Smses from friends who I haven’t met very often started pouring in quite recently (as if they arranged to do this together)  to express their deepest concerns, just to check that I’m still alive and able to reply messages properly.

I’m fine thank you.

Past few weeks have been crazy. I worked crazily hard and played crazily harder with my closest bunch of friends (some of whom have already left Singapore last week to further studies). I’ve had some of the most surreal and enjoyable, and not to forget, the most frustrating and helpless times in the past 2 months.

The only word that I can think of which can be describe what I’ve been through is really.. just… CRAZY!!!

I’m sorry for being MIA to some of my friends. My bad. Bear with me for a few more weeks to straighten things out and we can live life normally and meet again okay?

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Movies I’ve watched during my MIA:

Inception

The ultimate story within a story within a story. Mind-boggling but engaging. Makes you go wow all the time.

8.5/10!

Despicable Me

Decent animated comedy. Rather entertaining.

7.5/10

Toy Story 3

Pixar does it again. They have ended the story in the best and most meaningful possible. Ken’s definitely my favourite character in this instalment.

9/10!

Karate Kid

A not-bad Jackie Chan flick where Jackie watches other people fight most of the time, instead of throwing punches at people himself. You can almost tell he looks bored sometimes.

7/10!

Shrek Forever After

Why the hell are they still making Shrek? You can tell that there are already no more good stories to tell.

4/10

It’s not easy being a designer nowadays.

The fictional job listing above roughly shows what the industry is expecting from these people. I’m not kidding, just go to any job search website, find job listings for designers and you can start playing ‘find the similarities’ game. I bet you can score with flying colours.

The requirements of various companies everywhere actually don’t differ much, and I can’t complain because that is the harsh truth of this increasingly competitive industry and society. This is serious business. It is unfortunate that sometimes design is reduced to being merely mass produced products, where efficiency, productivity and profitability are key.

Nowadays it is not enough to be great at what you do, you gotta be fast. People are constantly finding ways to do things better in a shorter time. Life is too short; You can’t afford to spend 3 years to work on a Mona Lisa painting like Leonardo da Vinci anymore. Someday, archaeologists digging the grounds might just discover ‘Patience’ buried down there.

Now that we are in the Web 2.0 age, a lot of commercial design works are expected to be churned out like fast food. It disgusts me that sometimes quality has to give way to speed, like how gourmet chefs might feel towards instant noodles.

But that is not to say tight deadlines and stress are bad. In fact, I think it motivates you to think more clearly and stay focused.

At the end of the day, the only thing that keeps these poor designers alive and clicking is their undying passion. If you are working for money, you shouldn’t be a designer at all. It’s really not about the money, even though we are doing this for a living.

‘Clients From Hell’ and The Oatmeal’s ‘Design Hell’ amuse me and also make me look like I’m laughing at myself sometimes. Gotta love the part where The Oatmeal describes web designers turning into robots/mouse arrows that are being controlled by clients.

Just to update here, I have already found a graphic design job, sort of. For some weird reason, I can’t wait to start work and face the challenges ahead. I have set out to be an awesome designer who wants to change the world for the better using the power of media and design.

I will learn to be damn good at what I love to do and then use my ‘damn good’ skills to improve the society.

Nearly copying what Spider-Man has said: With Great Skills, Comes Great Responsibility.

Let’s go.

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Ip Man 2 Review

This is definitely a feel-good movie for the Chinese, a nearly 2 hour long advertisement of Wing Chun and also where you can see Sammo Hung getting pwned to death. I dare say Ip Man (Donnie Yen’s version) is now the worldwide Chinese population’s new superhero and idol. As usual, great action choreography (especially the one where they fought on the table), great humour and meaningful message.

For some strange reason I wasn’t as ecstatic as I thought I would be at the moment I collected my pink IC. Maybe I have already ‘left’ the place long before that day. For the past few weeks, I have been busy preparing what I call the ‘post ORD life’.

ORD has never been a destination to me. It is really just a door to the endless possibilities ahead. Suddenly I’m considering to get a toilet roll  to write my to-do list on it.

