it gave me goose bumps!

Wow.

I clicked here and watched the teaser trailer for Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix.... and just the music and first 3 seconds had me erupting in goosebumps! And these pricklies continued for the entire trailer.

I *so* hope they did a good job with this movie! Phoenix is so far the best of the six books released, IMHO.

Little Miss Sunshine, and other movies

omg. if you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine yet, please utilise your preferred movie rental facility and get it!! Immediately! That's an order!! To have Kosh and I in stitches so often throughout the movie, subdued at certain intense scenes, but finally laughing hysterically at the end, well, I can't think of a better recommendation than that without giving anything away. Sure, there are a few places where you have to suspend disbelief, but you'll so caught up with it all that such details won't matter too much. So go watch it, okay?

Phew, now with that out of the way,,, let me take a few steps back, and clarify that I've had this idea at the back of my head for a while now to do just a quick recap of some noteworthy movies we've watched recently [most of them courtesy of Netflix]. Would have just stayed an idea though, if it wasn't for Little Miss Sunshine last night.

Some others, in no particular order:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie (1992): starring Kristy Swanson as Buffy, and featuring Luke Perry's big screen debut. Yes, Kosh insisted that since I'd become such a big fan of the series, I needed to see how it first began. While certainly not outstanding [if I remember correctly, Josh Wheadon left the movie halfway through because movie execs were totally going against his vision of the thing], it was interesting to see what had changed/improved in the transition from movie to tv: the well-oiled fight scenes, the dialogue, the mythos,... oh and of course the actual "dusting" of the vamps. Overall, a rather campy movie, but not as horrendous as I'd been led to believe.

The DaVinci Code (2006): Yes so I'm only seeing it about a year after its release, so sue me! Now, I'm one of those tho thoroughly enjoyed the book, loved the pokes and challenges it made to institutionalised christianity, but was also very much aware it was officially a work of fiction. And I looked forward to seeing just how well / badly Ron Howard translated thie book to the big screen. I'd heard a LOT of bad buzz about the movie, even after filtering out the knee-jerk protesting by faith-challenged christians. However, I was happy to find the movie quite faithful to the book as I remembered it, though perhaps it tried to be so faithful that it ended up a bit choppy. Overall, I liked the movie, and would recommend it to anyone who, like me, wanted to see it but was put off by the poor buzz. Of course, I'd go ahead and reread the book too. :-)

Kung Fu Hustle (2005): Caught this on tv - in chinese with english subtitles. I'm not usually a fan of chinese action movies, but this? well, it's more a comedy with action as a means of getting to the comedy. Hilarious, with some thought-provoking moments. Get it!

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002): Couldn't help but get sucked in! This is essentially a spoof of the martial arts genre, taking archive footage of an old movie, dubbing over the dialoge, inserting some new scenes, inserting a new face into the archives,,, it's rather irritating, and yet you. just. can't. look. away!

Stranger than Fiction (2006): So a regular joe wakes up one morning and starts hearing a voice that describes what he does. This narration is worrying enough, but when the voice says that the character is going to die, well, then it's time to get worried. Or amused, if you're the viewer. Dragged a bit too long in a few places, but overall, 'twas as good as I thought it was going to be.

Donnie Darko (2001): This kept cropping up in the Netflix recommendations, so we went ahead and got it. And got blown away. Screwy timeline, dark ominous scenes, child molesters, giant demon rabbits - but was it all just a "dream" in a Tangent Universe? Rent it, watch it, and be prepared to have your horizons stretched.

Running with Scissors (2006): A rather disconcerting glimpse into a majorly dysfunctional family - alcoholic dad, totally unstable mother; Augusten Bourroughs ends up being absorbed into the screwy family of his mother's questionable therapist. One might be reminded of The Royal Tannenbaums [and not just because Gwyneth Paltrow is in both], but, keeping in mind that this is based on real life, it becomes so very much more disturbing.

Of course, some were total bombs... so in the "are we there yet?" category:
(am not even going to link to them, LoL!)

• Superman Returns: it sucked. I was antsy 30mins into the movie, and despite having Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor [I've liked him ever since I stumbled upon The Usual Suspects], nothing could save this movie with a crappy plot.
• Wedding Crashers: relatively entertaining, but omg it went on for way way way way way too long! The last 30mins were torture!
• The Brothers Grimm: a movie with so much potential, but it falls so flat! Tidy up the script, get rid of that superfluous irritating Italian character, and maaaaaaybe it would have been better.

