Thursday, 10 December 2009

A lesson from survivor Samoa

I've always find that certain people makes me uneasy. There's often no obvious and justifiable reasons, but no matter what I do I just find that I have the innate desire to get as far away from them as possible.

Sometimes I wonder, why my other friends don't mind these individuals, and whether the problem has something to do with me.

Well...watching survivor Samoa brought me a revelation. This is what happened: in the Foa Foa tribe, there's a guy called Russell who started a strategy of deceit from day one. On the surface, he was friendly to everyone and tried to get everyone's trust, but at the same time he secretly manipulated people into fighting with each other, causing rifts in the tribe. (This was on day one! Wasn't it a bit too early? Shouldn't you be focusing on having unity in the tribe so that you can win challenges first?)
When he talked to the camera in private, he started gloating about how stupid he thinks everyone is and how everyone is going to be his puppets.

Having a villain like this certainly made the show more entertaining, but it shows that there are certain people you just shouldn't place your trust with.

Almost everyone was blindsided by him, but some started to sense that something about him just wasn't quite right. A former police officer, Betsy, stated: "I wouldn't trust Russell", but when asked by another tribe member "why?", she couldn't explain it. "I don't know...it's just my female intuition...". Another member, Marisa, made the mistake of voice her concern about his trustworthiness to him, so he manipulated the tribe to vote her out in the first episode. Since Betsy instinctively knew that she couldn't trust Russell, true to his villainous nature, he got her voted out in the second episode. From there on, the Foa Foa tribe suffered a streak of defeats challenge after challenge. Well...when everyone who's smart enough to be suspicious of the villain's behaviour were voted off, is there any surprise that you're left with a weak tribe?

Maybe, when your instinct tells you that you can't trust someone, there's a good reason for it, even if you can't explain it (perhaps especially if you can't explain it).

Read more...

Thursday, 26 November 2009

The Island




This is a true story.

My friends met an Italian couple in India, who were in their forties. They first visited Southern India in 1980s. During that time, they met a local guy, who told them about a secluded island. They were entranced by the descriptions, so they decided to go there with him. The island was so remote that it took several days and many boat rides to get there.

Once they were there, the island turned out to be everything they dreamed of. During the day, they would go fishing, swimming, picking fruits, and at night they would sit in front of the fire, listen and exchange stories with the locals. They lost track of time.

One day they woke up, and realised that 20 years have passed since they first arrived! That's when they left the island, went back to mainland India, continued their journey, met my friends and told them this story.

It is surreal.

Read more...

Thursday, 12 November 2009

The Story of Germany

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I happened to be listening to audio lectures on modern European history in the past few weeks, and thus found a few interesting facts that gave me a more in depth perspective about the whole event.

The interesting thing is that, Germany had not been a united country for much of the history. Before 1871, while there were groups of people with an identifiable German culture, the Germans were governed by several kingdoms and principalities, chief among them being Prussia and Austria.

Before the French revolution in 1789, the concept of nations did not exist in most people's mind. People were ruled by their feudal lords and monarchs, with whom they swore their allegiance to. It is not uncommon for a king to rule several, in today's terms, countries.

What happened during the 18th century was fascinating, it was the change in ideology and philosophical concepts, that ultimately changed the world. Idea is such an abstract thing, yet it's impact on the fate of societies and human beings is so powerful and profound, as demonstrated by what happened on the European continent.

People started to believe that all men are created equal, as opposed to the monarchs have the divine right to rule, and this ultimately led to revolutions. The idea that people as a nation, should have the right to determine their fate, led to nationalist movements. It is interesting to note that, instead of deposing their monarchs, as happened in France during the French Revolution, most European countries preferred to have a constitutional monarchy. That is, they don't want to get rid of their kings, they just wanted to have their constitution, parliament and the right to vote. (Note: UK, Australia, NZ, Canada, Denmark, Japan...etc are examples of a constitutional monarchy today)


So finally in 1871, Germany was united, with the king of Prussia became the emperor of Germany. Austria was left out because of political complications (The Hapsburg monarchy in Austria also ruled over Northern Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Croatia...etc).

The fate of this new nation was dramatic to say the least. In 1914, at 43 years old - the age when a man would likely to experience the midlife crisis; it started World War I along with Austria. They lost the war, and the Hapsburg monarchy simply dissolved, with the empire split into pieces. At this point Austria wanted to join Germany, but the victor nations would not allow it. There was no way that they'll allow Germany to become bigger than it was before the war.

