Death is Ugly.

I hate procrastination

2008-04-25T18:53:00.002+10:00

So I'm sitting here listening to Hoshimura Mai - Merry Go Round while delving into anything to keep myself entertained. At the same time i have a little guy in my anterior cerebral cortex nagging me to put pen to paper and start my developmental psych essay. For some reason, I really cannot bring myself to even read the papers necessary for formulating the introduction. When I woke up this morning, I felt relatively refreshed to start work. However as I arrived home, I discarded all sense of duty and reverted back to my current slob-like form. Something tells me it'll be another repeat of last week where I started my behavioural neuroscience essay after gladiators. Although, this time around it's worth 40% so I might start sometime soon (ever the optimist I am).

So yes putting aside my impending doom, it's been a pretty eventful week; the highlight of which would be sipping hot mint chocolate in the middle of the night with Lyn :3 My week could be probably be broken up into a whole bunch of Lyn-time and dinner at Asatsuki (of course you prolly wouldn't want to hear about the former, hence why I'll only be talking about the latter).

Asatsuki (or Satsuki it's now called due to a change that was brought upon by the failure of gaijins to pronounce asatsuki) is a little Japanese 'restaurant', as Feng would call it, near East Malvern Station. Realistically I'd called it a cafe but for weeks leading up to this event, I was mislead to believe that I would be dining at a restaurant with a size and stature relative of Shira Nui. Oh how wrong I was.

This restaurant/cafe only housed 7 two-seater tables with almost enough room to reach the table you were meant to be seated at. It was rather Don Don-esque in size - it felt as if you were a little bit rushed in eating but that's where the similarities ended. There were 6 people behind the counter and whether they were all chefs, waiters, cleaners, etc., I felt that they really didn't require that many people to look after a restaurant/cafe its size. Also workers were multi-ethnic which is extremely strange for an Asian restaurant.

(A)Satsuki didn't really give off a new, refined and refreshing image such as say... Shine (although it did put some effort in with a sleek modern stereo system) but at the same time it didn't give off the dingy Asian restaurant feel such as the Asian places in Richmond. It gave me a rather cottage feeling with its mostly wooden furnishings and blackboard menus.

The food was of a mixed reaction. I felt the takoyaki were really nice compared with their CBD counterparts which are generally fail. The rare sliced beef also tasted alright, though never having eaten it before I have nothing to compare it against. I didn't really enjoy the sashimi much. It didn't really melt in your mouth and was far too chewy than what I would have liked. The katsu curry wasn't anything special (I'd much prefer Don Dons). The flavour was fairly weak and it lacked the pickled radishes which attracted me to curry in the first place. Deep fried potato croquettes were very lacking in size and portion for their price, and let's face it, anything tastes good if it has tonkatsu sauce and Japanese mayonaise. The tofu dish wasn't as I had hoped for and the sauce had a very weird taste to it. Green tea ice cream... well was green tea ice cream though was fairly expensive for what was provided.

Overall I'd say (A)Satsuki isn't too bad (when you compare it with some CBD places), but it lacks the atmosphere for medium or large group dining and seems to promote more one on one dining (as mentioned before, the tables were all 2 seaters). The food is rather mediocre for having gone out of our way to East Malvern to taste. I'd preferably have gone to Kimchi Grandma at Box Hill which would roughly take the same time to get to. The price of the food left much to be desired. the bill was $81.50 amongst 6 people which by itself isn't really bad for dining in. However many of us were undernourished (as you usually are when eating Japanese food) and needed extra sustenance later in the night (namely Feng and I). Again I would preferably have dined at Kimchi Grandma which usually sets us back $17 per person but leaves us with a perpetual bloated belly and satisfied taste buds.

After dinner, we crammed into Jenny's Yarris (Jenny driving, Allan in the passenger seat due to his... immense stature and with Peter, me, Joy and Feng in the backseat respectively from left to right). We chugged along to 'pur-chase' hair dye from Price Attack and ended up at Peter's house. There was much hair dying, Family Guy / American Dad watching, drum beating, guitar playing and Fatal Frame finishing. I kinda trodded off to sleep after we finished Fatal Frame leaving Andy, Peter and Feng gaming into the morning (Allan and Joy having gone off after drummania/guitar freaks.

