I have recently noticed how good movie displays have become. Well, I realised quite a while back but this is the first time I’m highlighting it out.

I’m not really sure of the term so I’m gonna call them Movie displays for now. You know when you go to the cinema, you see some standees to promote a movie? Like some cardboard prop that has been built up to show a 3D version of the movie poster. Well, I would like to point out a few of the displays I have seen that are REALLY REALLY good.

Now, one of the most recent standard displays would be like the Kung Fu Panda display. Just a giant cardboard standee of the main character Po. It’s pretty standard but its really cool cos it lets you see how HUGE the actual character is supposed to be. It made me want to watch the movie more and it makes a great prop to stand next to and take pictures with. For kids, of course! heh.

Then there is the cardboard with a tiny prop. In the Get Smart display, there is the phone, in full 3D wrapping around the display. Well, not very creative but worth mentioning cos I think everyone remembers the trailer. (“you have underestimated me and the element of.. SURPRISE!”)

The speed racer display would’ve been great if only they had put in a motor that made the 2 cars rotate. that would have people staring for ages! However, it was stationary when I saw it and I thought it was such a wasted idea.

This was one of my favourite displays. Seeing life size Simpson characters is just cool. I can’t explain it. It’s like life size toys to display. But it was clever and i can’t remember not seeing anyone who didn’t take a picture of the display. There is actually an empty seat besides Homer so I am assuming that it was made so that people could actually sit next to the family and take some snapshots. However, in Malaysia, they put up barriers around the display so noone could get close or even sit on the empty seat. Silly isn’t it?

But my most favourite display is the Wall•e display. You can see that Wall-e is kinda shy looking at EVE and the bench gives it a lovey dovey kinda appeal. There is also another display with a lifesize Wall•e but i think this one is so much better. That’s because one can’t help but go, “awwwwww” when they see this display.

There were quite a few other displays that sucked.. (like there is an Incredible Hulk display with just his disproportionate hand sticking out of the floor. It just looks stoopid..) I’ll take a picture and add that in soon. And the Iron Man one had certain bits of the armour sticking out. Boooriiinnnngggg. Anyone else seen any fantastic, creative movie standees/displays?

Well… ok, I have to admit. I can’t seem to properly do a blog religiously. I should, but always come up with some darn excuse about it.

It’s now been about 5 months since i last blogged. Nearly half a year. I would tell you I have been busy, or that I have had no time, or that i have been too saddened by Arsenal’s third successive trophy less season.

But they are excuses. I have indeed been neglecting my blog and I guess I can only say I will try be more active on it now. AGAIN. Probably should as its a great way to improve my english.

Anyways, while I’m here, might as well tell you a word of advice. When you’re talking to any of your mates on the phone in a public area, like let’s say a shopping mall, be mindful of the people around. There I was in the middle of a shopping mall waiting for some friends, when all of a sudden one of me mates called me and started telling all about how some guy had pissed him off. So me being a dude just replied, “F#CK him-la” and as soon as I said that, there was this little girl, about 5 years old, at just about the height of my knee who was walking past. And she gave me the look of an innocent deer looking straight into oncoming headlights. I had soiled and destroyed the kid’s purity and innocence. She looked at me, with mouth gaping wide, and I tried to apologise to her, but it was too late. She ran off and I could only imagine she was off to tell her mother what a bad word the horrible uncle had said. So I did what any sane person would do.

I ran in the opposite direction.

And so boys and girls, when you use your mobile in a public place, know that there are kids around. And unless you want to be responsible for destroying their innocence, try to keep things, at least within PG 13. (or G if you’re in Malaysia) Till the next blog..(hopefully within the year 2008…)

I recently went to see Cloverfield and must say it is an interesting take on the monster genre. First of all, take note that this movie is basically, Blair Witch meets Godzilla. Basically, just watch the trailer and you’ll kinda know what i mean. Its also not for those with a weak stomach as its meant to have an amateurish feel. (hence the Blair Witch) Apparently some people ran out the cinema puking. (Didn’t happen when I was there though) But you gotta really feel for the New Yorkers though. It seems now ever since 9/11, (actually, even BEFORE that) Hollywood can’t help but make NY the city they love to destroy. Take for example Independance Day, King Kong, Godzilla, I am Legend and now, Cloverfield. I guess there must be something about the place…

BUT! My advice to anyone who goes watch it, is to stay till the very END, after the credits roll and all that. Just so you can hear some fuzzy and freaky weird radio transmission which kinda tells you whatever happens AFTER the end of the movie. Well, if you can’t wait though and wanna ruin the movie, you might as well click on this SPOILER LINK.

(note: this link is to  Jason A Clark, who has a brilliant blog about movies and stuff. It’s really really cool so make sure you check it out. He really did do alot of work for the SPOILER bit in Cloverfield which is why I linked to him. So check out his blog for more interesting stuff!!)

