It's hard to believe that Eusoff's orientation is finally ending in less that 24 hours time. There's just too much stuff going inside me right now, of how I feel about this whole journey, what I think, what I experienced, how the entire orientation went that if I were to write it down in this blog post, J.K. Rowling's 700 pages of Harry Potter would look short compared to mine.

But to be honest, it has been a worthwhile experience all the while.

There might have been times when I doubted myself, when I felt like giving up (I have a tendency to be emo, you see, since I have a high neurotism trait) but there were also happy times when I felt that I was actually doing something of significance and when I shared laughter, jokes and stories with my fellow programmers. Besides, when I first decided that I am going to do this, I made a vow that no matter how bad or emo I might feel related to the orientation, I will not repeat the mistake that I did last year, which was distancing myself away, and to see the orientation through til the very end.

And see it through I did.

I admit that there's still room for improvement, that the orientation is not absolutely perfect and perhaps I would have done things slightly differently if I can go back in time, but what I'm sure is that there's none of the slightest feeling of regret in me for taking up this position as co-head of the EHOC programmes team.

In this short three months, I have learned a great deal of things, both about myself and also about loads of other stuff. I learned to be more responsible, to be more proactive and to be less temperamental as compared to how I used to be. To be honest, the experience during this short period of time has helped me grow very much and changed a lot of perceptions and mindset in me, which I am very thankful for because it has helped me to become a better person in general.

Not only that, I also got the chance to met a lot of awesome people during my experience in EHOC programmes. People who can crack lame jokes about virtually anything, people who has the best ideas of all for games and people who stay with you through thick and thin. And I am thankful for it too. Thankful for all the meaningful friendships that would have otherwise not formed if I had chosen to do things differently.

There might have been times when I lost faith, became discouraged and felt like giving up but looking at how the freshmen enjoyed themselves during the games today and at how we joked together during a McDonald's supper, there wasn't a single ounce of regret in me. Because this is exactly what I love to do. To organize events, to bond people and to experience as many different things as possible. And this is the exact reason why I sign up as a programmer again.

On one hand, it's sad to see that orientation is finally ending. I would surely miss all the meetings with different people, proposals writing and games testing. And most importantly, I would definitely miss my fellow programmers friends. But on the other hand, I feel happy to see that my baby, the whole orientation week itself, is turning out to be great and how the freshies are actually enjoying themselves, having fun and forming new friendships. Everytime I think of this, I just want to shed a tear or joy.

It has been a great three months. Perhaps one of the most memorable in my life. And it's finally coming to an end tomorrow. Be it rain or shine, when tomorrow comes, I am going to give it my best. I am going to shout like crazy, dance like crazy and do everything crazily. Because orientation is finally ending :(

When I first said yes to a question asked almost a year ago, I thought that perhaps I could bring greater and better changes through that yes. I thought of all the things that I would want to accomplish, the results that I hope to achieve and the height that I want to reach. I thought of many things, all good, of what can I accomplish. Those were the exact same thoughts that I have when I said yes to another question prior to this one mentioned here.

But the thing about thoughts is just thoughts. You can think about all the great things you want to achieve all day but without the sufficient action and willpower to back it up, it will only be a daydream.

When I was young, I had always wanted to be a leader. I thought of everything that I could achieve if people could just give me a chance to be one. I thought of all the improvements that I can make, how things should be done and how much potential the committee could achieve if only I could lead. I constantly looked down on the leaders of the committees around me, be it the prefectorial board, the church youth committee or the class committee because I thought that I could do a better job than them. I always made comparisons between their decisions and decision I would make, picking on the weaknesses and folly of their decisions and thinking of all the good things that can happened if only they used my decision, if only I could be allowed to lead.

The chance to be able to lead, to be a leader, that was my ambition during all the time I spent growing up in my hometown. I wanted to be someone significant, someone who makes important decisions and someone who can bring changes.

When I came to university, I was finally given the chance to fulfill my lifelong hometown dream, not once, but twice during my short stay in hostel. The chance to be finally called a leader. The only sad thing? Reality was nowhere near how I pictured it to be.

For starters, I found out that leading people is not easy. It's never easy. It takes charisma, it takes will of iron steel, it takes immense amount of confidence to be a good leader. All which I have none. Most of the time I am afraid of offending people, constantly worrying about people would think about me and most of the time I would just prefer to stick to myself if possible.

Everytime I want to talk or do something, there's this feeling of self doubt that constantly plagues me. "What if they do not agree?", "What if they think it's shitty?", you know, questions like that. I just don't have the sufficient self confidence enough to just do anything in the first place.

I think it's because of my overly fear of rejection. And this fear that people would reject me and I would end up being alone is causing me to have insufficient self confidence and self belief. Heck, by writing this post even I'm rejecting myself right now.

Which makes me wonder why I said yes to the question in the first place again. Because for all my high ambitions, I can never be a great leader. I used to have loads of self confidence, believing that I can take on the world if I wanted to, but not anymore. I feel so small, so inadequate now, as if that even if I die, the world would go on smoothly and would not even have a hint of missing me.

Sigh, what is happening to me?

After 3 months of proposals writing, proposals checking, activities planning, games testing, emails blasting and meetings, I still find it hard to believe that tomorrow is orientation Day 1, the day that I have been worrying so much about, the day that the EHOC Programmes Team have been working so hard for.

