What I do to combat a post -lunch coma

Yes yes, I know everyone has that moment where it's the middle of the day, they're at their desk in their office (the lucky ones have wireless and are roaming the world) and they're bored. And since most of us are children of the Net, we GOOGLE or read other people's blogs...just to see if our friends are as bored as we are.

And lo and behold, I was reading Koobz's blog (Koobz, if you're reading this, why is your blog so high tech wan? Got wipes and stuff...waaaaaah.) and this dude's always got some pretty interesting things to say but this time, I followed some links that he suggested and had my A-HA moment. I now have something to do for the rest of the afternoon while pretending to work at my desk. Cool...

So here's what Koobz had to offer:

• Post Secret
  According to the site, it's an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. True or false you decide. Some are chilling, some are painful, some are just plain funny.
  
• Mooch
  It's a sleek looking web site that aims help us navigate the WWW through a directory of some of the best sites on the Web for news (it's got a frame dedicated to BBC headlines -- yippee!), design, lifestyles, technology and travel. Found some strange but rib-tickling links from there.
  

And of course, I have some of my fave sites that I regularly check out (besides the ramblings of my best blogger friends of course):

• About-Face
  A San Francisco-based organization that monitors the images of women and children in the media -- and keeps a check on offenders and winners. If like me, you're NOT a fan of Desperate Housewives, this is a good site to check out.
  
• AdBusters
  Damn commercialism.
  
• JoBlo.com
  No, this is not a porn site la. Love this! It has a ton of movie info, gossip and trailers from everywhere! Saves me from having to check Apple trailers and Yahoo movies everyday for updates.
  
• Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
  If you're a lil' anal like me and like your information structured and organized, check out IMDB instead but the info on there isn't as updated. The movie listing for directors, actors and producers is pretty complete and even includes guest appearances. I usually don't trust the trailer links and photos though.

My random favorite word of the day

I was busy tickling my boyfriend yesterday and for some strange, unbeknownst reason, I stopped and asked him, "How do you say SQUEEZE in Malay?" Apparently, an 11-year education in Bahasa Melayu and an A1 in SPM for BM doesn't account for a lot after 6 years. So my dear boy decided to enlighten me, "It's PICIT." From then on, I just couldn't stop laughing. I walked around saying PI-CIT, PI-CIT, PEEEEEEEEE-CIIIIIIT. Adorable, eh? There's just something so graphic and illustrative about the word. I mean, say the word and the first thing that comes to mind is a ball being squeezed really really hard and the ends are nearly popping out of your hands. So there you have it, my random favorite word of the day - PICIT PICIT PICIT!

Anybody want kittens?

I'm not a cat person, as you can tell from the previous post but there are two cute lil' kittens who have turned a tiny corner in the courtyard outside my office into their lil' home. I was minding my own business, working on a news story and my colleague in the other office screams out in excitement, "Look! Outside the window, kittens!" They're pretty adorable, one's black and one's grey and they have such different personalities. The grey kitten's pouncing on every leaf he sees and is busy exploring the grounds while the black kitten's just hanging out in the corner, poor thing must be scared. It started to squirm and shake when it heard a fire truck go by on the street. Poor things. It's sweet how the black one's just tagging after the grey one. They've gone exploring right now, but I'll keep an eye out for them when they get back. If only I liked cats, I would take them home and give them some warm milk in a bowl....sigh.

UPDATE June 23, 2005: Poor kittens are gone. I was going to share my microwaved half and half with them but they're not there anymore. Let's hope they've found a home and did not end up as skidmarks from some reckless drivers.

A toast to the gloved one

Michael Jackson Toast1
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

Hehehe....human beings amuse me, especially the weird ones. Just when you think things can't get any weirder.

Drumroll please! Michael Jackson on toast! No big deal right? Wrong. This piece of burnt, stale bread is actually on sale on eBay and guess what's the best part? People are actually bidding on it! It's got 4 days left and it's already fetching $13 for a piece of bread!

MJtoast2
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

I had to read the description to this Michael Jackson toast THREE TIMES just to make sure I read correctly. Here's what it says on eBay:

"This morning I was eating some toast and I looked down and WOW, what was on my toast one piece had Michael Jackson face with Yeah and the other said Not Guilty! I was shocked, so I saved it and waited and then today at 4:30 my time it came on the news and there it was Michael Jackson is found NOT Guilty! What a find I could not belive that the morning of the Verdict it was on my toast FIRST! So I just knew I had to get this on ebay so up for auction is 2 piece of toast one has Michael Jackson face and the word Yeah and the other is the toast that say NOT Guilty!"