Honestly, I think the movie was pretty decent. Pretty nice roller coaster ride and worth the trip to the cinema. I just hope they don’t plan to make a big budget trilogy and bring in all these famous big name stars. But knowing the US of A, it’s probably very likely….

I’m a big fan of Starbucks. The best cappucino I ever tasted was in their outlet at London’s Chinatown. After that, i’ve been hooked ever since. Anyways, this is an illustration I did not too long ago for our company portfolio. Coffee….. I like…..

Well well…. been a while since i last blogged.

Alot has happened. A new year, a new computer, a massive party… so much to tell.  But I’ve always wanted to blog about a certain passion of mine, and that’s my rather modest collection of ACTION FIGURES. Here, you can have look at the small collection I have.

Ah-heh. I guess you could say I love toys. Maybe I’ll blog about the rest of them later. But let’s start with some of my more popular and interesting ones. Here’s one I always wanted from the original game version, but I guess the movie version isn’t too bad.

It’s non other than that BIG, Buster, sword-wielding champion of Final Fantasy VII, Cloud Strife. Although this is the Advent Children version, it still rocks.

They really put in alot of details into the figure. Check out the details to the sword and also the light in the bike. Even Cloud’s lion figure on his shoulder is very detailed.

Check out the lights!! To be honest, the bike is the star of the show. Cloud was more like something “by the way”. I heard that Square Enix just released a “MASTERPIECE” version of Cloud which looks more like the animation. But I think thats enough Advent Children for me. Its kinda strange for me, but I never thought about photographing my toys before. It does sound like a very nerdy thing to do. (ok, so it is..) but at least its a good way to practice taking still shots. And maybe an opportunity to catalog my collection. =)

Here’s the last picture for the day. If anyone sees any toy in my collection (and if they can it would be AMAZING)  that they want me to take photos of, just lemme know and i’ll see if I can squeeze it in. Ciao for now…

Now, I’ve always been an avid fan of food, so the other day when my dad said let’s go eat “Hairy Crab”, I thought he meant a crab with a shell that looked like hair. Little did I know he meant a crab that was REALLY hairy. Seriously. I mean, crabs don’t have any hair follicles, so how’d THAT happen??

Anyways, we went to some classy restaurant called Ah Yat in Avenue K, and the “Hairy Crab” special course was only about RM99 per person. (which is why dining with parents is always a good thing…) So, I’ll skip the other meals and just tell you about the star meal. First of all, you need tools to eat a Hairy Crab:

Apparently the Hairy Crab is a delicacy in China and is only available during the winter time for only 2 months in a year. They can only be found in Yangcheng Lake which is why they cost so much. But if you read up about them in Wikipedia you’ll see that the ORIGINAL Hairy Crabs of China have long disappeared and what I ate was actually a Japanese subspecies. But what the hey, I’m not one to complain. Anyways, here is the infamous, Hairy Crab:

Notice the dark bits under the claw? That’s the hairy bit. It’s legs are also hairy and sort of resemble the hairs in my armpit. heh. The crab is about the size of a fist and looks kinda chunky. Anyways, what happened next was the manager came, put on some gloves and cut the poor fella up into smaller and seperate pieces. So it ended up looking like this when he served me:

It’s kinda freaky actually. I swear its like the crab is still alive and its staring at me asking, “Why me? What did I ever do to you? I was just minding my own business in a little lake somewhere and someone just picked me up and there you are, about to eat me. Please don’t eat me!”

Not that I’m heartless or anything, but, Yummy. One should start from the inside, suck up all that orange goo and add some vinegar for the other bits. The rest of the night was spent cutting, digging and sucking every but of meat from the little bugger. Honestly, it tasted a little like eggs…. and creamy crab meat. Hard to explain but it really was different from the usual crab I’ve eaten.

So these are the hairy bits that make the Hairy Crab. Like most women in China, these crabs also find no reason to shave. All natural baby….

And so, finally after a 30 minute battle to squeeze every bit of crab meat out, I reached the end of the meal. Now, the crab meat is apparently very “cooling” (lotsa Ying) so you have to replenish that with something heaty. (some Yang!) So you gotta end it all with some ginger tea.

And that was my little culinary education about some fine dining Chinese style. Was pretty interesting, but alot of hard work for a small critter. Still, it was pretty worth it. If you guys wanna try it out, better hurry over to Ah Yat. As of yesterday, there were only 20 crabs left!

Just thought I’d post the namecards of GFP and I. We were trying to come up with an idea which we thought would make us stand out. GFP came out with the brilliant idea of showing another part of our designer lives. The ideas was to get people to talk about the card and find out more about us as individuals. Here’s GFP’s:

The little cute one is called Bubbles. And you can tell that GFP is a doggie lover right away. Nice eh?

Here’s mine:

For those who do not know, the black thingy I am holding is NOT a camera. It is a PSP. And yes, the jersey is that of current Premiere League leaders, ARSENAL!! heh heh.

I love adhocdesign cards.