24 years later, in the name of unifying the greater Germany, the Nazi regime first annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia, then finally invaded Poland in 1939 and thus started World War II. At the end of the war, 84 years after its birth, roughly the lifespan of a human being, Germany was divided in half, and thus marked the beginning of the long cold-war.

Looking at Europe today, where most countries are united into a single economy, is nothing short of remarkable. The forces behind these changes, are once again powerful ideas profoundly shaping people's lives and destinies. We have not reached the end of the story that started in the 18th century.

Read more...

Monday, 9 November 2009

How to backup data to DVD and find them later with ease

I just finished writing a tutorial on how I systematically backup my files to DVDs, and how I can find out which file is on which DVD in seconds.

I've posted it on my new blog, which is intended to be focused on more technical topics:
http://antarcticsubmarine.blogspot.com

Read more...

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

A conversation

"I can understand now how passion is important for running a business."
Me: "Yeh, passion is kind of like the counterbalancing force to fear isn't it?"
"Yes"
Me: "So without passion, you are left with...fear alone!"

Me: "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?"
"I'm slightly more of a pessimist, because knowing things aren't right makes me want to take actions and do things to change them."

"I think it's healthy to feel a bit scared; to allow your survival instinct to kick in. Many people I know who lived their life too safely ended up complaining about how life is boring; how they don't feel passionate and alive, and how they felt lost and meaninglessness."

"Feeling danger might be something that's essential to our biological system; it might be necessary for us to feel a bit scared in order to grow and achieve a sense of fulfillment."

Read more...

Thursday, 15 October 2009

ARC Salon 2009

Every year, the Art Renewal Center's online salon gives out prizes to awe inspiring paintings & sculptures in the classical realism genre. Which gives me a good excuse to link to some beautiful artworks.







Read more...

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Defeated

I felt defeated after today's interaction. At first I was frustrated, then as we left the interaction without any resolution, I was angry. After that, I started to doubt, maybe I shouldn't have brought up the topic at all, maybe pretending everything was normal as if nothing happened previously would've been a better choice, after all, that's how millions of people dealt with issues. Then, I felt the a feeling worse than anger - guilt. Then, finally, I felt resigned and defeated. Then something interesting happened, I started to feel a sense of relief, and I was finally at peace.

------------------------------------------------------

People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They may seem like a godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason, you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, Sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME, relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway), and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being part of my life.

Brian A. "Drew" Chalker

Read more...

Monday, 21 September 2009

Vicky Cristina Barcelona


I switched off my analytical mind while watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and enjoyed every moment of it.
The movie became a total sensory experience, the charming locations, the hauntingly beautiful melody of the Spanish guitars, the magnetic calmness of Juan Antonio, the longing expression on Vicky's face, the fiery chaotic Marie Elena, the flirtatious & spontaneous Cristina...etc. There's even a tinge of existential humour to tickle my intrigue:

Cristina: [Looking at a sculpture of Jesus] Are you very religious?
Juan Antonio: No, no, no, no, I'm not. The trick is to enjoy life, accepting it has no meaning whatsoever.
Cristina: No meaning? You don't think that authentic love gives life meaning?
Juan Antonio: Yes, but love is so transient. Isn't it? I was in love with a most incredible woman... and then in the end...
Vicky: Yes?
Juan Antonio: She put a knife into me.
Cristina: My God, that's terrible!
Vicky: Well, maybe you did something to deserve it.

All in all, watching this movie was like savoring a scrumptious meal, all my taste buds were satisfied.

I can tell that without some of my life experiences in the past, I wouldn't have related to the subject and enjoyed it. What's more amusing, is that for the most part of my life, I have played the role of those "clueless guys" in the movie (eg. Doug and the guy Cristina's hosts tried to set her up with on the sail boat), who were fulled of ideas and/or righteousness in their heads, but completely missed out (or intentionally ignored) those subtle expressions, emotions and desires in people as painted so vividly in the movie.

Oh mighty god, I repent for my oblivious ways.

Read more...

Tuesday, 11 August 2009

A crushed egg

Early yesterday morning, an egg placed next to a milk bottle in our fridge, was lightly crushed by the pressure of its neighbour. The egg remained intact, despite the fact that the shell was fractured & some egg yolk was released.

