Monday, January 28, 2008

Mooovieeesss

Cake and I went to see Sweeney Todd yesterday. An interesting movie... or should I say musical. It wasn't super duper but I must say it was very enjoyable.

The melodies to which the lyrics were sung to were all very beautiful and complemented the scenes very well. Similar to the musical version of 'The producers' (2005), I especially thought the combination of the more 'classic' singing style and the use of simple everyday/casual language in the lyrics was very cool. If my ears weren't playing tricks on me, I heard the C-word in one of the lines sung by Johnny Depp. It had quite a kick to it.

If you're ok with a bit of blood then Sweeney Todd is very worth watching. Actually, make that lots of blood... Lots of splashing blood. But it's all good!

As for Cloverfield, damn that movie got me so nauseous I was close to puking in the cinema. I guess it's what sets Cloverfield apart from other big screen movies, but I really am not a big fan of the hand held camera/home video style movies. The camera was constantly moving so fast that I got soooo sick. I had to take five and come out to wash my face in the bathroom. That didn't help much.

There was a line in the movie where one of the girl characters was losing lots of blood and said she was dizzy. I felt so much like yelling out 'I'm so f*cking dizzy too!' but I don't think my fellow audience members would have appreciated it much. It certainly didn't help the whole place was smelling of rich butter from all the popcorn they had in there, either.

That aside, I thought the movie had an interesting concept to it. The way the plot progressed definitely left me wanting to find out more (If I didn't have to constantly close and rest my eyes and brain every 2 minutes). The trailer and early parts of the movie did a very good job of getting you curious. If it wasn't because of the constantly moving camera, I think I would have liked the movie a lot more. I honestly really wanted to leave my eyes open and see everything they had to offer, but my brain wasn't co-operating. Ok, I'm back to complaining again. But such a shame... so promising, yet impossible for me to watch.

Now I'm waiting for SAW IV to come out. Woohoo!! Who wants to come watch with me??

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Parents in Melbourne (Part two)

The fourth day was the Christmas day. Everything was shut on Christmas day. EVERYTHING! I guess I hadn't expected it to be like that, seeing this was the first time I spent Christmas out of Bangkok and Christmas in Bangkok is very happening... esp. on the shopping side of things. Anyways, so we went to this beach instead and dad got to use a parking ticket machine for the first time. I think he got to have a bit of his fun.

The beach was alright but it was a lil windy so we didn't really get to hang out long. Plus we got hungry. So we went looking for a place to eat... But everything was shut. Except this nice looking restaurant but it was all booked out. Then we went to the next suburb... and then the next. Nothing was open. We decided to drive back towards the city. Uni was on the way so I thought we could stop and see if any of the restaurants was open and so I could show my parents around uni and where I work. Everything was shut. EVERYTHING... except 7/11.

By the time, we were quite desperate. The 7/11 looked like a five star restaurant to us by then. We managed to get hold of some sandwiches and soup-in-a-cup for lunch. Look how happy we were...


After lunch on the lawn, I showed mom and dad around uni. It was nice I finally got to do so. After like... nearly 5 years. Dad produced some cool photos of the buildings I was so familiar with. Pretty cool seeing them differently through the camera lens.

The rest of the afternoon and since everything was shut, we decided to spend some nice sunny time at the Docklands. That was some of my favourite time off the whole trip I think. Some of the best photos that came out were also of that evening. Check...






Having seen my uni, it was time Cake and pie showed mom and dad around theirs, Melbounre Uni. It was still holiday so the whole place was shut. It was nice in a way, being empty and all. It was also a good opportunity to pay a visit to the ATM that ate my card 3 years ago. Forgive but never forget.


Too lazy to explain the rest of the day. But it looked something like this...






The next morning I woke up to see the most beautiful sky I had seen in a long time. Then I noticed the sky was dotted with some hot air balloons. Some had only taken off not far from our apartment. Very nice to start a day off with a nice morning.

That day we went to Werribee zoo. Woohoo! But we barely saw any animals. I don't know where they all went. I guess that's the problem with them open zoos sometimes. I remember seeing a camel, some zebras, rhinos, a few birds (they weren't even working at the zoo), and plenty of flies. FLIES!!! Annoying summer flies.

At the zoo, I noticed the zebras had some voluptuous asses. So ample and white. I remember having thought about this before but had forgotten how nice zebra asses were until I saw them again that day. Anyways, I'm just saying.

But it got me started taking pictures of some human asses. Probably because there weren't that many animals to see and the ones that were there weren't even doing anything interesting.






The eighth day we went shopping at Brunswick street. Dad went off to check out some pretty cool graffiti around the area.





Ok. I'm sleepy. Stay tuned for the third and final installment. Thanks for looking!

By the way, did you know zebras were the second species to branch off from the most primitive form of horses, just after the asses?

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Parents in Melbourne (Part one)

This was the first time I spent x'mas and NY outside of Thailand. It was different. But it was fun taking parents around Australia on their first trip into the country. Thanks to dad's photography skills, we have shit loads of some gorgeous photos.

The first place we went as soon as our parents landed was Queen Victoria market. Where would we be without food! It was rather cold and windy for a start of summer. That didn't stop dad from going crazy with his camera(s). We decided to have lunch at the food court. Food was so so but the French mini pancakes with ice cream definitely got my mom's attention.

Happy with food in our green bags and trolley, we headed back home as it started drizzling. By this time, dad was feeling a little jet-lagged, while mom was still as fit as ever. In fact, I must say mom was superfit throughout the whole trip, and never really seemed to get tired, especially considering how warm it got towards the end of their stay.

After waiting for the rain to clear, we came out to hang around the river bank, where I am pleased to say, we achieved a brand new sighting of another space invader. Photo was taken right away before it got away.


The second day we drove up to Mount Dandenong in a blue Camry we had rented. I had been noticing the new Camry around on the road and thought it was not bad looking. So it was cool I got to drive one to see what it's like. It wasn't all that... The ass was too high, which I felt limited visuals through the rear window.

The weather wasn't much better than the previous day. So we gave the Sunday market by the foot of the mountain a miss. Our first stop up on the mountain was
at the tea leaves shop. It was awesome. I don't really drink tea but
it was fun smelling all the samples of all the weird different scented teas they had. We must have spent over an hour in that little tiny shop 'cause there was just so much to look at.

Lunch was then at Miss Marple's tearoom. Despite the limited number of dishes on the menu, food was as superb as always. The chicken pie was awesome. Should get back up there again soon.
We spent pretty much the whole day on the mountain going through collectibles and antique shops.


In the evening, we drove back into the city for dinner and went for a walk into Melbourne Central so dad could do some photography. And so he got his fish eye out an came up with some pretty cool photos. Melbourne Central like I had never seen before...




The next day, we headed to Sunny Ridge strawberry farm expecting to do some strawberry
picking. But due to the rain, the farm itself was closed so we bought some pre-packed strawberries from the shop instead.

With the farm closed, we headed further down Mornington Peninsula, into Sorrento, a nice little town with a beach road, dotted with numerous interesting shops. We spent the whole afternoon walking up and down the road, checking out all the shops... Then headed back.

It was cold and windy that evening but that didn't stop us from going for a walk along the bank of the Yarra, down to Crown for a bit of the fireball action by the casino that brought some much needed warmth, though way too short-lived.