I'm still quite disappointed that there was a lack of mahjong but oh well, maybe during swotvac :)

I hate humanity

2008-04-18T17:00:00.004+10:00

So my internet is finally working under stable conditions so I've been catching up on lost news over the days. What I had discovered appalled me to no end.

It was alleged that a group of 14 to 18 year olds (6 female and 2 male) lured a fellow student and cheerleader to a vacated premise and upon entering the house, the girl had her head slammed against the wall and commenced beating her. The victim (16 years of age) fell unconscious and her assaulters waited until she regained consciousness then resumed their barrage while the two boys kept look outside the venue. The entire act was recorded by one of the youths with the intent to be uploaded onto youtube to further humiliate the victim who now suffers from vision distortion and hearing loss which could be permanent. Apparently this all mediated from incidents on myspace where the victim was allegedly insulting and threatening the other teens.

Now hang on, since when did 'ethugging' become a reason to literally kidnap a person and severely beat and humiliate her while she was defenseless. What the fuck is wrong with kids these days. Sorry to sound like a 60 year old who served in 'Nam but it's just been a recent trend I've noticed over the past 4 or so years. Don't these kids have a conscience? Like you don't need to have a doctorate to know that it's wrong to beat up on a kid, and it's even worse to gang-beat a kid.

See I could 'possibly' forgive them if it was a spur of the moment thing, for example the victim just met up with them and roughed the other teens up a bit. Anyone and everyone can get caught up in the moment. However, this atrocious act was all thought out and planned beforehand. They had someone innocently drive her to the house, which belonged to a grandparent of one of the culprits who was away at the time, and they also had a camera ready to film the incident to put onto online social sites.

It's not just physical harm they were aiming for, they were also out to damage the victim's mental physique. They wanted to add to the psychological trauma of being beaten up with post incident humiliation. These things will most likely stay with the victim for life. Some of the other culprits, on the other hand, might get off with just a tap on the wrist.

Being between the age of 14-18, the younger of the youths would probably just end up in jouvie while the older ones will probably have to serve a jail sentence. Of course the entire jail sentence will not be served, only the non-parole period since the USA (and just about every other country) already have overfilled prisons. They'll all be able to continue their lives at one stage or another which brings me to another point: lenient sentences.

Imagine this. You come home one night and your defacto husband jabs you in a neck with a cattle prodder and you fall to the ground. He then continues to jab you two more times with the cattle prodder. You then manage to run to the front lawn where you trip and your husband lies on top of you and continues to jab you. You somehow manage to escape and run to a hotel/pub where you try to scream and bang on the windows for help. However your husband catches up with you, slams your head against the footpath and punches you in the mouth. Then he sits on top of you and sinks his thumb into your left eye and gouges it completely out of the socket. He then tries to gouge out your right eye when the hotel/pub doors as the owner is finally roused and you crawl your way to the back. Doctors manage to re-attach your right eye but you continue to have sight loss.

How many years jail time would you expect your husband to receive. Really close your eyes and just contemplate this for a moment until you come to a rough estimate. Also keep in mind he has had a history of domestic violence and at one stage you've had a restraint order against him.

...
...
...

Are you ready? The husband received six years jail time with a non-parole period of four and a half years (of which he has already spent one year in police custody). The guy will be out on the streets living a free life in three and a half years time. In comparison the woman will be living the rest of her life in fear, recurring traumatic memories, distorted vision and the humiliation of the unjust legal system which fails to protect the innocent members of society.

This is really too much. I cannot believe people would do such a thing. Apparently the entire ordeal was due to the woman partying with colleagues after work and going over to their place (which was across the road from where they lives) for a while. That jealous prick. Someone who obviously cannot function in society, as demonstrated, should DEFINITELY not be released back into that society.

He didn't even show the 'remorse' which the judge claimed he had shown by pleading guilty and said (as he sat on the woman and gouged out her eye): "I don't want you to breathe. I would rather go to jail for it this time." Does pleading guilty really equate to remorse? Fuck anyone in their right mind would plead guilty to get a lighter sentence under these circumstances. The woman's eye was out of her fucking socket. It's not like 'Oh... She fell...'. It's obvious that he was planning the attack as he was waiting at home behind the door with (need i remind you) A CATTLE PRODDER.

