The Random Post with Pictures

I guess from the sheer lack of wit and creativity in the selection of the title for this post alone, you could guess that YES, I am bored and have to turn to blogging as a form of entertainment at this moment. That and also the fact that its late and my creativity is at an all time low (i know, i know, i have been using this line a lot for the random stuff i post at times....so live with it).

I think the KL Performing Arts Centre is an exhibition of good architecture.

You see, i grew up in this area and where the KLPAC used to stand, there was a large railway workshop with actual tracks leading into a building on the KLPAC's very spot. That very building has in fact been preserved and the old parts of it have been merged with the Centre. Its asthetically wonderful. And its even got this really nice park around it....where there used to be a rundown, overgrown place.

Yes, I can be childish at times. My lab partner (Suky) and I in our prof's lab.

Showing off my expertise in the art of disguising oneself.

My roomie is an animation student from Brunei and the above papier marche (hope i spelt it right) is a characted from his stop-motion film project in Year 2. The above costume is a product of chronic boredom and having too much paper.



What an hour before rush hour looks like in the Midvalley KTM station. Luckily for us, KTM is planning on introducing new wider and longer trains. Lets hope they get to KL before every KL-ite stops feeling human and starts imitating the social behaviour of sardines (the ones whom use the public transport system that is...and have to endure sardine can conditions at 4 or 5pm).

It is during times like these I love Singapore.

coconuts are held in reverence....told you this post was random

KL Sentral. This is the train i take to and fro from Singapore. Time is 9pm

Now, if you do not mind the clickaty-clack of wheels on tracks nor the lond 10 hour journey to Singapore by KTMB, the sleeper class is perfect. Its safe (busses have a greater tendency to crash) and comfy (you can actually strech and sleep)

My bed on the train. Its got curtains for privacy when you sleep. And a large window for a view. Pointless at night, but oh well...its still there.

First Class cabins. Costs RM120 i think per person. Its nice though...obviously for first class.

Woodlands Station at 7am.

just a lot of stairs on campus

I live in Halls of Residences built 8 years ago....obviously on a shoestring budget. No lifts whatsoever and stairs EVERYWHERE. Which explains why even after a jar of nutella a week, i still look slighly on the malnutrition side.

more stairs on my block

Cheers and have a great hol people!

Matrix

Jack Nicholson is the better Joker

I am very very very sorry to say this. Jack Nicholson is a better Joker compared to the late Heath Ledger. And by saying this, i am fully aware i am going to piss off a lot of Ledger and Christian bale fans out there.

No, i am not saying Heath Ledger is a bad Joker. He was good. Hats off to that. But it so happens, for the role of a psychopathic criminal with a twisted sense of humor, Jack Nicholson comes out tops anyday.

Jack Nicholson was the Joker in "Batman" with Michael Keaton (too soppy faced to be the bat) and
Kim Basinger (was ok in the movie) ...for non Batman fans......true batman fans would remember the fils for the sheer pointlessness of it.

That plus the bad casting in "Batman" plus the hype surrounding "The Dark Knight" and Ledger's death and the awesome storyline plus Christian Bale is probably why you guys would now come to relate Joker with Heath Ledger.


The Dark Knight was a movie along the lines of Lord Of the Rings. Epic. Perfect. I have never seen Heath Ledger act so well. And Christian Bale is by far the best Batman ever.

The only complaint i have is...Jack Nicholson, had he been cast as The Joker would have elevated the movie's status to the Star Wars level...legendary.

You see, i have reasons for this. Jack Nicholson's Joker is comic book accurate. He encompasses what The Joker should be. A character with sharp makeup, not the sloppy version of Heath Ledger's, though the effect was very very good nontheless.

The Joker plays more jokes, makes more puns (from the cartoons and comics), is a coward (which Heath Ledger's one was NOT) and dresses smartly albeit a little eccentrically, not shabbily (Heath Ledger again). His hair is well done and is not a messy mop.

Nicholson got all this perfectly. It was just unfortunate Tim Burton was the director in charger, and despite his success, a serious comic book character portrayal is something he fails at. Bad script and casting let Nicholson down.

Would he have a made a better Joker than Heath Ledger?

DEFINITELY.

He has experience in acting as a psycho (The Shining) and his very character matches the Joker, the way he carries himself and talks....you could always sense a kind of underlying menace to him despite the smiling exterior...the perfect Joker.

That being said, is Heath Ledger a bad Joker?

NO.

