To be totally blunt, I think us Chinese people are all being taken for rides.

Just think about it. Chinese New Year customs originated from some stupid folklore about a mythical monster by the name of Nian (Year), who enjoys swallowing innocent people with his great big mouth, but who is also very conveniently scared of red.

To prevent Nian from paying you an unsolicited midnight visit for a midnight snack, you should stick red paper all over your house or, better yet, all over yourself.

Think about it. Year after year, we are celebrating the non-existence of a great big monster whose nemesis is the colour of red. If that doesn’t make us quite silly, I don’t know what does.

Continue reading…

I don’t normally like to talk about my auditions or, if I do talk about them, I try to talk about them in non-specific terms, not naming anything or anyone, so that people won’t know which auditions I passed and which I didn’t.

One reason I don’t like to talk about auditions is because people always ask stupid questions like “Did you get the role?” on the very day of the audition.

I have news for everyone. Film auditions are just like job interviews. They don’t tell you on the spot whether they’re giving you the job, because

a) they still have more applicants to see after you, duh,

b) they need time to hire a PI to do a background check on you,

c) they want to go home and consult their dogs first. “Wag your tail if you like this girl.”

Or whatever.

This is not rocket science. It’s common sense.

Sometimes, they take months to decide. Gasp. Just like any other job interview, you don’t say, would you like fries with that?

Another reason I don’t like to talk about auditions is because people like to follow up, as early as a day later.

One day later…

“So, did you get the role?”

I get asked the same question every day for the next ten days by different people. Sometimes by the same people.

I don’t know if I got the role! I just auditioned for heaven’s sake!

What’s with this insatiable desire to know whether I got the role or not??

Who cares? If I got the role, you’ll read about it on my blog. You’ll see me on TV. You’ll see me on film, on YouTube, on the papers, wherever.

Making me go through the same conversation a million times will not enrich either of our lives.

“So, did you get the role?”

“Yes.”

“Congrats! I knew you could do it!”

“Thanks!”

“So, what’s for dinner?”

Or…

“So, did you get the role?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll get the next one.”

Yes of course I will get the next one! I just don’t need to go through this conversation two hundred times a month!!

Another thing is, it’s very unpleasant to talk about failure. In showbiz, they say that a 20% success rate is the standard.

You must understand that actors go for auditions all the time. Sometimes every day. Sometimes three or four times a day. And, sometimes, a thousand people are gunning for the same job.

So, a 20% success rate is pretty golden.

But, on the flip side, it means that you have to report failure 80% of the time.

And you’re reporting failure a lot because your friends won’t stop asking you, “Did you get the role?”

I repeat, it’s very unpleasant to talk about failure. Or be reminded of it.

I don’t want to have to say “No, I didn’t get it,” eight out of 10 times, you understand?

So, anyway, I haven’t gone for an audition in months because I’ve been busy with my new media work. But I went for one on Thursday and I will talk about it soon. Just don’t ask me whether I got the role.

Because I don’t know.

While surfing around randomly, I stumbled upon this old article listing 15 senseless video game quotes.

They’re funny, even if many are nothing more than dodgy Japanese English which we’ve all come to love.

Anyway, “your fists of evil are about to meet my steel wall of niceness” so make sure you read everything in GGF and don’t just skip to the contest!

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Table of Contents

1. Upcoming games in the next two weeks
2. Game-themed red packets for CNY
3. Xbox console for $339
4. I’m a speed demon
5. Results of last week’s contest
6. Win a limited edition Halo Wars cap!!

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Upcoming games in the next two weeks

I was going do a quarterly list. Then I realised I had a list as long as an airport runway, even after striking out the weird titles, so I decided to do a monthly, instead. In any case, looking forward to games too far in advance is bad for your health, so this is for your own good.

In order of release dates (North American):

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The Lord of the Rings: Conquest
PC, PS3, Xbox 360, DS
By Pandemic Studios and Electronic Arts
Release Date: January 13

Checking out the official site for the game makes me feel like… watching the movies. lol. When you first load the site, it screams at you:

Middle Earth stands on the brink of destruction
You will unite to save it or destroy it
Each race is bound to this one fate
Choose your allegiance

Then you choose Good or Evil and the rousing LOTR theme song booms at you. (If you choose evil, you get some eerie music, instead.)

Funny, I don’t feel like playing the game as much as I feel like watching the trilogy again.

But it does look promising, especially the multiplayer co-op (4 players) and versus (16 players) modes. You can even play 4-way split screen on the Xbox 360′s version. A tad squeezy, I expect, but should be fun.

