by | § ¶ | trackbackDays of Noah - Xtian propaganda that's nauseating in more ways than one
SPOILER ALERT!The Days of Noah is nothing more than a pseudo-documentary about pseudo-archaeology backed up by pseudo-science. I should have watched the cute penguins instead. Empty cinema, no entry on IMDB, nothing googled.... oh if only I had heeded the warning signs! Heck, I should have walked out as soon as the opening credits 'The Media Evangelism Ltd.' came up on screen. At least the couple next to us were wiser.
As you can see, It makes no attempt to conceal its true agenda that my brother politely calls 'christian outreach'.During the night of Oct 18, I sent out a desperate prayer request through my cell phone to my supporters all over the world while I settled at Mount Ararat at 3,800 meters.
- Andrew Yuen, Expedition Leader and Founder of The Media Evangelism Ltd
We came out of it knowing nothing more about the expedition to Mount Ararat except that these two Hong Kongers climbed 4000m up its side, filmed some footage of a small crevice filled with ice and water and fronted by an unusual outcrop that looked like a horned figure and claim they've found Noah's Ark and that we should all believe them and praise the lord for the beautiful weather. This took all of 15 mins of screen time while the rest of the film focued on biblical intepretations and a poorly explained connect-the-dots series of worldwide 'evidence' of the existence of a great global flood thousands of years ago. And that the flood further implies that there once lived a 600 year old ship builder called Noah who somehow managed to get grizzly bears and girraffes suntanning together on the top deck of a 130 meter long boat.
The production was ameturish as best. The editing was probably done by someone who just got his first copy of Adobe Premiere and decided to use EVERY SINGLE TRANSITION EFFECT KNOWN TO MANKIND in the film. REPEATEDLY. It was jarring and nauseating to sit through. Apart from being tacky and out of place, some of the CG looked like it was nicked from a BBC documentary on Noah's Ark I saw earlier this year. It was a far more objective and entertaining documentary too. Other bits of footage seem to have been taken from all kinds of past films and movies.
Equally jarring was the concluding segment of the film. What's the deal with ending with biblical End of The World scenarios when it doesn't quite connect with the preceding topic about Noah and Mt. Ararat? It seems to fill them with glee to quote verses from Revelation and to make CG asteriods ram into CG mega cities. WTF?
So there. I hope you'll save your time and cash for something more worthwhile than this POS.
Keywords: shite,days_of_noah
by | § ¶ | trackbackForums
We've finally managed to port the discussions over the last 5 years into the new forums after spending the past couple of weeks tweaking code and SQL queries. Now we sit back, and watch the error logs for any signs of trouble......Keywords: togoparts.com
by | § ¶ | trackbackPresidents and Superstars
On the recently concluded non-election, the people never get to vote, and the people are not happy."The PEC should not judge on behalf of the people! Let the people decide!"
Over at the Jue Dui Superstar contest, the people got to vote, and still they are not happy about the outcome.
"The judges scores should matter more! People are casting sympathy votes and are not voting wisely!"
I know, I know, it's apples and oranges.... but an interesting comparison nonetheless.
by | § ¶ | trackbackThe Curious Incident
Late...Actually finished 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' on the flight back to Singapore in June but never quite gotten around to writing about it. For this I must apologise to RamblingLibrarian who sent me an email about it way back. The book is with the girl right now so I'm writing from memory, it's a good excuse to be sketchy no?
Apart from the wayward, but probably justified, digressions into problem solving, the story reads like a conventional children's adventure.
- Boy finds dead dog at night.
- Boy gets accused of killing dog.
- Boy attempts to clear his name and find real killer.
And then it all goes askew.... for our protagonist, the 15 year old Christopher, is afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that blinds one to other people's emotions. The wikipedia entry on AS characteristics is terrifying.
The author mentioned that some people found the book 'desperately sad' and wept while reading it and others found it charming and kept laughing. Well not for me. I was an emotionally detached observer throughout the book. Perhaps it was the sidesteps into problem solving that broke the pacing for me. It did not make me root for Christopher as he made his way from Swindon to London. Or perhaps I'm really as insensitive ('you bo sim one') as the girl claims?
In brief, I liked the book. I feel fortunate to have been able to delve into the mind of a special boy as he faces the challenges thrown at him in this 'normal' world of ours. The symbolism he attaches to colours, the overbearing horror of street signs, billboards and sensory overload. Naturally, I tried searching for mrbrown's personal take on the book but couldn't find an entry about it. But you kind of get the general idea from posts like this, this and this.
I would also like to add that 'Incident' is a good book to share with young adults. My younger brother, not a big fan of books imho, devoured it in a few short days and came back complaining that 'it's too short'!
p.s. We were cast into utter self doubt about our reasoning/logic/statistics abilities in the passage about the Monty Hall problem. This made for a good excuse to start reading 'Euclid in the Rainforest' right after 'Incident'. I might talk about another time..
p.p.s. RamblingLibrarian on finding motivation for more reviews contains a couple of interesting pointers on getting more personal, everyday reviews out of people like you and me.