The Dark Knight was cast perfectly, a damn good strong storyline and The Joker portrayal was perfect except for the costumes, makeup and the lack of lunacy.....cause you see...Heath Ledger's Joker was always on the plan, and despite him acting as a very convincing luncatic, it was through his actions and random murder and sick plots, the lunacy shines thorough, not though the character himself as Nicholson showed in "Batman".

That being said my final point is this:

Heath Ledger was a damn good Joker, but Jack Nicholson is portrayed in The Dark Knight, would have been god like.




Cheers Mates!

Matrix

PE1 Penang Trip

One whole year........and for 3 days, were were together again as if time had not passed.....
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we had been so deprived of good home food for 12 months solid (except Ming Han and me over in Singapore) that it was befitting that we spent 3 days doing nothing but stuff our faces with 5 or 6 meals minimum a day.

in full concentration.....

I will start with details of all the food we ate over 3 days....
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............. it was orgasmiscally, fantasbicually, amazingbbqwalawishnessy good.

there, 4 words, some you would not find in the Oxford, to describe EVERYTHING that added an extra kilo or so to us.

and did i mention that we were very very very happy. Yes, we did nothing much apart from 4 hours on the beach and a visit to Kek Lok Si and eating, but being Malaysian, eating alone, on a roughly 3 hour interval is an activity on its own.

It encompasses every feeling one enjoys when doing an activity of sort on a holiday. It was orgasmic (for couples on a honeymoon *wink*), it was exhilarating (spicy assam laksa can do this...no joke), we got high (on satay).............we even flirted with danger (some of us had to take extreme measures...largely with the aid of liberal amounts of ENO and digestion tablets).

All in all, a complete vacation. Oh, we even had karaoke sessions and i've picked up on some japanese hip hop stuff.

Yeah, yeah, i know i did mention i am 100% anti hip-hop and rap, but COME ON!. 10 teens bawling at the top of their lungs to some song in a language you pretend to know when watching anime and being sung be a person whose name you can't even pronounce (in my case that is).................even ELVIS would join in....and he's the king of rock n roll.


And i must admit, i do really like that song "Kau Ilhamku" by Manbai.


There is nothing to blog about the food here.....i simply cannot explain or even try to describe the feelings on gets from eating simple, really good, malaysian fare.........what i can describe however, is the terror you get when you're hanging on for dear life on one of these:

Killer Banana

I have never been on a banana boat and when Hehn suggested we try, i was under the impression it was going to be like eating one of those cheap, margerine tasting choc wafers that come in those red packets with chinese writing on them.......making you wonder if it were painted lead instead of chocolate on them.......well.....feels bland.


I WAS WRONG......

Here's a tip, if you want to have a fun ride, sit on the front or the middle like Hehn and the rest. Don;t be a dumbass and volunteer to sit a tthe rear, cos when you go over every damn wave, the whole rear behaves like a badly trained horse. It tries to kill you.

It felt as if you were in control until the whole boat moves into the wake of the speedboat in front, that when it tries to shake you off. Jing and I were tossed off, the only difference, she having sense, let go immedaitely while i stupidly hung on and was dragged for what seemed like 5 minutes. The result was a torn bicep muscle, product of my laziness to build my upper body............................................
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.............................resulting in what now looks like Keira Knightley's chest and arms.....flat as an ironing board.....not even male boobs, the only difference being, I do not look anemic.

The killer banana was towed a total of 4 times up an down the beach and on the third pass, the speedboat chap made a sharp turn, flipping the boat and tossing all of us in jelly fish infested water. It was one too many flips for me and i was dragged like a drowned cat onto a jetski and taken to shore:

i seriously need to work on my biceps

We did however get a 007 shot, us all emerging confidently from the water:



....and then the rest is all about eating, except for one more interesting thing:

We went to Kek Lok Si, that really old buddhist temple in Penang....i think its a world heritage site...anyway, the have this really huge statue of Guan Yin, the Goddess Of Mercy on top:


and the temple was building a shelter for it.....a huge pagoda of sorts:



and it was going to be lines with these tiles:


so, for a small fee, we got a tile and wrote our names on it, my name in:

yes...i can write my name in tamil...

and so, there will be a tile on top of a huge statue of Guan Yin at a world heritage site, bearing the names of PE1 A Level students.

And now, pictures:

1)TV Serial Promos




2)Gravity Defying Shots






Cheers Mates!

Matrix

Clive Owen as James Bond?