And finally, a shout-out to Reel Fanatic. I don't remember when he'd dropped by with a comment on something I'd written, but when I reciprocated I found his site to be a great source of movie info and promptly blogrolled him. And have used him as a source of recommendations to fill our Netflix Queue ever since. Heck, if it wasn't for him I don't think I'd ever have heard of Little Miss Sunshine. So, do swing by, and see if you appreciate his commentary, recommendations and insights as much as I have.

And now? off to shower / laundry / grocery shopping... and to procrastinate some more on all that French homework LoL!

MORE this & that PLUS a meme

French: the Spring session has started, and the two classes I've signed up for? AWESOME, and just what I need to get the remaining rust brushed off. Last session I'd ended up taking two larger [about 12 students], more grammar-based classes; this time around, both classes are nice and cosy [about 6 students] with a lot more emphasis on oral. Yes, go ahead, please get your sniggers out at French / oral now. Heeheee!

Responding to Monsoon's comment in the previous post: I suppose preferring one [class of] language over another is a function of what language you're used to / exposed to? Compared to English, Malay and French, German to me sounds to noisy, harsh and guttural. But, if you were born into a Germanic tongue, I can certainly see how the Romance languages, especially French [the language *and* the people!], can seem whiny :-) Despite my not-so-fondness [I wouldn't go so far as to say hate or dislike] of German, if I were to pick it up, it would make accessible a large slice of the language pie: most Scandinavian languages are Germanic-based, and like I've mentioned before, I have this soft spot for Iceland, I'd like to go there someday to explore areas I've only ever imagined while studying Icelandic Literature & Sagas, so ideally, once it's time to get out of limbo/jobless bum mode, I'll be looking at something along these lines.

Books: of the six books that jumped out at me two weeks ago, I've made it through 4, reviews of which are at FWDT.

The 20 Questions Meme: Found this over at Harmonica Man's place last January, but am only now getting my thoughts together enough to put my 2-cents' worth. So, for those who want a bit more of insight into me, perhaps this will help ya:

1. When you buy a greetings card are the words or the picture more important to you?
Words are definitely important, but never ever for one moment think that I'd look twice at those cards with three pages of sappy words! urgh! To me, what's important is wit and humor [brief but clever], preferably combined with an appropriate humorous image.


2. What's your favorite kind of cake?
The kind that I can have *and* eat too? LoL! Okay okay... for the longest time in my younger days cheesecake from the Olive Garden was my major sin. Now, the few times I *do* have cake/dessert cravings, I'm torn between apple pie à la mode, or an ooey gooey hot fudge brownie à la mode.


3. Do you ever make gifts for people, if so what, or do you buy them?
Usually, gifts are bought. But in the past I have made some simple cross-stitch thingys as gifts, and more recently I've created some doodle greeting/thank you cards - does that count?


4. What's your favorite holiday - i.e. Christmas?
Well, considering I don't work anymore, every day is a "holiday"! Back in Malaysia, I appreciated *any* holiday that resulted in the exodus of people from KL back to their hometowns, leaving townies like me to enjoy the traffic-jam-less city for a few days :-) Here in the U.S. I gotta say I don't really participate in any holiday events [it's all too easy for Kosh and I to just not socialise... we gotta get better at that...], but I suppose if I were to pick one particular event, I'd say The Summer Solstice, not that I've ever participated in marking this event, but the sun is my element, and that's the longest day of the year....


5. Are you going on holiday this year? If so, where?
See above re every day being a holiday for me;-)


6. What was the best party you've ever been to?
Heh. I'm sure I've attended a few good ones in my past lives, if only I could remember... LoL! Acheyhol tends to leave holes in my memory *grin!* But the most recent outing I had - my farewell outing to Plant Hollywood with Baby Angel & bf, Krista, & Neome ranks pretty high up there what with the excellent food, great music, and me actually letting loose and dancing [and head-banging too - like I said, great music!].


7. If you are married, describe your wedding. If not, what would your ideal wedding be like?
Due to time constraints as a result of my visa, we couldn't really organise a big fat wedding event [not that we wanted a huge event anyway!], so ours was a sign-a-piece-of-paper-in-front-of-a-judge deal with only our immediate family members in attendance, followed by dinner at a restaurant that evening. His parents are organizing a larger celebration in May, and this will involve extended family and friends. Then.. whenever Kosh and I get around to traveling a bit, we'll need to have a reception of sorts in Switzerland *and* Malaysia so that people from *that* side of the world can meet him. Multi-country/continental unions can get rather complicated!