In my opinion, if you do something horribly wrong to someone, your punishment should be heavier and worse than what they had suffered, NOT the other way around. I just home the 8 teenagers get a just and deserved punishment, not some petty excuse from a failing legal system.

These two cases I read today have not just caused me to lose faith in the judicial system (okay well I never had much faith in it in the first place) but also to lose faith in humanity (although again, I probably didn't have too much faith in that either). These two things really disgusted me today and I just felt the urge to rant on them, that's all.

Also here is the link to a short exert of the teenagers beating the 16 year old if you haven't seen it yet. Apparently the entire ordeal lasted

I hate remakes

2008-04-13T15:54:00.003+10:00

If you've known me for some time then one thing you'd know is that the title of my single most favourite movie of all time would go to My Sassy Girl. The movie itself has had mixed criticisms from people but the most common response was most definitely positive. For me, it encompasses all the elements necessary to produce THE perfect movie, or at least THE perfect romance-comedy.

I could go into a thesis-length rant on the epicness that is My Sassy Girl, but that's not the topic of this entry. The purpose of what you're reading here is to exemplify how utterly... CRAP the US remake of My Sassy Girl is.

Take for instance, the first 20 sec of the trailer. Jordan (Cuthbert and yes, that's the girl and she has a name now) is meant to be 'drunk'. Look at the way she stares into Charlie's (Bradford) eyes. She doesn't look anywhere near punking drunk as in the original. Such unconvincing acting for a scene which is meant to be the foundation of the personality of The Girl.

Also in this scene Jordan is meant to call Charlie "darling" on the train. In the remake they're on the platform. Know what this means? There will be scene where The Girl throws up on the male with the toupe, or The Girl (after composing herself) demands a guy to give his seat up for an elder which reveals glimpses of her inner kindness and respect for elders (the same respect which she fails to show to Gyoonwoo).

0:25 you see Charlie with some random fat guy. Who in the world is he? I don't recall Gyoonwoo having a best friend in which he is able to console with. Sure he has his mates which he enjoys a good drink and KBBQ with, but show me the scene where he even remotely talks about the girl other than arbitrarily mentioning his 'type'.

Right after at 0:26, there's the trademark scene with The Girl on the piano. Exciting isn't it? 'At least they included that scene' is what you're thinking isn't it? I guess it did make my heart leap, but only to shoot it down straight after at 0:29 where Jordan ruins the moment by asking in a very non-sassy way 'should we get outa here?' which Charlie responds almost instantaneously 'yep'.

Please tell me why... WHY was it necessary to ruin such a perfect mood. It wasn't meant to be a comedic scene so WHY would you bring comedy into it?! It JUST. DOESN'T. MAKE. SENSE. Does Samuell (director) think more laughs = more stars, more laughs = more money or more laughs = better movie overall? In my opinion it'd be more laughs = re-fucking-tarded director.

Moving along...

0:33 Jordan tells Charlie of her beliefs that there are people from the future among them 'as they speak'. Okay kudos for staying true to the original story but was it necessary to make The Girl sound like she needs to be locked up in a mental asylum? Furthermore, the way Jordan has the conversation with Charlie makes it look like her 'movie scripts' have been given given the boot in this sub par remake.

0:38, 0:42, 0:50 more fat guy

0:45 They play hockey and Charlie gets a 'level one concussion'. Okay this wasn't really part of the movie but this was one addition that I didn't mind. However on second thoughts, it may be a method as to eliminate the scenes where Gyoonwoo is thrown into prison and after the girl bails him out she beats the living daylights out of him. Hopefully this isn't the case, but a little part of me will die if they do omit these scenes.

0:52 They play squash and kendo. These scenes stay true to the original. Although many people have criticised the irrelevance of kendo in Western society (and suggested it'd have been better if they used fencing as the sport of choice instead), I still think it was a good idea to leave it in the movie. To me, it's an Easter Egg for the long lasting fans of the original movie. However, they do ruin the moment with Jorden repeatedly beating Charlie at kendo in a comedic manner. This is a stark contrast to the seriousness in which The Girl seems to take her sports, and her relatively ease at beating Gyoonwoo with one strike.