BMW made a series of short fims starring Clive Owen as a driver for hire...kind of along the lines the Jason Stratham in The Transporter....
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Only that its Clive Owen , NOT Jason Statham vs some mad anemic killer woman and its in a BMW not a knuckle headed Audi.

Anyway, u will see why i maintina Owen is a better actor but not cut out for Bond as he's .....well......waaay to cool for the Bond role.

Despite being shot at from a copter...he's waay too suave and calm....the reason I like the more emotional Craig. And, i cannot imagine Owen with a gun and beating up people...just not his style. He's not as thuggish as Craig, despite being a BETTER actor.

neways, enjoy mates!

Matrix

James Bond: Quantum of Solace - Official trailer HD

The new Bond movie trailer is out!!!!!
Now i officially retract my original opinion that Clive Owen would have made a better bond. Clive Owen has the presence of Bond, the classiness of Bond and the determined look of Bond....but
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Daniel Craig looks waaaaay better in a suit and has a sharper look about him.

I still maintain that acting wise, Clive Owen is superior, but he has a sluggish and almost mundane look about him in comparison to the alert sharp look of Craig.

I guess its like comparing a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Maybach 62.

Like Clive Owen, the Maybach is a much superior luxury vehicle, with a more powerful engine, and more whizz bangs in its interior than the Rolls....


....but unlike the Rolls, it looks rather mundane and discrete, does not look as expensive as the Rolls despite it being almost 100,000 quid more expensive.

So....despite being superior, Owen just is not cut out as Bond as Craig is....in the same way i would rather buy a Rolls Royce Phantom than a Maybach if i had 300,000 quid to burn and the Rolls is cheaper by the way.

That and the fact that Owen and guns and busting baddies ruthlessly just does not go well together...Craig is waaay better at that as seen in his role as a hitman in Road to Predition...making him a better Bond.

So, i admit, i made a mistake by saying Owen would have made a better Bond, cause the Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale movies make Craig look like the BEST Bond ever.

Cheers Mates and enjoy the trailer!!!


Matrix

Malaysian Bus Drivers have Good Taste in Music

I do not drive, a fact i have been harping about a lot these days. That being said, i do use the bus services a lot, my only complain being its not as organised as Singapore's nor is it easy to know which bus to take to get to somewhere. What i normally do is just flag down a bus i think is going in the same direction as I am, and just ask the conductor if its the correct bus. And did i mention is dirt cheap?

A 7km journey to Masjid Jamek and the Pudu Raya area where my old school is only costs RM1.00 if u take one of those old-ramshackle-red-looks-like-its-about-to-fall-apart Selangor busses and RM1.50 if you take Metrobus.

.....and did i mention you get great entertainment, especially if your bus driver happens to be a middle aged malay chap...cos believe it or not, they have great taste in old school rock.

And some....do not...

So, here' the BUSBOARD TOP 10!!! (excuse the apparent lameness....billboard does sound much nicer..ao anyway..)

10) We will Rock You --- Queen

9 ) Paradise City ---- Guns N Roses

8 ) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun -- Cindy Lauper

7) I Love Rock N Roll -- Joan Jett (in my highest opinion, one of the most honest female rockers)

6) Help! -- The Beatles

5) Mr Brightside -- The Killers (i am surprised the bus driver actually played this)

4) Knockin on Heaven's Door -- Guns N Roses

3) Stairway to Heaven -- Led Zeppelin

2) Freebird -- Lynyrd Skynyrd
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and....

NUMBER 1:

Bittersweet Symphony -- The Verve



truth be told, they play awful music too...... no ranks for these though....if it stinks..it stinks, period.


- the stuff 50 cent raps

- ...for that matter..ANY rapper.....with the exception from Mike Shinoda's rap in Linkin Park and the rap stuff Rage Against The Machine do....


for example, stuff like "Guerilla Radio" and "Wake" by them.....lovely guitar work.

- and by the way......

I THINK THE MUSIC HITZ.FM AIRS IS CRAP.......most of the time.

I mean, come on, what is so nice about hip hop and rap????? The music mixing is lousy.....they all sound the same most of the time and there is NO or hardly any guitar work!

*expletives fly*

If you want good music on the go, i highly recommend you get your ass onto Bittorrent and download and burn whatever you want. Or listen to Lite.fm



Cheers!

Matrix

Going Nuclear and the Thorium Reactor and of Biofuels

I guess its high time for a technical and nerdy post. No worries though, will present it here in the most non-scientific way as can be possible done for the benefit of non physics students.

