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This may be my last "blog" for 2003. As usual, I'm making plans for dinner tonight (juicy ribs) and where to go for the big Countdown. There are a couple of suggestions floating around as to where we could hang out... nothing is confirmed. I might end up watching marathon TV at home. Somehow it feels very much like any other ordinary day. Nothing very exciting. Yet tomorrow is a brand New Year... I feel like I need a little house cleaning... both in the Real and Virtual world...

Joey’s Born!
This should have been posted earlier. Welcome Joey! Weight of 2.54kg popping out at 1622hrs. She was out in 15 mins max in the operation ward and her proud father had the honours of cutting her umbilical cord. We have a very happy new mom and dad!

It’s been a nice break since Christmas. It was nice to have a little time to do nothing much. Then again, I did “work” in between.
Can’t believe that the New Year is arriving in 2 days time. I might spend some time to work out a New Year’s Resolution or “To Do List”. The Christmas 10 List seemed to work quite nicely. At least some things got going. Statistics had shown that resolution lists don’t really follow through… practically everyone does one… it’s nice to have some vision for 2004.

The day after Christmas, the Feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, is better known as Boxing Day. The term may come from the opening of church poor boxes that day; maybe from the earthenware boxes with which boy apprentices collected money at the doors of their masters' clients.

Nowadays, we often see, in certain families, gifts (boxes) given to those who provide services throughout the year.

I've been having too much junk in my system this Christmas. Went to Lis' place for a fabulous BBQ. The beef was to die for!

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

- John Lenon
I've waited a whole year for this day. It's a little strange now that it has arrived :)

It's the eve of Christmas Eve. The heart grows in anxiety come this day - thinking of all the greetings I haven't sent, all the presents I haven't bought, what I'm going to wear for Christmas, where I'm going to eat etc. etc. This is the time where you try to put the year in perspective as it comes to an official close soon. Looking back at my Christmas 10 List, I'm really please I've managed to do a couple simple but meaningful items. Just yesterday, Charles and myself went for confession and I bought 2 bags of canned food to give away to the poor. We talked about new year and how we can improve on our spiritual lifes.

I'm likely to wrap up my presents tonight. After lunch tomorrow I'd drop by the supermarket to pick up some food for my Christmas Eve dinner. Haven't really thought of anything special to eat.

I'm frantically trying to clear as much as I can in the office as I head off for my Christmas break. It's almost crazy... but who's in the mood anyway.

It took me about 1/2 a day to get the Christmas cards written, but where are all the STAMPS???

Say hello to the spanking new Sony Cyber-shot DSC V1! I have only but 1/10th share in this 5 mega pixel digital camera with the new Memory Stick Pro feature. In addition, this prosumer camera has a hot shoe slot, manual focusing and white balancing features and can add on lens. Looks like the much talked about debate between digital and film pictures quality will cease to some extend now that I have both formats available. Nevertheless, I really love the film look (and still think it looks great compared to most digital stills) but the film and development cost is such a killer! Digital still prints have come down to a very affordable cost of about 30 cents. But then again… memory sticks don’t come cheap... while, let’s just enjoy snapping!


Top on my Christmas Tunes Chart!
Anyone out there ever came up with their most favourite Top 10 Christmas Songs list?
Was I that bored?

1) Have yourself a merry little Christmas
2) O Holy Night
3) It came upon a midnight clear
4) White Christmas
5) The Christmas Song
6) O little town of Bethlehem
7) I'll be home for Christmas
8) Winter Wonderland
9) All I want for Christmas is You
10) Silent Night


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Director Peter Jackson has done justice to Tolkien’s final installation of The Lord of the Rings. It was a 3 hour 10 mins spectacular film that dragged a little too long towards the end. I guess the emotional bits didn’t really work for me. The fight scenes were awesome! Flying dragon like creatures, long husk elephants, exploding lava! Practically anything that makes movie magic! In fact, I’ll rank it next to “The Matrix : Revolution’s” dock battle. I’ve always liked mythical and fantasy genres. The Lord of the Rings trilogy brought back memories of old favourites such as “The Dark Crystal”, “Labyrinth”, “The Never Ending Story” and “Dragon Slayer”. I can honestly say that nothing has really come this close to detail in a fantasy world creation ; except for Star Wars… but that’s more like Galaxy World Sci-Fi. I can’t wait to get my hands on the collector’s edition 3rd part DVD with an additional hour of extra footage!

