Twisted Dreams

Happy New Year

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:58:34 GMT

Yes yes, i'm late again, but anyway just quick updates for those who don't know, I'm engaged to Cass and have been for the past 2 months. Gosh time sure does pass by really quickly... I'm already 25 this year and my brother is 23.. GOSH!!! but anyway, I proposed aboard a boat called Courageous on the 14th of Nov 08. I guess you could call it quite a coincidence since alot of people would have said that it would have required a lot of courage to do such a thing in front of all the other guests.

Now, i read the newpaper this morning and found something so stupid that i absolutely had to blog about it. This Turkish cafe owned by a Muslim man in Invercargill refused service to a lady from Israel. Yes there is alot of fighting in Gaza right now and no one likes a war, coz the only things that come out of it are bodybags, but how is refusing service to a tourist from Israel going to stop the war? I just found it so stupid that i absolutely HAD to blog about it. The lady has rightly taken the matter and placed it in the hands of the Human Rights commission here in NZ. Apparently there are quite a number of cafes in Invercargill who are taking on this stand as well and people are supporting them. Hopefully the Commission does something about this breach of Human Rights, what if he has other "opinions" about other people groups like the disabled or people who are Christians.
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10552111

Another thing that I've noticed as well is how much the media has been portraying Israel as the "Bad Guys" in this current conflict. I even watched a protest going down Queen Street chanting "Israel, USA, How many children have you killed today?" but I wonder how many people have actually even taken the time to consider that it isn't Israel that's doing this but the Hamas group that's putting their civillians in situations where they are using them as a human shield and daring the Israeli forces to attack. See this is what I think, the media has been only portraying one side of the story and AFRAID, yes I said it, afraid to show what the Hamas group has truly been doing because of the fear that they might have suicidal bombers on their hands instead of an army to deal with. A suicidal bomber can destroy and cause fear within a country more than a legal army because the world powers can step in and stop them politically.

Something else that I don't understand is how people can look at 8 year olds and lust after a child... Apparently the most senior cleric in Saudi Arabia has said that girls by the age of 10 should be able to marry because if not, it would be an injustice to women and unfair for them. If an 8 year old gets sexually abused by a 50 year old man in Saudi Arabia, I guess that's good for the child... Does this mean that Saudi Arabian girls are maturing so much faster than the rest of the world and gets so horny by the age of 10, that if they can't marry they'll go whore themselves out? Also, he said in a lecture that if a person agrees to women marrying after the age of 25, they are following a "bad path", somehow paedophilia isn't a "bad" path to this cleric. Sometimes it seems that tradition has gotten the better of these people and they have ceased to progress any further from the time that these traditions were created.
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10552102

A child is a child, no matter what your tradition says, maybe if I were to stick to tradition, I should go find myself young underaged children, around the age of 10, from Saudi Arabia and make them do hard labour since they were traditionally viewed as "small adults" in the Western world during the mid 20th century, Since they are viewed thus, I guess it won't be too difficult to go a step further and convince them to do porn as well since they are adults and can make up their own mind as to what is good for them and what isn't. UNFORTUNATELY, it is against the law globally to have children do hard labour anymore and it's a prosecutable action to have paedophilic porn. So why is it acceptable, and even promoted by this cleric, for children below the age of 18 to be married off to old, horny, paedophilic men in the Middle East is beyond me.

Hence the stupidity of Man continue to amaze me... I reckon there's a reason why I don't read the newspaper anymore... just too much for me to handle.

yup

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:46:33 GMT

it works good.

Test

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:46:06 GMT

making sure this works...

Dream : Stolen cars

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:31:17 GMT

Ok I know that there is another part to this dream but i can't remember it anymore... so before I forget even the little that I do, I will try to type out as much as I can.

So i'm at a country club and I'm preparing to leave.... as I get out, for some reason, I just had to steal this Rav4 that had it's emergency lights blinking, it was as thought that was the sign that the car keys were still in the ignition. Then I drove it over to one of the lanes and blocked this person from coming out, what he did then was wind down his window and hurl abuses at me, he could have gone to the other lane and driven out but he didn't. I then got out of the car, took the keys with me, and ran to my other 2 friends who were there as well in another stoeln car and we drove towards the entrance of the country club.

As we neared the entrance, we got out of our car, and walked towards the bus stop, fully intending on taken the bus back to the city. Apparently the country club was very far from the city and would take a few hours before we got back, So we were waiting for this red bus to come... and there were other people there as well. One of my friends couldn't take the wait anymore and decided to steal another car, which he did. This car had enough space to hold 7 people, including the driver. So I sat in the middle section with another person, and 3 girls sat at the back. They kinda came when they saw that there was a car available.