8. What's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you?
Heh. I'm drawing a blank. But definitely up there would be Kosh traveling more than halfway around the world to meet me in Oz, where his actual time spent in Oz barely matched the total to&fro traveling time!


9. What's your favorite romantic song?
Heehehee! So many! But the one on my mind right now is Meat Loaf's Because of You from his Couldn't Have Said It Better album: 'tis one of "our" songs.


10. Favorite heartbreak song?
Again, so many to choose from, but for some reason Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart popped into my head - this song is so powerfully sad, it gives me the shivers!


11. Which celebrity would you like a dream date with?
Tough one! During my teenage years, I'm pretty sure I'd answer Michael J Fox. Now that I'm old[-er] and boring, I certainly don't have any celebrity crushes or anyone I'd want to go out on a date with.


12. Which female celebrity do you find beautiful?
Eh. Beautiful? Hard to say.. best I can say is that I'm fond of Allyson Hannigan, though it's because of a combination of her looks plus her character and lines in BtVS...


13. Which male celebrity do you think is attractive?
Hahaha, again, in my teenage years I'd have rattled off a whole list: I crushed on *so* many actors [Michael J Fox definitely up there] and singers [Morten Harket from a-ha was soooooooo drool-worthy!]... but now... the best I can say is James Marsters [Spike in BtVS & Angel]. I go for the anti-hero archetype.


14. Describe the kind of underwear you normally wear
Boring ones. Black. Cotton. No "sexy lingerie" for me, thank you!


15. If you could be in a television sit-com, which would you choose?
Heh. F.R.I.E.N.D.S is the only sit-com I've watched/enjoyed in a while, so I suppose I'd choose this kinda by default....


16. Which character would you like to be?
Phoebe, definitely Phoebe. The Phoebe of the early seasons. The quirky one who dabbled in all those new age aura reading type things. The one who lived life oblivious to the usual rules of social subtleties & etiquette.


17. What are your favorite boy and girl names?
No fave boy names,,,, but as a result of being a BtVS freak, "Willow" and "Amber" are stuck in my brain...


18. What's your supermarket of choice?
Convenient / closeby = a JewelOsco. I miss the Meijer we used to go to in Urbana though.


19. What is your best character trait?
My weird sense of humor, perhaps?


20. What is your worst habit?
Procrastination, perhaps?

Okay, that's it for today.... will be working on French homework over the next few days: I'm gonna write up an interview with our psycho kitty cat for one class, and produce an essay describing myself for the other. Fun!

this and that...

French: So I had my other French test this morning: 80.5 out of 90. Whoohoo!

The next ["spring"] session starts next week, and I've signed up for the next level of "brush-up" *and* a "conversational complement" - looking forward to prying away more rust off of my brain :-)

After all, I seem to have a knack for languages: even though I only know English, Malay and French, I could probably easily pick up Italian [took a semester in college, got an A but hated the way the curriculum was structured so decided against continuing with the next level] or Spanish. The challenge would be to do a non-romance language. German, anyone? Urgh!! Maybe Icelandic, so that whenever I do end up visiting the land of fire and ice, I can ask for directions, LoL!

The New Look: Urrgh, I haven't made any progress since the last time... am having a challenging time deciphering the coding for most of the rest of the stuff I want to tweak... 'twas certainly easier with the "classic blogger" template, sob sob sob! And in case you were wondering, no I have no official exposure to HTML, CSS and all that jazz, I just picked up stuff here and there when tweaking my blog template, replying heavily on the Blogger Help pages. They ain't no help now :p Oh well... we'll see if I give up and make do with what I've got so far, or if I bite the bullet and try to build something from scratch just so that I force/train myself to understand what each line in the template means... ... ... wish me luck! [*good* luck lah!!]

K, almost midnight. G'nite!!

when i'm on a roll...

okay so I've been wanting to change templates for aaaaages now.

last night i finally found something that kinda fitted what I was looking for.

of course, it needs major tweaking before I'd be happy with it.

you can see how it's coming along HERE.