Today is my "Lord of the Rings III" Day! Really excited about it.

I'm having a very busy work week, resulting in numerous "Christmas Cannot Dos". I managed to squeeze in some Christmas greeting messages for my cards 2 days back. Can't believe we're about a week from the big day. Looking back on my Christmas 10 list, I'm jolly happy I had done a couple and will be working on 1 or 2 more by this weekend. The 2 most difficult items on the list - Spring Cleaning and Christmas Shopping has yet to come near in sight!
Mom and Vic had flew off to Kiwi Land, so I'm thinking of a nice steak place to bring Dad for Christmas. There's also a sweet little grass reindeer sitting under my Christmas tree!

The Return of SARS!
There might be a possible Sars relapse back in Singapore. A Taiwan researcher confirmed with the Sars virus had come in contact with numerous Singaporean during his visit here and 70 has been under home quarantine since yesterday. Looks like these poor folks had just blown their Christmas celebrations. This news had brought down the Asian stock markets and it's effect will be felt stronger if the virus is not contained.
Thinking ahead... all my late work nights might put me in danger due to a lower immunity. Must Sleep More - have less stress!

The week had been an awesomely swell one…

Mich’s Wedding
It was a beautiful wedding at The Fullerton Hotel last night. Mich had put in so much “love” into this special day it really showed. With all my love – have a “warm” honeymoon!

The Gift Youth Retreat
I popped down yesterday afternoon to the Youth Retreat to look for Sr. Fran who returned from California. It had been over 4 years since I last contacted her. It was such joy. While away, she did her Masters in Theology and Asian Religious Studies. How cool is that! I’ve learnt a thing or 2 while chatting with her about the church and faith.

One thing she said stuck strongly “We must learn to be less busy”. Thinking through, we’re now about 10 days away from Christmas. I haven’t done many of the 10 things I’ve listed for myself at the beginning of December. But I’ve achieved a couple :). The following week will be a busy working one and I feel trapped by all the work… and I only have 1 more weekend… sigh…

I really feel that our meeting was so God sent. Shaking me up a little and reminding myself to chill off a little to calm the soul...

D&D 2003
This was by far the worst D&D I’ve ever attended! Nothing can be worse than a slow and boring program line-up that doesn’t excite the 1,000 over crowd. Adding to the horror was terrible food and a pathetic door gift… The night was called “The Game Show”, with guest appearances from “The Wheel of Fortune Singapore’s” Bernard Lim and Eunice Olsen. Apparently the committee engaged the Flying Dutchman’s event company… The dress code was National, so I arrived in Miran’s black Indian Sari. It was such a hit with everyone.

The event ended after 1am, as many still wanted to await their chance for the grand lucky draw with a whooping value of $7,000. I didn’t win… as you noticed…

The Concert Run Down
There was lots of rain to accompany the 3 Masters in Mainstream Jazz Concert at the indoor stadium on Thursday. Prax and myself arrived about 15 mins before the concert and had our tickets upgraded to the $120 seats. We were about 4-5 meters away from the stage and could see all the sweat and expressions! How swell! In fact we were so close we moved higher up from act 2 onwards so we could see the drummer. I had my fair share of fun, but I’ll be rating this gig 6.5/10 with demerit points for:
1) Starting 45 mins late
2) The most stupid piped music - I think I heard the Hill Billy’s’ Theme
3) Sound screw-up for Spyro Gyra - that was such a waste!
4) Long in between interval times
5) Ending late – all the crowd rushed out after 12mn everyone scrambling to catch a cab!
6) Poor co-ordination and publicity for event company, Springroll

Lee Ritenour stepped on stage 1st. At age 16, he played his first recording session for the Mamas & Papas, on-stage two years later backed Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. Scored several gold albums, numerous Guitar Polls #1 spots, 17 Grammy nominations, one 1986 Grammy Award. They played several familiar tunes which really perked the crowd up. Then the band introduced this 26yr old black boy to crone to some Bob Marley tunes. He was rather refreshing with his MJ dance styles.

Next was Spyro Gyra, the New York Jazz Band combines R & B and elements of pop and Caribbean music in Jazz. This was the gig Prax and I paid to watch. The pieces they featured were so awesome, with a couple from a new album. Unfortunately, ½ the act had bad sound… we were watching the sound guys run up and down changing mics! It was so disappointing. Surprisingly, Spyro had numerous fans. Prax also managed to get the drummer do an autograph for his CDs.

