Walking!
That's what you can do in Hong Kong / Macau besides eating / gambling.

Well, not exactly so much "can do"  as "must do", since there aren't many other choices but to walk from one place to another, unless you are so lazy you take a cab / Uber-ride every single time you travel between places... which might actually be true in our (Malaysian's) case.

While I was in Hong Kong mid of July, a Stanford University Study published in the science journal Nature stated that Hong Kong people walk an average of 6,880 steps a day, making them the most ambulatory populace out of the 46 territories and countries assessed. My reaction after reading the article was like, OF COURSE THEY ARE. I was just there for a short visit and my legs were already in great pain.

Oy vey.

But I am not here to lament the pain my legs endured, instead I would like to document (mostly for myself) the extremely satisfying experience I had and all the beautiful memories I created from this "leg pain" journey.

As the wise Fräulein Maria once taught the Von Trapp children: Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Let the adventure begins after the break...

Diary of a Wimpy Caribbean Pirate: A Case of the Never-ending Franchises

Quick, a show of hands: Who remembers the plotline of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie? No, not the trilogy, but that god-oh-so-awful sequel to that god-oh-so-hard-to-follow-every-plotline-of-every-character trilogy. The one that featured Penelope Cruz? Oh, you don’t remember she was in one? Neither do I. After all, it was 6 years ago.

Now, turn to your kids. Ask them: Are they a fan of the Wimpy Kid movies? Can they recall what was the last movie about? Oh, they weren’t born yet / too young to remember? I don’t blame them, that was 5 years ago.

That raises the question: Why now? Why resuscitate a supposedly dead / should have been left alone franchise instead of creating new stories and new original movies?

The simple answer is: Why not? Everyone else is doing it, and it is the least effort one needs to invest on to bring in the cash. After all, the characters are there, you just need to expand the storyline (and in some cases like Pirates of the Caribbean series, you don’t even need new stories you just recycle the same stories with different villains and sidekicks).

In an era of sequels, prequels, remake, reboot, sequels to the reboot, reboot of the sequels to the reboot and things like that, original ideas are hard to come by. As of now, just a few months after the Resident Evil movie series supposedly came to an end, there are talks of rebooting it already. Even your beloved Pixar Studio commits such crime by making a Toy Story 4 after cheating us of our tears at the end of Toy Story 3.

Go to the cinema website now, and count how many original English (Hollywood) movies showing now. I’m pretty sure you only need one finger: Colossal (note to self: must watch that). King Arthur you said? Nope, that was intended as the first movie of a franchise which was then (I supposed) shut down by the failure at the box office. Beauty and the Beast? Nope, doesn’t count if you are the remake of a beloved animated movie. Luckily the Chinese movies have not caught on the symptom yet, finger-crossed.

It is a chicken and egg question. Do studios make un-original movies because the audience go watch them, or the audience go watch un-original movies because the studios only make them nowadays?

That was philosophical, and I’m not here to start a debate on this topic. I am merely lamenting the lack of originality nowadays. And I’m also not here to write a movie review. Just a short train of thoughts.

So, are any of the two latest instalments in the “revived” franchises good?

Well, they are entertaining. I’ll give them that. But interestingly, the one element that make one successful is also the one element that sinks the other: nostalgia.

Ah, nostalgia, you are one tricky thing. People like to remember the best things that happened in the past, the things that they shared with their love ones, the good memories they had watching the last few movies in the series. Having too much of it can sometimes prevent you from moving on.

You see, the storyline of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie is nothing new. It’s just about a drunk Captain Jack Sparrow and him being chased by someone coming after him for revenge, accompanying by some sidekicks (usually consists of a handsome young man and a beautiful young lady). You roll your eyes every time they escape using the same tactics that you have seen many times in previous films, and even the music are so boringly repetitive. But, you see Will Turner, played by the same Orlando Bloom, and the whole movie is about his son trying to rescue him from a curse so he can show his handsome face on the land again. So you invest your whole energy throughout the movie rooting for the gang to succeed, because you are sure when they do, when Will Turner finally step foot on the land, Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth Swann will come back too. There, you want the movie to succeed for the nostalgia you hold on to the two old characters. I won’t even lie to say at this point I am quite tired with the repetitive acting of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow that I no longer find this campy pirate an exciting character, so yeah my eyes were a bit moist when I saw Orlando Bloom and (spoiler alert) Kiera Knightley again. They are the only reason I stay for the whole two hours of the movie.