With global oil prices hitting $142 per barrel this week and locally at RM2.70 per litre making the possibility of poor souls as myself with no driving licence driving anytime soon , very very remote, its high time alternative fuel sources get pushed into the lime light.

I'll start of with the controversial one first- going Nuclear.

To be blunt, Nuclear fuel is clean. Period. The only short term waste is water and a bit of steam. the long term waste is another matter altogether. Spent fuel rods containing uranium which takes 10,000 plus years to decay to safe levels added with a bit of hype surrounding Chernobyl and Three Mile Island reactor meltdowns makes it difficult, politically for deals like the current hot India-US civillian nuke deal to fall through.

But all thsi is known, i'll get to the point.

The key to safe and CLEAN nuke plants is now an element called Thorium. Its a lighter element that Uranuim-238 and has some really fab properties.

In conventional nuke plants, U-238 is refined to U-235 before being used, the reason for this being u-235 is more unstable than U-238, making a long fission chain reaction possible. The actual whole story is much more complicated, would love to explain more, but that would make this whole already boring post a tad bit more boring.

To skip all this, Thorium can be used to fuel future reactors. Its attractive points?

1) waste produced from burning thorium in a reactor is dramatically less radioactive than uranium

2) thorium reactor waste would only stay radioactive for 500 years, less than uranium's 10,000 plus years

3) Thorium fuel process can literally EAT up old plutonium waste, enabling the continued usage of old nuke power stations and using that waste to fuel the thorium powered plants!

4) So thorium might just be able to kill two birds with one stone. Not only does a thorium-fuelled reactor produce significantly less high-level waste, but it can also dispose of the decommissioned nuclear weapons and highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors using more conventional fuels. Oh yes, it can also generate electricity.


To be frank, research into thorium nuke power is still ongoing and the above facts have only been tested in a lab. There are a few problems that hampers widespread thrium usage at the moment,

Want more? Read the whole article here:

Thorium Nuclear Fuel Source

Country	Th Reserves (tonnes)		Th Reserve Base (tonnes)
Australia	300,000		340,000
India	290,000		300,000
Norway	170,000		180,000
United States	160,000		300,000
Canada	100,000		100,000
South Africa	35,000		39,000
Brazil	16,000		18,000
Malaysia	4,500		4,500
Other Countries	95,000		100,000
World Total	1,200,000		1,400,000

Am guessing if we decide to go Nuke anytime soon, we can use Thorium.


On Biofuels

I'll just talk about biodiesel. Loads of people have been talking about going hydrogen, going electric, solar etc.

These are all very fine, but we're neglecting one point here. Infrastructure demands.

Hydrogen vehicles means new cars. New EXPENSIVE cars. New HEAVY EXPENSIVE cars...with serious issues about efficiency.

I do realise i'm being a bit close minded here. We can have other means of transport for the future, other than cars, but for the sake of blogging and arguments, i'll set a few boundary conditions:

1) We still need cars

2) Petrol stations mus remain as their existance makes the transition to biodiesel much simpler than hydrogen....simply scrub out the old tanks and fill em with the stuff.

3) Existing diesel engines can be used and will be used.

4) People just love driving


Righto, that being said, a renewable fuel source is biodiesel. Ranging from the stuff that needs to be treated and refined from palm oil to the stuff that can be poured into a gas tank the minute its extracted (from some seeds...names i;ve forgotten)

But this poses one problem. Agricultural land is limited. And we need food. That being said, to produce enough fuel (am talking about millions of barrels of diesel per day, you would need to practically reduce your grown food industry by hell a lot.

The point of this whole debate?

Its a round about way of simply making a point. Every alternative fuel source has tradeoffs and benefits. For hydrogen and electric power, its the expense consumers have to support, new infrastructural needs and simply the loss of that feel good engine noise.

For biodiesel, we have to starve to drive.

Having highlighted this, i shall come to the ultimate point.

JUNK YOUR DAMN CAR AND TAKE THE BLOODY BUS......or rather the tram.....

Cause you see, trams like the ones in Melb and San francisco and in increasing number of european cities are cheap to install and run. You simply need over head power lines, and tracks that can be easily imbedded in roads. Simply get rid of all busses and replace the bus lines with tram lines.

Power the trams with electricity from Thorium power plants.


This post is not the whole story, nor are the suggestions and opinions mentioned here, the final words.

Go Googling for more info on how to tackle tranportation probs. Its bloody interesting and occasionally u stumble across good stuff.


Cheers from,

Matrix