I had high expectations for Larry Carlton who first played guitar aged six. His infectious guitar has made him one of the most respected musicians in the industry, garnered two Grammy Awards, and more than 100 gold albums. This time round, he brought with him an entire horn section, calling them the Sapphire Blues Horns! That sorta sucked as he used them and less guitar… playing Blues which made me wanna sleep… There were 2 acoustic pieces that I really enjoyed. If you wanna watch some great guitar skills… you’ll have to watch Larry Carlton.

3 great acts in 1 night was honestly crazy. Anyone of these bands could have played an entire evening. They are THAT good!

I just found out that I've got premiere tickets to watch "Lord of the Rings III" on Wednesday, 17th! That's 1 day earlier than my online booking tickets on the 18th! That's also 2 ticket price cheaper! So much for the big rush to pre-purchase tickets... it seems that the online booking trend for opening days always seem to fall short. The other incident I recalled was "Star Wars Episode I" (I think). Unless it's a world wide opening such as Matrix...

I haven't decided what I might do with the Wednesday tickets as yet... seems like I am more likely go with the original plan.

In Spirit of the Ring... here's a couple of hilarious Ring Spoofs!


LOTR by CNN
Ringbearers still at large

Mordor (CNN) - Reports from the field have just arrived that the notorious group of ringbearers known mysteriously only as "the nine" were spotted by a band of orcs entering the terroist safe haven known as "Lothlorien" several days ago. The Mordor State Department issued an official proclamation today that the group were known to be armed and dangereous and had already caused the death of many orcs in the region as well as the notorious brutal murder of a high ranking Balrog previously resif\ding in Moria. They warn that any concerned citizens were to contact the Mordor Foriegn affairs office immediately with information as to the whereabouts of these fugitives and to not try and confront them themselves.

"We will act in our utmost to bring these terroists to justice" President Sauron declared today. "These terroists are attacking our way of life, our culture and the way we live. The world must know that the collected will of the dark lords minions will be strong and resolute."

First detected in the town of Bree in the north of middle Earth, these terroists wasted no time in coldly taking the lives of all nine Ringwraith Agents when it was discovered that they were on a plot to topple Mordor. It is believed that the group is composed of primarily hobbits backed up by support from a wide variety of races including dwaves, elves humans and a mysterious backer only known as "Mithrander".

"I must stress, Hobbits are a primarily peace loving race" President Sauron warned today after a spate of hate attacks against hobbit dwellings. "These hobbits are extremists, fundamentalists, they do not speak for hobbit kind".

Agents also believe that these terroists have strong links to the group that assasinated the Foriegn Diplomat, Smaug, earlier this age. If so, it would explain the impressive array of mythical weapons that the group has acquired.

So far, the terroist group has been utilizing safe houses in elvish country to evade capture and have slipped passed even the most stringent defences the Dark Lord has set in place. Residents are afraid for their children and people have stopped going out at night. "How am I going to let my kids go out and torture humans if I know that theres a group of orc killers roaming the countryside" a concerend mother said today".

Experts believe that, if these rogues are not brought to justice, a rash of copy cat attacks will follow and severely hurt the economy.

-- written by CNN correspondant, Saurman

LOTR by Seinfeld
Seinfeld Episode 144: "The Ring":
So anyway my uncle gives me this ring of power and I can't even recharge my cell phone with it. What's up with that?
"Don't tell me you lost the ring George."
"I had it a minute ago. I must have left it in that restaraunt."
"No Rings for you," cried the Soup Nazgul.
"This guy who wants me to get rid of the ring is named Gandalf. Have you ever met anybody named Gandalf? What's up with that?
The Council of Elrond:
"Sauron created the ring of power in the year...yadda, yadda, addax... and that's how Frodo here got it."
Why didn't Sarong make a spare ring? What's up with that?


LOTR by Eminem
Lord of the Rings-Eminem
Do you know what it's like to be given a quest
To be told that my best is a jest in the mess of a world my parents confessed?
To be told that I'm going to fail no matter what I do
That everything's gonna go black
To be given a ring that my uncle's addicted to like smack?
A ring he won't let go
`It's mine,' Bilbo says, `just let go, Frodo,'
`F**k you,' I say, `You know yo flow is blow, that ring ain't no f**king memento.'
My man Gandalf comes in and lays down the law
Oh no motherf**king Bilbo sees his flaw
'Take this thing,' he says to Gan, and hands it over to the man
'Now it's been given,' he says to him, 'given and now I'm going to Rivendell.'
`Rivendell, hell," Gandalf says, 'elves run that place like some f**kin' jail cell, you do well to go to a Deep of Helm's,' he said.
`I'm going to Rivendell,' Bilbo said. `I'm sorry Gandalf but I'm going. Now take that f**king ring before it blings and f**king makes me cry like some f**king halfling.'