Wimpy Kid, on the other hand, doesn’t understand this at all. I must confess I like the first few movies for a few reasons, and they were quite often something to do with the charismatic cast. When you reboot the franchise with 100% new actors (I totally understand the original cast are now too old for the roles, which is my point of why they should leave the movie alone… much like the Narnia franchise did the correct thing of not pursuing another film), you have to find a bunch that can compete with the first batch. Unfortunately, the new film failed this one aspect. We don’t see a dorkily confident Greg Heffley, neither do we see a nerdily cute Rowley. Rodrick is not the devilishly idiot we knew, and Mom and Dad are not the same clumsily overprotective parents we came to love from previous films. All in all, I was so distracted throughout the whole movie thinking things like “what would have the original Rodrick done in such situation”. No matter how they tried to imitate the style of the original movies, it just didn’t work without the same actors.

And now, I’m home popping the original Wimpy Kid movies into my DVD player. That’s the thing about nostalgia, once it is open it takes time for them to go away.

10 Thoughts I had While Watching Beauty and the Beast

I am lazy nowadays, I don't write movie reviews anymore. But occasionally when I watched a movie there were so much thoughts flowing in and out of my mind I felt like I wasn't exactly watching the movie but distracting myself with my own thoughts. Earlier today, while I was sitting in the theatre and Beauty and the Beast was up there on the screen rolling, these were the 10 thoughts coming to mind:

(1) I watched the first episode of a TV series called Snatch last night starring Rupert Grint, and today it's Emma Watson as Belle. No matter how they tried their hands on different grown-up roles, I just couldn't shake off the image of the teenage Ron and Hermoine. It's really weird to think that he's 29 and she's 27 now (she's even a few months older than Jennifer Lawrence who had been playing mothers in a few movies). The selfishness inside of me wants them to stay forever in the Harry Potter era. And yes, that includes you too, Daniel Radcliffe.

(2) Speaking of the trio, who do you think has the best acting chops? I used to think it's Emma, but Beauty and the Beast proved me wrong. None of them can really act very well. I thought she was wooden in the film. She tried to conjure some emotions yet all I saw was emptiness.

(3) I'm glad Emma Watson dropped out of playing the lead in La La Land, because she is so British and so elegant she can never convincingly portray a sassy American waitress who's down on her luck. And no, she can't convincingly portray a French farm girl too.

(4) And while we're at it, let's get this straight: Emma Watson can't sing too. Hitting every note correctly doesn't make you a good singer, you have to sing it with feelings too. Emma Stone knew it, that's why despite all the flaws in her singing "Audition" was still the best song from La La Land.

(5) But all the supporting cast can really sing. Emma Thompson (why are there so many Emma in this post?) strikes me as a surprise, her rendition of the theme song beats even the Ariana Grande & John Legend version.

(6) All the supporting characters were more charming than the two leads, particularly the narcissistic Gaston. In comparison, the romance felt rush and suffered from the lack of chemistry between the two leads.

(7) Earlier in the film while Emma Watson was singing Madame Gaston, she ran up the hill. The scene felt ripped off of the first scene from The Sound of Music, and at that moment I really hoped I was watching TSoM instead.

(8) How many hours does it take for Dan Stevens to put on his make up everyday?

(9) The gay moment that everybody has been talking about... wait, which one was it again? The hugging one or dancing one? Or was it the "you are too good for him anyway"? Or was it the smiling face of the guy after he'd been dressed up in female clothing?

(10) In fact, the gayest moment in the film belongs to any scene involving both Lumiere and Cogsworth. Dude, his name is Cogsworth, how can that not be the gayest thing in the entire movie?

Justin's Thank You For 2016

In about an hour’s time, another year will end. Swiftly gone. Ta-ta. Goodbye. Adios.

How has 2016 treated you? While you can’t hope for all sunny days throughout the 365 days, I certainly hope your sunny days are more frequent than the raining ones (or even the stormy ones). Some bumps happened in my 2016 journey, but I’m still here, stronger than ever. A lot of good things happened too, and that is why I’m here writing this article concluding the year.

