If I can turn back time

Time travel is such a wonderful thing that doesn't exist in our current technological capability as far as I know. Yet we are so well educated on the concept through movies. Movies make such abstract theory so vivid that we feel we can almost take advantage of it one day.

Of all the time travel movies I watched so many years, I remember Chow Sing Chi's A Chinese odyssey and Donnie Darko the most.

A Chinese odyssey told the story of how Chow Sing Chi discovered his true identity and his true love throught the interactions with other characters during his many trips in time. Donnie Darko found a gap in time that he could took the opportunity to save what he treasured. Ever since Back to the future, time travelling had become less linear. Time travellers in movies are now allow to travel back and forth. The only exception is the Terminator trilogy which terminators could only be transported to the time after the last movie - how boring.

One of the major plot twist in these movies: if characters are allowed to go back to a period of time, can they change their history? Of course, some yes and some no. But at the end I guess it doesn't really matter.

As in Eternal sunlight in a spotless mind, the two ex-lovers got back to the same point even after they had their memories erased. We could not tell if things would end the same the second round, but our personalities and characters defined our behaviors, our tastes. We like what we like. And more than likely, we fall in love with the same person again. And again. Yes, and there is also this thing call fate.

Bill Murray learned about himself through living the same day repeatedly until perfection in Groundhog day. Every once in awhile I imagine how good it would be if I can only turn back time.. The truth is: some of the hard lessons I probably remembered, as for the others I will just do the same like clockwork.

Who's the good guy?

United 93 is a fictional docu-drama weaved from some shattered pieces of memories. At the end, I had questions about the accuracy of the plot, but I still thought the screenplay and direction made it an effective movie. All in all, it's a calculated commercial movie that told a heroic story. (warning: excessive use of hand-held camera may cause motion sickness)

I had reservations on the official US government reports about the 911 attack. There is no justification for the anti-terrorist war. Sometimes conspiracy theories are more believable than the official announcements.

Who can we trust? Governments are about wealth and power. Some claimed to be pro-human rights religions are not all that innocent and have their own agenda under the covers.

Looks like the loose change video had generated sufficient attentions that someone decides to stand up against the questionable arguments. See: Screw loose change

After watching all these documentaries, do we have a better idea who's good and who's bad?
We believe what we want to, don't we? Like always, if there is truth, I think it lies somewhere between the 2 camps.

Go watch Loose change 2E on Google:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218920724339766288

5 years after the incident, nothing was settled.

mix0906

I used to make mixed tapes when I was in school. Put together a bunch of songs I liked and shared them with friends. Tapes are almost extinct. A close friend of mine requested me to do a podcast mix for her some time ago.

After a busy summer, I finally found some time this weekend to put together a compilation. The work involved: found a bunch of songs, recorded them to the PC, arranged them into orders, edited the extra blank space, normalized the volume of all the recordings, recorded the songs into a disc image, converted them into mp3s, merged all the mp3s together.

Sound quality of resulting mix was not as good as I desired, but I just had to compromise with lower sampling rate so the file wouldn't take too long to download. The normalization clipped some of the songs, but the mix was still listenable.

Some dance, alternative, acoustic, rock, and pop songs. This is a compilation of tunes that I think may be interesting together. (I couldn't believe I ended up with 3 Limp Bizkit songs in the mix.)
Track listing of the 80 min mix:

Rogue Wave\Descended Like Vultures\California
Pink Martini\Hang On Little Tomato\Clementine
Belle & Sebastian\The Life Pursuit\Dress Up In You
Fischerspooner\Odyssey\Cloud
Talking Heads\77\Psycho Killer [Acoustic]
Limp Bizkit\Greatest Hitz\Home Sweet Home_Bittersweet Sympony
Fischerspooner\Odyssey\We Need A War
The Libertines\The Libertines\Can_t Stand Me Now
Bauhaus\Swing The Heartache\She_s In Parties
Limp Bizkit\Greatest Hitz\Build A Bridge
Sainte-Marie Chloe Parle-moi\Brule brule
The Jesus & Mary Chain\Psychocandy\Just Like Honey
Pink Martini\Hang On Little Tomato\Hang On Little Tomato
I Am The World Trade Center\The Cover Up\His _n_ Hers
Koop\Waltz For Koop\Summer Sun
Limp Bizkit\Greatest Hitz\Take A Look Around
Pink Martini\Hang On Little Tomato\Anna (El Negro Zumbon)
I Am The World Trade Center\The Cover Up\Future Sightings
Talking Heads\77\Sugar On My Tongue
Sainte-Marie Chloe Parle-moi\Au sortir du labyrinthe
Belle & Sebastian\The Life Pursuit\Act Of The Apostle
The Jesus & Mary Chain\Psychocandy\Cut Dead
Fischerspooner\Odyssey\All We Are

Body modification

Some friends are going through the difficult times of seperation/ divorce as we speak. One family bought a resort property last year, and is in the middle of renovating it. Now they are negotiating on the disposal of the project and how to split their wealth.

