Old Stuff and Old Memories

Back home for the weekend, my mom asked me to clear a small bookshelf in the store room that contained my books and stuff from my uni days. I had faithfully kept the stuff for the past 13 years, but now its time to see what’s worth keeping and what’s not.

Clearing the bookshelf unearthed lots of other stuff i’d forgotten about.

These are the files for each subject i took in uni.

Some photocopy books in the foreground. Since books were expensive, everyone photocopied them. The purple coloured book is STPM Kimia, which i used for all the 3 months i studied Lower Six.

I was still in two minds whether to keep the notes or not, but after thinking awhile about it, i decided to recycle the whole lot. In the age of wikipedia and e-books now, almost everything here is obsolete. Plus everything was in BM back then.

It was all stuff useful only for passing the finals of that subject.

Digging thru, i found this PC game manual. 3.5″ floppy! I remember the game was really crappy.

Anyone remember this place? I heard a fire destroyed Davin Arul’s store…

These were all the comics I owned. I tried to start collecting at one point, but it was just too expensive.

A special Metal Edge issue on Metallica for their Re-Load launch. I had dozens and dozens of Metal Hammer, Kerrang! and Terrorizer. Before the clampdown stopped the imports. On the right is hm magazine (used to be called Heaven’s Metal) bought from Kingdom Rock in SS2.

All the postgrad stuff i collected. Just before graduating from uni, i did all the research and application. Got accepted to UMIST, Newcastle and Heriot-Watt. Even got accomodation in UMIST. When i told my parents, they basically said there was no way on earth we could afford it. I guess i should have known better then. But it was fun to apply though…

My brother’s toy microscope he got for his 13th birthday. As with everything owned by him, its still in good condition.

Me no comprendo Japanese.

I was very active in quizzes and school competitions.

The two commemorative magazines after Diana’s death. Keepers.

In the end, i salvaged quite a lot of stuff to take back to KL, the rest went to the recycling centre.

Chungking Express (重庆森林)

It’s some time in the late 90′s, i was back home at my parent’s place on holiday. There was no Astro and no Internet for me back then, so i had to flip through the 3 local channels in between reading. One of the channels was showing ‘Chungking Express’ so i started watching. I hadn’t even heard of Wong Kar-Wai then, but i was enthralled by this simple movie that was so brilliant, so different from the other Hong Kong movies. As different as night and day.

I watched it again last Sunday.

While some of the editing (especially in the first story) looked a little dated, the movie still stands the test of time.

Chungking Express consists of two separate stories loosely linked by a snack bar in Central. Its a story of lonely people looking for love and happiness in the dense concrete jungle of Hong Kong told through the 4 main characters and their eccentric, OCD behaviour. Playing the characters are some of the most beautiful stars of that era – Brigitte Lin Chin Hsia, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro and a waif-like Faye Wong.

Too bad there are hardly any other movies from HK like this.

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On a related note. I’m going home again this weekend. Hope my mum has repaired the burnt TV.

Ergo Proxy

If that’s one anime that tries to extra-hard make itself more complicated than necessary, Ergo Proxy has to be one.

On first impression, the 22 episode anime centres on futuristic wasteland world, and a society inside a domed city called Romdeau. Everything is very ordered, with androids called AutoRaves serving humans in many ways. But even from the first few epsiodes, they start throwing curveballs of in the form of philosophical and mythological references. Sure, lots of anime do that, but not as much as Ergo Proxy.

There are two main characters in the story Real Mayar and Vincent Law, plus an infected AutoRave child called Pino, added for some cuteness quotient. Much of the series, especially in the latter half, deal with the strange relationship between the two lead characters.

While the dialogue and themes are heavy going, the overriding theme and story conclusion is rather quite straightforward. Many of the episodes especially towards the end seem to be throwaway vignettes, they tell a dream like tale that vaguely ties in with the main story arc to to reveal a little bit more about the characters, but do not advance the story line.

The animation is modern, dark and goth influence. Real Mayar is rendered beautifully, and the AutoRaves are intricately modelled to give them a modern look that is refreshing. But Vincent Law looks patchy, he sometimes looks different from episode to episode.

When i started watching this series, I was doing a course in Western philosophy, so I could really see where the writers were coming in terms of the inspiration for some of the themes used. The horror part of the is thankfully minimal, but there were a lot of stretches in the series that I thought were pretty slow going and unnecessarily complicated.

I’d give marks for their animation and character design, but overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with Ergo Proxy. It isn’t an accessible anime for beginners, but it does break away from the cliches of the genre by attempting something different.

The Quest for the Perfect Half Boiled Egg

Been eating a lot of soft boiled eggs recently sometimes up to 6 a day. Don’t worry i only eat the whites, never the yolks. Protein quota, you know.

Most of the time i eat it at the coffeeshop behind my office, the Nepalese waiters know very well the texture that i want from the whites. And they get it right everytime, without fail. (Unlike the other coffeeshop down the road).

So i tried making it myself a few weeks back. I googled “how to make half boiled eggs” and tried the various methods. First i tried simmering the eggs for 4 minutes, turned out pretty well, except the eggs were beginninng to harden (making it a pain to peel). I then tried 6 minutes off the fire, it was a little worse. The was more hardening, and the centres weren’t white yet. I then realized the second time i did it was with eggs from the refridgerator, the first batch weren’t.

Anyway by then my wife took over the eggs-perimentation. She’s got it down pat after a few tries.

And she still doesn’t know what to do with the egg yolks i leave behind.