I have been known for my sarcasm, my skepticism, my snarkiness, my negativity. But since we do not have a Thanksgiving in our tradition, I figure I should use this last moment of 2016 to allow myself some positivity, some sincere and honest feeling. So here I am, giving thanks to 2016 for 10 good things that happened throughout the year.

(1)    The No. 1 biggest thankful moment in my 2016 is certainly owning my first house. I have to admit, it happened very fast from the first viewing to the booking. But now I feel everything is worth it. I now have a place I can call my own. I can sit on my sofa watching TV while snacking. I can lie in my bed reading. Of course, I also get to know a few of new friends who helped me a lot in the process -- the Property Agent, the Loan Officer and the Internal Designer. They were still helping me / giving me advice long after their official service should had been ended. For that, I’m grateful.

(2)    Early in the year, something unexpected happened -- a very dear family member faced health crisis. It all happened so fast that we were not able to fully recover from the shock even until now. But we are still here. To all my family members, I thank God for letting us spent another year together. And to the future years, I hope GOOD HEALTH of all the ones I love is in your planner somewhere.

(3)    At work, there had been a lot of challenges. But I have to say a big Thank You to my team. I have always maintained the view that I am so lucky to have a strong team. Sometimes, I feel like I am an old man chasing and panting behind the brilliant people in my team. Along the way, some of them left but new people joined as well. Without them, there would not be the successful Ops Analytics team today. Thank you for believing in me and be a part of my team.

(4)    My friends, old and new. Sometimes I can be insufferably stubborn so Thank You for going through another year with me. I have lost a very close friend in 2016, but I had also made a few new friends too. Though I mostly preferred to be left by my own, admittedly I can’t get through a lot of days without the good company of good friends. So hopefully we still have many days to come spending together.

(5)    All the good movies and TV shows that I watched in 2016, and perhaps the bad ones too. I lost count of the number of movies / TV shows I watched in the course of the year, but I am thankful I watched each one of them. Good movies / TV shows give us inspiration and keep our spirit up. Even the bad ones could be entertaining sometimes, or at least they could teach you a lesson or two. Thank you for keeping me company in my lonely days.

(6)    Besides movies, music is also a prominent part of my life. In the car or in the trains, music had been my friends. Thank You for washing all my bad days and worries away with the good music.

(7)    While I have to admit I no longer read as much as I used to, I tried to force myself to read a little every now and then. Some books I can finish from the first page to the last, but others I gave up after a few pages. Nevertheless there are always something new to learn even in the few pages you read. So Thank You for all the new knowledges.

(8)    Speaking of reading, like most of you I did my reading mostly on my phone nowadays. Thank God for all the online articles and social media that we now can read articles and news through the small screen of our phones. Thanks to the technology we now are just one click away from knowing what’s happening in the world. And thanks to our wisdom we know how to filter out the real ones from the fake ones. So Thank You, my little phone.

(9)    Thanks for the ability to enjoy good foods. Looking at my body size you’ll know I like to eat. Knowing hunger is a real threat faced by a lot of people out there, I must feel grateful that I am still able to devour on whatever I wanted to. And I must also constantly remind myself not to waste food.

(10)Last but not least, I am grateful that I had successfully completed my first job in emceeing my Company Dinner in September. Though it had some unpredicted hiccups before the event started, my partner and I got through the evening eventually. So Thank You for the opportunity and Thank You to my partner for enduring my bad temper.

So there, my Thank You for 2016. For the coming year, I can’t expect every day to bring me joy and happiness, but my little hope is that it will bring me more happy memories than the unhappy ones.

Happy 2017 to you and wish you have a blessed year!

THE 10 TYPES OF POST-SHARING FACEBOOK FRIENDS

Everyone has a Facebook account. Some have two. The friend list on my Facebook account is longer than my phonebook which represents the actual friends I have and talk to in real life. I interact with my second cousin more often in Facebook than in real life (in fact, I have only met him twice in real life). Some check in once a week but most, like yours truly, every day.