I just hope everything turns out well.

Every successful person has his/her own bunch of haters. You know, people who would just criticize you  no matter what you do for no obvious reasons. It's as if you owed them something in the past life or killed their whole family. And it almost seems like that if you want to be considered successful in our world, you've gotta be hated first. It's a criteria that you must fulfill.

Take Mother Teressa, Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King for example. There's no disagreement that they are one of the most prominent peace figures of all time but yet they are still hated by so many during their time. So I guess if you wanna be successful, you cannot run away from haters.

Which is why it's quite worrying for me. Because for all my talk about being handsome, famous, successful blogger and stuff like that, I've not actually receive any hate comments or emails yet. A surprising thing considering that self praise is the fastest way to being hated. Just look at Steven Lim and you'll understand.

So I guess that the absence of hate comments or hate emails directed to me could only mean one thing, that I am in fact still nowhere near my dream of becoming a famous successful blogger yet :(

But that's alright, because I figured out that since no one wrote a hate letter to me yet, I will be the first one! Someone need to start the ball rolling, right? And after this hate letter, I can officially say that I'm one step closer to my dream no that I have fulfilled one of the criteria to be famous.

Ahem, and so here's how I envisioned how my hate letter would look like if I have one:

23rd July 2011 was one of the big days in my life, that you could say. It was the sort of the day where one could say your life took a shift forward because something significant happened. For me, and also for this blog, it was the Singapore Blog Awards 2011, where lukeyishandsome.com was nominated as one of the finalists for the Best What The Hell blog category.

To be honest, I've been eyeing this event since the day I stepped into Singapore (in fact, I signed up last year, did not manage to make the cut though) and to be able to enter such a prestigious award in just my short 2 years in Singapore, I must say this is quite an accomplishment for me indeed. Not to mention that it's the perfect chance to show off :p

But of course, being a finalist is one thing, actually winning the award is another.

This year, the unveiling of the results and the prize presentation ceremony was held in Shanghai Dolly, Clarke Quay on a Saturday evening, which of course I had to attend if I want to know the results, so I caught my buddy Xian You to be my gay date for the event (despite the blog's name, I have a very hard time finding a female friend to accompany me, to be honest).

As both me and my gay date were quite poor, we had to take the bus rather than taxi to our location. And that means a lot of walking. But it's quite okay actually, because Clarke Quay has a lot of interesting sights along the way. We managed to catch a few sights while searching for Shanghai Dolly. An example that we saw was this:

Name of a bar there. I'm pretty much sure that the pun was intended

But of course, it was Clarke Quay after all. What's a bar without its naughty name right? After some time walking, we finally found our destination for the day, Shanghai Dolly! And there was already a long queue by the time we arrived. No more early bird gift for us I guess.

The queue where everyone in it is a blogger

Everytime I see this sign while queuing, I ask Xian You to slap me to make sure I'm not dreaming

I have to be honest, when I was reporting for the event at the counter, I was half expecting for the omy.sg (the event was organized by omy.sg, by the way) people to tell me that my name was not on the list and everything was a mistake. Blame the pessimistic paranoid me for that.

But thankfully, the pessimistic and paranoid me was wrong as usual. After registering and getting ourselves tagged, both me and Xian You were officially in the event that every blogger in Singapore hopes to attend, the Singapore Blog Awards 2011!

The interior of Shanghai Dolly. Wow!

The stage for the event. One that I hope I have the chance to walk on

After settling ourselves down, it's time to proceed for the main item of the day, FOOD!


...and more food!

Awesome finger food. This is also my brunch

There was even Domino's pizza, FREE!

After we got ourselves a whole bunch of food to fill our stomach, we settled to the first item of the evening, an awesome performance by Shimona whom I guess Xian You totally loved (sadly) judging from his tweets. Guess my gay date found someone else already :(

But I have to admit her performance was pretty awesome though. Do check her Twitter out at . She composes songs too! I especially liked her song about social media, which was totally so suited for the event. No wonder Xian You likes her.

That's Shimona!

After the opening performance by Shimona, the guest of honor for the day, Major General (NS) Chan Chung Sing (I still remember his famous speech during the election period. Didn't expect to have a chance to meet him live) was invited to give a speech and officially kickstart the event.

I want to eat the cake if you don't mind, because it's prepared by one of the top bakeries in SG

Let the awards begin!

In his speech, the Major-General highlighted the importance of the blogosphere in the society today. He mentioned how opinions could be exchanged, discussed and disseminated through the use of blogs and encouraged more youths to take up blogging as a part time hobby. Heck, he even read some of the finalists' blogs before coming to this event. Too bad lukeyishandsome.com isn't one of them :(

After the speech, the award was first given out to the four sponsored categories of the Singapore Blog Awards, namely the Asus Best Tech Blog, HTC Best Mobile Blog, Adonis Best Beauty Blog and Deal.com.sg Best Shopping Blog.

I was one of the finalists for the Deal.com.sg Best Shopping Blog category, but due to my extremely busy schedule and my trip back to Malaysia, I only managed to come up with 3 paltry posts during the entire contest period. I guess I owe them an apology for that >.<

Anyways, back to the topic. Following immediately after the 4 sponsored awards category prize presentation was a sketch based on the day's theme, History Gets Social, about how history would have been if the social media had existed during that time. There was Hitler, Sir Stamford Raffles and even a "sexy" Cleopatra in the sketch. All of them was fighting to see who's the best blogger among them. Obviously they were not looking beyond the stage to see me sitting behind because the winner would have then been obvious. Just kidding.