LOTR by Tarantino
Excerpt from 'Pulp Fellowship' by Tarantino (please excuse the length)
2. EXT. HORSE DRAWN WAGON (MOVING) - MORNING
A rickety Horse Drawn Wagon creaks down the dusty back roads of the Shire. On the drivers board are two people-- one a Wizard, the other a Hobbit - the wizard wearing Homespun Robes and a pointy hat, the Hobbit standard Hobbit clothes, with a thin tie. Their names are Frodo (Hobbit) and Gandalf (Wizard). Gandalf holds the reigns.

FRODO
That did it, man -- I'm f**kin' goin', that's all there is to it.

GANDALF
You'll most certainly enjoy it. But You know what the funniest thing about Gondor is?

FRODO
What?

GANDALF
It is the small differences. Many the same things we have here, they have also there, but there they are somewhat different.

FRODO
How so?

GANDALF
Well, in Rohan, you can buy Pipeweed at a theatre. And I don't mean in a rolling paper either. They give you a pipe full of weed, like in a guest in your parlour!
In Minas Tirith, you can buy weed at Denethor's. Also, you know what they call a Long Bottom Leaf in Gondor?

FRODO
They don't call it a Long Bottom Leaf?

GANDALF
No, they have no sense of the Shire there, they wouldn't know what the f**k a 'Long Bottom Leaf' is.

FRODO
What'd they call it?

GANDALF
Sweet Galenas.

FRODO
(repeating) Sweet Galenas... What'd they call Silver Star?

GANDALF
Silver star remains Silver Star, but they call it the 'King's' Silver Star.

FRODO
What do they call Old Toby?

GANDALF
I know not, I could not find Old Toby. But you know what they put on Mushrooms in Gondor instead of Bacon?

FRODO
What?

GANDALF
Mutton.

FRODO
Goddamn!

Chill Out at Lis’
Yen and I had the most wonderful home cooked seafood spread at Lis' new home. Thanks to my Friday abstinence to meat, we had seafood galore of chili crab, prawns, steamed fish, fish cake, fish ball and veggie soup and strawberries to top it all up. Think my stomach expanded another inch! After dinner highlight included a lovely bottle of red wine, Lis’ 650 awesome wedding day and my HK VCD on the $6,000 bucks plasma TV.

What is Christmas?
I'm working on a Flash montage on this stack of about 50 hand-drawn Christmas cards, designed by a bunch of kids from a neighbourhood family society. There were some very creative pieces. It's pure joy to just admire how imaginative and innocent their ideas on Christmas are. What honestly surprised me was that not a single card bore the design of Christ's birth. The real meaning of Christmas! There were lots of Santa, Frosty, Rudolph and Mr. Xmas Tree. Christmas to these kids had become so commercialised. It's all about a wish list, where the giving is totally lost in the receiving.

Having been brought up to know "Christmas" since forever... I feel so blessed... if only every kid knew that on Christmas morn, the greatest gift was given...

What’s installed?
The rest of the week looks absolutely outrageous. There's the 3 Giants Jazz Concert, which I’m really egar to attend.

The Annual Dinner and Dance 2003. This year's dress code is "National", so I've borrowed Miran's gorgeous black Indian Sari. To match the beautiful 5m Sari cloth, I purchased a Bodynits’ mid-drift athletic top. It exposes the tummy and shit do I have those excess fats! I’m doomed… I’m at that stage where my metabolic rate had platued… Have to be very serious about exercising right now.

"The Gift" Youth Retreat over the weekend. I'm actually excited to meet Sr. Fran after all these years! And Mich's wedding. Mich will be presenting the childhood montage clip I put together during the dinner... I do hope it comes out well.

How many of you out there know about the DVD Exclusive Awards? Apparently, here's an award that honours DVD authoring for design; games and interactive; and deleted scenes, outtakes and bloopers.