So as we were about to go, we see our 3rd friend walking towards us and holding a card stating where he wants to go and looking as though he has been betrayed by us because we did not call him to take the car with us. Anyway, he got on and everything was fine, he reminded me of my high school mate Wen Hao though for some reason...

As we were driving back, I suddenly got this feeling that I might have been seen stealing the first car that I used to block the road.... I was afraid that the owner might have just been standing there and taking down as much details as possible about me. My first friend then told me not to worry because we would be passing by the Watchers building that if I had been identified, there would be some sort of advertisement there for my capture... I think it was something like crime watchers where they ask for the help of the community..

After that I woke up.. I know that there is a first part of this story that kinda revolves around a girl robbing a bank... but for the life of me I just can't remember it right now...

Hahei Trip

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:20:18 GMT

Well over Easter we went for this road trip that was organised by Ching to Hahei. It was actually decided on the day that we had a potluck dinner at her place. So we had 4 couples who went, me and Cass, Ching and Marcus, Dave and Yu Hwee, and Kelvin and Sarah.

We woke up early in the morning and met at Ching's place around 8am because we were all going to the closeby Maccas to meet up with Shun before he left for Japan. Although the meeting did not last for too long, but we did have a nice chat with him and said our farewells before he had to go home to pick up his mom and then leave for the airport.

And there you have it, all of us gathered there to take a photo with Shun except for me since I was the one taking the photo. Well, one day I'll photoshop my head in this picture somehow but until then, this photo looks pretty good =D

So after Shun left, we went to the nearby foodtown and Asian bakery to do some last minute shopping for items like water, snacks and bread. After that, our journey to Hahei began.

Along the way, we were told by Marcus and Ching that there was this infamous one way bridge that seems to cause alot of traffic jams since it's a one way bridge. Here's a picture of us crossing it, a good thing that on that day there weren't alot of cars on it so we didn't experience the traffic jam,

Now in order to get into Hahei, there are 2 places that have quite windy roads, and before each of these places are small towns. When I thought of going out of Auckland, I always imagined that things would be a little cheaper since it's a small town as is evident in places like Malaysia. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be the case, The next photo was taken at the town before the first windy road, can't really remember what the name of the town is.

On the day that we left, the price for the Synergy 1000 was still 1.779 in Auckland and in this town the price is already hiked up. In Tairua, the next town, Kelvin had to replenish his petrol so we had a little stop there while we had some lunch at a cafe, the price of Kelvin's petrol was 1.899 per liter, I was so shocked that I've decided to pump my tank full of petrol before my road trip next month.

You could say that the weather was marvellous that day but the sun was really unforgiving. Just sitting down and having my arms exposed to the sun while having lunch was enough for all of us to start putting sunscreen lotion on our bodies, and we haven't even arrived at the beach yet! This was what Cassie and I shared at the cafe since we weren't all that hungry. It was fried calamari and Cassie absolutely loves calamari. It cost about $17 just for this dish. Initially we were wondering why there was chocolate syrup in this dish, but it turned out to be vinagrette, or at least something that tasted like it.

It was another 30 minutes to an hour before we finally arrived at the Hahei campsite that Ching and Marcus always went to whenever they did a road trip there. On the day that we decided to make this road trip, Marcus gave them a call to see if we could reserve a spot for us, they told us that it was on a first come first serve basis. So we naturally thought that they would definately have places for us. This is what we saw upon arrival.

Another sign that I did not take was a sign at the entrance that stated "ABSOLUTELY NO VACANCIES". Since this was our first time here, Cassie and I did not know what to expect, we didn't know if there were other places that we could stay or did we have to head back to Auckland that night. Anyway, Marcus got out of the car to chat with the lady to see if there were any places that could take us in. Apparently the campsite did have some vacant lots only that it wasn't big enough to accomodate all of us, so instead, we had to go to another campsite at another beach, so we drove for another 5 to 10 minutes and reached Cooks beach, There we saw a campsite and also alot of vacant lots, so we got out of the car and paid for the lots. The cost was $20 for each person.

So here is the place that we eventually set our tents up in. Below you will the the different tents that we brought along. Ching and Marcus owned their tent so the rest were borrowed with the exception of mine. Mum bought mine at a garage sale.

We took up two lots and the tree was meant to be the tents focus point, kind of like a gathering place for all of us. Since we had an abundance of tents, the guys decided to take one each instead of sharing, typical for us guys.. always wanting our own spot... hahah.

This tent belonged to Ching and Marcus.