Keywords: readsingapore
by | § ¶ | trackbackEmployedWandie.com
I have signed a pact with the devil and will join the ranks of worker drones in the cube farms shortly. Pray for me.
by | § ¶ | trackbackMore pictures!
Ok ok just 3 more pictures from my adventure. Bear with me.
Amila and Reika at the Elephant Orphanage. We haven't seen each other since I left Leicester last July. It was great to see him again. Hey dude, thanks for showing us around!
I can't decide if this looks better than barb wire. But I imagine it will just be as effective.
7 months after the Tsunami, you can still see wreckage like this along the coast. Did I mention that this part of the country suffered the least impact?
by | § ¶ | trackbackColombo, Sri Lanka
I like Sri Lanka, everyone should visit at some point in their lives. It is such an ideal place to go backpacking and mountain biking (*wink wink nudge nudge*), if you are the adventurous type. Before my trip, I thought given that there are no expressways indicated on the map, I was going to puke my stomach out from travelling on uneven roads. Surprise surpise. even the small roads are smoother than my fried pimply face. Sri Lanka has a charm all its own. Its people are nice and friendly. They can speak better English than you and me. So yeah, go to Sri Lanka. Its cool.
Hopper, the famous Sri Lankan pancake. You can ask for a sunny-side-up in it.
Lake Beira is just outside my window.
On Saturday, Amila brought us to the Elephant Orphanage near Kandy. First time ever in my life have I seen so many wild elephants. As an attempt to preserve wildlife, no elephant rides are allowed.
Do you know how tamed dogs behave after their baths? I know Shaolin dashes around in the house like a manic, banging into everything and stepping on my toes on purpose. And I repeat, these elephants are wild. They are amazingly well-behaved.
On Sunday, we went to one of the Tsunami sites. Since we were on the west coast, the damage I saw was the least significant in Sri Lanka. However it surely gives you a good idea how disasterous the killer waves were. This is a temporary shelter for the victims. Check out the building material.
Fortunately, they will be relocated to some 19 newly-built chalets soon. An effort by Association For Lighting A Candle.
After the Tsunami, I have become a real chicken. I mean, just look at the waves on a normal day during low tide! It's a shame I can't complete the whole picture with wind that will lift me off the ground, thundereous growls from the waves rushing to shore, my sweaty palms and shaking legs.
by | § ¶ | trackbackI'm not a gadget geek but...
Woah..
Memory: 256, 512MB or 1GB versions, File formats supported: MP3, WMA, Supports Display Multi Language, Built-in FM Radio and FM Radio Recording, Bit rate: MP3 8-320Kbps, WMA: 32-192Kbps, Display: OLED Backlight (Blue), Built in Li-ion Rechargeable Battery, USB 1.1, Dimension: 25W x 25H x 25D mm, Weight: 18g.
Keywords: gadget,tiny,mp3,player
by | § ¶ | trackbackHate Speech Wants To Be Free?
So, have you guys at Tomorrow made up your minds? Are you all still battling for controll over the hide/unhide buttons? Will you or will you not show http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2005/08/03/racist_blog_on_malays.html ? 24 comments at last count with the majority voicing their opposition to the entry being published and 'Gott' getting more eyeballs on his blog. Free speech? Censorship? Muddied waters really.The note from the administrative team roughly translates to...
"hi everybody,
No matter how Jems has explained, our intentions to broadcast this asshole's(literally) domain is not to degrade/attack the malay society or spread rumours.
Instead, we would like to treat this domain as an example that has to be advised and sympathised. Hence, we would like to offer apologies if we have offended anybody
Koboi Qaleb"
Silly racist aside, the bigger issue here is about Tomorrow.sg and it's crew and the direction they are heading to. As things stand, it isn't alright to keep insisting that the varied tastes and 'very diverse background' of each editor somehow makes entries like this sensible.
"Firstly, any Editor at Large can publish a submission to the main page. But this is rarely ever done without being put into the moderation queue itself for the other Editors to vet. Even this very post has been moderated, because no one trusts me and my shotgun approach to writing." - 'How Your Submissions Are Moderated'
Update: An editor decides to leave Tomorrow.sg. More observations over at Singabloodypore and Commentary Singapore.
Keywords: tomorrow.sg,hate,speech,racism,censorship
by | § ¶ | trackbackMore bike hazards to look out for..
Found out about SkateStoppers via BoingBoing. Although it's mainly targeted at preventing skateboarders (who are calling them Nazi Knobs) from grinding on public property, it seems that these things might be dangerous to bikers caught unaware. Be careful everyone.
Keywords: cycling,hazard
by | § ¶ | trackbackWell Hung
Photos from the girl abroad. I'll leave the details to her when she gets back.
Keywords: Sri,Lanka,Elephants