Why do we want to get married? Most marriges begin with a ceremony, where fans, friends, and families attend and show their support. They get drunk, screaming and yelling for their side. It's just like what happen in any games, matches, or races.

What are we looking for in a marriage, is it really a competition? We start out as partners working towards a goal, or don't we? What do we want to achieve at the end? Happy together? Not being lonely? A family? A home? Some babies? A peace of mind? Someone to do the plumbing? Love? Sex? Someone to share the flat? A cardboard partner to show your side? Friendship? Someone you can always talk to? Millions of projects that you can't dream off alone? An experience?

The list can go on forever. It's all positive things, it's about changes.

It is however difficult to control changes, much worst, changes of more than oneself. What is built based on a goodwill may not be all that desirable after it is worn off by time. If not addressed properly, a marriage dissolves. At the end, friends and relatives give you sound advise on how to get even, or get the bigger piece of th pie, how to cut your loses.

At this point, we are are talking about true competitons where winning is the name of the game. People are seeking for external help; marrige consultants are useless while lawyers are really on your side. Lawyers shake a marriage inside out and wake both parties up from their dreams, their nightmares, from their human nature. Everthing must be fair and square. Of course, one always wants to get treated with a bit more fairness (at the expense of the others). When things are settled, the ex-couple gets their shares and our lawyer friends get their well-deserved fees.

Love is like a cut on your hand, and marriage is like a tattoo.
"a tattoo is normally forever; what cost you $75 on a drunken revel is likely to cost over $1500 to have removed" - Fashion, a crash course

Lucky number Slevin

What is Lucky number Slevin? It's another Tarantinoesque movie. Some sort of twists, plus violent, plus cutting room magic, plus hatred and revenge. No questions were left unanswered at the end of the show.

These popular movies are all about getting even. It may be a reflection on how flustrated we are with the unfairness in the world today. After we get hurt, the only relieve we can get is from a movie, from a fantasy that people can actually get rampage over what was done wrong to them. And likely getting away with it. Bill was killed and so were the others.

Then it's the revenge from the other end, and on and on we go. We just spend our time forever hating each other, planning for a revenge, perform it, and waiting for one to come at us after. At the end there is no getting even, we just a bunch of animals that lives with anger and dies in anger.

I am shocked by all the urban disturbances these days. And I blame it on popular culture. In fact, popular culture and the youth influence each other. In the harsh world we are living in, I don't see the current trend is leading us to anywhere peaceful. Maybe human aren't all that civilized after all. Yes, we all gonna die sometime, but I certainly hope our meaning of life is not to kill one another.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/14/gunman-shooting.html
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/09/11/1826348.html

Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party

I came across this DVD set, The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, in the public library. Anonymous distributor, no credits, no information about the production except the titles of the 9 episodes included in the set.

I watched the first episode of the series. At first, it looked like one of those legitimate mainland Chinese TV program. Within minutes, it was very clear where the program was going. I then had doubt that it was an official documentary. It expained why there were no contact information on the DVDs.

My curious mind urged me to find out more on this title. I did my research, and discovered these videos are tied to Epoch Times. And Epoch Times is linked to the notorious Falun Gong. Furthermore, Nine commentaries was originally published as a book and was translated into many languages.

Mainland Chinese government declared Falun Gong illegal in 1999. I didn't see how a set of slow meditative exercises could be theatening the society at that time. There were a series of arrest, crackdown and human vaporization followed. The TV program radically criticized the ruling of the Chinese government. There were only negative analysis. I questioned the neutrality and integrity of the contents. It accused the communist government as an evil cult, made me wonder if it was just a revenge on what the government declared Falun Gong previously.

It was unclear on the true intention of original Falun Gong society, but it is definitely against the ruling of the Chinese communist party now.