0:56 Jordan toasts to what it seems like, the company for which Charlie works for. Hang on a sec, Bradford's character isn't meant to have a job. He's meant to be in university (oh look, there goes the 'abortion scene') and isn't meant to have a direction in life. He's meant to be at crossroads of where he wants to take his life, but being the procrastinator he is, he prefers to bludge through life. It is after he meets The Girl that his life changes that he finds direction and a purpose, and works towards goals to better himself for the sake of him and The Girl. That one main theme in the movie is completely shot down in just 3 seconds of trailer material.

1:09 My favourite part of the trailer. Here's one scene which I think they did remake correctly. I'd ignore the fact Jordan made a 'grrrrr' noise while hugging Charlie (which is definitely not in The Girl's character). The way Cuthbert says 'wait, who said you could hug me?' is not just true to the original text, but also carries the spontaneity and cuteness which underpins the line.

1:15 My most detested part of the trailer, although it's not very surprising since the movie is for the US audience (and we all know how stupid they are). Charlie professes aloud, his love for Jordan. What makes the original My Sassy Girl so sweet is that their love is never professed on screen in words or blunt, physical gestures. It is a subtle thing which the audience can empathise with. The fact that Samuell added such a line to the movie would mean either his directing was not effective enough to portray Bradford's character's love... or that Samuell wants to stir up some shit with the fans of the original

1:19 The Slapping Game! I'll overlook the fact that they're on platform and not on the train for this scene. However, yet again, Samuell was able to decimate such a memorable scene from the original by having both parties relentlessly slapping one another. Bradford's character is meant to be submissive and never would he dare to slap The Girl. However Samuell obviously doesn't share the same perspective as the rest of us and again bludgeons the original again with his ugly stick/branch/trunk/tree. Another line which will probably be missing from the remake which exists in this scene would be The Girl proclaiming that everything in life was for her, that the sky is blue to make her happy, that fire is hot because she wishes so, and that there are 4 seasons for her.

1:35 onwards is just a collection of clips from the movie. It's hard to make out anything from them apart from the fact that most of them look unfamiliar. The pier scene where Charlie falls into the river reminds me of the scene where the girl throws her necklace into the water. I should probably not dwell on this since it could mean Gyoonwoo's aunt won't be in the movie which ruins the underlying theme of coincidence, fate and what it means to build a bridge of chance for the one you love.

Anyway check out the trailer for yourself if I haven't spammed you with it yet. I applaud you for having read this to the end.

I hate routers

2008-04-10T18:23:00.000+10:00

So... It's been over a week since my intarwebs has died. Well initially I thought it was only my router's power supply which had died, but after randomly plugging the power supply in and out of my router, I noticed that it somehow resurrected (yippee)... and that's about all the good news there is. For some strange reason, my computer can't directly connect to the net via the modem but my sister is able to. However neither of our computers can connect to the net via router => modem => net. I've spent the last 2 hours on (and off) line with Malc trying to resolve my stupid intarwebs! Alas all that testing proved fruitless in the bid to solve my dilemma.

I'm kinda annoyed really. It's not so much that I'm suffering through withdrawl of the internet; I can easily fill my time with numerous other things (looks in Lyn's direction ;P). It's more to do with the loss of accessibility... the convenience of having the internet at my disposal and able to just bum around on youtube. Oh yeah there's also the need to research articles for my Behavioural Neuroscience and Developmental Psychology essays which are due in about 11 days time. Really need to start them now, but studying for Japanese is so much... more... FUN!

I really do enjoy studying Japanese... well... Tuesday Japanese anyway. I get to spend 2 hours with none other than... DANNY YU! Tuesday's seminar is a very relaxed environment too. Our sensei is this moderately old lady with a short stature but she's very adorable with a really friendly smile and relatively large glasses frame to her... well body frame. My Thursday sensei, on the other hand, is out to get me. There has been an unanimous acknowledgment that she really is an awful teacher. She appears as if she has a sour face permanently stapled onto her face. She doesn't smile and always has a stern look on her face... Okay okay I should stop saying unpleasant things about her.

