greetings
written: 10:14 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 26, 2003

So Christmas was uneventful for the most part, but I didn't expect anything earth-shattering anyway. One thing that did surprise me though was that Mr. Nerd sent me a Christmas greeting SMS, but it read like mass-SMS kinda thing so what the hell.

I didn't do much yesterday, merely went to my grandma's for lunch and rot(ted) there. I'm not particularly keen on family gatherings as most of the time, they bore the crap out of me. Nothing to do, nothing to see, and I'm not exactly close to my cousins so no one to talk to.

But then again, that doesn't strike me as particularly surprising as that seems to be the story of my life anyway.

I've been watching a whole shitload of movies nowadays, to make up for all the lost time during the school term that robbed me of the right to watch the movies I want in the cinema when I want to. A lot of them are rentals, and make that shitty VCDs, but that's better than nothing, isn't it? So today I watched "The Shipping News" and "Anger Management", the former being absolutely beautiful and, well, strange, the latter being not funny enough and really fucking overly sappy at the end. I can't stand those scenes in which the male protagonist finally gets his girl and they kiss in front of an adoring public and in the background, insipid string music plays like a broken Christmas record on Chinese New Year. It's so overdone, so cliche and utterly predictable. I think watching too much movies does have its detrimental effects, for I find that I can often predict correctly movie dialogues to movies that I've never seen before. Take "Road to Perdition", for example. Fine director, fine acting, but they just had to close the movie with the cheesy and cliche line, "I tell them that he was my father." I could see it coming ten kilometres away, for crying out loud.

On the whole, mainstream movies are boring. Sure, they're entertaining for the most part, but boy, are they mind-numbingly boring. I can hardly get anything out of those shit nowadays, save for the rare gem like the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

On another related note, Channel 8 (Chinese channel) screened "Waterboys" on Christmas Eve. I watched it again for the third time, and dammit, I fucking love that movie! I love it so much that I could just marry it! I just adore those five cute Japanese guys, and who can forget the string of hot extras in the last scene when they performed their synchronised swimming routine? And oh yeah, that basketball guy who does pretty much nothing but pout at the camera and look gorgeous is exactly that: effin' gorgeous. He looks like this character from "Real", a manga series by Takehiko Inoue who did the brilliant "Slam Dunk" series which I'm obsessed with.

Hot guys aside, I just love the simplicity of the plot and the natural acting by the primary actors. It's such an enchanting movie that I felt like I was living it. And of course, it's also wicked funny. I think no matter how many times I watch the burning head scene (fans of the movie would know what I'm talking about), I'd always laugh at it till my sides hurt. It's brilliant, the movie is. I'm so gonna buy the DVD when I come across it!

So yeah, that's about it. Haven't been playing any basketball 'cause the weather's been uncooperative, and because I'm too lazy to. And I just found out through myriad SMSes that Cain did his shoot for school a few blocks away from my house, and he didn't tell me. Damn, I could've fulfilled my dream of watching the live making of a film/movie/whatever if I'd known!

Oh well. Now it's back to writing the damn article that I've been struggling with for about two weeks. Fuck, it's over three thousand words long and hardly anywhere near completion.

Why do I have to be such a meticulous writer? I just can't do a shoddy piece, can I?

Yeah, whatever, I'll shut up now.

Happy belated Christmas to all.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010