In about the same hour, I was dreaming in my sleep. In the dream, I was a child, a member of a Royal family, packing up my things for our imminent departure from the palace. The country had become unstable due to either war or revolution, I couldn't tell, but in hindsight, the setting of my dream was mostly akin to the stories I heard about the Russian Royal families.

Logic is never necessary in a dream, so for no reason at all, the me in my dream boiled an egg, pealed its shell, and found that I had no appetite for it. Food had become scarce, so throwing it away would be a terrible misconduct, and some family members were urging me to hurry up and get moving. I was left in a dilemma, but was soon relieved because the dream changed and I became someone else.

And hour or two later, while sitting in front of the computer, my mind suddenly made a connection between the two incidents. Why was I dreaming about an egg? It's certainly not a common theme of my dreams.

After years of casually reading about the human mind, I believe that we, human beings, even with our technological advances, still cannot describe the full extent of our mind's capabilities. So its fully possible that my mind somehow picked up what happened in the fridge, and brought it into my (the dreamer's) consciousness.

This is one of those things that makes you go like "woo...", as if someone had tipped over a bottle and spilled a sense of wonder all over your solar plexus.


It was not the first time something like this happened.
Back in 2007, I had a dream in an early morning, in which I was a mountain climber walking on a precarious path. The feeling of danger and the imminent threat of falling down the mountain was vivid and alive even after I woke up. Later that day, I heard on the news that two climber felt down on Mt. Cook and died.


I've claimed half-jokingly that I'm a half-psychic from time to time, and I really believe that my intuition almost always knows more than my consciousness mind does.
I've long given up my interest in explaining why or how the intuition works, I just want to use it to my advantage.

Yesterday afternoon, I began listening to the audio book version of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. "Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant." -- Amazon.com.


There was an interesting experiment described in the book. It's a simple gambling game: imagine there are 4 decks of cards in front of you, two red and two blue. You were told the rules and just have to turn over cards from any of the decks, one by one. What they didn't tell you is that the red decks contained high risk cards, which will punish you severely when you turn them over. So the only way you can win the game is to only turn over cards from the blue decks.

A group of scientists from the University of Iowa did this experiment a few years ago, and they found that most people developed a hunch of what's going on, after turning over about 50 cards.

Now here comes the interesting part, the researchers hooked the participants up to a polygraph, to measure the activity of the sweat glands in their hands, and they found that the participants started to develop stress responses to the red decks by the 10th card! That's 40 cards before they started to get a hunch of what's going on consciously.

The excerpt of the book can be found here: http://www.gladwell.com/blink/blink_excerpt1.html


Our body (ie. our subconscious/unconscious mind) knows what's going on before our conscious mind does!

What surprised me was that, I came to this same conclusion after learning how to interact with people in more direct & natural ways! People can lie, or even you can lie to yourself, but in either case, responses from your body can't.

To be more intuitive, means to listen to your body, or more precisely, to be aware of the feelings or hunches in your body.

It's long been my belief that whether you're happy, sad, angry or nervous...etc, other people can sense it instinctively.
From the body's point of view, you can say that their body can always sense how you truly feel, whether their conscious mind can register what they are sensing or not, that depends on how much awareness they have to their own inner responses.

Read more...

Friday, 17 July 2009

Personality & communication


The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is probably by far the most popular personality model out there. I have seen its application in many different places, from casual personality quizzes to sophisticated studies to help people find their potential partners.

There are 4 pairs of personality functions (or dichotomies):
1. (E)xtraversion/(I)ntroversion
2. (S)ensing/i(N)tuition
3. (T)hinking/(F)eeling
4. (J)udging/(P)erceiving

While my preference for functions in group 1,2,4 is ambivalent, fickle and changes depend on the situation; when it comes to the way I gather, interpret and understand information(ie. functions in group 2), I'm a clear cut N.

This means that the way I process information is based more on my intuitive feelings, I can only get a clear sense of what facts and data mean, when I understand their relationship with other things (ie. how they fit into the big picture), and that I tend to skip unnecessary details.

Only about 26.7% of people are N's, and the majority are S's: people who like facts and details, who tend to pay attention only to things they can observe through their 5 senses.

This difference in personality trait, is the one thing that caused the most trouble in my communication with others.