Apparently Domino's pizza had existed during Sir Stamford Raffle's time

"Sexy" Cleopatra surrounded by the Chinese emperor and Hitler

And oh yeah, before I progress, guess who I manage to spot among the crowd?

It wasn't easy to snap this picture without him noticing though

Yeap, it's none other than Steven Lim himself! The guy that we all know so well thanks to his yellow underwear, make-you-wanna-pull-out-your-hair-singing-voice and even more narcissistic tendencies than the dear ol' Lukey himself (he thinks he's the handsomest guy in the world while I just think I'm handsome. See the difference?).

And to make the event more interesting, guess who got selected as one of the best dressed male for the night? Yes, guys, it's Steven Lim again!

The 10 best dressed finalists. Can you spot Steven Lim?

Claiming to dress as Michael Jackson (I never knew Michael Jackson wore singlets), the Steven Lim himself managed to give us all audience a laugh when he was on stage. He even had the chance to give his signature kungfu-ala-IP-man pose during the catwalk. Better still, he even managed to send a Tiger beer bottle flying when asked to moonwalk. I guess that's pretty normal when he's around.

Steven Lim says "You know I'm sexy yo"

Unfortunately, he did not win the best dressed award, despite all his sexy poses and the moonwalk that included kicking a tiger beer around. Which is good thing for the rest of us guys, I guess, or else I would have changed my blog address to lukeyisnotashandsomeasstevellim.com.

Ops, I've digressed again. Steven Lim aside, it's time for the unveiling of the results. I must say, the competition this year is pretty tough from how I look at it. All of the finalist blogs are really good blogs to be honest, and in the category which I participated alone, it was pretty hard to determine who is the better one. Besides, there's this Aussie Pete who won the category last year so there was quite an overwhelming odds against me. But still, I hoped for the best. Who knows a miracle might happen and I might get called on stage as the Best WTH Blogger?

But no miracle happened that evening. Aussie Pete won the award again as the Best WTH Blogger.

Best WTH Blogger for 2011, Aussie Pete

Expected, but still I am disappointed. So disappointed that immediately after the result was announced, I ran outside and stood by the river, emo-ing.

*Draws circles* Why why why :(

Even the bird was emo together with me. I guess he's a blog reader of mine too.

Emo bird sharing the sadness with Lukey

Just kidding.

Though the Singapore River was nearby and would have been a perfect place for me to be sad over the results, I did not. Being able to attend the event as one of the finalists is already an honor for me, given the fact there are so many more deserving blogs out there. Also, there was also great, free food provided. Not to mention there was free alcohol too! It's a bar after all, right?

Tiger Crystal beer ftw!

Don't tell my parents this but I had 2 bottles of it. And man, was it awesome. The Tiger Crystal beer tastes a bit better than the normal beer somehow in ways I cannot explain. Not as bitter I guess, and definitely cooler. But heck, who cares as long as it's free alcohol.

The experience was great too. As far as I can see it, the blogosphere in Singapore is still pretty much alive and thriving. And though I did not win anything (not even the lucky draw section >.<) this year, like the emcee said there's always next year.

In this one year's time, I'm gonna try my best to make lukeyishandsome.com a bigger and better blog and hopefully next year, I would be able to join the awards again and hopefully x2, I would win something this time. That's my one year resolution.

But in the meantime, I would like to congratulate all winners for Singapore Blog Awards 2011 for winning this prestigious award. All of you are truly deserving of the award and to be honest, I am jealous of you all. But still, you guys rock. Congratulations again.

The 10 winners for Singapore Blog Awards 2011

So I guess that concludes this year's Singapore Blog Awards then. But everything has not end though. Though no miracle took place that evening, I'm still hoping for another miracle related to this event to happen, which is a mystery gift to bloggers who blog about the event. So omy.sg, can this handsome blogger here at least win something like the mystery gift as a remembrance of the event? Please? Pretty handsome please?

Anyway, til next year, this is Lukey signing out from Singapore Blog Awards. Sayonara!

Today was a very peculiar day for me. Not because of the extremely cold weather now or the fact I swam in a swimming pool under pouring rain, but rather because of a Facebook wall post that was lying conveniently on my wall when I checked it. It was from a secondary school friend of mine that I've lost contact many years ago when I ended my O-Levels/SPM. It read:

Like how any guy who has no girlfriend for the past one year would react, I thought this was some kind of joke. After all, what better way to reconnect with your old secondary school friend than to ask whether he have a child already? You never know right?

But something tells me that it wasn't just simply a joke. Further digging into my friend's profile revealed this conversation he had with another secondary school friend of mine:

And another more interesting conversation:

 Apparently, it was about my mum telling my friend's mum who then told it to my friend who told it to another friend who then told it to this friend who then came asking me about it. So in a sense, it's my mum who said that I have a kid.

Of course, instead of being scared, I find it funny instead. Because believe it or not, even after three ex-girlfriends, this guy here is still pretty much a guy who has never gone to the fourth base, heck even third base before in his relationship.

