it's been a long time ...

It's been a long time since I wrote. Well, that's mainly because of the laziness that I vow to beat. It's not easy, but i'm trying.

So, many things, not all interesting, have happenned since I last wrote:

I finally moved back to Mountain View, ironically the very city I spent most of my time when I first came here studying in Foothill. Of course, I have to spend some time adjusting back to the environment.

I'll be damned if I don't miss Berkeley. I'm not a big fan of the city. But i'd be lying if i don't miss the school (all the nights spent studying), the acton apartment and its parking space (but not the too sensitive alarm system), the beautiful views of the bay, the vicinity of San Francisco, and most importantly, my old and new friends in Berkeley. I would still visit the place from time to time but that won't replace all the good and bad memories spent there.

Cal beat Texas A&M to win Holiday Bowl. Yay, that was a good match and good performance by the Bears, if only they could do it consistently. USC beat Michigan to win Rose Bowl - boooo, the trojans suck. and Ohio just lost shockingly to Florida - that really made my day.

Tinaga visited SF with her family. I was really happy to see her here. She's probably the first person from singapore or indonesia to visit me in SF who's not a family member, and she'd be the last person I'd expect to see. Margaret and Yunita visited US before, but they couldn't meet me ... that sucks. But anyway, Tinaga was here and I took her around SF. Unfortunately, she had to follow her family for most of the time and that reduced the amount of time we can spend together. But they were really fun and meaningful time spent together. Thanks a lot Tin, for coming to visit me in US, especially during the time when most of my good friends are not here. and I hope the rest of you in singapore/indo like Ronny/ Darwin can visit me here... even Ivan and Carter in Canada never visit me ... sigh ... lol j/k.

I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on Gamecube. This is my first Zelda game ever and I really enjoy it. I have logged in 8 hours and defeated the first boss. There is maybe 50 - 60 hours more to go and I intend to do it all the way to the end. After that, I will sell my gamecube and get a Wii. Oh, by the way, this game is the reason why I don't buy the Wii at launch. I have been waiting for this game for ages and guess what, Nintendo chose to release it for Wii first. So, screw you, Nintendo. Anyway I've been looking for Nintendo DS Lite also. Damn, they're hard to find.

Last 2 movies watched: Rocky Balboa and Curse of The Golden Flower.

Rocky Balboa is an excellent movie - if you're a Rocky fan already, especially the original academy award winning film. This isn't the cartoonish sequel of Rocky II - V. In fact, there isn't a lot of fighting in the movie, it's just about Rocky adjusting to his life without the love of his life - Adrian and how it lead him to fight again. In some way, the movie is Stallone's reflection of his own hollywood career and I guess through this movie, he wanted to convey to everyone that he wants some respect and want to show that he can still make a good movie - like the original Rocky. In my opinion, he has succeeded.

oh btw. in the previews leading to Rocky, I watched one of the worst trailer of all time that made the whole theater laugh:



Curse of The Golden Flower is on the other hand, another failed attempt at martial arts epic by Zhang Yimou. It's better than his last attempt, House of Flying Dagger, but it's still quite bad. There's more plot in Curse than House, but ultimately, it's quite bad and pointless. Unlike House, Curse hardly has interesting action (signs of the actions getting more boring and conventional, perhaps) and less beautiful cinematography, its visual strength comes unexpectedly from its production design instead which is full of Gold in costumes and the palace. Chow Yun Fatt and Gong Li did okay. But best acting job is by Liu Ye as the weak eldest prince. Jay Chou is again, getting a lot of undeserved criticism, he didn't really have a lot of screen time, but he did okay. I guess his singer image is hurting his acting career. Anyway, the movie is disappointing. It's not even so bad it's enjoyable/funny/good epic disaster like The Promise. Too bad, because Zhang made the excellent Hero. Now it's 1/3 for him and next time a chinese director wants to make a chinese epic, you'd better be more cautious than optimistic.

Anyway, I've written too much. I guess that's all for now.