Being the minority means that you have to deal with lots of S's, who, since they are the majority, have little or no awareness of the fact that people with a different thinking/communication style existed.

To be fair, not all S's are the same, some are less extreme than others, some are more observant of their audience's reaction than others, some are pretty good listeners, and some knows how to calibrate their communication depend on who their audience is.

On the other hand, some of them are seemingly...how do I put it...living in the ivory tower of obliviousness.

It's been quite a journey for me to learn to communicate with people in problems caused by this N-S clash. The Myers-Brigg model is really handy, it allowed me to understand what the fundamental problem is, and explain it to the parties involved.

It's funny though that so far I've not been able to do this verbally very often. When it comes to explaining these intricate things in details, writing proved to be much more effective.


On a side note, one study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues (eg. tonality, expressions, body language...etc). My interpretation of this statement is that, if the other party doesn't get you, meaning that they've missed out on all the subtle signal & messages you are sending, then no amount of talk is likely to change the situation.

It was an interesting epiphany for me to realise that verbal words really are just a small part of a communication, and nowadays I find that I will generally have a more enjoyable time, if I tone down the seriousness of the conversation, and focus on making it fun, fluid, interesting, exciting & engaging.

My focus had shifted from worrying about what to say, to paying more attention to what the other person is communicating non-verbally, and respond to these non-verbal cues. There's a learning curve involved, so sometimes it makes me wish that someone had taught me these things when I was younger. Why didn't they teach these in school?

Anyway, enough rambling, time to end this post.

Read more...

Wednesday, 3 June 2009

Pine Gun - conspiracy

Finally the 48Hours animation our team made is online.

Read more...

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

48Hours Auckland Finalists


We made it! Our team is one of the fifteen Auckland finalists.

After watching our animation on the big screen along with 7 other films last Sunday, I wasn't sure if we can compete with the traditional live-action films, especially after seeing how well made one of them was ("Fanatics"), from plot, acting, cinematography to lighting.

And consider there were 207 films handed in in Auckland, I say we did pretty well.

Now it's going to be screened in the Civic Theater.
link: Finalists
link: screening at the Civic
link: some screenshots

Go team Half Full.

Read more...

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

48 Hours of Madness

Yes, that's what I was up to last weekend, making an animation in 2 days for the 48 hours film competition, in a team of almost 40 people.

Being the Technical Director, my job was to make sure that everything ran smoothly, so that the animators & artists can put all their attention on pumping out their creative juice.

Everything went relatively well, the pipeline we designed worked like a charm, the software scripts I wrote didn't break, the only hair raising moment came 1.5 hours before the deadline, when we realized there wasn't enough time to render all the images. All the computers were running at full power, and there was no way that they can go any faster.

The director had to made the call, he canceled the re-render of several shots with problems (crazy reflections in a character's eye, wrong camera angle...etc), and focused only on the missing shots, so that we can at least have something to deliver. Finally at 20 minutes before the deadline, our tape was out of our door, and was delivered to the organizer 10 minutes before they shut their doors.

Now I can't wait to see it on big screens on Sunday.


To find out more, go to this link: 48HOURS - Pure Belter Madness

Read more...

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

The Daily Show - The Stockholm Syndrome

This is why I love the Daily Show, they made current issues fun to watch.

Wyatt Cenac travels to Sweden to wake them up from their socialist nightmare.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Economic CrisisPolitical Humor

Read more...

Saturday, 18 April 2009

Surfing in autumn



Today at Muriwai, I had the best waves since I started surfing. Finally it felt more like "surfing" rather than "getting beat up by the waves". I'm so glad that I decided to go despite the fact that summer is over and there are no more lifeguards at the beach. It turns out that the temperature in the afternoon was still very comfortable, and with such a good sea condition today, who needs lifeguards?

Read more...

Thursday, 26 March 2009

Tales from India - 2007



Listening to other people's stories is one of the best aspect of travelling. I wrote these down while I was working in Hyderabad back in 2007, but never had the time to finish & publish them.


What will a guy go through for Pamela Anderson?
A guy from my studio found a cool water bubble/ripple screen saver, he called his mom to show her. For some reason the screen saver stopped working, and his mom saw the background image of his desktop: the sexy Pamela Anderson.

It was just a normal fashion shot, not from the infamous home video, but his mom still got angry, slapped him and called his dad. His dad came and also slapped him.