You see, Facebook has been such a prominent presence in our life that I bet few of you can remember what did you do prior to its era. What did you do standing in the train on your way to work, what did you do waiting for your food in the restaurant, and what did you do lying in your bed at night. True, Twitter and Instagram are popular too, but admittedly they have their limitations that make them not as obsessive as Facebook, or at least not in the same way as Facebook. Most of us have the Facebook app on our mobile. We scroll through our newsfeed reading all the status updates and news our friends share. You know something goes viral when you see more than one friends put it on their wall, which brings me to my point…

Do you notice less and less people actually write their own status update nowadays, with the emphasis on the word write. Half of the people post pictures (half of this half are selfies/wefies, another half being your vacation/traveling/food photos), the second half of the people share posts, articles, news, or whatever-others-are-posting. Of course I share others’ posts occasionally too in addition to my own status updates, but what I mean here is that some people seem to have their Facebook account swamped 100% with posts shared from other sources. I enjoy reading posts shared by my friends, because frankly speaking I would not be able to read all the news in the world and learn all the new knowledges by my own, in my limited world. Through different posts from different sources shared by friends I have learned a great deal, so I should say upfront I have nothing against sharing posts. But to share blindly and directly without having a piece of their mind on it, that’s another story. Many just share the posts without adding some words of their own. Okay, that’s not true, sometimes they do, in the form of friends’ names that they tag. Just names.

And since I am a self-proclaimed Facebook addict, there is no escape for me from these posts my friends share. When you scroll your mobile often enough, you’ll find some common behaviors or similarities between these friends and the posts they share. One person usually exhibits only one or two (at most three, I dare say) of these types, and if you scroll through his/her wall you’ll most probably find that most of the posts on that wall belong to one of the below categories. Now, if you have already felt offended by what I’d written so far, chances are, you are one of these people I’m talking about. Even if I say I don’t mean to offend anyone you wouldn’t believe it anyway. People are so easily offended nowadays they are offended by a cat crossing the road. Just stop reading. Please. I beg you.

The rest of you, are you ready? The 10 types of posts-sharing friends on Facebook:

(1)    The Condemning Government Type: They like and follow every Facebook page that angrily condemns the government, and they share every post that comes out from these pages onto their wall. Some of these pages have very unnerving names that challenge your identity and imply as if you are a traitor if you do not like and follow them, e.g. "If You Are a Chinese, Come In" or "You Are Not Malaysian If You Don’t Share This". They blindly share everything without adding their own comments so it appears they just scan the original article (some don’t even bother to click and read the contents, they just read the headlines and share) and click share right away without thinking deep whether the article makes sense. It makes the overall “chi” very negative. Lots of these news are written as some sort of political propaganda, some make sense and open up your eyes to a brand new world, some don’t. Some of these news are not even real, they are laughably childish that one might think the admin of these pages wrote them as a joke, but guess what, it leads us to…

(2)    The Genuinely Believing in Laughably Fake News Type: These friends share a lot of "shocking" news without verifying the authenticity of the news, like "Government to ban Facebook starting next Tuesday" or "Rowan Atkinson passed away last night". If you scan through the posts by these friends, you'll realize at least half of them are not true. Thing is, they do not share it as a joke but instead they genuinely believe in the news and want to be the first to break it to their friends by putting it onto their wall. Some will add “R.I.P.” though unfortunately (or fortunately???) the object of their mourning is still alive and kicking.

(3)    The Everything Causes Cancer Type: They frequently share articles that denounce every possible food you can find on earth to be the cause of cancer. These articles usually have titles that are so eyeball-inducing like "Stop Eating This or You Will Die in 5 Years" or "Please Tell Your Friends No More Eating This". By the logic of these articles combined, even drinking plain water alone will cause cancer. It appears we would not die of cancer anyway, but instead of hunger. A sub-group of similar type is the "Eat this and you will live longer" type, which tells you to eat this and that to prolong your life. I bet if you read enough of these articles you’ll eventually come across two different articles mentioning the same food, one says it causes cancer while another says it gives you another 20 years to live. Which would you believe then?

