We are very amused.

Among Singaporeans at least, the tagline for Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End is undoubtedly “Welcome to Singapore”. I suppose it’s kind of nice because it puts Singapore yet again on the world map, but I fear this movie is only going to reinforce the misconception among some Westerners that Singapore is a republic of China.

Anyway, I don’t want to make the usual “OMG it’s such a wonderful show don’t miss it or you’re a goondu” kind of comments because everyone I know is already hyped up about it, anyway.

But I do have a few random other-thoughts.

1. The first five minutes of the film made me cry because the soundtrack, cinematography and editing are that powerful. That alone is worth the price of Singapore’s exhorbitant movie tickets and popcorn. Moments like that make me want to make my own film because I want to affect audiences the same way.
2. Everyone already knows part of the movie is set in early Singapore. When the film went there (you’ll know when you see red lanterns and Chinese junks), I was very disturbed. The film’s Singapore didn’t fit any image I ever had of Singapore. Perhaps because it appears too glamorous. I tried to remember my secondary school history lessons but still had a hard time reconciling the film with my vision of early Singapore. I thought it looked more like Hong Kong or China.

   

3. Chow Yun Fat’s “Welcome to Singapore” was greeted with a small smattering of twitters and giggles and a few hearty laughs. Honestly, I kept hoping that he wouldn’t say it and that the trailers we’ve been watching were all fake. When he did say it, I rolled my eyes to myself in the dark.
4. I hate to say this of one of the most respected veteran actors in all of history, but I think big brother Chow kind of overracted in this film. I mean, Pirates is a quite a fantastical film and most of the acting is over the top, but I think Zhou da ge went just a bit over and above the top, especially with the facial twitches.

   

   I say that because if anyone had done something like that in all the acting class I’ve attended over the past year, my teachers would have pounced on him mercilessly and asked him to stop acting (I mean not stop as in quit forever, but stop “acting” and be natural).

   But I have also learnt through personal experience that, most of the time, when you think an actor is bad, it’s not always his fault. Sometimes the director wants him to act a certain way. Just to let you know.

5. There were so many twists and double-crossings in the three-hour film that my mind reeled. Didn’t help that I’ve forgotten most of what happened in part 1 and 2. But I still think the script is very, very clever and the dialogue is very, very witty. This is one of those movies that gets better with every sequel.
6. Johnny Depp is god among all actors. He is so good that my awe-struck mind has yet to recover enough to provide me with apt words to describe just how good I think he is. I am totally, wretchedly, not worthy.



7. Orlando Bloom sends my heart all aflutter.



8. Four of the six people in my movie outing group fell asleep at various times during the film. What the fuck is wrong with them?!!
9. I didn’t want the film to ever end. I hope there’s a fourth.

You know, I’ve never reviewed a movie in my blog. The reason being I hate doing it. I used to get paid for it so writing reviews is work. Well, this isn’t exactly a review, just random thoughts, so it’s a different. But, you know, I try not to talk about movies in my blog.

So I don’t know why I wrote this. I wasn’t planning to. I wasn’t even planning to blog because I have many pages of script to learn and a looming writing assignment deadline.

But here it is. You never know who’s controlling the mind and body you think you own.

Categories: Regular Blogs
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Day 3

Name of outfit: College Days

Self-Rating:

Destination: VivoCity GV Cinema

Notes: Today’s outfit is rather normal because I was only going to the movies for a few hours (midnight show). Also, it’s very tiring to dress outrageously every day. Sometimes I need a break!

But I get to wear my favourite jacket today because VivoCity is cold. The second picture is to show off the lace on the hood. I so love lace detail!

Categories: Fashion Diary
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Okay, I feel like such a bimbo.

Last night, I was at BlogOut 2007, right? I was surrounded. SURROUNDED by entrepreneurs and technopreneurs. What were these future Forbes 500 doing at a blogger’s convention??

I mean, you go to a blogger’s event expecting to meet tons of bloggers but nooooooooo what you end up getting instead is a whole bunch of entrepreneurs and technopreneurs who blog. Whoopie.

Every single last person I met either owned a dotcom, or co-owned one, or is in the process of owning one. I felt like a Nemo among whales. And by dotcom I mean one of those that can potentially make the owner the next Internet billionaire like Google’s founders. See, technically, I own a dotcom too (sheylara.com) but I am so totally not on the same bandwagon.

But I’m into positive thinking these days, so I didn’t let it get to me. Since I was an odd sock, I decided to revel in being an odd sock. And I met lots of fun people. The new age entrepreneur is not a stuffy suit anymore. He/She is very young, creative and has a good sense of humour.

The first of these I met was Nuffnang co-founder, Ming.

Ming saved me from a wasted walk in my party heels by calling out to me in the nick of time. I was feeling lost at the bottom steps of the venue because I couldn’t see a Geek Terminal signboard (yes, the venue is called Geek Terminal, a kind of high tech chill out place), leading me to think that I had perhaps walked to the wrong place.

So, I was about to move off to find this Geek Terminal when Ming popped out at the top of the steps and called out, “Sheylara!” That was almost as welcome as finding an oasis in the desert, so I put on my brightest smile, turned towards the voice and said, “Yes!”

To my horror, when I located the voice, I found that I couldn’t place the face. It was, like, hahaha cool someone just called my name but I don’t know who he is.

You must realise that I have never met Ming. Have only seen a picture of him in Cowboy Caleb’s blog.

