished reading The Inferno and Animal Farm by George Orwell and here are my thoughts.

The Inferno:
Surprisingly, it was very easy to read, it flowed tremendously well and had a real nice rhythm. It wasn't contrived at all and the images were very nice, so props to Jon Ciardi for his excellent translation. On a side note, I went to the bookstore today (20% off!) but couldn't find his translation of Purgatory and Paradise . A journey through hell, with a political motive. A social commentary with an attitude. It went far beyond the reaches of a normal commentary and stepped into religion and faith and a full belief system, further than that, into morality, then there was the great imagination that brought Hell away from pure fire and brimstone into a colourful world of divine retribution. To think it was fully thought out and structured so that every single word served a purpose. The one thing I didn't really get was the inclusion of mythology from other religions. Sure, Virgil was the guide and he wrote of these myths, but to merge them into the faith of Christianity seems awkward. I mean talk of Jesus and Heaven, but bring in Jove? But I liked it, and I can't wait for Purgatory and Paradise.
Overall Rating: Brilliant!

Animal Farm:
My first impressions weren't that good. It was simplistic, like a child's story book would be simplistic. At first, it didn't seem to have the depth that I usually look forward to in books, still, I was willing to forgive and go on to taste the political commentary. Thank goodness I did. As the story progressed, the themes came out bold and with their flags up in the sky. By the end, the entire picture with the references to Communism at the time were clear and apparent. The characters took on different roles: Moses the crow who spoke incessantly of the Sugar candy Mountain was the voice of religion, Napolean, obviously, the tyrant, Squealer was propaganda. Everything was a well painted picture. Yet now as I look back, i realise it was slightly contrived, beautifully crafted, but the idea was forced throughout the novel, leaving it unable to stand as nothing else but a political commentary. There was no beautiful imagery to harp on, nor were there great metaphors or devices that were not there for the sole purpose of driving the book's own purpose. Definitely there were amazing lines: All Animals are equal, Some animals are more equal than others, but all fell under the book's overarching goal. Overall, it was a well written political commentary, and nothing else.
Overall Rating: Good

Out of the realms of Literature and into what we do during our everyday lives. I finished watching the second season of Brothers and Sisters and to say the truth, I am fairly disappointed. The first season was brilliant, it tugged on emotions and rent the characters into different levels of struggle. It was heart-wrenching and amazingly witty and funny. It all changed. The season started well enough, with Justin coming back from was and all, and his thread stayed fairly okay until they threw him back into his drug dependency plotline which drew cries of 'been there done that'. The other story arcs fell to pieces in haphazard showers that failed to hit any mark. In fact, I felt cheated: We followed Kitty and Robert in their presidential campaign for so long only to have it stop and reducing them to 'I want a baby' mode. We went through a season and a half of trying to accept Rebecca as an addition to the Walker family only to find out she isn't the dead Walker Patriarch's daughter with his mistress. Worse than that, they threw her and Justin together as a couple. Talk about incestuous relationships. Sure, they aren't brother and sister anymore, but they have been for a season and a half! The business drama was contrived, as was Nora's romance. In fact, the only story arc that was carried through pretty decently was Kevin's blossoming relationship with Scotty. This was of course with whoops of joy on my part as he really is my favourite character; he played support in the season 1 story arcs. Despite having this story arc closed up nicely with a commitment ceremony, the season ended on a very bad note with news not only of a romance between Rebecca and Justin(Ewww!) but also with new of another possible Walker sibling roaming the world... Aren't there enough of these Walker kids fathered by a very unfaithful husband who, unlike the rest of his family, can keep a secret? Overall, a very disappointing follow-up season.

Oh well, off to continue doing everything I want to do...that is, read, play the games I haven't played and watch the stuff I haven't watched

Clubs :

So, I just watched Speed Racer. You know, I used to watch the cartoon when i was younger and boy, did I get hit with nostalgia. I mean Whoooo! It's Speed Racer man! I liked the movie, it wasn't one of those WHOA! Blow me away! movies but it was nice. It felt like a cartoon and that's what I really liked about it. If it didn't have that cartoony feel, I guess it wouldn't have struck home. Acting wise, nobody really shone, it was okay, reasonable acting, believable...
Psychedelic is the one word description for the movie and boy does it make you feel high. there's something about psychedelic colours fused with techno-ised orchestra music that pumps the adrenaline. Or it could just be me...I am weird with how my body reacts to certain things The story was fine I guess, one of those run-of-the-mill hollywood storylines...kinda reminded me of a chick flick, with that nice fuzzy feeling you get when everything is happy. I think Christina Ricci has the most beautiful eyes...seriously they're huge, and they don't look bulbous.