Once upon a time there was a sheikh who owned a few camels. Now this sheikh is super smart, and awesomely intelligent. He’s always looking at new ways to improve himself and religiously follows teachings of wise masters from long ago. One day, he heard from his posse of self improving sheikhs that if he drank water from a mystical lake, he would improve his lifestyle ten-fold and be a truly happy and rich man.

So when he finally found the lake and drank this mystical water, he wanted to share the lake’s mystical powers with his camels and said, “my friends, you should drink too!” So not wanting to offend their master, and also some who were REALLY willing to obtain this life improving water, just drank and got it over with.

But one camel calmly gazed back and said, “It’s cool, I don’t need the water”. Clearly, the sheikh thought what a fool the camel was and began telling the camel how wonderful and empowering the water was. he told the camel how millions of books had been sold about the lake and even a widely distributed movie made millions worldwide. He also said how so many people go round the world talking about the lake and how it changes people and improves them. And they also made money from just talking about the lake.

But still, the camel said, “Yea, ok, I know where the lake is so if I wanna drink, I will when I want to.” But the sheikh still insists! Then he thinks he has to use a different tactic and says: “I don’t know why every other camel wants to  improve but you’re not into improving yourself. We’re all embracing this self improvement thing but you’re not. And we only want self improving camels here!”

Now this got the camel pissed. He REALLY didn’t want to drink the water now. So the sheikh got pissed as well and told the camel what a loser he is for not wanting to drink the water. He told the camel how he is wasting his life away and that he was probably gonna end up a loser cos he doesn’t even want to take a sip to improve his life.

So now, the camel HATES the damn water cos its made him a bloody loser. And this REALLY REALLY puts him off drinking the damn water. He KNOWS its good for him and he MIGHT have gone back to drink the water some time, but now he ABSOLUTELY hates the water and doesn’t want ANYTHING to do with it.

But just cos the sheikh has made up such a fuss about it, the camel sticks his head in the lake, pretends he is drinking, then spits some flam from his throat into the lake, then says, “i’ve drunk the water. What a fool I was for not listening to you”. And then the sheikh is happy and they all get on with their lives.

The moral of this story is:

If you’re a sheikh: if a camel doesn’t want to drink water, don’t make him drink water. Cos even if he does, it’s not cos he wants to. And if that happens, the camel just might ruin all the water for everyone.

If you’re a camel: Just drink the damn water and do what everyone else does. Doesn’t mean you have to like it, but it’ll save you alot of pain and anguish!

no blog update for many months now.

can only blame work, which isn’t such a bad thing after all.

but future clients should take note about asking for anything “Leng”, “Peng” or “Cheng”!!!

Anyone heard of the previous grand theft of Homer lately? In case you haven’t you can read about it here.

The thing is, if GSC had thought about it right, they could have used the theft as a fantastic marketing and advertising campaign! Imagine newspapers and magazines with wanted posters and articles talking about this vicious and thorough man hunt for Homer. It would be a SENSATION!

Ok, so here’s a little something i just done up…. Imagine seeing something like this EVERYWHERE. Coffee shops, donut shops, all fast food chains associated with the movie…. And maybe even flyers distributed at cinemas by people dressed as the family!

Then you can also put advertorials in newspapers and magazines about how the family begs for his safe return, (ala some of the cases u read in the paper everyday) holding up banners asking for his return and meeting made up ministers in the Simpsons style!

The campaign can go on to maybe radio competitions where ppl need to find clues to Homer’s whereabouts, or have a real Homer run ard town. You could even launch TV ads with the fanily pleading for his return, or send a kidnapped Homer video on Youtube reading the demands of his captors.. (that would be HILARIOUS!)

The guerilla campaign could be bitten off food left in certain places, like a half bitten donut on floors or cafe tables (with a “Homer was here” note), loads of empty beer mugs in a bar… Stuff like that.

Unfortunately, it was opportunity entirely wasted. Nothing was done. They found the culprits and the case was closed. Everyone talked about Homer for a while but after that… Nothing. Such wasted opportunities.

Its pretty sad that in Malaysia, the big companies with all their ability to capitalise on branding and marketing a product not even try to cash in the hype generated from the theft. It would have been really great fun. Maybe I should go kidnap a life size movie character and then show them this blog… hee hee.

On another note: With the Simpsons finally heading to the big screen, I visited THIS page and spent a good 1 and a half hours trying to make it look as CLOSE as possible to me. Basically, the link is to a site made by Burger King to “Simpsonize” yourself. Its REALLY fun and all you have to do is upload a picture of yourself which they will “Simpsonize” and then you twiggle around with it to make it as SIMILAR to you as possible.

Now THIS is what you call a GREAT campaign. For those of you who know me, maybe you can tell me if it looks ANY LITTLE bit like me, or I’m just trying to flatter myself. hehehe.

Ok, so, maybe I should try it again…. Honestly, I think its a cool idea, but probably works better with ang-mohs. But give it a try and share your creations!!!