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Star Trek Into Darkness

Jun
02

StarTrekIntoDarkness_Poster

I must confess, I’ve only ever been exposed to JJ Abrams’s version of Star Trek, so this review would be coming from a non trekkie. That said, disclaimer #2 would be that I’m a huge fan of JJ.

Following the 2009 reboot of  Star Trek, JJ and gang maneuvered themselves into a situation whereby an alternate universe situation freed themselves from canon, and they were free to pursue new adventures, or in this case, repackage an old adversary. This time round, with all the introductions and backstory out of the way, they were free to jump straight into the action.

Surrounded by Red Shirts... I think I'll be fine.

Surrounded by Red Shirts… I think I’ll be fine.

And the action starts on planet Nibiru, where Kirk immediately violates Prime Directive by exposing themselves to a primitive civilization in a bid to rescue Spock, who himself is knee deep in an active volcano trying to rescue the civilization. Meanwhile, back on Earth in London, a terrorist bombing by Starfleet commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) calls for a meeting in which all the starfleet commanders gather in a small room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows (Yeap, they didn’t really think this through).

John Harrison turns out to be a cover identity, whose real name is actually.. KHAN! A genetically engineered superhuman who has superior mental and physical strength over ordinary humans. He was woken from suspended animation by Admiral Marcus and had his 72 crew members held hostage, to develop advanced weaponry for him, so he could wage war against the Klingons.

Its up the motley crew of Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones and Chekov to stop him. Stop him they will, and have fun watching them you will too.

Oh, and the best part of this movie experience was watching it while on holiday in San Francisco in Imax 3D, and watching mayhem unfold IN San Francisco onscreen, as that’s where the Starfleet Academy is located. Beyond cool!

Rating: 8/10

Aside from watching out for homages and references to the original Trek series, there’re also signature JJ trademarks such as lens flares, and the appearance of Slusho, the fictional slurpee type drink he’d created since Alias. Slusho has since found its way into Heroes, Fringe, Super8, Cloverfield, and of course, both Star Treks.

He’s also apparently placed R2D2 in all of his movies. Coincidentally, he’s been tapped to direct Star Wars 7, so hopefully R2 will have a bigger role than a flyby in that one?

It seems like right now, JJ Abrams and Joss Whedon can do no wrong.

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Reddit and its awesomeness

May
10

Reddit logo

We all know about reddit and its tight community of people all over the world and walks of life, coming to discuss, create and generally, do stuff together.

As with any other platform, you can see it as a weapon. By itself, it’s just a tool. It can be used for good, and sometimes, it can be used to bad effect. Other times, you just have to sit back and go “whoa, that was cool”.

This is one such example:

Two redditors, unknown to each other, both took pictures of the same bolt of lightning from different places.

The top picture was taken by reddit user chordnine from Coors Field stadium of the Colorado Rockies.

This second picture was taken by reddit user Bobo1010 from Cherokee Station, a coal power plant.

credit: reddit user Bobo1010

credit: reddit user Bobo1010

This coincidence and finding of each other would have been awesome in itself. But reddit wasn’t done. Someone suggested that “technically, we should now be able to 3d model this lightning.”

Lo and behold, someone (reddit user cr42yr1ch) who knows a bit of 3d modelling stood up and said “challenge accepted”, and this is the result:

credit: reddit user cr42yr1ch

credit: reddit user cr42yr1ch

For more details on how he modeled it, go to his site.

Now, all that’s left is to go to the actual landing site of the lightning bolt, and see if we can find the Mjolnir.

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Ironman 3

May
09

Iron Man 3 Poster

(This review may contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest skipping this post.)

Phase II of Marvel’s superhero mashup begins proper with Ironman 3, the first of the standalones after the hugely successful ‘Avengers’. Set a few years after the events of New York, Tony Stark gets even more obsessed with his toys, creating more and more advanced Iron Man suits in anticipation of further threats to the world.

In the meantime, a mysterious terrorist going by the name The Mandarin has taken credit for a series of bombings with increasing intensity. When one such attack resulted in critical injuries to Happy Hogan, Stark decides enough is enough, and issues a personal challenge to The Mandarin, who promptly destroys his home.

He barely escapes the attack, and while pursuing The Mandarin, finds clues that leads him to Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M), and its CEO Aldrich Killian, and his research into the Extremis program, an experimental regenerative treatment.

Without his new found superbuddies, Stark can only count on JARVIS, and a precocious little boy Harley to help track down The Mandarin, and figure out his connection to AIM.

Iron Man 3

Introducing Stark Glass. Powered by Smarminess.

Fans of the comic may be outraged by how Shane Black has deftly turned one of the most iconic of Ironman’s foes (You could say The Mandarin was to Ironman what The Joker was to Batman) into a side-show in one of the least expected twists in recent movie history, given the penchant for leaks to happen months before the release.