This is HILLARIOUS! My favorite part about it has to be the word "YEAH" under the little stick figure head. Jeez....and the bidding price? It has 1 day 15 hours left and it's already fetching $62! Oh, apparently, the seller (*coughs* conman *coughs*) is throwing in a free toaster if the price goes up to $300! CRAZY.

Think I'm making this up? Go to www.ebay.com and do a search for "Michael Jackson toast."

An endorsement for masturbation

Masturbation Monsters
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

The lil' monsters are so adorable. Arrrg Arrgg....kitty....yum. Go forth and masturbate!

Go watch Batman Begins

Okay, I'm taking back what I said about Batman Begins. I'll happily eat my words - munch munch, yummy. I hail Christopher Nolan, he totally rocks! In my opinion, with the exception of Sin City, Batman Begins is the best comic-book-turn-movie ever. Loved everyone in it - Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy and well, Morgan Freeman was playing his usual character and Katie Holmes was just too one dimensional. Cillian Murphy (of 28 Days Later) was a cool suprise, he didn't even appear in the trailer! That dude has such piercing eyes.

No corny lines - ugh, like Spiderman's "With great power comes great responsibility." Gag me. Nolan made me cry 10 minutes into the film. Loved that everything in the movie made sense and is possible. No Arnie in freezer suits. And no Boy Wonder...thank gawd. Batman Begins really made everything seem more believable, it now makes sense as why Bruce Wayne was so torn up over his parents death. Love the Dad character, wished my Dad was like that.

What I found really funny was that when Bale becomes Bruce Wayne, it feels like he's just replaying his role in American Psycho (which I thought was an excellent movie!).

You know a movie's good when at the end of the movie, the cinema applauds and cheers out loud. Go watch it, I was pleasantly suprised. Dark. I'm glad Nolan took up this movie, it's refreshing to not have to deal with another bad comic book movie. Now all I need to do is get my hands on The Following.

Lost

Black Pepper
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

My coarse ground black pepper has been hijacked. I have a good idea who the culprits are but identities shall remain undisclosed for the safety of my black pepper. I'm launching a rescue mission in a few hours. This will not be a first, the previous two attempts have been successful with no collateral loss, except for a few shakes of the bottle.
Be safe Black Pepper. I am on my way.

UPDATE: The black pepper has been retrived. It was merely hiding in fear among his fellow spices in the spice cabinet. Oops.

Zhuang's dis-gus-ting

If there's anyone who'll be fantastic for Fear Factor's food challenge, it's gotta be my Zhuang. This dude will eat ANYTHING. He just came home from a pizza party and for toppings, (brace yourself and make sure you don't have food in your mouth)...he had belacan, ikan bilis and mushrooms! Gross! Then again, this is the same guy who adds condensed milk to his marinara sauce coz it's too sour. Go figure.

The only thing that he hasn't tried that I have is Balut - a Filipino delicacy. It's a fertilized egg with a partially developed duck fetus eaten hard boiled. Pretty tasty stuff...tasted like herbal soup. Scary though! You can actually see the duckling in fetal position complete with fur!

Audrey's Flops, Floaters, Flyers

It's summer in the U.S. right now, so I'm expecting a slew of bad movies to open every week. So which ones are going to be bad and which ones might make it past the trashy ones? Here's how I'm rating them. Three categories -- flops, floaters (meaning they might make it) and flyers (I expect to be jumping in excitement when I walk out of the cinema).

Flops: Stay Far Far Away
Fantastic Four
Cheesy names, bad actors, pretty boys and Jessica Alba in tight blue, lycra-looking suits with superpowers -- need I say more? When your trailer looks bad, I don't think there's much hope for the movie.

The Dukes of Hazzard

Dumb, dumber and dumber-er
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

Hillbilly cousins Sean William Scott, Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson apparently attempt to outwit the authorities of some middle-of-nowhere Hickville. *Rolls on the floor laughing* Outwit?! Jesus. You cannot get a DUMBER cast. Unless of course you get Bush to make a special guest appearance. This is going to be beyond bad, you would have to hire me as a film reviewer with an extremely high pay to watch this.

Herbie: Fully Loaded
Lindsay Lohan needs to eat. Then again, so does the rest of the La La Land population. But damn, Lohan recently is sporting the anorexic, "look-I'm-as-thin-as-a-hanger" look. The old Herbie was annoying on Disney Channel years ago, this one's not going to be any better. In case you haven't noticed, Lohan plays the same character in ALL her movies.