This tent was borrowed, I think from Shun or one of Dave's and Kelvin's mutual friends... But I still think it might have been from Shun. Dave stayed here.

Once again, another borrowed tent with Kelvin residing inside.

This tent was borrowed from Chris and Andrew, friends from church that Cassie used to flat with. This was a HUGE tent, it could probably sleep 4 or 5 people EASILY, and I have to dry it out on my deck... the covering sheet alone has taken up my whole deck so I'm just leaving the rest of the tent until later before I sun it out.

Now from everything that you have seen, the tents that all of us brought were very much modern looking ones with modern designs. Mine on the other hand believes in the old school camping. If you want to camp, you had better do it old school style.

Mine was the easiest to put up and also the easiest to be taken down... the only problem was that condensation gets in very easily and it becomes very cold... All in all, this reminded me of the old days when my brother and I would tie blankets in our room and make it our very own "tent".

I think I will leave it here for the moment as I have much to do around the house. Will continue to blog about the rest of our trip later, especially about the beaches that we went to on our trip.

War / Rogue Assassin Review

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:53:11 GMT

Once again, if you do plan on watching this movie, I would suggest that you stop reading here as there are definately going to be alot of spoilers. I really enjoyed the twists and turns that this movie had although it did can not compare to the movie The Prestige, it was still very enjoyable.

I watched this movie with mom yesterday and found it very interesting. Also I saw some interesting themes which may or may not be in the movie and I just interpreted it that way. This movie revolves around the FBI agent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) and the ex-CIA turned assassin named Rogue (Jet Li). At the beginning of the movie, it shows how Jack and his partner Tom Lone (Terry Chen) were investigating an incident which involved the rogue assassin. A gun fight broke out and they rushed in to see what was happening. When the assassin almost killed Crawford, Lone's stepped in and shot Rogue in the face. Later in the movie, Rogue breaks into Lone's home and executes him and his family.

As the movie progresses, we see how Rogue works for both the Chinese Triad (leader Chang [John Lone]) and the Japanese Yakuza (leader Shiro [Ryo Ishibashi]). I found that his actions really embodied those of the saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Hence I thought that Rogue was vying for the combined leadership of both the Yakuza and the Triads. To tell the truth I was very impressed with his strategy. But here I saw how easily Mankind can be manipulated to serve the will of others when given a push. Such was the case when Rogue dressed up like a Yakuza biker and drew the rest of the Triad bikers into Yakuza territory where they were duly executed. The brother of the Triad leader's right hand man was murdered by Rogue with a Katana and he left it there for all to see. When the Triad learnt of this, the brother demanded that Chang declare war on the Yakuza, but Chang was unwilling to. Rogue on the other hand was listening quietly behind the wall and when they were outside, Rogue passed a box of matches to the right hand man. The matches were from the Yakuza bar. Later, this Triad member took a number of gang members and did a shoot out in the bar. This was the beginning of the Triad / Yakuza war.

As the movie progressed, we see how Rogue took orders from Shiro to execute Chang and his family. With the help of some ninjas, Rogue executes Chang and his bodyguards around the house. When it came to his wife and daughter, all we see are gun shots from outside the house. When the ninjas demanded that her head be brought back to Shiro, Rogue fires on them and helps Chang's family escape. Here it started to look a little funny to me as I remembered that Rogue had no problems in executing women and children before, so why change now? When Shiro learns about this, he calls Rogue in and informs him that he knows of this trechery. He then orders his execution. On the way, Rogue finds an opportunity to put his guards to "sleep" and blows up the room that he and Shiro were previously in with a bomb that he had set earlier. He then engages Shiro in a sword fight and wins in the end.

Towards the end of the movie, we learn that Rogue is actually Lone. That he did not die in the assassination attempt but managed to kill the original Rogue and take his identity. We also find out that Crawford was the one who was working for Shiro and gave Lone's address to him. The reason was because Shiro told him that they wanted to "rough him up abit" and "teach him a lesson", but Crawford never expected that they would kill his family. Here I see the idea that the police authorities are actually quite naive in that they would actually believe the words of the violent Yakuza. Of course, it could be different as well since Crawford was working for Shiro and was compelled to follow orders. In a way I think this actually reflects in real life. Alot of poilce authorities believe that some form of crimes can be allowed to be carried out as long as they know who is in charge, so that if anything goes wrong, they know who to look for. But then again, won't it be easier to actually just close them down? Or would this jeapordise some form of undercover activity that they are actually carrying out. It's quite difficult to know nowadays.