Which is a good thing actually, because if I happened to have sex before, I would surely panic because we all know that no matter what precautionary measures we take (except sterilization), there's still a chance accidents might happen. I guess that's why parents keep on reminding us kids to not have sex before marriage and just stick to only one partner because you never know when a kid would suddenly show up and call you mum or dad like how they do in movies. And having an extra kid popping up isn't exactly the best thing that can happen in life, mind you.

So yeap, it's a false alarm. There's no way I could impregnate anyone when I didn't even get to undress a girl before, which is quite sad if it's true. Normally it's the process (sex) that's most enjoyable right as compared to the end product (baby). Surely if I want a kid I would at least enjoy the process of getting it, wouldn't I?

However, you cannot deny that I am feeling a bit curious about how the entire rumor got started. Who started it? What is his/her motive? What does he/she hopes to gain through this rumor? I guess I can never really know unless I dig real deep.

Or maybe it's like all those Chinese drama where a girl lies that she is pregnant just to be with the guy that she loves. Maybe a girl secretly likes me and so she fake up a story of how I got drunk and ahem her and she ended up with my baby and now she must marry me because the baby is mine. I'm not complaining if it's true though, because this is the sure fastest way of getting me a girlfriend without having to go through the painful process of chasing her.

But either way, I guess this serves as a very good lesson, especially and particularly to guys on not to simply have pre-marital sex with any girl. Because you never know when this kind of shit will happen on you. And it's much harder to know whether that kid is yours if you really had sex before. As for me, I think my resolution to not engage in pre-marital sex just got a really big boost.

Basically it just mean something that is famous and used over and over again until it becomes some sort of cultural symbol.

*****

Many said it was one of the best Harry Potter movies of the entire series. The action sequences were great, the storyline was true to the book and the acting was superb, particularly the acting by Ralph Fiennes, or better known as he-who-should-not-be-named, the entire reason why there was a Harry Potter in the first place.




And what better way to give our dear Lord Voldemort a tribute than to turn him into not one, but two everlasting memes based on his final act in Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows Part II?

Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy:








Imagine going clubbing tomorrow and hearing the DJ playing the Voldemort Laugh remix or going to a gay porn sexually inappropriate website and having the Voldemort Hugs Draco video as the most viewed video on the side.

But oh well, what other way to end off your final performance as one of the most hated villains than to go off with a bang or in other words, EH HEH HEH HEH.

One more week to Eusoff Hall Orientation. 

One more week to judgment day of EHOC Programmes team. 

One more week to the end of holidays. 

One more week when all that I had worked and planned hard for will finally unfold.

One more week to the start of something new. A new journey, a new environment ahead which I have no idea how it will turn out.

One more week to the end of all the fun and the exciting journey, perhaps one of the most unforgettable ones, that I had experienced for the past three months.

One more week to the day where the future needs to take a priority already.

One more week to perhaps one of my most tiring week ever.

All in one week time. I can't wait.

Did you read the news today? Apparently our dear Malay rights champion Ibrahim Ali has decided to do something explosive so he can appear in the newspaper headlines again. Using RM 5000 from who knows where (hopefully not from UMNO), he has decided to sponsor an award, called the Ibrahim Ali Award (what else?) at the University Teknologi Mara for students who performs extraordinarily in upholding the Malay race. (Source here)

So in support of the "1Malaysia" spirit, the author at Lukeyishandsome has decided to come up with a guide on how you can help "uphold" the Malay race and earn yourself RM5000 along with an award with the handsome face of our dear Malay rights champion on it.

1. Treat all other races, be it Chinese, Indians, Jews and even Banglas as mortal enemies of the Malay race. Adopt a siege mentality that no other race except the Malay race is to be trusted. Everyone else with a different skin color is out to destroy the Malay race. Be paranoid, be very paranoid

2. Adopt a "ketuanan Melayu" mentality. Malays are the supreme race of the entire world, which are automatically entitled to all the special privileges of the world. There should be no equality, no questioning of those rights  that belongs to the Malays. The Malays NEED those special privileges to survive or else the Chinese will wipe the Malays out

3. Treat UMNO and Malays as the same. UMNO is Malays and Malays is UMNO. Whoever threatens UMNO is automatically an enemy of the Malays. And whoever that says UMNO is an enemy of Malays is not a Malay

4. Always play the race and religion card. Don't ever use logic or rationale in your statements. You cannot win by logic anyway. Whenever you debate with people with opposing opinions as you, just declare them as enemies of Islam will do. That's the standard operating procedure.

5. Never speak good English. English is the official language of the enemies of Islam anyway so whenever you speak, even with foreign media, use BM to show them that Malays don't need English to communicate. Others should learn BM, not Malays should learn English

6. Use a keris at every function, meeting, dinner and even at the toilet

7. Make sexist statements every now and then like how wives should stay in the kitchen and if husbands have affair, it's the wife's fault

8. Declare every anti-government movement to be of either communist, Jews or Christian infiltration attempts. Better still, declare any anti-government movement as all three in one.

9. Call your fellow Malaysians who are not bumiputeras pendatang or immigrants every now and then

10. 1Malaysia should not mean all races uniting together and sharing the same aspirations or anything to you. That's bullshit. Rather, 1Malaysia should actually mean 1Malaysahaja to you


So yeap, basically that's a very rough guide by Lukey on how you can be the "upholder" of the Malay race. We hope that you would have no problems following the guide and be able to win the Ibrahim Ali award with the RM5000 cash prize. And if you perform well enough, you might even get a home minister position in the cabinet. So good luck and all the best in obtaining the award.