In this year's 2003 DVD Exclusive Awards, "Finding Nemo" took home three prizes at the 2003 DVD Exclusive Awards, held Dec. 2 at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Looks like this DVD will go onto my wish-list. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Special Extended Edition" won for best overall DVD for a new movie and best new movie scenes. There's so much stuff in this disc and the "Fellowship of the Ring", somehow it never ends!

The Honeymoon After...
Today I'll be meeting the gals again. For the 1st time after Lis has returned from her GoldCoast honeymoon.
Just in case we've got nothing else better to do at Lis' place, I brought along the VCD of last year's HK trip and Michelle's completed childhood montage.

Caught Matrix : Revolutions again last night. In fact I enjoyed it better this time round... had more time to appreciate the awesome animated sequences of the dock attack and cable line flight.

Had been on some kind of spending spree lately... bought a wrap skirt and a pair of business shoes recently. Will be going to Gigi's tonight to fix up my hair. And with all these Weddings, Christmas celebrations and gifts exchange going on, the annual AWS is going to be much needed.

Ngee Ann's Film, Sound and Video turned 10 this year... it's really amazing we've survived this long. So Jac (who's now the Alumni Rep) organised this Anniversary Get-together at the Sound Stage. The turn out was great, comprising of 8 batches so far. There was the usual "I can't believe we lasted this long" crap, a video montage screening and sharing from some pioneers currently working in the industry. Dinner only commenced around 9pm, which really killed a couple of us.

What really brought back memories was the walk down memory lane, or a guided tour around the studios. There's many pieces of new equipment, some old ones remained. There's a spanking new preview theatre with a film projection room and the most kick ass seats, fully cushioned with full head support. Back in my time, we had the most uncomfortable plastic chairs...

The Digital Studio (where I spent practically all my time) has now lost it's former glory. The Alias Wavefront posters we hung up during the studio's launch is still stuck to wall, slowing fading away... IBM machines have replaced the former $45,000 (each) purple Indigo2 SGI machines. I think we used to have a room of 20 pieces of that baby! Then walking to the back of the studio are stacked up pieces of our 1st Indys (each costing about $15,000). The giant Onyx is fortunately still in use and basically still sits next to the white elephant Cineon Film Scanner and Film Recorder, costing 1/2 a million and 1/4 of a million respectively. According to Adrian Harvey, I seemed to the only student who made use of the the Cineon! Somewhere hidden in the corner, are the baby toaster O2s. I'm contemplating buying one at eBay as a souvenir or decorative piece. I still love these machines! It's shocking to realise how much money we had flushed into this studio...
(You may wanna check out this wonderful Obsolete : SGI Workstation site)
The studio is now clustered, but it still have the dark green walls and point up special ceiling lights.

Peter was a really nice surprise to have at the Alumni. I guess we shared the same sentiments about the Digital Studio. We were even reminiscing about the gun firing sounds at the nearby NS firing range... Machines aside, what really saddens me is the current softwares of choice... 3D Studio Max has replaced Softimage 3D and Maya; while compositing softwares such as Flint, Flame or Jaleo has been over taken by Adobe After Effects. Well, I guess they're trying to cultivate creativity over tools and machines...

After that night, I really miss animation...

Snow is falling again on my site for the Christmas Season... 25 days and counting... :)

November came to a great end. I'm hyped about the last month of 2003.

Bowling Tournament
It was a great game yesterday at my company's Annual Bowling Tournament Friendlies @ Marina South's Superbowl. I had an average score of about 120 with the second game having a lousy end. My team crawled within the top 10s (coming in at No. 10) amongst 30 over teams. I'm proud to be standing at No. 5 in the Ladies overall amongst 57 contestants. Thought that was quite an achievement. So here's 3 cheers to my teammates, John and Stephen for a jolly fun time.

Lord of the Rings II : The Two Towers DVD
The Lord of the Rings II Collector's Edition DVD had finally arrived some time last week. It's a 4 DVD pack with 40 minutes of additional footage to the 2nd installment. Derek and I spent most of Saturday's rainy afternoon spotting the new scenes. I am a believer that every scene needs to exist in the film for a reason. Somehow I'd have agree to the final shorter cut; omitting numerous Mary and Pipi's forest scenes, the extended funeral scene of Rohan's Prince, a stable scene on a wild horse and other general dialogue scenes.

Lord of the Rings III : The Return of the Kings will be airing it's premiere screening tonight in New Zealand! I am 18 days away to having my kick!