Dark Water
How many carbon copy remakes of Japanese horror films does it take before Hollywood finally realizes that it just doesn't work? There's no creativity in taking a foreign film and remaking it with American actors and an English script! Enough already! And, it's an insult to foreign cinema and movie-goers. What does this mean? That the English-speaking audience is not intelligent enough to watch a foreign film with subtitles? Or that the craft of Japanese cinema just isn't good enough for English-speaking audiences? Ugh.

Don't like Will Ferrell, blek
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

Bewitched
Here's my theory: Nicole Kidman, like many women (including me), throw ourselves at every project to keep busy so we don't have to face our problems. Not like Tom Cruise was such a loss, but Kidman's got at least 3 movies out a year! This year alone, she's got The Interpreter and Bewitched and I think she's got Emma's War and American Darlings releasing soon. I'm totally fine with throwing yourself into work, but Bewitched is a complete waste of talent!

Floaters: Different folks, different strokes
Batman Begins

Told ya! Just add water
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

I'm a lil' ambivalent about this one. My question is, why would such an accomplished group of people want to take on such a trivial movie? I'm sick and tired of comic-book-turned-movie movies, but this I have to see, just because of the talent that's involved in this film. Christopher Nolan's leading the pack as director and Nolan's done amazing things with Memento and Following, but why Batman Begins? And the cast! Gawd, a list of who's who. My top three favorites are: (1) Christian Bale, who plays Batman/Bruce Wayne, he was amazingly disturbing in American Psycho; (2) Gary Oldman hides behind a bushy moustache as Gotham City's only good cop and I can't say enough about Oldman, he's such a character actor! I mean, he's done Dracula, O.W. Grant in Interstate 60 (if you haven't seen this, you absolutely have to!) and of course, the Devil in BMW's Z3 (Z4?) promo video, The Hire; and (3) Michael Caine as the Master Wayne's trusty butler, Alfred. Why?? I'm expecting Katie Holmes to be a peripheral character in Batman Begins. Holmes is the resident damsel-in-distress, if you ask me, if you have to make movies out of comics, can we please have some strong female characters? I'm also expecting a Mary Jane-Peter Parker scene in Batman Begins ala Spiderman 1, the infamous close encounter wet kiss. From past experience, any movie that has way too many big stars usually suck. We'll just have to see about this one…

Explosion. Ewan. Explosion. Scarlett.
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

The Island
This could be good. It's got an interesting story, a strong cast -- Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson. Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi -- There better be a good twist at the end of the movie (and I already know that they are clones). Problem is, this movie's directed by Michael Bay, who also did Armageddon, The Rock, Bad Boys 1 and 2 and *gross* Pearl Harbor -- so there's going to a lot of explosions, lots of car crashes and well, more explosions. I might fall asleep watching this. I'm watching it coz I need to know the twist! And Ewan's soooo good looking! Hahaha....

The Brothers Grimm

Heath (left) & Matt (right) in bad disguises and bad hair
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

I really want this movie to be good. Just because I grew up on The Brothers Grimm (not those pansy ass watered-down versions of fairy tales doled out by Disney) and until today, I'm still reading their dark tales. Unfortunately, this movie stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger and they're apparently two con-artist brothers who are forced to fight the real evils of their stories when they come alive in their world. It's supposed to be released on August 26th, but there's still no trailer, which can only mean that they're having problems with production of the film. Monica Bellucci's in this too, but as usual, I think she's just going to hold her breathe, wear and tight corset and look pretty. A far cry from her Irreversible days.
UPDATE: Bellucci plays the evil queen who captures little girls to maintain her youth and the trailer is finally out. It's not on the official web site (actually, NOTHING'S on the official web site) but here is a link to the trailer: The Brothers Grimm (2005)


Flyers: All I need is popcorn and ice-cream!

Quirky and wacky, me likes
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Opens July 15th! I can't wait for this! I'm been waiting and waiting and waiting since I saw the teaser a year ago! I love Tim Burton and I have a life-size black-and-white poster of Johnny Depp smoking a joint in my room. And yes, I'm a hugeeeeee Depp fan, since 21 Jump Street! I love the older version of this movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder playing the same role that Depp's playing. Who doesn't love the Oompa Loompas?! Apparently, there will be no Oompa Loompas in this new one though.


War of the Worlds

Cruise's take on the Blue Steel look
Originally uploaded by audreytmv.

I'm not a big fan of it's-the-end-of-the-world, the-aliens-are-attacking movies (except The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – 10 stars!) nor am I a fan of Tom Cruise. But it is Spielberg, so I'm expecting a glossier version of Independence Day with more explosions and a million shots of Cruise with his signature I'm-the-reluctant-main-lead-look. Groan.