Imagine this happening to a big tall 25 year old~


A mysterious disease in Chennai
A story from another guy in our studio. He studied animation in Chennai for a period of time and stayed in a hostel. One morning he woke up and found his foot had a strange skin disease, the skins appeared to be peeling off. He told his friends about it and they told him it's not a disease, a flesh eating species of rat in Chennai must have fed on his foot during the night. He thought his friends were bluffing, and did not believe it.

That night he stayed up, with a brick in his hand and waited. AND....? You guessed it, the rat came, and it was at least 60 cm in length (excluding the tail)!
He screamed, and threw the brick at the rat. For the remaining time in that hostel, he slept by curling up in a sitting position, and surrounded his bed with bricks as weapons.

It's hard to imagine how big the rats are in India, I did not believe it myself until I saw one lying dead beside the road. Only then did I realize the rat stories weren't exaggerations.


Not your usual national park adventure
My friends M & K once decided to visit a national park in a place called Etumagaram, about 300km from Hyderabad. They looked it up on the map, and drove there on their motorbike. When they arrived, they noticed something wasn't quite right.

First, they asked the locals where could they find a hotel or a guest house, but everybody told them there isn't one and urged them to leave.
They thought if there is a national park here, there must be accommodations so they didn't believe them.

Finally they found a guest house and asked the owner about the national park. The owner told them there is no national park, they can stay for the night but have to remain in a room without windows in the basement, and leave the first thing in the morning.

When dinner time came, they asked where can they find a restaurant. Again the owner told them there's no restaurant and they better stay inside.

Strange right? What were the locals playing at?

Once again they looked around and found a supposedly non-existing restaurant, sat down and ordered their food. Half way through the meal, all the locals suddenly stopped talking, and an uneasy silence fell upon the restaurant. There at the doorway, entered several Naxalites (Indian Maoist rebels) with automatic weapons, and their attention immediately turned to the 2 foreigners.

The rebels pointed the guns at their faces.
M smiled at them, tried to be friendly "Hi..."

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you Americans?"

"No no, we're tourists from Germany." They could feel cold sweats coming down their back.

The rebel leader took their cellphone, look through the contact history, and finally his suspicion dissipated. He warmed up to them, even apologized for the disturbance and said "enjoy your meal" before leaving.

They realised afterward, there are two places with the name Etumagaram, one has a national park, and the other is within the Maoists' territory. They've obviously visited the wrong one.

There's a not so well known picture behind India's modern image, poverty in rural areas drove many people to the Naxalite movement. M told me "In many rural areas, Naxalites are clearly the ones in charge, not the Indian government." M & K drove passed some police station & military check points during the trip, but on their way back they found them in ruins.

Now I have to say that M & K seem to have a knack for getting themselves into these situations (and live to tell the tale). They lived in Nepal for more than a year during the Nepalese civil war and witnessed the fighting between the government and the Nepalese Maoist rebels. Their best friend was on a plane to join them in Nepal, while the royal massacre happened, so he arrive and found Kathmandu in chaos.

So it should be no surprise that some interesting things happened when I travelled with them, right?

Read more...

Bits and pieces

A dozen of my blog posts stayed in draft mode and never got published. Most of them are from 2008, which was unsurprisingly the year with the lowest number of entries.

March 2008, I exclaimed "what a ride!" in regard to everything that had happened.
"I am sitting in a small lifeboat, floating in the middle of a vast ocean called reality. Being thrown and pushed around by the raging waves and currents, what can I do other than to hold on tightly?"

April, an entry titled "miracle" never got finished.

May, another unfinished entry titled "Too much to write, too little time".
"Sometimes I feel like time is running forward madly like a wild stallion. I have one of my legs stuck in the stirrup, so it dragged me through a rough terrain while I, to no avail, tried to grab on to something in an attempt to slow it down."

June, a post titled "beauty".
"Contacts with beauty always send emotional shockwaves through my body, shake me to the core of my being."

July, "Riding motorbike in Nepal"

August, "The long hiatus", in regard to my blogging efforts.

Read more...

Saturday, 21 March 2009

Things About Edwin

1. Steve Irwin and Richard Branson are my favourite celebrities.

2. Most of my favourite songs were sung by female singers.

3. My favourite comedian is Jon Stewart, now you know my political inclinations.

4. Things I learnt from travelling: it can take you to places that evoke surreal and wonderful feelings beyond description.