Behold the power of targeted advertising, Facebook style!

Be scared, be very scared.

I felt as if an era has ended as the screen slowly faded to black during the final scene of the Harry Potter movie. Which is quite sad, if you ask me, because I have always been a fan of Harry Potter. Not just in movies but also the book series as well.




I don't remember much about how I started reading Harry Potter, but I do remember that I was around 15 or 16 years old that time and the book was loaned to me by a very very good friend of mine, Daniel Chen (in fact, it was thanks to him that I had the chance to read all seven Harry Potter books because all the Harry Potter books I read belonged to him). And after the first book, I was hooked.

It was partly thanks to Harry Potter that I like to read so much. I remember reading it during class, the book under the table while my teacher was teaching; I remember reading it late into the night until 12+ am even though there's school tomorrow and I even read it during meal time, one hand on the book while the other hand using the spoon.

And to be honest, I can say that Harry Potter had quite an impact on my life during that Harry Potter craze period. It brought me through a magical journey through Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest and loads of magical place in the Harry Potter universe. It taught me the values of friendship, courage amd justice. It gave me suspense, excitement, joy and awe when I read the book. It kept me daydreaming for hours on end, wondering what would happen if Hogwarts is indeed true and a invitation to study there arrived for me. It even made me cry in the 7th book when I read about Snape, which on my opinion, in Harry's words, "the bravest man I ever know" and also the one with the most noble love of all, and perhaps the epitome of "Don't judge a book by its cover" saying.

Such was the effect Harry Potter had on me that it's kinda sad to see it finally ending now. But I guess all good things must come to an end eventually. And it has been a great journey.

Harry Potter, thanks for the countless hours of fun during all the time that I spend reading your book. Thanks for piquing my interest in reading. Thanks for introducing me to a whole different world that I otherwise wouldn't have the chance to experience. Thanks for everything.

A good novel should never be adapted to movies. Especially 3D movies for the sake of profit. Because by the end of the day, you'll end up with a movie that tries very hard to accommodate too many things until you have no idea what the movie is trying to portray. At least that's what I felt when I watched final movie of the whole Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II.

I think part of the reason I did not like the movie was because I am a book fan of the series. For starters, I find that there are many parts of the movie that do not stay true to the book and I suspect that they are just there for the 3D effects, which on my opinion is completely unnecessary and spoils the entire spirit of the story.

Take the final battle sequence between Harry Potter and Voldemort for example. The part where Harry took Voldemort on a jump and they both ended up flying quite intimately together trying to pull each other's face apart. Was that even necessary? That was no epic fight scene, it was not in the book and I can't help but suspect that the director only puts it there for the 3D flying effect. Not to mention that the entire 20 seconds of them flying together looks gay.

Also, the director also tries to put too many things in without giving a thought of linking them together to give a coherent story. One moment you find Harry fighting Voldemort and the other moment you find yourself watching Ginny's mother had a short fight with Bellatrix and next you have no idea where you are already.

It almost feels as if the director is trying too hard to fit all the events that he think is important in the book into the movie without giving much thought of making the scenes fit into the bigger picture. Those who never read the book before, for example, might be confused by the scene of Snape's flashback because everything feels too rushed and was not properly explained. Like I said, the director doesn't bother.

Also, I also can't help but feel that the fight scenes isn't as epic as I pictured it to be when I read the book. J.K Rowling surely did a better job than David Yates (the director) at portraying the intensity, suspense and excitement of the final fight scene at the school. I also felt that the whole movie was way darker than how the book was meant to be. Way too dark that it almost felt like I'm watching a thriller genre of movie.

And if you noticed, the director has also a tendency to put a lot of unnecessary noise in the background, be it a few dead wizards, some extras acting scared or a few extra stones in the movie which takes the attention away from what the main subject is doing. All these were glaringly obvious whenever Harry decides to walk around the school in the movie.

In short, I would say that Harry Potter is not a movie us book readers would enjoy because the director simply does not know which part of the book he should put in and which part he shouldn't (He included the "19 years later" sucky epilogue. And it looked way lamer than the book). Also, in the attempt to cram as much 3D effects into the movie (which is why I think 3D is really killing the movies), viewers end up with scenes with loads of effects that doesn't have much link to the story.

But still, the entire movie isn't that bad. Non-book readers may still find the movie interesting with all the effects and the epic fight scenes but for a book fan like me, the movie was so-so only. It did not exceed any expectations of mine and honestly, I still think the books are better. But then again, the movie is sort of a good way to end off your Harry Potter journey after all these years and to give a visual interpretation of the book.

Man, I do hope J. K. Rowling would write another book of Harry Potter.

Warning: This is a post culminating events that happened this whole day from the moment I woke up until now, more than 12 hours in total so it might get a bit long. You might wanna click X now if you dislike long wordy posts. Just saying

*****

When I woke up this morning around 10.42 am, I had half a mind to just cancel my initial plans of having a one day trip to JB with my fellow programmers and just hide in my room and game the whole day. I was lazy, tired and for some reason, do not like socializing as I used to. Perhaps my fear of rejection has gotten the better of me since a very bad incident that happened one or two months ago with a girl. Yeap, it's always the girl.

However, due to my promise to a friend that I would accompany her to JB the night before, and not wanting her and my programmes boss to kill me, I reluctantly showered, changed, made City Square as my destination for the day and hoped for the best. After all, I am gonna be without computer for the whole day which normally would drive me crazy because I'm such a social media addict and I can die if I don't do my guild quests for the day.

Fortunately, the day did not turn out to be as bad as I imagined (I half expected myself to collapse and the floor and foam due to my withdrawal from computer syndrome).

For starters, I ate Baskin Robbins for lunch. My favorite brand of ice cream since when I was young. And it was heaven. Their "Kookies and Chips" and "Blueberry Yoghurt" is just legendary. I swear I could have eaten the whole tub of it if I had the money. The way Baskin Robbins' ice-cream excites your taste buds, that's one feeling that I would die for. I even told my boss, her name's Nisha btw, that I am willing to cross over to JB from Singapore just for the Baskin Robbins ice cream. Yeap, that's the amount of love I have for their ice cream and yes, I'm a guy with a sweet tooth. I would die for chocolates, ice-creams and anything sweet.

And after the insane ice-cream treat, 3 of us, me, Nisha and Karan (a fellow programmer) went to do what every outing should consist of. Daytona Car Racing. And the loser must treat us all popcorn for movie.

We raced for three rounds to determine the loser and we even had a point system for that purpose. The winner came in at 7 points followed by the runner up at 6 points and the guy who is treating at 5 points. All I'm gonna say is that I wasn't the one treating and I had to say sorry a few times because I knocked someone's car into the wall for 2 rounds and that was the reason he needed to treat.

But still, I'm happy. One, for the free popcorn and two, I managed to knock a car to the wall and made it flip in Daytona after all these years :)

Next up, we watched Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon after much begging from my side because Nisha was dying to watch Harry Potter.

Overall, I would say it was a pretty great movie. The effects were there, the twists were there, Autobots still kicked ass and the girl wasn't as bad as I thought she would be though I felt that the story was a bit rushed and hanging. It did not give as much as suspense and thrill to me as the first movie did, despite how they try to fit it in into one big conspiracy thing.

But still, the movie is still worth watching for the effects and fight scenes. Also, it's probably of one of the few epic alien movies that humans actually stand a fighting chance rather than being squished while waiting for the savior to come, which I liked. But I will be reviewing Transformers in a later blog post if I feel up to it and if you want it. I'll definitely do it if someone leaves a comment requesting for it.

And in case you're wondering, the new "Megan Fox", Rosie Huntington is hot too!

And after Transformers 3, the 4 of us, me, Nisha, Karan and Joy took a cab to another mall called the KSL and then walked to a dunno-what plaza to help hunt for a salon that can help Joy do her hair extensions. Well, we sort of failed because of the insanely high price that the salon charged.

And after a whole day of walking and me eating only ice-cream for lunch, naturally the stomach will feel hungry. We then took a cab from the dunno-what plaza to a hawker stall and we ate good food there. CHEAP good food. And man, that was the highlight of the day.

Stingray, wat tan hor, lala, satay, fried chicken wing, fried kangkung, egg oyster omelette and hokkien mee was the food that we ordered and boy, was my mouth happy today. It's been so long since I tried out food as tasty as this. Really, the next time you think you're getting sick of your local food, just go overseas and study. 

I almost cried when eating today from the awesome food. Like they say, when in Malaysia, you should really try out the hawker food. Sinful but deliciously awesome. I think I should just visit Malaysia now and then for the hawker food. I just miss it so much.

The day did not stop there however (told ya it's a long post) as we went back to City Square to see whether we can catch a Harry Potter movie (told ya Nisha was dying to watch it) which suddenly turned into a random ear piercing event as there was no tickets available. Two of us got a new ear piercing and nope, I was not one of them. Don't want a nuclear explosion at my house anytime soon.

Then, we headed back to Singapore when the second highlight of the day happened at the Singapore customs. Due to privacy concerns, I shall just say that one of us bought a 200 SGD pack of cigarettes for the day and let me just add that Singapore customs can sometimes be a little tad to strict as compared to their Malaysian counterpart. Yeap, a 200 SGD pack of cigarettes. Thanks to the wonderful ICA officers and the Woodlands checkpoint (another reason for me not to smoke).

But, the day has still not ended (told ya again this is gonna be a VERY long post).

At precisely 10+ pm, we drove the half dying hall van to Vivo City to catch Harry Potter (told ya Nisha's not gonna let her movie go). An 11.25 pm show.

 Well, like all Harry Potter movies (with the exception to the first), it still did not manage to wow me. Simply because it did not meet what I imagine it to be when I was reading the book. I just guess movie adaptions just don't quite suit us book fans. But at least I got an owl:

Tomorrow's gonna be another long day again, where I will watch Harry Potter for the second time (seriously, why do people love Harry Potter movies exactly?) just to accompany friends. Ugh. I'll be probably sleeping through the entire movie because I've seen everything and there's nothing much worth re-seeing anyway. Quite an expensive sleep if you would ask me.

It's a good thing that Harry Potter movies are finally ending, if you ask me.

Oh well, time for me to sleep and get a heard start tomorrow and hopefully tomorrow will be like today where it's not as bad as I imagine it to be.

I've been dead tired and dead busy this few days to actually update my blog proper, no thanks to all the activities I'm involved in right now. Honestly if you ask me, I think that 24 hours a day is just not enough for one person to do all the thing he wants, not counting the time that he needs to sleep, eat and shit.

If I were to tell you the titles or positions that I have now, you would understand why half of my blog posts are complaining about how busy I am and stuff like that. As of 14th July 2011, 1.00 am, Lukey is currently:

1. One of Eusoff Rag dancers for NUS Rag and Flag day 2011

2. Videographer

3. EHOC Programmes Team Co-Head

4. Luminous Guild Member (who is expected to log in everyday to meet requirement)

5. Self-proclaimed "I Will Update My Blog Once Per Day" Handsome Blogger

6. Minecraft Bangla Builder

7. Friend

8. Son

 

9. NUS Third Year Student

And 9 already is a lot if you only have 24 hours per day in which you have to perform all 9 functions in one day. Perhaps I just have the suicidal tendency to overkill myself with work. Either way, trying to do too many stuff in a set timing is just not a good thing if you want to keep yourself sane.

If you see me not updating my blog anytime in this three weeks more than five days straight, most probably I would have died of overwork already.

I've been reading a lot of Bersih stories for the past few days. Not the "official" ones from the government about how little people turned up, how effective the police or how UMNO can gather millions of its members in one day, but rather the stories from normal, average Malaysians who turned up for the rally in hopes of a better Malaysia and I must say, those stories inspired me. Perhaps ignited a fire in my heart fight for a better Malaysia.

You see, if you happen to be an average middle class non-Bumiputera (or basically a non-Malay) growing up in Malaysia, to have a fair shot in life, you have only two choices amidst all the inequalities surrounding you in the country. You can either choose to emigrate to another country for a better future, or you can stay and fight for that fair shot in life, which basically means supporting an opposition party and going against the government.

I used to want to stay and fight. But looking at how stubborn the mentality of some people is, how the ruling party refuse to change, how ignorant some Malaysians are and how the government refuses to use logic and be rational for the sake of the country, I thought there were no use to fight anyway. It's just a waste of energy and time. Might as well you leave the country and start anew somewhere else. I took the easy way out.

When Bersih 2.0 was announced, I thought the same thing. There is no use fighting anyway. Everyone will just get arrested and their voices will be drowned out eventually. By the end of the day, the government will win again. I was skeptical.

But thanks to Facebook and thanks to the internet, I started to read more about the experiences of the people that went down to the rally that day. Normal Malaysians who actually cared about the country, people who did not take the easy way out and people who braved the rain, tear gases and self-doubt to fight for their beloved country.

Reading their stories made me realized that we Malaysians are different from the government. While to government likes to play the racist card, trumping about Malay supremacy and how Islam's rights is threatened, we Malaysians are actually quite a united bunch despite our differences as seen from the protesters that went down that day.

I read about how people helped each other when they're being chased by the police, how drinks and food were offered, how everyone felt as if they are one and a host of other stories depicting the unity and compassion among the protesters. Those stories are what I call the true spirit of Malaysia. When people ask me about Malaysian next time, instead of Najib's 1Malaysia, I am gonna to tell them about 9th of July, 2011.

The 7th July stories warmed my heart. It made me think that perhaps there is hope for Malaysia after all should we choose to fight and continue to stay united. What was portrayed on that day, it was truly awesome. Rather than going down as Malays, Chinese or Indians, the protesters went as Malaysians united in the same cause. It made me proud to be a Malaysian again.

And in fact, if there's a Bersih 3.0 in the future, I will go down myself. That's my promise. Enough of talk and complaints about wanting a better Malaysia without any action. As Michael Jackson once said, I need to start with the man in the mirror. No more of being afraid of being arrested or anything. If we want a better future, we should fight for it. And besides, even if I get arrested, I can have free curry rice for my meals.
 

I need to wake up at 4 am later. To run. Yes, an early morning run at 4am in the morning when everyone else is still sleeping soundly on the bed. That's roughly 6 hours from now. I have a feeling that I will look something like this when my clock hits 4 am later:

And of course, looking as cute as the panda above for the run is not gonna be a good thing. I wouldn't want the Singapore Wildlife Society to mistake me for an escaped panda from the zoo. And since it's been ages since I woke up at such an early time, in fact, 4am is closer to the time I sleep, I have a few ideas in mind to help wake me up when 4 am comes later and not look like a panda.

I can have 10 alarms each on my 2 handphones and iPad to wake me up later. With so much noise going on, I'm bound to wake up. But then again, I might just snooze them all and go back to sleep.

Or, I can ask any of my friend to wake me up later when 4am comes. But then again, there might be the risk my friend will sleep through it too and I'm too shy to ask also.

Perhaps I can spam Red Bull and Coffee now hoping that the adrenaline would last me all the way to 4 am and the run. But then again, running with Red Bull fully pumping in your bloodstream is not really good for health. There's a chance I might go boomz too.

Or maybe I can just do the impossible. Off my computer and go too sleep now.

If you've been keep up to date with the Malaysian news, you would have know that there have been a lot of controversy recently surrounding the colour yellow and the word Bersih because one of the biggest movement demanding clean elections in Malaysia, involving the opposition parties and numerous NGOs, decided to call their movement Bersih 2.0 and adopt yellow as their official colour.