The first few months during BMT was quite tough. It was all about following instructions and punishment. Spending most of the time being cut off from civilisation is something that I learnt to adapt (initially endure) quickly. I have to admit, I miss the fresh air at Tekong. Life became better after I left that place.

On the first week upon posting to my unit (which happens to be located right smack in the middle of a neighbourhood), I told my commanders that I was willing to help out with anything related to design. That is my passion and I was not going to let it extinguish without even trying. Fair enough, I got what I asked for. Subsequently, all design related tasks from unit to formation and even Army level were automatically given (or ‘recommended’) to me. Even though I spent most of my time designing, it was still considered my secondary job as my primary concern was still, army.

I worked real hard; I delivered quality designs on time. Eventually I earned respect and trust from various commanders, who allowed me to exercise more creative control and freedom than anyone else.

And because I worked too hard (=PPP), I was often awarded day offs. I was also awarded a Letter of Commendation, Best Soldier of the Month and 2 Gold IPPT Awards (I know I don’t look like the sort who can achieve this, but come on..). All thanks to my desire to keep in touch with art and design as much as possible, as well as efforts to keep fit.

Frankly speaking, I already miss the free ‘freeflow’ food and drinks inside, no matter how bad they can be sometimes. I miss the free facilities like gym and karaoke (The system allows you to rewind and pause the song! How cool is that?!).

What about those friendship and bonds I have forged inside? Well, the closest army friends that I care about have already left before me (some to overseas, some ORD). I miss chatting with them and our makansutra food trips to various places.

Now I wonder how the hell I am supposed to keep myself disciplined to maintain my fitness from now onwards. I want to get gold for IPPT again!

National Service has indeed opened my eyes and introduced me to all sorts of guys in Singapore. I’ve seen scums who are huge waste of space but also seen quite a number of great guys.

Have I changed much? I wonder.

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Movie Reviews

Iron Man 2

Not as awesome as the first, but this sequel is a ‘good-enough’ movie that manages to entertain and get you ready for the next instalment. My favourite part of the movie? Definitely the suitcase transformation part. I jizz in my pants every time I watch it/think about it.

Kick-Ass

I expected this movie to be different. It’s a superhero movie about a normal guy who tries to be ’super. In many ways I guess most people are able to relate to him, and it’s nice that they try to keep it as realistic and down-to-earth as possible, as compared to movies where characters have superhuman/miraculous powers. Halfway through, though, things start to become formulaic and less realistic -_-. If you haven’t known by now, almost everyone’s favourite character of the movie is Hit Girl. She’s goddamn awesome and more kick-ass than Kick-Ass.

I have so many things I want to write about, but tasks on my to-do list just keep on adding non-stop, resulting in ‘blogging’ being pushed down wayyyy to the bottom.

Not like I update a lot anyway, but feel free to start following me at twitter.com/qamuri.

Meanwhile. here’s what’s happening:

1. I’m going to ORD this Friday. Not really in the mood to celebrate because I’m really quite busy preparing post-ORD stuff.

2. I’m sleeping at an average of 4 to 5  hours a day (actually not extremely crazy yet but in the long run it’s going to be fatal) to work on some projects on hand.

3. I should be able to come back and write regularly again starting mid-May! Until then, maybe we (maybe there’s no ‘we’ lol. Where are my readers?) can all expect very short entries dropping in every now and then.

And then you find out how they try to make foreigners understand them.

The very first step would be translating words from Chinese to English, in an effort to make the city more global-friendly.

Being bilingual helps because you can tell whether the translation really works. Haha.

Sometimes Samuel and I wondered, ‘Did they sometimes come up with an English name to ‘translate’ it into Chinese, or the other way round?’

After all, it’s safer to be correct in English and then sound ‘foreign’ in Chinese.

The ‘Rich’ below doesn’t mean ‘rich’ in its Chinese ‘translation’. The Chinese words that read ‘Li Qi’ mean, well, ‘Li Qi’!!

Neither does ‘Chick’ mean ‘Qi Ge’!

It’s usually wiser to have just one English word for your shop name because nothing can go wrong, unless you make a spelling mistake. When you have more than one word for your shop name, ahhh that’s risk-taking!

Without examining the words closely, the first word kind of resembles ‘bullshit’:

This doesn’t really make sense right?

