As Suanie Sees It

On the way to meet Paul and FA at 1U yesterday, I texted Paul saying that I needed to go home and change first.

“Why?”
“Skirt too short.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“It is ‘cos I am fat.”

You know what he replied?

“Fat is the new 36 24 36.”

Bwahahahahahaha so awesome!!!!! I’m going to insert it as my signature somewhere!

I met the jokers at Dave’s (excellent beer and food) and they said they had something for me.

“We saw this in the bookshop and thought it’s perfect for you. We bought it for the title alone, so we have no idea what the heck the book is about.”

That was how I became the proud owner of the book titled, Me, Inc

Yay thanks! LOL!

(History: This was brought on by my constant proclaimation that I am the greatest evar. Which is true.)

Speaking of books, I received my copy of Dina Zaman’s I Am Muslim this morning. Double yay!!

I had read Sharon Bakar’s review and so I bought it on-line at Silverfish. Read a few sentences, now I can’t wait for the weekend so I could read from beginning till the end!!

Will let you know how it goes.

During lunch, we were browsing the dailies, in particular Utusan Malaysia. One of my colleagues highlighted the following front-paged news:

Jutawan Sendayan menghitung hari untuk tinggal di banglo

SEREMBAN 28 Mac – Selepas menerima durian runtuh wang pampasan kira-kira RM500,000 lebih setahun lalu, jutawan Felda Sendayan kini menghitung hari untuk tinggal di banglo mewah yang dijangka siap penghujung tahun ini.

Bagi mereka, segala janji yang dibuat oleh kerajaan negeri telah ditepati, malah banglo yang berharga RM250,000 itu dijangka siap lebih awal dari tarikh sepatutnya [...]

The article was accompanied by a photo of one Mohd. Yusof Ismail with his thumbs up, standing in front of his near-completed bungalow. My colleague proceeded to launch into a tirade:

“Inilah masalah orang Melayu…”

“Har why?”

“Orang Melayu mudah terpengaruh dengan harta benda. Nilai rumah tu RM 250,000 tapi kos pembangunan tak sampai RM 250,000. Kat situlah developers save their money; duit yang sepatutnya dibayar kepada settlers, dia convert it to house.

Kenapa tak ambik yang RM 250,000 untuk buat banglo, kemudian beli 2 rumah teres. Satu duduk sendiri, satu bagi sewa. Rumah banglo kat Felda, nanti kalau nak jual, ada ke orang nak beli?

So basically settlers tu bukan millionaires. They are being duped and conned into thinking they are millionaires.”

“Why you feel so strongly about this issue yah?”

“Because Malays don’t learn from history and their mistakes. They keep being conned; skim cepat kaya, ABBFund, fake MLM… and they don’t think about multiplying their money. They are just happy with the money they have now, and this money will lessen in value in just a few years. Then after that they will merempat again, applying for another Felda land.”

“Isn’t this a bit too generalistic?”

“Yup. Malays in general… They do read it in the news, but they don’t learn.”

“Why are you so different from the general Malays then?”

“I read. And I learn. I don’t want to be the same like them.”

There you go.

BAD:

Mafulat there’s no Vitamin C in Ribena!! Okay maybe some TRACES but definitely not anywhere remotely close to ‘4 times more Vitamin C than oranges’!!

I feel so betrayed….

Not sure if the Malaysian stock has the same case, not that I drank Ribena for its vitamin level, but it felt like one big lie

Excuse me while I re-examine my childhood values…

Link and LINK.

UPDATE: Link LINK.

GOOD:

MPH republished Adibah Amin’s As I Was Passing and you can purchase the two-series books in major bookstores or MPH Online.

FYI, Adibah Amin was a reporter/journalist with NST in the 70s, circa Datuk Lat. Her weekly column was titled ‘As I Was Passing’, under the pen name Sri Delima and was published into a book by Berita Publishing.

If you have never read ‘As I Was Passing’, for once trust me and go get them

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to watch the movie “CHERMIN“ with fellow bloggers :- TV Smith, PinkPau, Sultan Muzaffar, Faisal Mustaffa and Valarie at KLCC.

To be honest, it wasn’t a movie I would have gone to watch on my own. The trailer was less than impressive, and being a die-hard horror film buff (even though I’m darn scared of them) I’d seen more than enough mirror-related Asian horrors.

Have you ever wondered who is looking back at you in the mirror?