And yes, I'm going to be risking my entire blog history, because this is a "new-blogger" template... it had BETTER NOT lose all my past posts when I finally make the switch!! But no worries, I'll make sure I have back-up copies of *all* my past posts before even attempting to do the changeover. No way am I gonna risk losing over 3.5 years' of posts!

omg 3.5??! wow.. it's been a while, eh?

oh, and at the back of my mind the entire time? "Procrastinator! There's another French test waiting for ya tomorrow morning!! You gotta at least review the material and not take it cold!!"

You are what you eat?

It's interesting to observe myself getting back into the groove of exercising almost daily, considering during the past three months I was lucky to hit the gym even once a week! The dark, cold & short days of winter *do* get to me: I kinda knew it, but it's clear only in hindsight.

In addition, while last year's IQ vs lbs thingy never did get off the ground, with the stirrings of spring I've started keeping an eye on my food consumption. Trying to keep intake at around 1500 cals PLUS zone-balanced, BUT allowing for "zig-zags" [upping cal consumption to 2000 cals every 3 days or so, so that the body doesn't go into starvation mode]. I can't quite swing the ~300 cals x 5 or 6 mini-meals though. However, it's been about 1.5 weeks now, and I *think* the [unreliable] weighing scale in the bathroom *is* showing a downward trend! Yay! We'll see what the other measurements say in a week or so...

But anyway... what with all the meal tracking I've been doing, this meme over at Talks Over Coffee seemed to be something easy to do, so I tagged myself. Here goes:

TEN THINGS I'VE EATEN TODAY
("today" being yesterday, Wednesday, March 21 2007)

Breakfast #1 @ 530am
1. Zone bar (Mango Orange Delight flavour)

Breakfast #2 @ 1130am
2. 1 cup broccoli, steamed/nuked then mixed with
3. 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese, lightly seasoned with season-all salt to taste

Snack @ 2pm
- another Zone bar (1) (this time my fave: Fudge Graham flavour)

Lunch @ 330pm
4. Chicken, Broccoli & Cheese Croissant Pocket, with (3) another 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese
5. 1 can Coke Zero

Dinner @ 730pm
6. 1/4 cup store-ready "pulled chicken in bbq sauce", nuked, then mixed with
7. 1/4 cup low-fat ricotta cheese; this mixture then used as "stuffing" in
8. 3/4 of a medium green pepper, washed down with (5) another can of Coke Zero

Supper @ 930pm
9. Yoplait yogurt, mixed with
10. 3/4 cup Special K "High Protein / Carb Control" cereal

So yesterday i consumed 10 different items, though some of these items were consumed more than once. Hope my way of presenting the info wasn't too confusing!

But... even better... I'm feeling good because yesterday was particularly low-cal: all that totalled just less than 1300 cals!

Then again, the day before I'd totally "zagged" by having 2 dunkin stix and 24 fl oz of White Hen's probably sugar- and fat- laden French Vanilla flavoured Cappuccino at 9pm, with the day's total caloric intake estimated at over 2000 cals,,, so these next few days need to be a major "zig"!

But yes, 1300 is kinda low, so no worries, today I won't be as strict, so long I keep the intake less between 1500 - 1800 cals. It'll help that I've run out of cottage cheese anyway, LoL!

So anyway... anyone wanna tag themselves, go right ahead. No need to analyse the cals and stuff though, that was just my added touch, LoL!

Friendster Update

So I receive this Friendster Update every week or so.

Not that I've logged in since forever.

For some reason this morning, I went ahead and asked Friendster to check one of my main email accounts' address book, just to see who else I knew was within the network.

Heh.

Out of 107 email addresses found, 9 were already within the Friendster network. Interestingly....

• Of the 9, 5 were WORK e-mail addresses! Dunno about you, but even while I was within *that* network I made it a point to separate work from what little life I had outside of it! Besides, it's just best not to mix work and non-work... what's so difficult in using a 3rd party email addy?
• Of the 9 [and 5], 2 were totally inactive - as if the persons had opened the account then promptly forgot allll about it. Most of the others seem to be at my level of activity: some pix posted, some friends enlisted, that sort of thing. Only like two were actively using their account. But those two? Wow, talk about loads of friends! How on earth do people keep track? Also, are they really friends, or just anyone who happened to stumble into that circle?

Meaningful? Doubtful :p

Aaaanyways, I am soooo not into this whole "put yourself out there for the whole world to see" thing... am considering just killing that friendster account. Or just let it lie dormant anyway :p