Another idea that I found fascinating in this movie is how the twist happened. Throughout the movie we see Crawford being obssessed with finding Rogue and we think that he is our protagonist when in fact it is because of him that Lone and his family were killed. Rogue managed to eliminate the two major gangs in the movie, the Triad and the Yakuza, which was much more than what the authorities could have done. This brings me to my point, Crawford worked within the Law and could do nothing while Rogue acted outside the Law and brought down Chang and Shiro. Sometimes I wonder if our Law has "evolved" so much that justice can never be found. When Rogue invited Crawford to Chang's warehouse, Crawford couldn't do anything to him because they had nothing against Rogue. This is exactly my point, criminals that can afford good lawyers are allowed to walk the streets free of any convictions and the authorities are made to look like fools. Therefore one wonders if the Law nowadays actually protect criminals more than it can presecute them.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:15:28 GMT

Look if none of you have EVER come across this on youtube, you really really have to watch it. I find this extremely funny.

Another day

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:18:31 GMT

Well... this is another day that once again I will be looking for a career... on the positive note, I went for the careers fair on monday and saw Kelvin and David there, both advertising for their companies, ANZ and E&Y, as graduates.

Really hope that I will be able to get into the PwC Aspire programme in the Performance Improvement line of service. In case you guys don't know, the Aspire programme is the name of the graduate programme that PwC runs on a yearly basis. The PI department is also the outbound HR side of PwC. So yes, PwC not only does accounting and finance, they also do send out HR specialist to help out other companies and apparently they have alot of people who do HR and Psych there. So here's hoping me getting a role there and starting early because seriously, my wallet is getting too light for my own good.

Edit: Oh yes... here is a picture of Yu Sang... my favourite chinese new year dish. Don't want to talk too much about it seeing as I'm darn tired right now.

Payperpost

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:56:31 GMT

Well as I've said previously in one of my posts, I've recently signed up for this marketting programme called payperpost. What it allows you to do is blog about things that interest you and lets you make money at the same time. So for myself I like gadgets, computers and games, and when I blog about certain opportunities, this website actually pays me. I call that a win-win situation.

Personally, I see this as a more viable source of income while I'm still looking for a career. This seems far better than going on the unemployment benefit. However, I have just started and it would be interesting to see how this all work out. So if any of you guys are interested in trying this out, just click the links and see how it'll work for you too.

So far, I have come to understand a little of how this website works. Once you sign up, you must have at least 10 posts in the last 30 days before your blog is verified as a blogger on their site. After that you will be given opportunities to choose from based on the ranking of your blog and also the geographical area that you live in. I think this is a very good idea because otherwise there might be people who blog about things that they do not know, such as an American bank or something. So this way, I can actually blog about something that I can claim knowledge about.

I foresee myself blogging much much more from now on.

Full

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:07:50 GMT

Man I am so full... went to Ching jie place for dinner tonight and cooked a huge pot of curry. Been feeling real tired after huge dinners these past 2 days, I think I should blame mom's return.

Oh yes, had a weird dream the other night while I was sleeping on Cassie's coach. It was so comfortable that I actually dreamt that I was telling my grandfather how comfy it was.

So the dream starts out like this. I am in my grandparents house and I am telling my grandad about Cassie's new coach. While doing so, I could see his eyes looking to the right and the left, as if he was trying to take in as much as he could. For those of you who know, my grandad has lost his sight for over a year but I still believe that he will see again. Anyway, after I have told him about it, he asks me to bring him a pillow from that coach so he can see for himself how comfortable it is. So I run up the stairs and into my parents room, where my grandma was chatting with my mum. I ask my grandma where the coach is, and for some reason I expected that she would be the one who knows.. Somehow in that dream the coach was bought by my friend Esther. So granma tells me that it's packed up in boxes and is currently in my room. As I walk across the hall, I look into my brother's room and see a huge queen size bed. In reality there are two beds in that room, a double and a single bed. But this time I saw a bed that was similar to the one that I usually have in my room. So in my mind I said, "Ohh ok, since my bed is in that room, therefore the coach must be in my room." But as I enter my room, I see another queen size bed and no boxes.

At that moment, I woke up from my dream and saw that I was in Cassie's hall. So I took that in and told myself "Ohh the coach is actually in Cassie's new place..." and then I dozed off again. After that I return to the same dream and I go downstairs to tell my grandad that I can't bring him a pillow since the coach is now with Cassie. As I go downstairs I see my grandad carrying a pile of sweaters that he had collected. At this point in time, he was arched backwards and his face looked as though he was in pain and about to fall. I quickly ran up to him to remove the sweaters that he had collected and to steady him. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that all he wanted to do was to sneeze.

Then I woke up. Once again, this weird dream has been brought to you from the darkest recesses of my mind.