Swifty's Blogosphere Tale Part 2: Bloggers Who Do Lots of Cutting And Pasting.

Chapter 2

by Edmund Yeo

I didn't know how long I've ran from the crazed Jeff Ooi and his murderous little birds. Running through the streets of Kuala Lumpur, I saw nothing but death and destruction, wrecked cars, collapsed buildings? Scavengers gathered around cars, breaking them apart, stealing whatever they saw from within. I snuck into the shadows, careful not to attract any attention as I filmed those people in secret, I was standing in front of the abandoned building which was once known as the Central Market. I knew I wasn't that far away from Petaling Street.

Some Dystopian Tale Part 1: The Political Activist And His Murderous Little Birds

Chapter 1

by Edmund Yeo
Inspired by Paul Di Filippo

The internet went down with a mighty crash. The silence that followed was deafening.

I know, I needed a better opening line than that, but give me a break, the entire world changed on that fateful day, I just can't come up with anything dramatic to describe the events. I'll leave it to the journalists, I'm sure they would've cooked up something more, I don't know, original.

But anyway, the Internet collapsed. Decades of technology immediately rendered useless.

Photos of Wuyishan (China): Tianyou Peak, Wuyi Mountain

I'm putting up more photos I've taken during my China vacation. I took these photos when I was climbing Tianyou Peak 天游峰 of Wuyi Mountain. Was holding the camcorder in one hand and a camera in another while climbing a mountain. Did some photoshop work with them as an experiment.

Click the photos for the larger version.

First Entry of 2006! Happy New Year!

It would've been a boring new year. I would've been doing nothing but staying at home editing my China vacation videos whilst waiting painfully for the end of 2005, and the beginning of 2006. I would stare blankly at my blog, wondering what I would write to my dear readers (or rather, the remainder of my existing readers).

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Edmund Pervensie had always been one of my favourite literary characters during my childhood. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that we share the same name, but when I first read the Narnia books back when I was 12, I was always annoyed by the entire 'goody-two-shoe'/ holier-than-thou/ sanctimonious attitude adopted by most of the protagonists. Aslan and the two elder Pervensie children had always been flat and lifeless, but Edmund was different, like normal humans, he possessed personal desires, dark emotions and such, obviously, I could relate more to him than to the others.

So, almost a decade had passed, and he, along with Aslan (of course), remained the only characters I could remember from Narnia. 'Edmund The Traitor', 'Edmund The Backstabbing Bastard' were the names I fondly remember him as. After all, if I were surrounded by annoyingly holy and patronizing siblings like he did, I would be pissed too.

I'm Malaysia's Very First Video Blogger?

Well, the very first Malaysian guy with video blog to add himself onto the Vlogmap anyway. However, when I went off to check the map again just moments ago, it seems that there's this other Malaysian video blog too. I'm not... unique anymore. Ah well.

Peter Jackson's KING KONG

Saw King Kong yesterday on Christmas. I agree with Roger Ebert's review (and most other US critics'). This film is pretty great.

Zhang Yimou's RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSAND OF MILES 千里走单骑

After making two consecutive big-budget martial arts flicks, the wonderful 'Hero' and the crappy 'House of Thousand Daggers', Zhang Yimou returns to making a simplistic and low-budget drama starring veteran Japanese actor, Takakura Ken.

I saw this film in Shanghai on the 22nd of December, the day of its release. And I think it's going to flop badly in the box-office... considering the fact that MY DAD AND I WERE THE ONLY ONES SEEING THIS FILM IN THE CINEMA!

Zathura

Remember Jumanji? I remembered liking it when I saw it ten years ago. I even had the laser disc (that was before the time of DVDs) and watched it numerous times. Never failed to like it. Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt were funny. And Kirsten Dunst was, well, young.

And Jumanji was the sole reason I went to see Zathura (both were based on books by the same author, and I believe Zathura was supposedly an unrelated sequel). All right, it did get some solid reviews at Rotten Tomatoes too.

Summary? Two bickering siblings find a board game at the basement of their house while their dad (Tim Robbins) is out for work. Then when they start playing, their entire freaking house is launched sent into space, and they meet scary aliens, killer robots and mysterious stranded astronauts. Things can only revert to normal if they can finish the board game, but can they put aside their differences and do so?

This is a decent and simple film. Just imagine Jumanji in space, but less complications and subplots, or probably less budget too. Basically, the film's centered around the relationship between the two brothers, and the child actors did pretty well in here, with the continuous argument and their intense rivalry. I won't really bother watching it twice (like I did with Jumanji, but then, I might have liked Jumanji that much due to my age back then), but it does have a nice little twist in the end.

Photos Of China's Stunning Scenery! (Part 1)

First of all, Edrei, Char, thanks for guestblogging for me during my absence. My shoes are hard to fill, and no mere mortal can do it easily, but both of you have done an, ah, admirable job. Guestblogger Justin's been busy too, as you can see from his last entry.

Anyway, no, I'm not going into detail about what truly occurred during the last two weeks in China, I have filmed them all and will attempt to edit (shitloads of) videos for my video blog entries, I mean, let's face it, I'm sure everyone's more interested in seeing my transform the entire vacation into a narrative video/music video than to have me droning on and on about what happened to me via written word.

Therefore, what I'm going to do now is merely upload the photos I've taken (mostly digitally manipulated to make up for the shortcomings of my own digital camera) throughout the entire trip (yes, basically, I had a camcorder in one hand, and a generic camera in another, which made mountain climbing more ardous for myself).

The Obscure Cynical-Idealist reviews Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in Swifty's absence

Now that the Great Swifty has briefly left the midst of our blogosphere, it is my duty to follow after the Great Kamigoroshi's footsteps and guestblog on the Great Swifty's online abode.

Oh, but who am I to speaketh on the gloriously beautiful pages of this blog?

I, am none other than the ever humble fencetop lover, the one who has gladly sunk into obscurity in search of inner peace, the one and only Cynical-Idealist.

Okay, flowery language aside, I'm not here to spam this blog and whore mine, although my link is up there just in case no one remembers me. I've come to sing praises of a book.



I've just finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke's first ever novel and currently a well-acclaimed bestseller. I've had such a delightful time reading it that I've decided to kickstart my guestblogging here by reviewing this book.