Red Cliff Part 1

I am an avid fan of the "Romance of Three Kingsdoms", back since the day I bought a Taiwanese comic book about the title.

After watching countless war movies, such as Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, and other English titles, I have been waiting for the day Romance would be shown on the big screen.

As such, when "Red Cliff Part 1" is out, I went to watch it straight away.

However, the movie is a major letdown.

Sure, some of the battle scenes were very intense, such as the part where Zhao Yun went to save Ah Dou.

But, in the last battle of Part 1, the battles involving Zhang Fei and Guan Yu were atrocious, to such an effect that it looks like some kids wrote the script for that.

Instead of using his trusted snake-headed spear, Zhang Fei rushed out to face countless enemies, and resorted to headbutts and punches?

In another scene, Guan Yu threw out his big sword, so that he could fight unarmed, using his enemies' spears instead?

Both of these scenes doesn't make sense, given that any self-respecting martial arts practicer would never leave his/her weapons behind.

Another thing that annoyed me is the dialogue for Xiao Jiao.

Gems such as "You are better than Chao Chao, because he does't have friends" not only pained the ears but also made my hairs stand.

For the main characters, Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, the portrayal is different from the "Romance", which I guess is due to that it is based on the more factual "San Guo Zhi."

Anyway, overall, I would rate this movie at 2/5.

For avid fans of "Romance", avoid this at all costs.

I hope Part 2 will be a lot better. :|

IEEE citation style for Word 2007?

I still remembered I made a complaint about Office 2007 a few months back, especially about Powerpoint and Groove.

Anyway, I have been working on a paper for the past few weeks, and it's the first time I have used Word 2007 to write it. Previous papers were done using Word 2003.

To my pleasant surprise, Msoft did get something right this time.

Word 2007 has several useful features for writing papers. One of the major cause of headache when writing a research paper is the need to keep constant track of the references made, because we have to number the references according to their appearance on the document.

Eg. I have put paper A as reference [1], but suddenly I found that I need to quote paper B before that paper A. This means I need to renumber paper A as [2], and paper B as [1].

Now, when I have 20+ references, the changes are going to get ugly.

However, in Word 2007, under the "References" toolbar, there's all sort of tools to help in this bibliography. It can even auto-generate the table of content.

The only problem now is, we can only choose a few citation styles which is built-in, and that list of styles does not include IEEE's style.

I found a page that teaches how to create our own citation style, but I find it a chore now, since I wanted to finish my paper a.s.a.p.

Hopefully some good soul out there can help. :)

I signed up for PayPerPost!

I had signed up for PayPerPost.com, which pays bloggers to post reviews about their customers’ products. It’s fabulous, considering that it pays good, and opportunities are aplenty.

I had joined lotsa online ads companies since my undergrad days. Back then, Starcraft was "the game" and I devoted a website totally for that game. I put it on geocities, before it was took over by Yahoo. However, it's gone now, but that was my first website, coded using plain HTML and that was what got me started in web programming.

Since I started the website, I then searched for ways to earn from online ads by joining several pay per click and pay per lead companies. It was the height of the dot-com craze then, and companies were paying big bucks for any clicks and leads to their site. I still remembered a certain free webhosting company was paying USD2 for every signup at their site. At first, money was slow, but as my traffic picks up, so does the money.

However, as we know, the dotcom bubble burst, and basically that meant the slump of online ads as well, I mean at least for small-timers like me. However, now that blogging has become mainstream, opportunities to make money are growing once again. PayPerPost is one such chance for us bloggers to make some money, especially since we are paid in USD. A simple example: once you signed up, and make a review like this post of mine, you will get USD 20! (note: this is subject to their approval, of course :)

The things that I loved about PayPerPost (apart from the $) are its great customer service and not to mention the simple and clear-cut interface once I logged in to the system.

In a nutshell, if you are blogging, and wants to help reviewing and get paid for it, join PayPerPost now by click on the image:

blog reviews

Happy blogging! (and earning :)

Diablo III

Diablo 3 is finally announced! It's a long time since Diablo 2, so hopefully it will be ready soon.

It has already been developed since 4 years ago, but as usual, Blizzard's games will only be ready, when "it's ready".

I just hope for two things, that it won't be canceled like Starcraft: Ghost, and the graphics would be in-line with the current technology.

Ok, the graphics have to be compatible with my GF6600 GT. :)

Source:Diablo III First Look - PC News at GameSpot

Petrol price increased

Source: Petrol to cost RM2.70 from midnight (updated)

Yesterday they said the subsidy is going to be reviewed, but only changed by August.

Now, they are going to increase petrol from RM1.92 to RM2.70 per litre by midnight!

When I was coming back from Melaka Raya, the whole road near Bukit Baru was jammed, due to the long queue of vehicles waiting to pump in petrol and get some "savings" before tomorrow.

The Petronas in Bukit Beruang had one of the worst queues, where it starts from the traffic light, and ends near the end of road near pasar malam.

With the increase of 40%, I dread to think of the prices for all the food and commodities tomorrow.

I hate the way they always suddenly announce prices are going to increase by midnight.

Can't they announce it like a few days beforehand, so that there won't be any rush?

KLCI is going to drop greatly tomorrow.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Source: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm56923648/tt0367882

I have just watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday night.

I am a fan of the Indiana Jones series, since I watched them in RTM2
when I was a kid, and played the LucasArts Indiana Jones' game as well.

However, I would rate this movie a 5/10.

I find that the plot of the story doesn't make sense.

The old man (friend of Indy whom became mad) was said to have been to the temple where there are the crystal skulls.

He supposedly reached inside and saw the alien there, but then managed to return back to the place where he found the skull originally.

However, towards the end, when the Ukrainian girl placed the skull back to the skeleton, she was instead incinerated by the alien.

So, this brings to mind, why didn't the old man replace the skull back to the skeleton when he reached the temple? If he did, why wasn't he killed by the alien?

All in all, the movie's plot had too many loopholes that it made the film seems childish.

Melaka Land Office Mistake again?

"Some 36 property owners, whose buildings' back portions on the Malacca River’s reserve along Lorong Hang Jebat have been earmarked for demolition, want the state to spell out its plans.

One owner, Ken Lai, 55, said the 30-day notice calling for the demolition was unreasonable.

“The Malacca River project has been going on for two years and the authorities never mentioned anything although measuring the area six times,” he said here yesterday.

In February, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam had degazetted acquisition of 143 properties in Lorong Hang Jebat, Jalan Kampung Pantai and Jalan Kampung Hulu.

He admitted that the land office had made a mistake as the Jan 17 notice of acquisition was for abandoned or derelict buildings only."

Yeah right, it's just another "mistake" on the land office part.

Source
Property owners: Spell out plans