Things happening lately & IU's New Mini Album!

Ok first I'll share this first to get this over with. It's too cute to not share. :P



Love this to bits. :D

Ok next! In complete contrast, something quite horrifying that happened in Singapore lately.



Has all the elements of a drama. Society that's currently quite xenophobic, especially towards those from China at the moment, with a mini-election over the horizon. Rich China immigrant with a Ferrari dashes a red light, smashing into a cab. Kills the Singaporean cab driver, who is sole bread winner of a family with 3 children, as well as the Japanese passenger. The China immigrant also dies. As a side act, somebody robbed the dying Japanese lady after the crash.

Articles in Stomp. Original incident. Family and friends of the immigrant says this. Other opinions, here, here and here.

I wanna write a short reflection on the incident.

1. The Farrari driver is clearly in the wrong. He reached the junction 4 seconds after the red light came on. There is absolutely no excuse for his actions. He simply and clearly did not intend to stop. And no, don't even say the taxi driver wasn't careful. In his shoes, anybody else would also have died. The current system works because every driver trusts other drivers to follow the traffic rules. Additionally, the cab driver had no room to maneuver. So NO! The accident is in no way the fault of the cab driver, and responsibility rests solely on the Farrari driver's shoulders.

2. As one can see, the articles written on Stomp and TemasekTimes are completely biased (ie tends to wards raising a hoo-ha and anti-government respectively) and are of low quality. It worries me, cuz these two sites actually get a lot of traffic, and irresponsible reporting often leads to a lot of other bad shit. Not to mention the amount of critical thinking in the comments is really disturbing as well.

Why are they bad you ask? You want examples you say?

Count the number comments that bring in the Nationality and social status of the Farrari driver as a basis to insult him. How are these factors even relevant to his crime? Do only rich people cause traffic accidents? Do only China immigrants cause such traffic accidents? By all means accuse and rage, but kindly rage objectively, and factually.

Stomp titles their article such that it implies that the Farrari driver's family is rebellious and unremorseful for the actions of the Farrari driver, when it actuality, the family members are only protesting the irrelevant insults  and untruths projected on the Farrari driver. Further, the family of the Farrari driver also experienced a loss. The Farrari driver was dear to them as well. They would naturally be upset. Can they not protest? And wrong though the Farrari driver may be, it doesn't give us the right as observers to insult and "add charges" that are clearly irrelevant to begin with.

I can't even bother with the temasektimes... sigh.

3. Immigrants are not the enemy. They are people as well, and people who've had to leave their homes to make a living. Stop placing emphasis on irrelevant things and instead spend time on bettering one self.

4. Singaporeans are a loo...ong way off from being a gracious society. Sigh at the comments... and good lord for someone to even conceive stealing when the Japanese woman was dying -.-

Alright, after that bit of black stuff, I wanna rescue this post, so...



Cutie bomb!! XD

Ok back to IU!

IU's new album's been released! She's got a super long MV this time! It's nearly half and hr >.< keke

At the End of Each Day

Full MV

There's so much footage here of IU cuteness haha. Like it ttm :D

Song only MV :)

The song's really nice! It has the same feel as Good Day, and is really energising for me. Listening to it non-stop already :)

Just one question. WHO IS THE GUY!!!? (Rumor has it~~ It's just manager oppa XD)

I actually want to end this post already, but I'll give a bonus for this post! Delved into it kinda late but, it's still something crazy that happened. :)

Not subbed by me, just something I found. 23rd April episode of KBS Hello. The crazy stuff starts at around 6 mins.


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 1/6 by shiningsalamanders


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 2/6 by shiningsalamanders


[ENG] H3LL0 Part 3/6 by shiningsalamanders

Are you like that as well? :D

Cheers,

Ray

The Avengers (2012)

About time I posted my next movie review.

I actually have 4, but I'll do it one at a time, or it'd be abominably long.

The Avengers (2012) by Joss Whedon

Scores: Audience, Critics

Imdb: 8.8/10, 69/100

RottenTomatoes: 96%, 93%

I didn't watch this via rental from VideoEZ of course. Watched it the first Friday after it started screening in the local cinemas, with long-time-no-see buddies iz, nanaka n duck.

Anyway, story follows the establishment and coming together of the Avengers, consisting of, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye by Nick Fury, to combat the likes of Loki and an invader army; how they have their contrasting and thus often conflicting personalities drive them apart, but finally putting aside their differences and working together for the greater good.

There... frankly isn't much to say about the movie from an artistic perspective. The movie was distinctively... like shonen, for lack of a better word. It has everything you could want in such a genre. Simple plot. Lots of action scenes, starring brawling muscle men, energy blasts, high tech equipment, and enemies that are gross and huge beyond belief, to the extent that, despite their track record, our heroes are still somewhat the underdogs in that situation. Not to mention you have the Black Widow in her tight black suit... :3

But don't be mistaken, I did enjoy the movie. This movie is better than most of the shonen out there, for the following reasons.

The writing for this movie was unbelievably exceptional. Though simple, the jokes were exceedingly witty, both building on existing material and creating new perspectives. Furthermore, if handled badly, jokes tend to ruin the pace/atmosphere of the moment. Instead, the jokes in this film contribute fully to plot development, the setting and raising of the atmosphere, and pacing of the film. With this cast of heroes, made up mostly of volatile/serious/emo/uptight heroes, jokes are probably not very forthcoming. And yet, most of the jokes fit... pretty well :)

**Spoiler alert**  Don't watch this if you haven't seen the film.

** Spoiler end**

Meh. Couldn't find the exact clip from the film. Those copyright people are doing a really efficient job these days...

Probably the my favourite scene in the film :) In fact, the scenes with the Hulk in this film were all great! The previous movies didn't really do well in terms of portraying the Hulk, and it became more of a demolition fest than anything. Here though, Mark Ruffalo did such a stellar job of portraying the Hulk that, I'd actually put it out to say, I couldn't imagine anyone else as the Hulk. He was that good! The Hulk wasn't a disease. It was a part of Banner, an extension of him, and should be treated as such. Ruffalo enacted the Hulk with that thought in mind, and the outcome was outstanding.

I don't really need to mention Robert Downey Jr. aka Iron Man. He's basically the embodiment of "the party " in the Avengers. No Tony Stark = No jokes, no wisecracks, no funny stuff... etc. His charisma practically powered the movie. Need I say more? 

Some flaws...

There really isn't much to say about the other characters. Thor was suitably over-powered, since he's supposed to be a god. The others though were, kinda underwhelming. Their capabilities were far too insignificant as compared to Iron Man, Thor or the Hulk. The film did well to ground the movie with each character's properties, and utilise them suitably, but for me, I kinda had to make a conscious effort to suspend disbelief.  

Loki was, on the whole, lame. His plot was simple, for a god who was supposed to be full cunning. He was practically incapable of fighting himself. Altogether kinda disappointing in this respect.

I want to give a paragraph here to a side character... Clark Gregg aka Agent Coulson. To avoid spoilers, I won't write more about his exploits, but to this character, insignificant though his role is in this film, if Hulk was awesomeness and Iron Man was the wise cracks guy, Coulson was the one that the film that little bit of soul it needed to differentiate itself from the other *boom boom* *smash smash* films. Whedon did well to give a side character such a surprising role, and he's become one of the most endearing characters in this film.

Overall, this is one of the best films I've seen this year. Equal parts cool, funny and exciting. I'm totally gonna buy the dvd when it gets out :P 

Alright cya for now!

Ray