(4)    The Uniquely Weird and Funny Video Type: Have you heard of Motoki Maxted before? No, you have, you really have. You just don’t remember his name. You have seen his videos before. He is that dude who was riding with his mother while singing and behaving annoyingly to several of the pop songs. We were supposed to laugh at his childish behavior while feeling bad for his mom for having to be part of her son’s plan to become an internet sensation. But apparently it works. He is some sort of internet celebrity with more than 2 million Facebook followers, and one or a few of these 2 million happens to be your friends. But Motoki Maxted is not alone. A lot of celebrities who only exist in social media share videos that have got nothing to do with their profession, but rather quite random and often funny videos which are then reposted by your friends to their wall. And then there are these friends who are so resourceful they like, follow and share videos from so many different Facebook pages, some of them even named in some foreign languages we don't use here in our country. It doesn’t matter though, these videos are usually so weird and funny it only brings you joy.

(5)    The 9Gag Type: Yes, simple and straight forward. They just share every 9Gag picture.

(6)    The Do Good to Society Type: They always share posts that report missing person. I don’t deny it is good to help, but perhaps sometimes pay attention to the details and do some research too? Don't share some missing person report from half year ago that was widely reported that the person had been found. Also in this category is those who like to play judge and share posts that report some "unfair" situation or some alleged "douche" doing some "bad" stuff. Thing is, most of these posts are one-sided and those who share were not even physically there at the scene when it happened. Sometimes the content is pretty straight forward, like the one post showing an irresponsible driver throwing garbage out of the car onto the road. Yes, serve the douche right. But other times the truth might not be as how they were presented. The truth might not be shown or purposely hidden by the original poster. Remember, sometimes you are not helping, you are actually hurting people by sharing these posts. You are not there, you don’t know the whole truth. Sometimes those who claim they were being bullied are actually the real bully. They just turn the whole story to their benefit. Be careful in choosing which to share.

(7)    The Top 10 Food Type: It’s relatively new, but suddenly everyone is sharing various lists of top 10 food in xxx area. Now, if you tell me you have compiled a list of top 10 food in the whole Klang Valley or the whole Penang Island, I would say “great, let’s get on a food trip”. But most of the time, these are “top 10 food in xxx Suburb” or “top 10 food in xxx Street”. Really? On a street no more than 5 kilometers and probably has only 15 food stalls/restaurants/eateries you manage to find 10 food that taste so good and worth making a list? Believe me, I have seen the “Top 10 Food in Taman OUG” (where I stay) and half of the food making the list are mediocre.

(8)    The Inspirational Quotes / Stories Type: It’s refreshing to read inspirational quotes with beautiful background pictures once in a while. We all need the positive “chi” and motivation especially in the era when things that evoke anger (and stupid politicians) are all around us. Do you dare say seeing “I Can and I Will” written on the picture of a beautiful sunset does not melt your heart and brighten your day? But sometimes when a friend shares such quotes so prominently you start to wonder is he/she the reincarnation of Pollyana? For these people, 75% of their wall are made up of such quotes you know nothing else about them except that they constantly need the uplift these quotes bring to them. What’s even worse than quotes are those supposedly motivating stories that teach you life lessons. I don’t mind reading stories. In fact, I love stories. But when the stories are so badly written they remind you of the secondary school Pendidikan Moral textbook, I roll my eyes. Perhaps these friends secretly enjoy Pendidikan Moral in school?

(9)    The My Zodiac Sign is Number One Type: There’s nothing that makes me feel old more than this one. The reason? Because most of them falling into this category are very young people. They’ll share things like “Top 5 Zodiac Signs That Make a Good Boyfriend” or “Top 3 Zodiac Signs of Smartest People”, and 99% of the time their Zodiac sign is #1 on the list, and the other 1% of the time they will tag another friend whose Zodiac sign is #1. Truth is, most of these people do not actually believe in what they share, they just do it for fun. I get it, stop being so serious, it’s just a post, stop over-analyzing. But when your Zodiac sign is not on the list of say, the smartest people, you’ll go “What? Of all the people in the universe born in this one month period every year, none of them is smart?”

(10)The Parenting Tips Type: Correction: There’s actually another type that makes me feel even older. When most of your friends from high school have reached the phase of sharing useful parenting tips from various websites on their wall, you know you are old.

But wait, there’s more!

One last type of really annoying sharing: The “Share this and you’ll be rich in two weeks” type. Really? I share a picture of a really big and rare turtle and it will rain cash on my front porch? But really, you should try it, you might actually get a surprise in your bank account in one month time. It is called salary.

I die.