5. I weighted a mere 44kg by the end of my journey in India. If someone sneezes next to me I would be blown into the air like a feather. However my luggage was so heavy that the gravitational force it exerted would then pull me back down and go into orbit.

6. I have a love affair with the ocean, but I'd cheat on her and have affairs with rivers and lakes whenever I can. I plan to convince them to have a menage a trois when they meet one day.

7. I still believe in magic and miracles, and I'm still fulled of ideology and dreams. These things are so essential to me that taking them away would be like cutting the oxygen supply to an astronaut.

8. I still dream about my childhood pet, the cutest Sheltie in the world.

9. I have a very high tolerance for spicy food, I was trained by certified mystic chilly gurus in secret locations in Asia.

10. I once stayed overnight in a hospital during my trip in Spain, where everyone's English was as good/bad as my Spanish. P.S. No hablo mucho Espanol.

11. I once attended a 2-week German-run marble sculpture course in Italy, where I was the only non-German speaker. You should see the instructor's face when he found out that he had to teach in English.
I could almost hear him thinking: "why you weirdo...why would you come to a course run by Germans in Italy?"
But we ended up having a great time, the instructor would do his best to get me to drink all kinds of alcohol: Limoncello, Grappa, Sambuca, Campari..."Eddie, come here, drink this!"

12. I find that experiencing a beautiful scenery is a whole body affair, my eyes can get watery and I can often feel the chill travel through my spine.

13. I was crazy about Swiss knives when I was a kid, and I suppose I never fully grew up in that respect.

14. When I was 6, I was once reported missing to the police.
In reality, it wasn't me who was missing, it was my dad. He was waaaayyyy too late to pick me up after school(it seemed like hours), so I walked home instead.
I don't remember how long it took (the distance was about 5km), but apparently long enough for my parents to file a missing child report to the police.

15. Beautiful art works affect me emotionally in ways that are hard to describe, but I don't care much for modern art.

16. I think a playful & slightly mischievous spirit in a girl is extremely attractive.

17. A bungy jump used to be something terrifying and off-limits for me, but now I've done it and I'd like to try skydiving next. Getting over a fear and/or a preconceived limiting belief always give me a great sense of achievement.

18. I obsessed about doing things differently from everyone else when I was a kid. Once I had to write a fairy tale in a writing class, I wrote that once upon a time there was a little sheep, who's father passed away 3 years before he was born. The teacher commented "this could not happen" and I couldn't understand why.

19. A spider once built a web between my thumb and index finger during my sleep. Fortunately it was one of those skinny long-legged spiders which didn't look so menacing.

20. I was super competitive as a kid. For a brief period of my life, I indulged in mercilessly crushing my opponents in chess. Until some time later, I helplessly watched atrocious war crimes being committed to my mini soldiers, that's when I started thinking about karma...

21. I often visualize stories while I fall asleep.

22. I like the feeling of being intrigued, and I want to travel to almost every country in the world.

23. when I rode a motorbike for the first time in the messy Kathmandu traffic, my feelings were so intense and I was so occupied with surviving the journey that I had no time to stop, think and be afraid. However I did have time to curse at my friend on the leading bike whenever he started to zig-zag through tiny gaps between cars, trucks & buses. What else can you do other than to follow-on?

24. My favourite quote at the moment: "something is not interesting unless it's inappropriate".

25. I used to think that achievement is everything, until life taught me that finding joy in everything is...everything. Surprise surprise.

Read more...

Sunday, 15 March 2009

The three acts of surfing

Each of my surfing sessions can be divided into three acts so far.

1
It begins with me throwing myself into the wild west coast sea.
The waves would then start to beat me up, giving me rounds and rounds of powerful poundings.
It is not difficult to see how the current can easily drag you out and have its way with you, so it's only reasonable that my mind is focused on staying alive.

2
The most distinct sign, is that I'd suddenly have an awareness of my body moving through the water against the waves with a sense of relaxation. Everything seems to become natural, and this is where the fun begins. I begin to notice small improvements in my techniques, like how to move with the waves, how to jump up and balance on the board.

3
Get exhausted and go home with some bruises and a sense of satisfaction.

Read more...

Sunday, 8 February 2009

Just one more wave

Surfing has something similar to a good addictive game, no matter how many waves you've caught, you always want to try to catch another one, and another, and another.....so you keep going until you're absolutely exhausted. It is very physically demanding, but the time goes by really quickly, especially when you have beautiful curling waves like the ones at Muriwai yesterday.