‘Cos I am lazy to summarise the movie, here’s the official synopsis:

Chermin is a horror/suspense thriller about a woman who is haunted by a vengeful spirit trapped in an antique mirror. The plot centers on Nasrin (Natasha Hudson), whose face has been disfigured from a ‘mysterious’ car accident. When her mother Kak Siti (Khatijah Tan) discovers an antique mirror hidden amongst old family heirlooms, Nasrin finds herself strangely drawn to it. Nasrin’s fascination with the mirror turns into obsession and she starts taking on the persona of the mirror spirit, Mastura (Deanna Yusoff). On her quest to regain her past beauty, Nasrin submits herself to the mirror spirit by satisfying the mirror’s need for blood and revenge. Will she able to sacrifice love for vanity? Is she able to look inside herself and see the beauty within? Or is what is reflected in her heart a shadow of the mirror?

Dayum, I hate gossiping villagers too…

The good: The haunting score was awesome, and definitely brought the movie to another level. Sort of like a Red Violin vibe. Award-winning composer Adelina Wong delivered; and hers is a name I will look out for in future. Sound effect/production was also excellent, and I am glad that CHERMIN had the expertise of Addaudio in this area. From the batch of local movies I’ve been watching, I noticed that the ones where they had a hand in was always good when it comes to sound. It may seem a trivial matter to some, but BELIEVE me it is most important in the delivery of the movie. I am sure that most of you have watched movies where the lips don’t sync with the words. That sucks.

The director also use lots of colours in her movie: the combination of that with lighting effects is something I find visually pleasing and different. Reminded me of Hero. I loved the wardrobe, especially those worn by Deanna Yusoff — very traditional, so beautiful, rich in colours and quality (well you could tell if something is expensive). Visual effects were also above average, except for some surreal parts where it seems as if watercolour was dripping down from the edge of the screen.

The set/location was quite good and beautiful as well. The movie was shot in Janda Baik in Pahang; I don’t know exactly where it is, but I would assume it has lots of trees and small roads, perfect as a backdrop. I love the furniture used in the movie. I want some of that (not the mirror though, my own mirror scares me enough as it is).

The car accident scene was done very well. At first I had thought it was a CGI — but then I learnt that it was a real car being wrecked by a trained stuntman. Woah, that’s gotta hurt the pockets

There are some scenes that I felt were really good, for example when the group of women were present for the doa selamat, and when Nasrin eavesdropped on the gossiping villagers.

Khatijah Tan is a top-rate actress. She should get a Suanie Award.

Movie stills from CHERMIN

The OK: The storyline is not something drastically different from what is already present in the movie horror scene. Honestly speaking, I feel that after Shutter, most other shock factors pale in comparison. Well maybe that shouldn’t be a comparison basis; after all Thai movies are so far ahead than ours. But we can always strive to jump the queue, right?

The exorcism ritual reminded me of the famous scene in The Exorcist when the girl was screaming and speaking in a manly voice. Except this one was blood-overload, kinda scary. And the eyes, omg. Give me a choice between a ghost with long hair and a ghost with scary eyes, and I would run to embrace the former. Well of course I would try to run away from both if I could help it…

I would put most of the acting in this OK category, with the exception of Khatijah Tan. Some are OK not bad, some are OK tolerable, some are OK get on with it.

Shit, blood everywhere!!!

The Bad: What’s with the CGI lizard-like devil running around here and there? I felt that was unnecessary, and unintentionally brought comic relief to an otherwise ok horror movie. I couldn’t help but to be reminded of Constantine whenever the thing appeared on screen, and that is not so good because I think Constantine is a damn excellent movie. So after CHERMIN I went home and watched Constantine on DVD. Keanu Reeves can’t act to save his life, but I’d forgive him anyday if he would be the father of my children. Or maybe not, don’t really want my kids to turn out blank and stupid.

Well, I don’t really want kids, period, but that is besides the point.

There was one scene that stupefied me. Hypothetically, if you see your girlfriend appearing out of nowhere in your house in the middle of the night, wearing a nightgown drenched in blood with a zombie look on her face, you would scream and go WTF WTF WTF, right? I don’t know if it is overpowering love and affection that caused Yusuf to calmly express himself along the lines of, “Nazrin, are you ok? Nazrin? Nazrin? Nazrin??” but I doubt it.

Speaking of Yusuf, he was played by Farid Kamil. I was trying to remember why he looked so familiar and where the heck I’d seen him before. Now I remember. Protagonist in Remp-It!!! Sorry, couldn’t place him without the helmet, the bike and the bad lip-synching.

Me, Sultan Muzaffar and Pinkpau with the director of CHERMIN, Zarina Abdullah

We had coffee with Zarina Abdullah, the director of CHERMIN before the movie. I learnt that it was her debut feature film, and I’d say that overall, CHERMIN was quite impressive for a first-time director. Congrats congrats, especially on CHERMIN being accepted at the Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy.