After googling a bit I found out that those English words are actually different clothing brand names. The Chinese name says ‘Hundreds of bizarre’.

Qi Shi Mei Shoes.

As of today, no one is interested to ‘come’ and ‘buy’ their ‘world tea shop’ yet:

Hmm how do you pronounce this?

Emperor Hotel. In short, eh!!!!

There’s this stall that we saw in Jiu Fen that sells sausages. It’s called the ‘Invincible Sausages’.

What’s so unique about it is the way the stall owner carries her own brand!

Cute huh! No extra charges for photo-taking!

There’s even a huge sunflower hat hanging on her back.

I wonder how they came up with the brand name ‘Lobster With Big Eyes’

Did they hold a meeting and go like,

“Smiling Lobster?”

“Nah, too plain.”

“How about Smiling Lobster With Big Eyes And Glasses.”

“I like the Big Eyes part! Sounds good!”

“Let’s call it Lobster With Big Eyes then!”

…

We saw a Mario who finally shaved himself!

This looks slightly disturbing…

Sleeping bottle!

Oh! By the way, if you know typefaces that were used for Chinese Horror movie titles, you’d have noticed that they usually like to use those that look like they are written with blood. The broken and fluid-looking type.

Something like this:

Looking at titles like this makes you want to adopt a deep and eerie sounding voice to read it out isn’t it? 美容尸~~~…

Guess what we saw in Taiwan.

A SCARY BEAUTY SALON~:

A SCARY GRANDMA’S SHOP:

Hong recommends… ~~ GRANDMA’S SHOP ~~…….

Did they actually think that using this typeface makes the shop look more authentic and traditional? Turns out that all these made us think of horror movies instead. Haha!

Will you dare to go in?

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City of Men

City of Men isn’t better than City of God, but it’s not bad! Was hoping for a sad ending though, more realistic that way.

7 / 10

Just came back from Taiwan 2 weeks ago.

Yes, theoretically speaking the ‘just’ doesn’t really apply since it’s been 2 weeks but the memories are so fresh it feels like yesterday!

This is the hotel my friends and I checked in shortly after we touched down at Tao Yuan airport. When we booked this hotel online we had no idea this is actually quite a sleazy place! It’s kinda located near their night-life/red-light district areas.

This is how it looks at night.

For the price we’ve paid, this place exceeded my expectations in terms of its interior decorating and furnishing for its rooms. So cosy and makes you wanna lie in the bed even when you are looking at the photo!!

Oh, and they provide very good service too.

The last room you see below is actually shared by me and my friend, Samuel. Sigh two guys sleeping in the most romantic and kinky room. (We drew lots beforehand, and had no idea that all our rooms actually looked different until we opened the doors..)

Even our bathroom wall has a rose illustration.

Every room is provided with a ‘Cotton Bad’. And in Chinese it says ‘棉花棒’, which literally says ‘Cotton Good’. So who’s lying?!

…

One of the few things that we’ve all enjoyed at Taipei was laughing at looking at the signs, signboards and advertisements everywhere. Their visual information spamming is so extreme, their mayor plans to tax advertising billboards to turn the city into a more beautiful and green place. I think blatant billboard advertising is quite the norm in most urban cities everywhere except Singapore, isn’t that so?

I don’t think one entry alone is able to sum up all those interesting experiences we had during the trip. So today I’m just going to showcase some of the more interesting signs we came across!

Unlike Singapore’s MRT stations where toilets are located far far outside the baffle gate, as if trying to make life difficult for those who are urgently in need to release, Taipei’s MRT stations have toilets built-in near their boarding platforms. And that’s good because you don’t have to exit the station just to use the toilet.

The baby changing facility and disabled toilet sign (shown below) kind of illustrates the way modern society is evolving into: House-husband takes care of the child (see left). Mum goes shopping with daughter (see middle). Grandparents sent to stay at old folk’s home (see right).

There’s also a warning sign that reminds you not to lean against the escalator in this manner! Very awkward looking pose.. Hmm.

Drinking fountains that spray water in the opposite direction from the drinker.

You can have the priority seat only if you have your feet amputated, or wear white boots.

Very nice graphic with some personality injected!

No parking sign..

…fail.