Read more...

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Mini Movie Reviews

I watched a stream of movies recently, and I thought it'll be fun to write down my impressions of them.


Taken
A rather enjoyable fast paced thriller. Knowing how bad the situation is with human trafficking in Europe, it is very emotionally satisfying to see those bad guys got beat up mercilessly by Liam Neeson.
The fast paced plot kept me entertained all the time, but it did feel a bit contrived at certain points. I don't find it to be too big of a deal as it didn't take away enjoyments from watching the movie.

The final act of the movie though, is slightly dissatisfying because of its predictability, it would've been better if they throw in a twist or surprise somewhere.

Ratings:
First Act (Setup) 10/10
Second Act (Confrontation) 9/10
Thrid Act (Resolution) 7/10
Satisfactions from seeing Liam Neeson beat up the human traffickers: 11/10

Eastern Promises
Another story with human trafficking as a backdrop.
I did not find Viggo Mortensen's performance in Lord of the Rings to be anything special, but wow, he was absolutely brilliant in this film. He played the character so convincingly that I did not recognize him at first. Calm and magnetic, it feels a bit like watching a Russian version of Don Vito Corleone in the making, it's hard to take your eyes off him.

Oh ye, and the story was good too, it is one of the few movies that I wished could be longer.

Rating: 9/10

The Kite Runner
Loved it. The phrase "For you, a thousand times over!" appeared twice in the film, and both times it sent chills up my spine. Beautiful would be a good word to describe this movie. I enjoyed it so much that I watched it again with the director & the author's commentaries on.

Rating: 9/10

Holy Smoke
The first half of the movie was excellent. Interesting and engaging, it raised questions about spirituality, which is my favourite kind of questions, so the plot really grabbed my attention.
However, half way through the movie, the direction changed in a weird way. The motive for this turn was unconvincing, and, in my opinion, the movie just went downhill from there.

It has excellent cinematography though, I took lots of screenshots from this movie for personal references.

Ratings:
First half: 5 Stars out of 5
Second half: 2 Stars out of 5

Mongol
I thought the beginning of the movie was pretty good, then it slowed down and became somewhat sluggish. The depiction of Ghengis Khan's family life was a bit of a drag, yet the story about how he united different tribes was skipped and only described by texts on screen.

About the final battle between Ghengis Khan & his blood brother...sigh...he won it because it started to thunder and all the enemy soldiers were so scared that threw down their weapons???
What the @#$%%.....? Head shaking...

But I have to say overall this is not a bad movie, the visual direction was perfect, the sceneries were breathtaking, and the battles were exciting and spectacular. If you don't know much about Ghengis Khan and is not as fussy about historical accuracies as me, chances are that you'll enjoy the film.

Rating: 3 Stars out of 5

Requim For a Dream
A bit preachy. I know the danger of addiction, and I know some people may find values in a story like this, good for them. But I just don't enjoy seeing a movie about things going from bad to worse and then it ends. There's nothing really philosophical about it, just a big old "if you made the wrong choice, you'll mess up your life" message.

Rating: A small frowning face.

The Savages
Reminded me of The Barbarian Invasions, a typical festival-style film, the subject matter is something that I can't really relate to.
So I don't really have much to comment about this film.

No Ratings.

Read more...

Sunday, 11 January 2009

Arundhati trailer

This came as a surprise. After Almost 2 years of delay, it seems that the movie I worked on back in 2006 in India is finally going to be released. It's good to see that a few shots (lighting) that I worked on were included in the trailer. ie. a top view of the floor exploding, and a few shots of blood splashing across the screen.

Now the tricky thing would be to obtain a copy of the movie, so that I can put some of the stuff in my showreel.

Read more...

Thursday, 8 January 2009

The Notebook

I thought about watching this movie a few times before, because it frequently showed up when I browse through imdb, but I always lost interest after reading the synopsis:
"The movie starts off with an old man in a nursing home reading a story to an old woman each day. The story he reads is about two young lovers..."

I mean...how boring does that sound?

However, it really moved me deeply when I finally watched it today. I can't remember when the last time was that a romantic movie affected me this much.
It's sweet, sad, and very real. It left behind emotional ripples in me that wouldn't go away for a long while.

Read more...

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP