Story from Multiple Eyes

That is a spreadsheet style plot written by J.K Rowling for the Order of the Phoenix. 

Looked how crazy detailed and planned out it is. I totes love it. 

And all these celebs (Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Hillary Duff (her writing is kinda atrocious)) all wanting to write and published books, I wonder if they actually took the time and pain to plan all their stories.

In somewhat similar words of Lainiey, it pains me to have Hillary Duff or Lauren Conrad included in the same category (published authors) as with J.K Rowling or Cormac McCarthy. 

Welcome to the 19th installment of my once-a-month blog post (sorry comrades)

Since Listverse is talking about the famous books, I think I might share a bit about one of my favorite hobby or can I say, ritual; reading books. I came from a mediocre family with low command of English. My dad knew a bit of English, my mum was far worse. My daily staple of reading came from a Malay newspaper (sadly Utusan, my dad's favorite til now).

I remembered my habit of looking the newspapers for its cartoon. I was 6 or 7 at that time. Then, I upgraded myself looking for the Intisari Rancangan where I could plan my daily TV watching. My hobby for reading then expanded to reading sports section and to national news.

Looking at my craziness over a newspaper, my dad took me to the Jitra Public Library, where I signed up as a member. There, I could borrow a maximum of 2 books, 1 week per book. While I was there during weekends, a couple of English books caught my eyes. Those written by Alfred Hitchcock and Enid Blyton. All those simple mystery and investigating team of teenagers, for me, was so awesome judging by my lack of adventures during my childhood.

The public library itself for me was the most interesting place that time. Jitra had nothing to offer yet for a curious boy, so I spend most of my weekends there. From literature, I upgraded again to reading atlas, yeah I 'read' atlas. The world was so big and I was like 'Wow China is so big' and 'England is here, so far away'.

During my primary school years, library was like a third home to me, beside my home and school. Jitra Public Library decided to close down and I was dissapointed at first. They were moving to a much bigger location and it was still there til now. I was happy again. The big library now was a two storey building, with much more reading material. I read documentaries, magic books, war books, military magazines, and borrowed fictions. Those, my friends, were my English teachers.

My high school, I was slowly forgotten the joy of reading. Maybe because I was far away from home. I bought only Dragonball manga and Hong Kong comics as a collection during outing.

Up until I met my Mrs, I rarely read any books. Newspapers and comics were the only exception. I started borrowing books with my Mrs since she was an avid reader. Suddenly, the joy of reading came back to me. Before closing my eyes, I read until it became a necessity, a must, a ritual. Until I just couldn't sleep before I read something.

Fast forward to now. We (Mrs and me) have a huge book rack full of books, mainly fiction, bought mostly during book sale or from second hand book stores. I like action mystery thriller kinda books and Mrs likes her romantic, feminine books. I need book to kill time, so I always bought a book and read during a ride back home on a bus, in an airplane, backseat of a car, waiting at the transit station and even in a toilet.


So there you are guys, my hobby. I'm reading The Road to Gandolfo now, written by Robert Ludlum (Michael Shepherd is his pen name) the master spy storyteller who brought you Jason Bourne.

I watched Lagenda Budak Setan last weekend. Having read the novel, my expectation couldn't be any lower. Come on man, it's like fantasy become reality. It's like for long watching porn and suddenly found out that you'll be in one. Ok...bad analogy but you get what I mean.

But ended up, I'm hugely disappointed by the facts as followed:-

Disclaimer: Spoiler alert. Writing in point form easier.

Disappointment Indicator (DI): 1 for no disappointment at all and 10 for WTF is this stuff doing here?

1) The setup was in college instead of high school. The college setup was unreal, it's more like college that didn't passed LAN (Lembaga Akreditasi Negara) or fake college. DI: 5

2) The vice chancellor talks with Kasyah at the corridor. One of WTF moment. FFS, do some research on how college should look like. Malay movies always make college and university student look retarded. DI: 10

3) The chemistry between Farid Kamil & Lisa Surihani. Another WTF moment. They look stupid together. Some might say that they look good together in I'm Not Single but not in Lagenda Budak Setan. DI: 8

4) Fazura was Katerina when I'm expecting her to be Amelia/Ayu. Marah sungguh. I'm freaking pissed when I realized that. DI: 10

5) However, Fazura acting looks more lively and genuine. Heck, she could act. Girl should be given more screen time. I love Fazura's acting, she had grown gracefully in her acting career. I love it! DI: -1

6) The prank (2 pranks only, WTF!) was half-asses done. Kasyah definitely not live up to "Budak Setan" title that he earned. DI: 7

7) They called Cikgu Loga. This is college, you don't call your lecturer as "Cikgu". Do you want to setup it as college or high school? Wrap your mind around it, Mr Director. DI: 9

8) What kind of college (I think a fake one at that) would allowed research grant to an undergraduate art student going away alone to remote area for a long time? Do your homework la, Production Team. Attention to details, please. Don't treat your audience like fools. DI: 10

9) Who-is-she, Amelia/Ayu is a tunggul kayu. She can't act to save her life. She shouldn't bare this huge of responsibility and shattered by imagination on how Amelia/Ayu look like. And she's not even pretty. Raja Farah could nail the role as Amelia/Ayu better than her. DI: 10

10) Kasyah should be very messy and distorted when he met with Amelia for the first time. Farid Kamil barely shows emotion and like tunggul kayu. He should lose weight also. Wasn't convincing at all that Kasyah was suffering from Ayu's marriage. DI: 7

11) Que Haidar as Azmi is great. He's violence and revengeful. Just a bit sissy at times though it does fit with his character. I loike it. DI: -1

There are few more details that should be paid attention by the production team however it's small enough to distract me from writing it here. The accumulation of half-asses work done make me losing faith in adaptation movies produce by Malaysian. When you can't pull things right for such legendary piece of work like Lagenda Budak Setan, it shows how much we're bothering in creating the hype and disappoint the audience rather than genuinely appreciating the value of the masterpiece.

I wasn't expecting it to be 100% according to original piece cause time is the constraint, however doing things right means so much in adapting the piece to silver screen. I could let go that the movie didn't shows side story of Sapi and Kasyah, the evil girls that tag-team with Kasyah and many more small things but even with so many short cut of the storyline, they still couldn't put it right.

I would love to suggest that Malaysian should stop adapting literature masterpiece to silver screen for once and for all but there will be some hasty idiots that will go out their way to offend the masterpiece lover again. In near future.

And I should support Malaysian movies? Come out with more believable things at silver screen and never treat audience like a bunch of fools. Be smart for once.

I better made this post quick before the accessibility to Blogger.com is lost again.

First of all, sorry for the missing post last week. I was busy with work and also with my personal matters. Huhu.. no excuse, but I know I had the effort :P

I was supposed to update this blog with a book review last week, The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. This is the third book I read from her. The other two was the famous The Other Boleyn Girl and The Other Queen. As I was always fascinated by the England royal family fictions, when I saw that book on 50% sale on Popular.. I bought it on a whim.

I expect the book will always be as its predecessor in the Tudor series, full with dark secrets(as Natalie Portman's character), backstabbing, incest and hopelessly devoted female (as ScarJo's character). I was so wrong.

The Cousin's War is a much better read than the Tudor series.

In one week time, I have re-read the book twice. While this book have been reviewed as the "nearest" Philippa ever get to sticking to the real history, I feel the book have a strong female leading character that did not make me feel "Owh, jahatnye die ni". It was fascinating, and I can feel it really happened at that particular times. Of course, there was the forbidden magic and the power of good witches.. but, I can accept that plot better than the evil queen plot.

I am bad at writing a book review, but if you are interested to know more about the book you can read it from this site http://www.philippagregory.com/thewhitequeen/twitter/ as the author have rewritten the book in twitter style and you can get the gist of the books in about 100 clicks or more :P

This is a bookworm talking. I will post this second post as a compensation of not writing last week. I just wanted to express that..

I am totally in love of reading all these books! No, I only have the first, second, and fourth books at the moment. Completed the first and second. I haven't got the chance (and money) to buy the whole set. Anyone wanted to give me the whole set as a birthday gift? Kohkohkohkoh

The story of Percy Jackson revolved around the half-blood and Greek mythology, which I always loved to know and hear about it. All the Gods and Goddesses - from Zeus to Hades, Hermes to Athena, the satyr.. mmbekk!! :P

Compared to the movie "Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief" (which is based on the first book), it doesn't do justice although the movie itself is entertaining (which is why I dig the book after knowing it is based on a children book).

Compared to the "Clash of the Titans", I'd rather watch Percy Jackson. Seriously. More humour, more fun, more integration with the real world, it just make your imaginations go wild.

True, some of the facts may not be correct in Percy Jackson, such as "Perseus is Poseidon's son" when in fact it was Zeus, but those incorrect facts are being told of the reason in the books.

Ahh... enough ranting. What's your favourite book series?

P/s: You know what I wonder? I wonder why our history or mythology is not as cool as Greeks. Wait, is there any cool mythology in Asia?