Li Hongzhi, the founder of the Falun Gong religious movement, liked any other cult leader, was a mystery (or a question mark ?). Reading interview articles on him was like watching Rashomon. His speech was not consistent, not to say convincing. Maybe I only have regular persons intelligent and cannot really look up to specially gifted person, I was alienated by his literally alien talks.

In 2005, someone tapped into the Jinan public TV channels and boardcast the Nine Commentaries for over 10 minutes! Sounded like one of the scenes from V for Vendetta.

Time Asia interview
BBC
The nine commentaries site
Jinan
Downloads

September 11

It was early in the morning, I was in the office and someone announced a plane crashed into a highrise in New York. We all rushed to an office with a TV set and watched the incident, wondering what happened and why. Before long, a second plane hit the other tower. I did not know how to react, it's all too dramatic. The scene looked like what we could only see in Hollywood disastor movies. Unfortunately, it turned out to be real.

Now, five years later, after numerous anit-terrorist attacks, do we feel any safer? Are we living in a better world than before? Are we certain who did the attack? Did we catch the masterminds behind all the acts and put them behind bars? Or did we bomb who we think are their families? Is it possible that someone else's families who were not part of the original terrorist deals got mistreated and started to take revenge?

We use violence against violence, terrorism against terrorism. Can two wrongs make any rights? I find it harder and harder to discriminate one from another. I guess we are hoping that we will get peace from wars. We are human, and we care about our families and friends. Whoever's not for us is against us, we are rightous and therefore they are wrong, they get what they deserve and we don't need to treat them fair. Only by defeating and removing all the possible threats can we sleep sound at night.

We are the superheroes and we liberate people from dark dictatorship. We know what is good for you, and we can decide what kind of life you should be living. This is liberty, this is liberation, this is how the world should be: like me.

If this is justice we are performing, I question the integrity of justice. The only winner from this are weapon dealers and maybe someone who's benefiting from helping his friends making extra profits. I want to know what people will say twenty years from now.

France’s Le Monde newspaper wrote an editorial stating that “since Sept. 11, America has not, it’s true, been attacked on its territory, but the world has changed for the worse.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14780467/

Cinderella

The days are getting shorter and evenings come earlier. Summer is almost over.

Most schools resume their classes after this Labor Day long weekend every year. As usual, most students make good use of their last days of their summer vacation to enjoy life before going back to their routines. Some families choose to bring their kids for a real getaway vacation. It was quiet in town for the past few days, and people are returning from all directions today. What a scene!

This is not how the traditional Cinderella story begins: I can see all the princesses having fun, running around, singing, and dancing their days and nights away all summer. When the clock strike midnight, they all left one of their glass slipper behind and go back to their reality. Wishing one day they will be discovered/ recovered from their normal life by their prince charm while they are lost in their work. And this is that longing that keeps us going. This wishful thinking that makes us feel there is a reason for tomorrow. There is something or someone outside waiting for us that is worthwhile for our everlasting content and patience.

My favorite movies

I found it quite impossible to compile a top 10 list of my favourite movies. 10 is just too small a number to slot all these good movies out there. Every once in awhile when an interesting film touched me on some level, the only reward I could give was to give them a rating in IMDB.

The following is by no means complete (it is missing most of the classics for the least) but it's kind of reflecting what I like. For more details of each film, follow the link to the original list and select the individual movie. Enjoy.

About a Boy (2002)
American Beauty (1999)
Amores perros (2000)
Ardilla roja, La (1993)
Baraka (1992)
Batoru rowaiaru (2000)
Before Sunset (2004)
Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
Chung hing sam lam (1994)
Cidade de Deus (2002)
City of Hope (1991)
Crash (2004/I)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Eight Men Out (1988)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Fargo (1996)
Fight Club (1999)
Gattaca (1997)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
The Guru (2002)
Hable con ella (2002)
Homme du train, L' (2002)
Invasions barbares, Les (2003)
Jui oi nui yun kau muk kong (2006)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Limbo (1999)
Lone Star (1996)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Lord of War (2005)
Lucía y el sexo (2001)
Memento (2000)
Men with Guns (1997/II)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Monsieur Hire (1989)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Out of Sight (1998)
Passion Fish (1992)
Pianiste, La (2001)
Pieces of April (2003)
Powder Keg (2001)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Shrek (2001)
Spoorloos (1988)
The Straight Story (1999)
The Tao of Steve (2000)
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)
Tianqiao bu jianle (2002)
Toto le héros (1991)
The Truman Show (1998)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Y tu mamá también (2001)