To be honest, I did not pay a lot of attention to the entire Bersih 2.0 movement at first because I thought that like all anti-government rallies in Malaysia, it will either get silenced before it even starts or either the entire event will fail because no Malaysians will dare to turn up. Believe me when I say that many Malaysians most of the time will only complain about the unfairness and corruption in Malaysia but are too afraid to do anything about it.

I have friends who before Bersih, talked about how unequal the government is treating Malaysians, how bad the situation of the country is and basically complain about wanting a change in Malaysia but when I ask them what are they doing for Bersih, they looked at me as if I have asked whether they could jump off a building. Sentences such as "Don't want to get arrested", "Lazy", "Stay at home better", "No use one lah" were among the reasons given for not attending the rally, so yeah, basically I did not think that the Bersih 2.0 will hit its 100 000 expected turnout because most of the time us Malaysians are like NATO, No Action, Talk Only.

Other than that, I was also skeptical on whether Bersih 2.0 would make any changes or not because being able to rally is one thing, having your demands met after that is another. For all I know, the government will just let the protesters gather, fire some tear gas to give an element of excitement to the rally and then everything returns to normal come Monday. Everyone goes back to their normal life and the government will pretend that nothing happened and continue to abuse their power. Because they know we cannot gather everyday to demand for changes. It's like a once in a blue moon thing.

We Malaysians have not yet reach a stage or the threshold where we are ready to abandon our jobs, our family and even our lives for the sake of justice yet. It'll be a long way before Malaysians can achieve anything of the Middle East scale. A long long way.

So yeah, like any protests in Malaysia, I did not put in a lot of hopes on Bersih 2.0 achieving anything worthwhile or concrete at the beginning for 2 reasons. One, because of the lack of support and two, because the government would act as if nothing happened anyway. They're too high up to listen to our demands and grievances.

However, post-Bersih 2.0, as the pictures, videos and news began to pour in, my perceptions began to change. Seeing so many people, thousands of them, made up of every race, religion, age and gender, united for the same cause, I think Bersih 2.0 might not be a lost cause after.

Although I still think that Bersih 2.0 would not be able to meet the changes it seek, which is electoral reforms, the entire movement on itself could be the start of something bigger that it is to come. For the first time, through Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Blogs, Malaysians got to see the works of an oppressive government without the censorship of the government controlled media. Malaysians were able to witness how the policed act brutally, firing tear gas and water cannon against peaceful protesters and also how each and every protester, no matter race nor religion fought for the same thing.

I think that how the entire movement was captured in the social media scene is one of the best anti-government publicity campaign ever. It helped to spread awareness about our rights as citizens helped those who have always thought that our Malaysian government was all loving and kind to witness the true face of them.

So yeah, I think this is the start of something bigger in the future, seeing how the entire campaign was mobilized both offline and online and perhaps in the future one day, the long awaited change will finally take place.

P/s: This video gave me the goosebumps

I'm slightly under the influence of alcohol now. A better word would be drunk but since this is the cyber world and everything I said could be used back against me (who knows if my future employer decides to visit my blog?), I'll stick to a more appropriate word.

When I first came to university, and when I was first exposed to the culture here, which basically involves quite a bit of alcohol, like any protected kid who was taught from young that alcohol is the cause of evil, naturally I was shocked. For me, too much alcohol can never be good because when you're full of it, you tend to lose your sense of logic and reasoning. You'll tend to do whatever you want and sometimes, you might wake up next morning with the biggest regret of your life. No kidding.

Not only that, I also tend to look down on those who drink. To me, they are a bunch of people who have no purpose in life, have little moral and only knows how to have fun and not focus on the more important part in life. Not only that, I have also the perception that guys who ask girls to drink have the sole purpose of bedding them. But that was two years ago.

Fast forwarding to the present, and numerous experiences of seeing people drink and also joining in on several drinking sessions, I have a much better understanding of why people drink now. Not that I have a really good impression of alcohol now, I still think it's a source of evil, but I believe that if taken in moderation alcohol isn't that bad after all.

One thing that I found out about why many love drinking alcohol is that it takes away the mask that we are constantly wearing in front of others when we're sober. In a way, you can say that we're being more of ourselves when we're under the influence of alcohol, which is why I guess why some would prefer you to be drunk because they are able to see the real side of you.

If you've noticed, people who are naturally extroverts will be more noisy and hyper when they're drunk while those who are introverts at heart will become more quiet when they're drunk.

And if you've seen lots of movies and stuff, you'll know that when we're being true to ourselves, the world will see us in a different way and who knows, sometimes life might turn out in ways you'll never expect and in a good way too when you're braver and not so inhibited by the mask that you usually wear in front of others.

In the process, you might get to know new friends which you would have not gotten to know if you're busy being shy, people might get to know you better and you might just have the added courage to do things that you've really wanted to do a long time ago.

But of course, I'm not saying that alcohol is all good and we should all become alcoholics now. I'm saying that alcohol in a way facilitates our social life but that doesn't mean that we should depend entirely on it. Like any other stuff in the world, be it food or games or work, if taken in extreme, alcohol can be quite damaging too, especially if you have gone to a point where you can't live it.

I'm just saying that I don't view alcohol as evil as I used to already. It can be good, it can be bad, depending on how you see it, that is. Alright time to sleep. Hope I won't have a hangover tomorrow morning. Nights.