To be fair, I think Ming has the upper hand in facial recognition in this case since my blog is so liberally plastered with my own pictures that probably even the curtains in his bedroom can recognise me if they spot me.

So, Ming was wearing a Nuffnang tie. I totally flipped out when I saw it because it was so cute and in my favourite colours.

I wonder if I can have one made in girl size and in cotton. I am so into ties these days.

I also met lots of other cool folks.

There’s Mr Walking Camera Guy.

He is cooooooool. He was carrying this backpack thing with a video camera strapped on his shoulders ALL NIGHT and he was like filming the room as he walked about.

I’m sorry I can’t remember his name, but he has a very nice nose. And very nice red eyes.

Okay red eyes is totally my fault because I forgot to turn on the red-eye reduction on my camera.

Next up is Nic, who plays Xbox for a living. How cool is that?

Nic is from Microsoft and he has an audience enthralled with his speech about the blogging culture in Microsoft.

There were several tables set up with every table discussing different topics. I kind of didn’t really join in the discussions because most of the topics weren’t up my alley. Most of them were quite businessy and technical.

So I went around getting to know people who were also not into the table discussions. Haha.

Like Piotr here, who is Polish. (His name is the Polish version of Peter and is pronounced Pee-oh-trr.)

Actually, Piotr was a member of Nic’s entralled audience but he got hijacked by Peter and Ethan (below), both of whom I had been introduced to earlier.

There was a lot of hijacking going on at the party — people were hijacking other people’s conversation partners and speech audiences, left, right, centre. I also got hijacked alot, which was cool and fun.

At the time Piotr was hijacked, I was just a few metres away, chatting with a nice Malaysian lady named Emily and a nice Australian bloke named Todd.

So then, Peter and Ethan, the two crazies, got it into their heads to hijack me into having a conversation with Piotr. And, they were like, Piotr meet Qiaoyun, Qiaoyun meet Piotr, okthxbye!

Huh?

I rolled my eyes at them and HELLO????ed at them until they stayed to enjoy a verbal lashing from me.

But I did get to know Piotr, who is very cute and has a cute accent, but who is also going back to Poland soon, so I didn’t get his number for you ladies. Hur hur.

And and AND….!! Guess who I met next!!

My husband (of one day)! Yeah, that’s what he went around telling everyone.

He was in the funny Kao Magiclean commercial with me playing my husband. When I spied him last night, I knew I’d met him before but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where and when. LOL. I have such a terrible memory.

Go check out his dotcom, IConnectE. I’m giving him a little plug because I’m trying to wrangle 50% of his earnings since we were “married” and “divorced”. Haha.

Oh, and I must also say something about Yvonne, who was the second person I met at the event (the first being Ming).

Yvonne, like me, came to the event all alone (but she’s actually an employee of one of the sponsors so she had a better reason than me to come alone). Anyway, I struck up a conversation with her because she was sitting next to the only empty seat left in the place, which I gravitated towards because when you go to a party alone and don’t know anyone, it’s always better to be sitting than standing.

It was a good choice on my part because Yvonne turned out to be really nice. She’s also a blogger, which is of course not surprising since it’s a bloggers’ event.

So, the event was really, really good. There was free dinner and free flow of drinks and wine, and I learnt that Web 2.0 technopreneurs can be very fun people to hang out with (except when they start talking about too technical stuff).

When I left the event finally at 10.30 pm, the hijacking didn’t stop. The moment I walked down the steps out of the place, I got hijacked by another two crazies. They said, “Excuse me, are you a celebrity blogger?”

Which was kind of stupid because if someone were a celebrity, wouldn’t you recognise them? Duh.

I don’t know where they popped out from. I thought they were from the event and were just chilling outside, but then they started asking me funny questions like were there any celeb bloggers in there. They reminded me of the teenagers that hang around outside MediaCorp waiting for their favourite TV celebs to appear.

Anyway, this is one of them.

His name is Name Tag Stealer because while I was having a conversation with his partner, he ninja’ed my name tag right off my shoulder.

But at least he’s brave enough to be photographed by me, unlike his camera-shy partner, so I give him credit for that. But I still have no idea who they are. Haha. If any of you readers happen to know this lunatic, please give him the narrow eye on my behalf.

Categories: Regular Blogs
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Day 2

Name of outfit: Rustic Kitten

Self-Rating:

Destination: BlogOut 2007

Notes: Well, the invite said to come in party attire, so I thought I’d better wear heels instead of the dirty sneakers I’m so fond of these days. I’m also very fond of knee length socks, which go nicely with heels to neutralise the elegance that heels give. (I hate looking elegant. It makes me feel yuck.)

I also know that people aren’t going to turn up at a bloggers’ event in party dresses despite what the invite says, because this is Singapore. (And I was right, too.) So I went for casual clothes with my party heels.

Public Reaction #1: What’s with the hair? Act cute ah?
Public Reaction #2: Little girl, are you lost?
Public Reaction #3: I’m so sorry, but your outfit is so special. That’s why I couldn’t stop staring.

Categories: Fashion Diary
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We have a Japanese Wii. We can read some Japanese but it’s annoying to navigate through all the menu items with our lousy Japanese.

So, the Goonfather got fed up and started taking screenshots of all the menus and went searching through the Nintendo manual for the English versions to compare with. And the result of his labour is this 28-page pdf document with translations and a guide on customising all sorts of settings!

Download the Wii English-to-Japanese translation now.

And if it helps you, thank the Goonfather!

Categories: Gaming Notebook
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