Monthly Archive for June, 2007

Red desert of the North East

Published
by
theroo
on June 26, 2007
in Photography, Rue and Singapore
. 6 Comments


Sunset at Punggol

I realise I sound like a complete retard, but seriously, Punggol just is…intriguing. Talking to some fellow compatriots, it’s like, if you could compress Singapore into one little town, Punggol would be it. Small, contained, efficient, pretty boring, and weirdly cosmetic. And yet, on the outskirts of this little town are a variety of little nuances, red clay deserts and fields of long grass, dotted by the LRT tracks with stations that reminisce of a land of ‘Spirited Away’; isolated, insignificant, yet a semblance of life that exists somewhere. It really is so bizarre. You travel down the long straight tracks of the LRT, with the towering HDBs on both sides, hundreds, thousands of people looking downwards. Strange.

In other news:

Online Dating

The Illusion of Antiquity

Published
by
theroo
on June 25, 2007
in Photography, Rue and Singapore
. 0 Comments


Changi Boardwalk

There’s this bizarre place in the east of Singapore called Changi Boardwalk. If memories serves me well, it was constructed in 2003, and parts of it (like the place in the above picture) are made to look old and antiquarian, back to days of yonder when Singapore was but a quaint fisherman’s village. Anyway, the strange thing is that, in a very untypical Singaporean manner much of the boardwalk is a bit lacking in terms of maintenance, especially at night you notice that large portions of the boardwalk are unlit and it is rather dangerous. Anyway, that beside the point, it is quite an interesting place, and the sunsets there are rather charming.

I’m on MC today. Sigh.

Dawn at the Fullerton

Published
by
theroo
on June 22, 2007
in Photography, Rue and Singapore
. 4 Comments


Merlion watching the sun rise

The other day, I went down to the ‘Merlion Park’ around 06:30. There’s something about watching the sun rise in the early hours that I prefer over watching sunset. For starters, it’s seeing something that most don’t, and for that hour or so when the sun rises over the horizon from another part of the world, it really is as if time sort of stands still, or at least hesitates, joining with the sky to usher in the grand entrace of the sun in all its glory.

The thing I find most interesting is that after this great performance of God and nature, the world just seems to just carry on. The City fills with its workers, food is eaten and drinks are consumed, money is spent and deals are secured, and no one really pays any attention to this glorious sight that occurs every day. You know how sometimes you go to an event, or you go watch a movie that moves you, or that touches you in some way or another and when you return back into the real world, you see that, incredibly, the entire world has missed it and cannot relate to your experience, even when you tell them about it. I may be pushing it, but watching the sunrise just seems like that to me.  

I really don’t like the cliche of it all, but seriously, creation just stares us all in the face, but most just choose to ignore it.


An overused composition: Esplanade and Friends

24. Season 6

Published
by
theroo
on June 18, 2007
in Film and Rue
. 12 Comments


24: Season 6 Cast

I just finished season 6 of 24 in about 2 weeks (which if you think about it is actually quite steady and self-controlled viewing, an episode a day, or so?) so if you’re one of those people I’ve been sincerely informing of my busy-ness, now you know why. But seriously, I have been busy, so watching that amount of TV a day isn’t very beneficial for anyone, and six hour nights were really getting to me by this weekend. (Yes, yes, six hours is a lot for some).

I think 24 is one of those series that you cannot watch on a weekly basis. I tend to wait til the season is over, ‘obtain’ the entire series and then watch it in one shot, or over a week or two. The reason is because while you know that every episode is going to end to the sound of those seconds ticking to the hour with an incredibly insane, life threatening finale, you still end up incredibly frustrated when it happens. That’s one of the reasons why I never did watch season 2,3 or 4, because it just got so irritating when I couldn’t find out what happened next.