Do not eat American bulls that look demonic.

Birds in Taiwan understand English, and will follow rules by not entering!

Poster of how to wear your helmet properly. Step one: Look shocked all the time.

Not really a sign, but I saw this photo hanging on the wall inside their awesome ShinYeh Japanese buffet restaurant (more on this next time) toilet. It shows the result of stuffing too much good food into one’s mouth, causing him to find it difficult to stand up and walk properly to the toilet cubicle. HE SEMI-CRAWLS INSTEAD…

Some other English-fail examples. Here’s one that tells you not to forget to go along with the goods.

Topolice right the way!

What’s that thing that you wear when you reach your goal?

Kiss someone and you may ride.

Alright, that’s all for part one of Taiwan trip series! Shall be back for part two.. three.. four.. I don’t know, up to seven maybe?

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Movies I’ve watched recently!

How To Train Your Dragon

Probably the best Dreamworks animated feature since Shrek. The cuteness factor of all those dragons didn’t really make me go AWWWW I LOVE THEM, but thankfully that wasn’t the only thing that made this movie so entertaining and enjoyable. I like the story and music. Nuff said!

8.5 / 10

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Alice in Wonderland

Halfway through the show I realised this movie is actually a bit boring. Yes, there are plenty of beautiful magical visuals to feast your eyes, but if you strip all those away it’s just a linear story where you already know the ending from the start. I liked Mad Hatter and Red Queen’s performances though.

6 / 10

Lol the irony.

(For those who don’t understand Chinese and are Singaporeans living in a cave, the big words on the iWeekly magazine cover read ‘Model Good Man’, and the bonus content pullout features Jack Neo, whose affair with a mistress is exposed and widely reported recently.)

We all know that he’s pretty much screwed up in Love Matters already, and is now remorseful. So why not just give him One More Chance to learn the ways of Being Human again?

Anyway, I’m going off to Taiwan in 15 hours time. Can’t wait!

And then when we talk about couples, we sometimes ask, “Are Mr B and Miss A still together?”

It’s as if we’re always not very supportive of their relationships, and sounds so mean but that’s how people usually ask questions and I don’t know why!

Maybe 20 to 30 years later, we’ll all ask “Is Mr B still alive?”

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Movie review!

Summer Wars

I’m already pretty confident that this movie will be in my personal mental list of top 10 movies of this year. The concept of the movie mainly revolves around this global virtual network (called OZ, something like our Google/Facebook, but way cooler and more interactive) that the world pretty much relies on for business, gaming and almost everything else. The problem comes when this supposedly super secure system gets hacked and chaos ensues.

What’s really awesome about this show is that, the director and screenplay writer have brilliantly married the two worlds that we live in (the young virtual world and the traditional real world), brought in a entire family of more than 20 interesting characters and still managed to tell an entertaining, original and meaningful story about love, family and technology…. and keep you engaged from the start to the end. The usual formula/approach for save-the-world stories like this is to have just one or two main characters to save the day, but here we have the Shinohara family, no wait, or even the community from all over the world, working together like a huge family to fight against a common enemy.

What a touching and epic movie this is. I’m SO going to get the DVD of this and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (same director and animation studio) this time!

This time!!

8.5 / 10

Or at the very least, look like I’m working very hard. Afterall, I’m very good at displaying the ‘looking intense and serious’ look.

It’s worked well for me during my Studio Project and Final Year Project in school, during my internship and during my short term job before my enlistment.

Sometimes even when I’m just casually surfing the net after working hours (around 8pm to 9pm-ish), I still have concerned colleagues (who have already changed into their pyjamas) walking past me in the office, greeting me with a “Wow you’re still working at this hour?”.

I reply with a.. “Yea. Too much work to do. What to do?”, shift a little on my seat and carry on hopping around tumblr sites.

I can’t stand being rooted to my seat for too long either. I frequently stand up to stretch myself, walk around the office to make small talk or look at myself in the mirror in the toilet to make sure I don’t unknowingly turn into a freak with drying eyes with dark circles.

Tuning in to Azure Ray on my laptop in this environment full of men helps fuel my imagination.