As for me, I was only acquainted with Ironman from the movies, so I rather enjoyed the reveal, and really thought Sir Ben Kingsley did really well portraying The Mandarin / Trevor Slattery.

Oh, and if you don’t have to pee by the end of the movie, stay for a fun (but ultimately non essential) post-credits scene.

Also, seeing the array of Ironman suits in action was totally worth the price of the ticket!

Rating: 8/10

Next up, Thor: The Dark World

But, to be honest, I’m not impressed with the synopsis.

Set one year after The Avengers, Thor battles to save all the Nine Realms from a mysterious enemy older than the universe itself. A primeval race led by Malekith, who is out for revenge, intends to plunge the universe into darkness. Confronted by an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot overcome, Thor must reunite with Jane Foster and set out on a dangerous journey that will force him to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Really? To battle an enemy older than the universe itself, Thor needs to enlist the help of.. Jane Foster?

What, he needs to solve the ultimate physics riddle in order to defeat this evil?

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What’s a zig a zig ah?

May
07

Yeah, 17 years later, people are still asking the question: What’s a zig a zig ah?

For those of you not familiar with pop culture, once upon a time, there existed an all-girl pop group called The Spice Girls. For some reason, they became a thing, and when their hit single “Wannabe” hit the top of the charts, and everywhere we turned, we heard that all they really really wanted was a “zig a zig ah”, people starting asking Google what that meant.

Now, 17 years later, we’re still getting up to 9,900 searches a month on that phrase.

Very helpfully, urban dictionary defines it as “what scary spice really wants”.

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Twitter’s Dick Costolo was an improv comedian, and this speech shows.

May
07

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, gave a commencement speech at the University of Michigan where he graduated, and it’s a mixed bag of wisdom, wit and encouragement.

He started off by tweeting a photo from his vantage point, and then went into his experiences, first with improv, and then with Twitter, citing some of the impact and milestones Twitter had over the years.

He talks about living for the now, and how we should not plan too much, because “Not only can you not plan the impact you’re going to have, you often won’t recognize it even while you’re having it.”

He talks instead, about making bold choices, particularly with finding your passion, and working toward that.

In a nutshell, it’s really an awesome speech. Watch.

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Someday

May
02

This is more of a note-to-self.

When we were young, full of hope, and didn’t know any better, we’d get asked this question by the adults:

What do you want to be, when you grow up?

We’d say things like “a fire-fighter, police, actor, singer, ballerina”. Some of the more disillusioned would say things like be a “superhero” (seriously?), and the adults would just laugh and go “awww”.

Of course, now we all know better. We grew up, our dreams died, our bills grew. And soon enough, we forgot about those childhood dreams. We took up jobs in finance, accounting, law, construction, and little by little, day by day, we die just a little bit more. Our dreams drifting further and further.

We start making secondary dreams. Like “I’m going to write a book”, “I’m going to travel the world”, but those are almost always pre-faced with one word: Someday.

  • Someday, when I save enough money, I’ll go travel the world.
  • Someday, when inspiration hits me, I’ll be able to write my book.
  • Someday, I’ll take up a course, and move one step closer to being a chef.

Someday.

It gives you a plan to look forward to, but also a reason to procrastinate. And someday, before you realise it, you’d have missed that boat, too.

Turn that ‘someday’ into ‘today’. What can you do, today, to help inch you ever that closer to your dream?

Someday, I’d like to be able to sit on my balcony, write my novel, and not have to worry about paying the bills. Today, I’m thinking about building a business that will help me ultimately achieve that.

What’s your ‘someday‘, and what are you doing about it, today?

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Bro bro bro! Shiok ah!

Apr
29

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but recently, we’ve had two commercials come out of STB and NEA, of which both TVCs are made up of entirely, 1 word.

STB just launched a new tvc, where they tell us and foreigners what’s “shiok” in Singapore. And with that, we see montages of different activities, punctuated by the words “Shiok”, uttered in as many different intonations as possible. A shout of triumph, a whisper of awe, and everything in between.

 

Then we have NEA launching an awareness campaign to alert smokers of no smoking zones such as common areas of all residential buildings, within 5 metres of bus shelters etc. The tagline is “Don’t let your bros get fined”. The various TVCs show a man about to light up at one of these zones, and a friendly, albeit creepy, bro, starts trying to warn his friend. By shouting “Bro” incessantly, and frantically pointing to a warning sign about being fined.

 

I think this signals a larger conspiracy theory behind it all.

Were all our copywriters and scriptwriters in the advertising agencies kidnapped somehow? And someone wants it covered up?

Incidentally, I think both campaigns were done by BBH APAC. So yeah. There’s definitely something going on with their copy department. OR an internal bet with huge stakes is being played.

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Humanity celebrates presence on Mars by drawing a huge penis on it

Apr
25

Yeah! How about that, aliens! We were here first!

How do we tell the Universe humans were on Mars first? We doodle a dick on it.

Because we’re mature like that.

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