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Imagine Fashion Party
Wii, DS, PC
By UbiSoft
Release Date: January 20 (Wii) (Already out for DS and PC)

Woo, I can just see all you blokes rushing out to get this one. Check out the game description:

Players can star in a TV show and compete in a series of challenges to show the world that you are the best fashion designer! Use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as scissors, hair brushes, makeup applicator or other styling and design tools.

Doesn’t it get you all pumped up and ready for action?

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Star Ocean: Second Evolution
PSP
By TOSE and Square Enix
Release Date: January 20

This isn’t a new game, per se. It’s a remake of a 10-year-old game (Star Ocean: The Second Story for the PS1). I think it would be nice because it’s an old-school RPG with a modern skin. Wait, does 10 years old count as old-school? I don’t know, what the heck?

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Skate 2
PS3, Xbox 360
By Electronic Arts
Release Date: January 21

I’m not a huge fan of skating games. Scratch that, I’m not even anywhere near being a fan. But this seems like a good title for suicidal freaks. I mean, just watch this video.

(But don’t watch it if you’re an impressionable kid. I hold no responsibility for your delusions of immortality.)

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Afro Samurai
PS3, Xbox 360
By Namco Bandai
Release Date: January 27

Afro Samurai started off as a Japanese manga series, then later became an anime starring Samuel L Jackson’s voice. Now, it’s a video game, still starring Mr Jackson, who will entertain you with badass commentary while you throw punches.

The music is an invigorating hip-hop-kungfu-tribal fusion. I likee.

There you go. I’ll do a February list in February if I feel like it.

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Game-themed red packets for CNY

IAHGames has released a set of Granado Espada red packets for this Chinese New Year, except that only one out of the six designs is actually red.

But it’s still a good thing. After all, red packets are mostly given to kids, so why shouldn’t there be more kid-appealing game-themed, uh, multi-coloured packets produced?

You get these free with every purchase of GE 70K Gpoint game value cards, or you can buy a set for $2. Available at IAHGames iCafe at Funan DigitaLife Mall. (Game cards also available at authorised retailers.)

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Xbox console for $339

If you’re in the market for a console, the Xbox Arcade is the best value console you can get right now.

For $339, you get an Xbox 360 Arcade console (256MB memory with HDMI output) and a free Platinum Hits game, Gears of War!

Make sure there’s a redemption sticker on your console box. You need that to redeem your free game at this website.

This promotion lasts till March 31, 2009, but don’t wait too long because the free game is while stocks last!!

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I’m a speed demon

Still playing Grand Theft Auto IV. I found a quiet rich neighbourhood which has a good selection of Ferraris and Porsches. The owners just leave them in open driveways, unlocked, so I just jump into them and drive away.

The best thing is… the cars respawn!! After I crash and burn one, I just go back there and grab another. Hur hur. It’s like free-flow fast cars. The downside is that the neighbourhood is in an extreme corner of the map so it’s pretty far to get to.

I recently received a street racing mission, where you have to come first out of six racers. I failed twice because, in my excitement, I kept driving into pillars and mailboxes. So I threw the controller to the Goonfather and said, “Eh, play for me.”

He took the lead within 10 seconds of the race and just leisurely cruised all the way to the finish line. FREAKING SICK!!

Anyway, he helped me win this baby.

Not that you really need to win a car since you can steal any car you fancy as long as you can find it but, still, owning one legitimately feels nice.

The next day, I gave that street racing thing another go and realised that it’s actually chicken feed. I’d just let my excitement get the better of me the first time.

This is what happens when you drive too fast and you get too excited.

Thank goodness for Pay N Spray. Brand new car in a brand new colour in seconds!

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Results of last week’s contest

And the survivor of the pot of boiling sludge is… JaS!!

JaS wins this from last week’s contest!

Awesome!

Please get in touch with me about collecting your prize, JaS. Thanks! :)

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Win a limited edition Halo Wars cap!!

Halo Wars will be coming to us only on February 26, so why not show off your leetness by wearing this cap first?

This is a super exclusive cap because it has been worn by Sheylara for the purpose of taking the above photo! No, seriously, it IS a limited edition cap, so grab it grab it grab it!!

To win it, just tell me why want it. The most convincingly needy person will get it.

Closing date is January 22, 2009.

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I love doing GGF. It gives me a legitimate reason to dream about games all day.

It gives me a legitimate reason to play games, in fact. People complain, “You always say you’re too busy for this and that but then I realise you’re always playing games.”

But I have to play games. I’m Gamer Girl Friday.