Anyway, it was better than Iron man. For one, that movie almost made me fall asleep. Sure, Robert Downey Jr. was great! I mean, he personified Tony Stark. Action sequences were cool and all, but there's something inherently boring in watching someone build a robot, have it destroyed and then build another one...hmm...it was riding too much on the Blockbuster ideal for me i guess, that's not to say Speed Racer wasn't, it did, almost as much as Iron Man, but there was something else too.

Now, you might be wondering why I am writing all this...well, I haven't really been able to write recently...I don't know why. But I heard somewhere...was it in a movie or a book or some random place that writing a journal/diary was the way to keep the creative juices running...well, here I am trying it out. I guess my goal here is to start making these journals flow better. I notice they get kinda rigid sometimes. So onward with self improvement and journal writing

Books, now I have set myself an ultimatum to read as many books as possible before I leave the army. I never really read a lot of books, but I guess the passion was always there. I would pick up a book when I was a kid and read non-stop because they would pull me into their world. That is after all, the goal of a writer. It intrigues me, this ability to transform a world. But I don't know why I stopped, I just never read much. Even when I had to, I never really did. A'level Literature didn't force me to read the books I was supposed to read: Out of the three books I did for my closed book paper, I read 1...truthfully only one, even then more of a skim then a read. And out of the nine I did for the open book paper, I only read 3, of which one of them was also a skim. So now I'm gonna read. And I've gone and got classics and stuff all to be read. I've forgotten many of the really old books I read so, nevermind, they don't count and now the books read count is up to 20. The books to be read currently stands at 17 + 4 re-reads, and counting. Oh the mountain that stands before me...I'm gonna do English in University and I best get my reading glasses on if I'm gonna do well Cheer me on will you!

There is one book I have that I haven't added to the count because I don't think I will be able to finish it: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I trudged through Ten pages of this nonsense and I couldn't stand it. I actually started this reading marathon quite a while ago...this is what stopped it. It is so pompous and full of unnecessary fluff that I can't bear it. It's a bunch of letters from an estranged wife to an estranged husband about their demonic kid. But the letters are so fake. They are full of literary drivel that fluffs the letters up. I don't care how artistic the letter writer is, nobody writes about feeling precarious and follows it up with an entire paragraph of 'oh my house is precarious, my stairs don't have railings, precarious, everything is hanging, precarious' It's too forced and unnatural. Well, that's my opinion anyway. Glad to have that off my chest.

I just finished reading The Great Gatsby and Journey's End and I must say, these two books really are great. I don't know what possessed me not to read Journey's end when I had to for Literature but I regret it wholly. The Great Gatsby truly is the Greatest Love Story ever told. It was a little heavy in the beginning, with a lot of fairly convoluted sentences but slowly, mostly after you get used to the sentence structure, it blossoms into an amazing tale, full of intensely pleasurable images and metaphors. Journey's End is an amazing piece of drama and really does bring out the emotions very well, something I think would translate amazingly on stage.

Anyway, I'm reading Dante's Inferno now, although I was supposed to start on Swimming to Ithaca by Simon Mawer. I decided that I should read my classics first so, that has been pushed back. I just got The Inferno today

Anyway, enough of reviews and rants and stuff, I'm of to read. I doubt I'll be writing much, but I expect I'll come out of this alive and maybe, a better writer too



Clubs :

Hey Everyone!

Well, things have mostly settled down in the army... no more unearthly fatigue, I'm getting used to that . Anyway, I guess it's time to make a return...

Time to start writing again...Lord knows I hope I can.

Time to come back to dA

I've really missed you guys...

Anyway, I was at the Singapore Flyer the other day...if you don't know, the Singapore Flyer is currently the world's largest ferris wheel. Yay for Singapore...gimmicks...It's not that impressive...you get to see the skyline, andstuff but nothing really stands out from inside. It's a beauty from the outside though!

Whoa...it's been about half a year since I've been here...Golly!
I'm even wondering if anybody remembers me here



Clubs :