As I was saying, I love Japanese classes with Danny Yu! He is very much pimpalicious (if that was a word). I've yet to experience a single Japanese seminar with Danny where he hasn't managed to chat up a girl, regardless of intentionality. I'm just waiting for the day that he runs out of girls in the class to chat up and has to resort to the trannie xD

In other news, I find the very UNpeaceful protests displayed by the British over China's rule of Tibet incredibly hypocritical. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone the alleged inhumane treatment of Tibetan monks, PEACEFUL protesters, exiled parliament, etc. and nor do I feel opinionated by China's forceful occupation and takeover of Tibet. However I fail to see how people of British origin can claim that is wrong to take land from Tibetans but overlook British occupation of India, Canada, America, Australia and numerous other countries. The same applies to the USA and their forceful takeover of Mexican land (which they still keep and includes California and Texas). Yeah.. betcha didn't know that! And really, aren't the Olympic Games about setting aside differences and having the best of the best compete against each other for the glory of their country. To even suggest politics in its presences is to dismiss the spirit of the Games and all it stands for.

Another thing that's been bugging me lately is the state which Connex is running trains at the moment. I had a Japanese assessment this morning at 9 so I decided to take the early train (8:02) to uni which would get me to Melbourne Central at 8:38. So I woke up at 7 and the first thing I get when I turn my phone on is "Dear David, the 7:45 from Glen Waverley has been cancelled". I routinely deleted the SMS as the 7:45 never EVER seems to run from Glen Waverley.

I boarded the 8:02 and all seemed well as the train chugged along while I was engrossed in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals. As we approached Glen Iris, the train came to a halt and we just waited there. Apparently we have caught up to the train ahead of us (which happened to be subjected to retards holding doors open). So at each subsequent station from Glen Iris onwards, our train would wait a couple of minutes. We finally arrived at Richmond WAY past the expected arrival time. Again we waited. After a few minutes the driver's voice appeared over the PA and informed us that not only did the train infront of us contain retards, the train infront of theirs had a sick person onboard and that now we'd be running directly to Flinders St.

I finally departed the train. 8:50 said my phone. 48 minutes it took for the train to travel from Glen Waverley DIRECTLY to Flinders. As I crossed the barriers my phone buzzed and I read with disbelief that Connex reported that the "8:02 train from Glen Waverley had been canceled".

What the fuck?

Does Connex really need to fabricate details to make it seem like its services run reliably? Of course on paper, saying a train was canceled looks much better than saying it was over 15 minutes late, but the reality is YOU HAVE FUCKED OVER HUNDREDS OF CUSTOMERS.

I have seen Connex proudly displaying posters of 99% of services running, 90% of services running on time. Now hold on a minute, let's just take a step back. 99% of services running seems pretty good doesn't it? 99% efficient. I like that! However, in reality the majority of that 1% is canceled trains within the rush hour period. The same applies for the 10% of delayed services. It's like the 20:80 rule. 20% of trains which run affects 80% of the commuting population. In layman terms, they're fucking with us and trying to cover it up by bullshit irrelevant statistics.

Anyway to conclude that little story, I arrived at uni at 9:10, approximately 20 minutes later than I had planned. Gotta love privatisation.

So anyway... I probably have a heap more to say but I've already spent 1 1/2 hours typing this and I'm getting a bit distracted by various things (looks at Lyn AGAIN) so I'll leave it here for today.

Oh yes. I forgot to mention. I have a er... blog (again (again)) now! It was solely Feng's idea, although I must say that I have been considering starting a blog (again (again)) lately. It feels so much better when I can rant on about things, even if I'm consciously aware that there is a 99% probability that no one is reading it. I guess people can get alleviated just by knowing that their thoughts are in the public domain of cyberspace where anyone can access it, but they probably won't.

So anyway as I was saying... Wait what was I saying? *Checks up* Ah yes... New blog! Please tune in every couple of days or so to read my highly opinionated opinions and random ramblings on (un)important issues and many of my daily deeds. Incase you missed the link above... visit Feng's New Blog