Zarina admitted that she is a shy and soft-spoken person in nature. We learnt that she hails from Kuching, has a civil engineering degree and masters in IT from UK, and prior to CHERMIN had only directed shorts.

I asked her if there was any supernatural incidents on set and she said yes, there were some weird stuff happening. Not to her, but to her actresses and crew. Apparently something was even caught on screen; she didn’t realise it until the post-production guys pointed it out to her. I didn’t notice it, but it was a whitish presence in a car scene that was definitely not supposed to be there.

When asked why she chose to do a horror when the current market is saturated with similar movies, she said that when she did the movie, there weren’t much around, except for the Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam series. It was only recently that we have horrors such as Syaitan, Jangan Pandang Belakang etc so must be a coincidence.

Why spell it CHERMIN and not ‘cermin’? Because the story is based on an old mirror and Zarina wanted the old spelling to reflect its antiquity.

What’s her all-time favourite movies? The Exorcist (naturally), Shawshank Redemption, basically the classics. Zarina said she would have a hard time writing a love story, so maybe later.

TV Smith asked Sultan Muzaffar if he thinks the Yusof Haslam era was over, and the latter said yes. Thank the gods.

I liked Zarina; she was nice, friendly and pleasant. And like I said, CHERMIN was quite an impressive debut for a first-time director — she is only 27 years old to boot! Here’s looking forward to more Zarina Abdullah movies. Go Go GOoOOOOoo!!!!

Technically it’s no longer a Sunday, but who cares about technicalities

Woke up, surfed around a bit and found this news:

Chatroom users ‘egged on father to kill himself live on webcam’

A father-of-two hanged himself live over the internet in Britain’s first ‘cyber suicide’.

Kevin Whitrick, 42, took his life after being goaded by dozens of chatroom users from across the world who initially believed he was play acting.

But as they watched in horror, Mr Whitrick climbed onto a chair, smashed through a ceiling and then hanged himself with a piece of rope [..]

Read the rest of the news article here.

Someone posted a screenshot of him hanging to his death here. Be warned, it’s not pretty.

As people get more fucked up, it makes me think twice about my actions on-line. I’ve been on Internet chat rooms for years; in fact I am on PalTalk, where the guy committed suicide (not the same room though). On IRC, Pal and various other on-line chat rooms, once a while some dude would come in and proclaim that they were going to kill themselves there and then. My typical response would be, “Oh, go ahead, do it now, bye” because I don’t believe in giving them more attention that they don’t need. Plus from my experience, they were all hoaxes; just some punks and oddities saying crazy shit for the sake of it.

Then something like this happens, and if unfortunately it happens to you (as part of the audience) then you wonder if you are to be blamed. Of course, the dude had depression, he was not himself, but some things could have been prevented. Should I ever encounter a similar situation, I will remember not to be sarcastic, and will try to ask the man to get help. And try to shut the other users up.

Quite a wake-up call for Internet responsibility, eh? Who was the actress who said, “If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life”? Right.

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So I went to Starbucks to get some free coffee courtesy of the greatest blogger alive (yes, I said all that just for the coupons :P). I love my Starbucks, but sometimes I wonder about the QC or lack thereof… And today I found out how it works…

I only drink their iced latte, so I pretty much know a good iced latte (creamy) and a bad one (lingering over-burnt taste). Today I had a bad one, so I requested for the barista to have a new one made. Which he did, and it was the same thing. So I asked if he would try it so he would know what I was talking about. He agreed with me, and proceeded to make a new cuppa, only this time with a fresh BAG of beans. Yes I was so Datin Seri that he opened a new bag just for me

Unfortunately the third cuppa was no different. So he switched from full cream to low fat milk. He asked me to see how it was. Same thing. But at this point I was feeling rather bad for making the guy do so much work (for coffee that I did not even pay!!), so I said it didn’t really matter, since we’d opened a fresh bag of beans, we’d switched milk, and I didn’t want soy milk, so the options were running low. Nothing more to be done, let me take my leave and go bug someone else.

I still love Starbucks though, and I adore the guy for his smiley, never-say-die attitude. But I am wondering, what else could have make the difference, yah? Any experienced baristas out here? Is it the way the milk is poured — before or after the coffee bla bla bla? Insight, anyone??

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Then headed over to KLCC for some other business, which I’ll blog about later.

KLCC on a Sunday can definitely induce claustrophobia. But if you want to see people of various races, colours, height, weight, fashion sense, age, gender (hahah) etc, well Midvalley doesn’t even come close

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Ebay can be dangerously addictive. To cut a long and boring story short, luckily I was outbidded. I promise never to get caught up with the bidding frenzy again. NEVARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111