My 2009 In 9 Pictures

I did a list for last year 2008, so I thought it’d be a good to review the year in the same way. As usual, I’ll just let the pics do the talking.

1. A (H1N1)

First there was mad cow disease. Then there was avian flu. And then there was swine flu. Pretty soon the only meat we can safely eat is frog’s legs. Undoubtedly the biggest event of 2009, changing the way we look at personal and public health.

2. The King and the Joker: Celebrity Deaths

While Michael Jackson’s death got all the publicity, Heath Ledger will be greatly missed.

3.Three Letters: B. S. G.

That’s Battlestar Galactica. The greatest show on TV. Ever. Comes to an end.

4.The long-awaited change

It was a long time coming, a little too long perhaps. I wouldn’t say the former’s tenure was a failure, but there weren’t many successes either.

5.Tigers go Extinct

The 30 year old struggle for a separate Tamil Eelam nation comes to a bitter end.

6.Bandung

Very memorable holiday.

7.And it came tumbling down

Jaya Supermarket in Sec 14 comes down. Literally.

8. Books, books and books.

Took time to read books this year. Lots and lots of it. House is filled with borrowed (too skint to buy) books piling up everywhere. Thank God for generous friends.

9.A Decade and Counting.

It’s 10th wedding anniversary this year. Looking forward to many more.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Most of my older friends know that was (and still am) a huge, huge heavy metal fan. Ever since I heard Enter the Sandman by Metallica on that Singapore radio on my cheap RM150 walkman i bought on the first weekend in college, I never looked back.

Which is why its 1am in the morning, I’ve just watched this brilliant movie and I simply have to blog about it. Its a documentary about a long forgotten Canadian band called Anvil and the movie is called Anvil! The Story of Anvil (yes I know its quite a mouthful).

The movie starts with footage from an old Japanese rock concert and the subtitles tell the story in a few succint lines:

“In the summer of 1984, some of the biggest bands in the world toured Japan together. Scorpions. Whitesnake. Bon Jovi. All these bands went on the sell millions of records. Except one… Anvil.”

What follows is the sad story of how the band failed to make it big despite those heady early days. The members have fallen on crippling times, working in oddjobs such as driving a truck and in construction while still keeping the band alive after 30 years, now reduced to playing local bars.

In its essence, the story isn’t about metal music, its about the underdog and keeping the dream alive (despite having zero hope at most times) and I love that kind of real life documentary movies (like this other one I blogged about before). The movie follows the daily lives of the two founding members, now aged 50 barely making a living for their family as their relatives try to explain what or how it all went wrong.

Suddenly this start to perk up - they get an invitation to tour Europe, and later get a chance to record another album with an award-winning producer, but these prove more complicated than it seemed, and at times they end up worse off than before. The movie ends of a positive note, though.

Perhaps this is an extreme case of keeping the faith and living the rock and roll life. Most people like us get on with our lives after entertaining the dreams your youth. We grow up, get a job, get married and have kids (well, not all of us) but by and large, we move on with our lives. Those who continue to persevere with their dreams, however successful they are, get my respect.

This is a great low-key movie that will appeal to even non-music fans. Wikipedia notes that it has begun to win numerous awards.

EDIT: Found the Official Trailer on youtube HERE.

Book of The Year: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

About this time last year, i decided to make a 3 resolutions for 2009, one of them was to read 24 books in a year (let’s not mention anything about the other two resolutions).

Apparently i had a lot more time on my hands this year that I thought I would have, i read almost 50 books in total since January. And if I were to pick one book that stood out above the rest, the choice was easy.

No, it wasn’t Twilight.

The Graveyard Book is my Book of the Year, because it’s simplicity and beauty blew my mind away. It didn’t really matter that Gaiman is my favourite author, this book one of his best.

The story is simple, about a baby who escapes a murderer and wanders into a graveyard. He is protected by the ghosts of the graveyard and is brought up by them until he reaches adolescence. In its essence, this is a coming-of-age story, about a boy dealing with alienation from the outside world, and the strange relationship he has with the many ghostly residents of the graveyard. And then there is the enigmatic vampire Silas, tasked to educate and protect the boy.