Season 6 was a bit ridiculous in parts, but I’m glad they had the guts to set of a nuclear bomb in California. Doing it in episode 4 was pretty interesting. Well done terrorists, you managed to do something without talking about it beforehand too much. I do have a feeling the producers are running out of ideas at times, there are a lot of recycled ‘situations’ and the age old ‘Jack Bauer breaks the law, disobeys orders, but makes the right decisions which the authorities only realise later’ scenario is really frustrating. It happens at least four or five times in every season. The torture sequences also really do get to you at times. Sticking a knife in someone’s knee, or a power drill in your shoulder really don’t make pleasant viewing. Still, killing off key characters is something you have to give the producers some credit for. There aren’t many series out there that are willing to take out lead characters at the risk of losing viewership. However, the seeming invincibility of Jack Bauer does get a bit implausible at times. But still. Entertaining nevertheless.

And another thing I must give credit to the 24 producers for- they really know how to pick the irritating, spineless, American civil servants. They’re there solely for the purpose of being hated, and they do it so well.

For Jack’s kills in 24, a rather entertaining website is here. Please bear in mind I in no way advocate the killing of individuals for fun.
http://www.bauercount.com/v3/index.php/season/show/6

Heaven, fall down

Published
by
theroo
on June 12, 2007
in Photography, Rue and Singapore
. 0 Comments

I went to Punggol, for fun. I must say it’s really a very interesting place in the sense that it’s so… consistent. Anyway, there are quite a lot of nice photo ops in the area, which was the real reason why I was there in the first place.

London 2012

Published
by
theroo
on June 8, 2007
in Inane, London and Rue
. 6 Comments

In response to:

(and yes, that’s meant to be an Olympic logo with the numbers ‘2012′ hidden somewhere - I couldn’t tell the first time) please go here (to tell the world how crap it is)

Seriously, why spend 400K when the initial candidate running logo was so much better?

Another wonderful example of how committees really do nothing but screw things up.

…and after pausing for another five minutes, I still can’t believe that’s the chosen logo. It really looks like something a five year old came up with…what were they thinking?? Seriously…

Hors de Prix

Published
by
theroo
on June 1, 2007
in Film and Rue
. 0 Comments

I remember the first time I ever saw Audrey Tautou in ‘Amelie’. To be quite honest I thought she was such a bizarre femme Francais. Little did I know that that alone was testament to her accomplishment as an actor.

I never did see her following two widely screened performances. The first, I forget the name, was about her as some psychotic woman, the second, the Da Vinci Code, I never bothered watching (and no, not because I boycotted it as an anti-Christian movie, just because I heard it was crap).

However, watching ‘Priceless’, or Hors de Prix, as it is known in native tongue, I confess her performance to be rather intriguing, captivating, and so very different from the rather querky little girl that I saw so many years ago in Amelie. I wouldn’t say that it was ‘Oscar’ worthy, but I did enjoy her performance, growing from a gold-digging young woman to an essentially smitten girl with the poorest guy in town, drawn together only out of respect (or disillusionment perhaps) with someone in the same trade as herself and thence sharing a common, albeit unwitting for him, interest. It is furthermore amusing that she begins to burden herself with imparting her knowledge and ‘skills’ to satiate his, or rather, her, insatiable greed.

But having lavished all that praise upon Mdme Tatou, I must say the performance of Gad Elmaleh is equally entrancing. His initial appearance as a sartorially inept, socially inadequate (though you know his confidence lies within, only his insecurity lies with his wallet, or lack of it) individual transforms dramatically throughout the movie.  His rather deadpan, sorrowful face, by the end has a very charming and sophisticated feel to it. Amazing what a nice suit and tie (and watch) can do to a man. He reminds me somewhat of Adrien Brody. Uncharacteristically handsome.

It really is a very amusing show, full of comic, cringe worthy moments, and if you look past the rather disturbing reality that such occurrences are more than real and rather unfortunate in manner, a rather nice romantic flick. A favourite is the scene which is oft shown in the trailers where Jean (Gad Elmaleh) shows off his new, EUR30,000 watch to Irene (Audrey Tautou), posing and answering her question of the time with ‘Nine diamonds past’. Classic. Simply classic.

Go and watch.