The elements of alt-country and folk Americana from their music transform all the men wearing green uniform around me into a big grassland with trees swaying to the rhythm, not without the imaginary gentle breeze blowing into my face, reminding me of the kind of the freedom and dreams I currently pursue.

With only about 66 days left before I leave this place, never look back and risk becoming unemployed like what happened to me two years ago after my graduation, I seem to have reached a zen status in my1 year 10 months short military career. It feels like I’m sitting on top of a hill, smiling and thinking about all the things I have done that have earned myself so much respect and trust from my commanders.

The juniors who have just joined my department seem to have a long long way to go, before reaching where I am today.

“Desmond, I need your help on something,” my superior asked as he gently tapped my shoulder.

And I’m gently thrown back to reality. -_-

Why? Because it was free!

The National Museum of Singapore was opened for free admission on that day, and the Quest For Immortality exhibition attracted the most crowds. And I have to admit, the large crowd was a bit of a turn-off, because you have to (sometimes) squeeze through people just to see things closely.

See, I noticed this crack on the coffin after looking closely. It’s like the corpse, woken up by the crowd maybe, couldn’t take it anymore so it came back to life and attempted to break it open and escape.

Rather than only showing mummies and coffins, the exhibition also showcases accessories, tablets, scrolls, etc, to help visitors understand ancient Egyptians’ concept of afterlife and immortality.

That looks like a lot ingredients for CNY reunion dinner. But in this case they are probably used as offerings. How many different food can you spot?

It seems like ancient Egyptians have already discovered advanced printing and graphic design techniques to tell people not to touch their sacred artefacts.

According to my friend, a little boy came and saw this ‘do not touch’ sign, and thought that only the sign itself could not be touched, so he used his fingers to touch the artefact instead. Haha so cute!

This is the copper mirror they used in their time. Hmmmmm I think the surface it is lying on is much more reflective than it.

A mummy of a cat. It is said that millions of them have been found buried in cemeteries.

Bad thing about not paying to see an exhibition like this is that, you don’t feel the need to read and experience every single thing there. Even though there was some form of crowd control to regulate the number of visitors entering at a time, I still felt rather distracted by the huge amount of people wandering around.

It felt kinda like a huge CNY gathering happening in the dark (the whole exhibition was kind of dark).

All in all, I would highly recommend everyone to go there and spend S$15 for this experience! (Personally I wouldn’t mind going down again, because I didn’t manage to look through every single thing) Not all their artefacts have the ‘do not touch’ sign so feel free to touch (but be careful not to damage them)!

I touched his face.

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Lousy Movie Reviews!

14 Blades

I went to watch this movie purely because of Donnie Yen and Qi Yu Wu. And it certainly didn’t disappoint too much. The concept mainly revolves around dignity and bonds, with Zhao Wei’s constant reminder in the movie that ‘the world needs a hero to fight against injustice’. In this case, Donnie Yen is our hero in the movie. Frankly speaking, I didn’t really understand the storyline fully. The premise seems to be pretty complicated (or rather, maybe not very well explained) for a story that’s basically about good fighting evil. Luckily the fighting scenes and the occasional comic relief moments were pretty decent.

7 / 10

72 Tenants of Prosperity

Drawing audience into the cinemas using a large strong cast line-up is not new, and this is one of the movies during the CNY season this year that is heavily relying on this tactic. While the plot is paper thin and nonsensical humour not really funny (partly due to it being lost in translation from Cantonese to Mandarin, and partly because it’s really not funny when it tried too hard) sometimes, it was rather fun for me to spot various cameos of different Hong Kong actors and actresses. As the movie ends you might feel like you’ve watched a 2 hour CNY variety show.

5 / 10

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The main reason why I’m (and maybe everyone too) watching this movie is Heath Ledger (it’s his last movie). And Johnny Depp. And maybe, Jude Law. Haha. And nah, not really a fan of Colin Farrell. When the movie ended, I thought it gave me a pretty weird experience. Not bad, but not mind-blowing great either. It surprisingly has a lot of Ledger moments, and a heavy dose of magical fantasy elements thrown in. The story has managed to keep me engaged most of the time, even though it went a bit slow sometimes. The enjoyment of the movie largely came from watching Heath’s character slowly revealing its different sides and knowing more about himself.

7 / 10