Gaiman writes with his usual easy style, with a storyline rich in fantasy and folklore (i especially like the Lady on the Grey and Dance the Macabray). Some themes are revisited from his earlier books, many are borrowed from popular myths and legends, that’s something that makes Gaiman such a talented writer.

I’ll definitely re-read the Graveyard Book again soon, there aren’t many books that gripped me as much as it did. On the downside, it was perhaps too short an adventure for Bod Owens. The other thing is that while the ending is bittersweet and fitting, I really wished that Gaiman could have added an epilogue about to give a finality to Bod’s journey in life. Maybe he will write a sequel, who knows? Maybe not

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Yep, so that’s my book of the year. Another great book deserves a mention as a runner-up, I’ll blog about it next.

T3 Seminar by Rev. Dr. Ron Choong

If you’re the type who frequently wonder about stuff like ‘who wrote Genesis Chapter 1?’ or ‘What does my religion say about evolution?’, then here’s something you might be interested in.

Rev. Dr. Ron Choong an apologist based in New York will be giving a seminar on the following three topics:

SCIENCE & CHRISTIANITY

Do the advances in modern sciences like neurophysiology disprove the teachings of religion? What then about evolution and Darwinism? In this seminar, we consider how we may reconcile our ancient faith with modern science.

WHAT DO CHRISTIANS REALLY BELIEVE?

Can you articulate what you believe concisely and clearly? Most people gloss over what we don’t know or don’t understand. In this seminar, we shall examine the 4 doctrines central to Christian belief – creation, alienation, reconciliation and decision (CARD).

UNDERSTANDING GENESIS 1-11: WHO WROTE WHAT, WHERE, WHEN AND WHY?

The first book in our Bible was not the first book written. Understanding its history and purpose will help us make sense of its curious stories. In this seminar, we shall ask who wrote Genesis 1-11, where and when they did it, and what their purpose was.

It’s on SATURDAY, 16 JANUARY 2010. Get the details here. And this, is the speaker.

Tribute to An Old Man I Once Knew

My grandfather was Hainanese and he worked as a cook for the British in Ipoh up until the 60’s. So yeah, he was an authentic Hainanese chef. But he didn’t pass down any secret recipes for me to open a famous Hainanese kopitiam.

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Here was born in 1899. That was two centuries before this current one, how cool is that? His IC showed his birth year as 1900 because it was registered late. So in 1988, he won a hamper from a local newspaper celebrating those aged 88 in the auspicious year of ‘88. Which is weird, coz the hamper contained foodstuff that most 88 year old folks can’t eat. So I ate most of it.

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He came to Malaya in the early 1920’s from China with a handful of friends and NO relatives, leaving them all behind to forge a new life in a strange land. As far as i know, he never met them again until his end of days.

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When he came to Malaya, my grandfather sported a queue (chinese pigtail). You know, that shaven-at-the-top-and-pigtail-at-the-back hairstyle of the Qing dynasty. On day, the when he finally accepted the fall of last emperor of the Middle Kingdom, he cut off his queue and grew out his hair.

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In the last few years with us, he had only one friend left, a former shop owner who lived in Jasin. Once a year this guys would take a 3 buses to come down and see my grandfather, where they would spend a couple of hours talking about old times in thick Hailam. Then when it was evening, he’d take another 3 buses home.

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He is allergic to most clothing material except cotton.

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He passed away in 1991 at the age of 92 (i was away in uni at that time). I never heard the whole story in the last week of his life, but from what i gather, at his deathbed he had a vision/dream of 3 men visiting him in the night. The next morning he told my mother he wanted to be a Christian and my mom fetched my pastor to see him. He died a few days later peacefully as a believer.

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He spoke only Hailam and some Cantonese. Mostly Hailam actually. In all the time he lived with us, I never really caught on to the dialect (coz my mom and him would speak it at the speed of a train). The only two phrases I can remember is ‘siang yap‘ (bathe) and ‘bu jong du bui‘ (no need to cook).

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Other than watch TV with me, he spent most of time cutting grass, cooking and reading the newspapers with a magnifying glass.

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Yep, that was my grandfather. Very cool guy.