Ratatouille and 881
I HATE RATS!
So much that I still cringed when I watched the latest offering from Pixar - Ratatouille. Remy, the rodent star talented in gourmet cooking, is no Micky Mouse.
Don’t get me wrong, Mic and I enjoyed the movie. By that, I mean the rats in the movie look so much like the real McCoys (so not like Mickey Mouse) that I actually cringed in the cinema during the scenes when the whole colony was running / working about. But this also means that the animation was very real, well, it is Pixar after all.
The movie received favourable ratings (like 4 out of 5 at least) in the papers but personally I find it more of a 3.5 star. I still prefer The Incredibles. This one never gave me a high like The Incredibles did.
Last Friday when we were deciding on a movie to catch, I was considering Ratatouille, Hairspray or 881. To my amazement, I saw that 881 has a better selling than the other 2. I was puzzling over how our homegrown movie, which has been showing for more than 2 weeks already, could have beaten blockbusters like the other 2 (Hairspray had received rave ratings too).
Later that weekend, I discovered yet again the power of word-of-mouth and the media. With the support of SM and lots of media exposure for the local flick, people’s attention and curosity are drawn. It also helps that this is the month of getais. I guess that and the appreciation of getais were what pulled my in-laws, who had not gone to the cinema in years, to watch it. Many want to see if it is really that good, and if the Hokkien tunes are really so cool.
I have not watched 881 yet so I cannot comment if it is any good, but no matter what, a local success is always something to celebrate about.
Name for my website
I have been doing some small scale freelance copywriting and translation since 2002, however, the assignments are few and far in between so they are not providing any source of regular income, but rather, just the occasional pocket money / savings for me.
Mic has been drumming the idea of doing it on a more organised platform to me for some time, but being me, I always had many excuses and limiting beliefs of why I should not consider it.
I have no business acumen.
I am not that good in my bilingual abilities
I can’t do techical stuff like law, finance and medicine etc
I don’t have the time for this after my day job, my household chores (We have no maid so I have to do most of the chores as Mic holds a very hectic schedule), my personal time, my time with family and friends and last but never the least, with my hubby.
I guess repeat drummings may actually work 
or maybe I’m hoping to get more moolah from these assignments, I have recently (many many weeks already actually) decided to have a presence in the cyberspace by way of a website (to be designed lovingly by you know who) to advertise my services (proof-reading, editing, copywriting and translation [English to Chinese and vice versa]).
To get started, I NEED A NAME for the website. Despite squeezing my brain for any juices, I have yet to come up with any brillant name for the site. And I can’t keep procrastinating already. So pls, anyone has a good idea of a name that would fit the services that I’m offering?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Team Spain at Singapore Fireworks Festival 2007
Finally got some time to organize the photos taken from last Friday’s (17th August 2007) fireworks from Team Spain. We had managed to get seats at the Marina Bay floating gallery since Yh won tickets via Lianhe Zhaobao’s lucky draw.
The place was packed to the brim by the time we got into our seats. The weather that day wasn’t the best, with showers earlier on but luckily had cleared by the time the show started. After about a 30 minute wait and a lot of yammering by the MCs, the show finally got under way with a 15 minute light show first before getting on with the actual fireworks.
GoFlyKite was also around for a quick interlude before the fireworks and as usual, it was great spectacle as the kites lit up the night sky like fireflies.
The fireworks were a huge treat and way better than what we got from National Day. From our seats, we were captivated by the 3 platforms of fireworks that danced and lit the skies with furious explosions and patterns.
With the whole sky covered with fireworks, we almost couldn’t capture everything at a glance and my camera was kept busy as I captured each shot hoping to get some great photos. A lesson learnt at the end of the shoot was that I should just use manual mode and a mixture of settings instead of going automatic with the fireworks scene mode on the Canon S3 IS. This created a lot of noisy images. Luckily, some seemed rather nice like the one below with the red rings and lights.
After the 15 minutes of fireworks that left everyone with a great memory, we headed off back to Raffles MRT to catch a train back. Managed to get some shots along the way.
Remember Flash Gordon?
I recently caught 2 episodes of the new SCI-FI series “Flash Gordon”.. or rather I should say a remake of the 1930’s Flash Gordon comic series. Was trying to place where I had heard the reference from when I realized it was from Star Trek Voyager’s Tom Paris’s fictional character “Captain Proton”.
The scenes and storyline in the new series seem a little campy but somehow I was hooked watching the 2 episodes and wondering what will happen next as Flash searches for ways to find his father on Planet Mongo and battles with Ming. Not sure if its the lack of good sci-fi on TV but I guess this will do till Battlestar Galactica gets back on the tube.
Singapore fireworks celebrations 2007
Just got into Marina bay floating gallery. Almost full house now. Was a bit of struggle getting in to traffic but we got pretty good seats!
A trip down memory lane
It is rare to have a Chinese musical produced locally, so that immediately arouses my attention to If There’re Seasons, what’s more it will be featuring songs of Liang Wenfu which we grew up with.
Asked around and managed to put a group of 6 together to watch it. Luckily all of us pretty much enjoyed the Musical so it didn’t turn out to be a waste of time, especially since Mic has been so busy lately. Ex-colleagues had commented that the beginning was a bit boring but overall, the musical was pretty enjoyable and all the familiar songs by Liang had brought them nostalgic memories.
My sister and I agreed that the female singers could not match up generally and the star performer was definitely Geroge Chan.
As the script was written by reowned playright æœå›½å¨ï¼ŒI actually had high expectations of the script as he had produced lovely scripts such as 我和春天有个约会 （I even went to volunteer as backstage help for a day years ago!), å—æµ·å三郎 and movie scripts such as 人间有情, but this musical’s storyline is really quite simple of the dreams, aspirations and love of 3 young people.
Although there is room for improvement in the singing and the changing of scenes (too slow), it was still a commendable effort by The Theatre Practice.
If There’s Seasons 天冷就回æ¥
If There’s Seasons By The Theatre Practice. At Drama Centre Theatre, NLB
Just got back from watching the play that Yh proposed watching some time back with her sis and ex-colleagues. Due to work, hadn’t really had time to go look at the details other than knowing Liang Wen Fu’s songs would be used. I must say I’m not the largest fan of chinese muscials since I’m horrible at mandarin (Yh is the total opposite).
Takes effort for me to follow and appreciate while having to translate everything into english to make sense 
However, with this play, its pretty easy to understand the theme of Ah Le’s love. Happen to think the actor potraying Ah Le was the most outstanding of all. Only realized halfway through after lj reminded us that he was a judge on “the dance floor”!
Pixar’s Ratatouille
Pretty interesting how a rat can get such attention in Pixar’s latest offering. Yh absolutely hates rats but has considered watching this movie since its an animation. Should be pretty interesting to watch once it shows. Enjoy the videos!
Now this is what fireworks should be like
In my previous post, I mentioned that the NDP fireworks seemed a little too short and not very exciting. Saw a video of the fireworks from Tokyo Bay. Wow!