Here’s a random archive post (bearing in mind that these archived posts are from my old blog, which I have deleted, so I’m repopulating this blog with them by publishing them randomly once in a while) because I don’t have time to blog today! Time flies like the wind and fruit flies like bananas!!!

The following post first appeared on Sheylara.com on April 26, 2004.

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I had a really weird dream last night which didn’t make sense. I know most dreams don’t make sense but this one is so f**ked-up crazy I hardly know how to describe it.

But because it’s f**ked-up crazy, I HAVE to tell it, so just try to understand it and don’t ask me any “why” or “how” questions because I don’t know the answers.

There’s this elevator and lots of people are using it to go downstairs. It’s a hot day, so I pour cold water into the elevator to cool it and the people in it.

Next thing, I’m at the bottom floor and the elevator door opens to reveal a glass tank the size and shape of the elevator.

The glass tank is filled to the brim with water and there are dead people inside.

Drowned by the water I poured in.

Water which was supposed to drain off but didn’t!!!

It’s a horrible, horrible dream.

It happened twice, which means that I drowned two elevator loads of people.

I hate when I have weird, creepy dreams. Like that time I dreamt of a boyfriend trying to kill me so I had to kill him back but he didn’t die even after I chopped his head off.

Anyway, this elevator dream reminds me of an incident which happened when I was about seven years old, staying at a farm during my school holidays.

One day, I saw a chicken egg in the process of hatching. There was a hole in the egg with a beak poking through it, pecking at the egg shell in short, chicky spurts.

After watching in fascination for a while, I decided to help because I thought the chick was going to take forever to come out. So I prodded the egg gently with my foot, trying to crack it more.

What happened was I crushed the egg and killed the chick.

I was so horrified and ashamed that I ran away from the scene and never told anyone, ever. Until now, that is.

The dream I had last night gave me the same feeling.

Help turned to harm.

These sorts of things must happen a lot in the world, musn’t it? People, in trying to be helpful, cause harm instead.

Have you ever been in a situation when you felt like you were more a hindrance than help?

I think the world is just screwed up. You can’t do good anymore because you don’t know if the “good” you’re doing is going to create a ripple and make something bad happen.

But there’s no point getting all hot and bothered about it, is there? One doesn’t have a choice in being born, but one does have a choice in what to do about it.

It’s like falling into a well. You can do one of three things:

1. Drown yourself and be done with it.
2. Stay there and try to live for as long as you can by drinking the water in the well.
3. Try to climb up or get help. If you get someone to help you, you might cause them to fall into the well and suffer the same horrible fate as you, but that’s life. Or you might succeed in climbing up all by yourself. But then, so what?

I get really annoyed with life sometimes, but what can I do?

Anyways, I have a piece of semi good news so it’s not all doldrums.

You know the audition in which I acted as a seed? I got a callback! That means I’ve been shortlisted to attend a second audition, which means I’m closer to getting the job.

I’m happy because getting a callback means I’m not a total failure. But I’m stressed because callbacks are EVIL.

When you get a callback, success is so near you can taste it. There are usually two or three people fighting for the same role in a callback, so your chances are 1 in 2 or 1 in 3. And if you don’t get it, it’s twice the pain because you go to the audition thinking that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get the job.

All I want to know is… If a god exists, why is he so sadistic?

(That was a rhetorical question.)

I know I shouldn’t have left it so late because, by now, I’ve kinda forgotten what I wanted to say about it.

But I still want to talk about it, it being the BRAND’S Blogger Challenge I took part in last year, since I did say in the first post that there was to be a continuation.

Okay, it hasn’t been that long, only over a month, but I have a bad memory.

All photos in this entry courtesy of Wilfrid Wong. Arigato gozaimasu!!

The good news is that RazorTV covered the event as part of a three-part series on blogging, so the competition is actually on video! You can watch it here.

There are footages of the competition, ending with Daryl interviewing me and Red Mummy, a popular Malaysian blogger.

The competition was fun, although quite nerve wracking. We had no clue at all what kind of challenges we would get.

There was a very early morning breakfast-cum-briefing but the briefing didn’t reveal much, leaving us more nervous than prepared.

I tried to keep the faith. Loaded with 14 days’ worth of peptides and amino acids and minerals, I looked forward to a miracle.

Let’s just say that it was a tough fight and we emerged victorious by a narrow margin.

I won’t elaborate on the challenges cos I’m lazy and you can watch it in the video, anyway.

We each won $300 cash and a BRAND’S hamper containing 24 bottles of assorted BRAND’S products. Wootage! That was a nice early Christmas present!

Okay, I have to stop now cos it’s Star Blog chat time! Woohoo! See you in the chat! =)