Invisible Trade, talking about high-class sex for sale in Singapore. Singapore known to legalize sexual transaction in Geylang area. That's equivalent to Batam in Indonesia.

Working lady, prostitute, hooker, whore, stripper, call girl, escort, gigolo, toy boy etc could be all classified as sex worker. They're getting paid for doing sexual related things. It's a good book really for most part cause it's a good tragedy. I just love good tragedy. The rest is in the details.

Anyhow, a colleague brought up an interesting topic in the office. She was saying that Gen Y women not care much if their husband getting into affairs as long as money and/or love is there for them. They could just be satisfied with money and/or love cause it's expected from the man they're married to have an affair - knowing how many attractive yet single ladies out there.

I couldn't help but to disagree at some point of the statement. I agree that Gen Y women not care much if their husband getting into affairs but love and money couldn't just heal you out of it. What I could see in Gen Y women are more independent thought in them. Most of them used to work at some point of their single life which normally could ended up with marriage around 25-30 years old normally. They get so much exposure on living on their own and most of them still keep working even after marriage. Dependencies towards man and position of man as breadwinner wasn't a natural factor anymore in marriage. Husband and wife depending on each other both emotionally and financially.

That's mean Gen Y women have better options should an affair broke up in their marriage. Not that they couldn't care much but they have ways to deal with it by terminating the marriage and starting brand new life. Women nowadays even get paid more than they used to hence they could earn more than men.

However, it's also relate to the point of peer pressure whereby women nowadays being brought up in such luxurious lifestyle that it comes to their nerves. As I would like to relate back to the book that I read, more and more university student and young professional getting into escorting and call girl business. As highlighted in the book, they're doing it to get some extra money and sometimes to get the luxury of getting showered with luxury items/attention from men - it's noted that most men who using escort service or call girls agent are men with money to burn. It's an interesting point to note that the women getting into this for money while the men getting into this for attention and love. Both could get into trouble; married men get into affairs and young women trapped into cycle of vicious sexual transaction to satisfy their pleasure guilty ridden over their head.

Anyhow, I'm trying hard to finish this book cause it has second edition which I presume would tell more dark tragedies. I enjoy the book so far. Owh...this book written by Gerrie Lim and this book sells at Monsoon Books. You could find it here: http://www.monsoonbooks.com.sg/bookpage_0510336.html

Happy Weekend!

I am taking a leaf from Re-arrange and posting a review on a book I read recently.(because I am busy tsk, tsk, so reviewing should not take much time and thoughts. Supposedly. Because my reviews are crappy)

Now lets start. I had just finished then reading the disappointing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I find Elizabeth Darcy (my ultimate favorite heroine ever in Story-land next to Anne Shirley and Emily) completely annoying in there.So I look forward to read this book, hoping it would be better.

It started off so beautifully. The presence of zombies and beheadment of those zombies, succubus assassin, powerful demons and then the stories went on ahead with no ending in sight but I am reaching to the back of the book and then I discovered that the story then flails at the end as if the writer do not know what to do with all the characters that he got in his hand. Bah! 

It really seems unfair. Like I said, the start of the stories sounds so promising, every characters seems so awesome. They continue to be awesome, but somehow the end leave me unsatisfied, almost angry that the writer choose to end it in this way. And I have no idea in what way could it be more satisfying. 

Also while the titled character is supposedly the central figure, I never felt like she was. It seems like it is a story of a group of people, coming to meet right at the end of the story. Disappointing I would say, on how the story pans out. Especially the Queen's story. And I kinda am irritated by her too.  She seems so.... unawesome and whiny. I do like Quimby and his zombie servant parts in the book. Those are delightful. But maybe I am just bias.



Dils like zombies in a book, but couldn't find a satisfactory read about zombies yet. She is still crossing her fingers and hoping to find a zombie lore so gore that she will shed a tear of joy.  Dils also writes at witherthorne.blogspot.com

I was bored, so I try to find some books to read in my brother's room. I'd never expect that my little brother read Donald Trump book: Never Give Up.

Because I'm bored, I read it. Yeah, I was a fan of The Apprentice but that's about it. To read Trump's book is quite bored for me. My take was "it must contain all the obnoxious stuff the rich man always says.."

Well, while he's quite obnoxious in his own way, I found the book entertaining. At least the way he talked his up and down; how he persevere, how he lost, how he go through the low points... 

It makes him human. Not the rich man. Well, perfectly successful man, I can say. Even though he never go into details on how he failed or how he recovered from the lost, motivationally, this is a good book :)

Just a quote from the book:

I'd recommend you to read it if you are at your lowest down. Some good motivational shit from Donald Trump. ;)