Daily misery

Today is World AIDS Day. A Belgian advertising agency called Duval Guillaume created this commercial and I think it portrays the message of AIDS very well. Very very well indeed.

Have been wanting to write about this British movie for a while ever since I watched it a couple weeks ago. I will let the trailer does the talking.

View Trailer

Fell in love with the song that appears near the end of the trailer? There you go.

[http://www.alvinwoon.com/blog/wp-content/images/14.- El Bosco - Nirvana.mp3]

We were tired after running around like turkeys trying to hit each other with snow…errr powder. None of them knows how to make a proper snow ball except me. Muahaha, it comes with experience, guys.

I like this picture :). Three boneheads lying on the snow freezing our back trying to take a decent photo shot of ourselves. You cant get more self-absorb than that.

For more pictures, visit Pixel of my life.

Hehe, I sounded weird in the video. But boy was that the worst blizzard I have ever encountered. The visibility was less than 5 meters and snow flakes were hitting our car like raining bullets. We had to sing and make jokes along the way to control the tension and fear that our car will get blew away by the wind.

BUSY.

There, I’ve said it.

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One of the better crafted campaign effort for Commercial Film Producers of Europe. By TBWA\PHS, Finland.

Via Advertising/Design Goodness.

I’d watched three movies for the last three days and there were all so good I think you all should pay me money just for reading this recommendation.

Or I can always hypnotize you. “You are getting tired, you do not want another crappy movie, you want an Alvin’s recommendation list, now when I snap my fingers you will have to go watch these 3 movies.”

Snap.

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This is the full list of the software I have in my current workstation. It gives you a general idea of what a web developer has in his/her machine. Hopefully it will justifies our plea for more RAM…

Note: Click on the picture for the full list screenshot.

Most of my friends who are still in school are having their final exam this week. I spent the most part of the evening with Ryan who was studying for his Communication Network exam tommorow. He was putting the final touch into his project report while I was sipping away my hot chocolate reading the newsreader. And it suddenly hit me in the head that……..

I didnt try hard enough. While studying for my degree, I’d always made myself to believe that I always tried to my fullest ability and made every possible efforts to achieve the best possible outcome. Whatever that prints out from that little piece of transcript doesnt really matter as I have indeed tried my best. It is extremely comforting to tell yourself that you’ve tried your best when you get a crappy grade for your academia course. In fact, it’s like the Great Big Lie that everyone believes in, except you yourself.

Not until today did I realize I was lying to myself all this time. There were so much I could have done, so much more. I whined about not having enough time to read that one extra chapter or finish that last question in the test, but it all really came down to bad time management, laziness, procrastination and most of all, not wanting to do anything thinking I was too damn good for just about everything. And I was wrong.

Now, whenever I see people who looks high and low for excuses (or reasons…) for not putting effort into their study or what they are doing, I am not angry at them. Nor am I feeling sad for them. Sure, it’s not their interest, they have other priorities, too many part time jobs or simply too many curriculum activities. To be honest, I dont know what to feel when stumble across this type of people. All I know for a fact is, we are talking about 3 years or more of our life time here. I am hitting 24 next year and trust me, 3 years seem like something you cant buy even with a billion dollars and many diamonds.

Someday the difference between a 3.5 and 4.0 CGPA will seems so much when I reflect on my life 30 years down the road. And when that day arrives, I will tell my children that it is very important to cherish and work hard during their school days, just like how my parent used to tell me not so long ago.

Regrets? Yeah I have tonnes of em’ right now.

I’ve already told a couple of my friends about this. What I really want is to be able to buy an island and build a beach side villa with a full frontal 180 degree sea view from the 2nd floor balcony and a waterfall-themed swimming pool. The interior of the villa should be filled with wooden furniture and I want the ceiling of the master bedroom to be transparent but with retractable roof for star gazing and natural lights purposes. Lots of coconut trees too.

Then I want to throw all my electronic gadgets into the sea and spend the rest of my life computer-less.

Girl, wife or love of a lifetime is not necessary a must, but I wouldnt mind sharing the island with a girl that has a smile resembling Rachel McAdams. In my ideal world, Rachel McAdams herself would occupy the other half of my master-double-combo-extra large king size bed.

Oh and also a puppy and a chimpanzee if she’s not allergic to animal.

Things might be a little bit wacko here in Daily Misery over the next couple of days. I am upgrading Wordpress to the latest version and plan to change a couple of things here and there in alvinwoon.com.

A new design to welcome 2006 maybe?

Stay tune.

Dear Rachel,

I saw you in ‘Family Stone’ the other day. As usual, you’re stunning in there, outshining the rest of the cast. God must have spent a lot of time putting that finishing touch on your lovely smile - you’re gorgeous when you smile.

I heard you were engaged to that Goose guy earlier this month. I am glad for you two, sincerely. I am hoping to see more of you in 2006, maybe in a little bit more darker films. Of course a ‘Wedding Crasher 2′ can’t hurt. You made love story looked good too. I should stop.

Mike was not kidding when he said I cant write a proper love letter. But I am not too old to have a celebrity crush. It wouldnt be by any tiny minnow little chance that by giving you a proper entry in Daily Misery might somehow means something more to you than the whatever-carat diamond ring that Goose guy gave you, would it? I am prepare to dedicate my entire month posting slots just for you if in a most unlikely event the answer is ‘yes’.

Hugs,
Alvin

So the new DM’s design went for a soft launch today. I hope the latest design will stay in my Wordpress’s theme folder for a longer period this time. But then I’d probably said the exact same thing for you-know how many times. As some of you might have noticed, Daily Misery has gone through more changes than i would have liked and I would love to maintain a sense of consistency within the element of design starting now. Besides, I highly doubt I would have as much free time to work on personal project comes 2006 and would be fairly happy if the constant flow of content in DM can be maintained.

I am really looking forward for next year. It would be the year, I hope, for things to settle down. A point in life where I can finally say ‘let’s stop looking around. Let’s start from here.’ This year has been sort of like a ’startup’ year for me. I got my degree, got my first real job, my first car, my first one bedroom apartment and founded my first studio. I was exhausted to a point where it would be really nice if everything just stops for a short while. (more…)

I enjoyed King Kong. It was a great movie, and you can rewatch the dinasours chasing scene over and over again because it was just so damn good. Although I must say, being Ancrophobic and all, the last twenty minutes of the movie had been a torturous, almost-pee-in-my-pant kind of experience. Why do they have to hug and kiss on the roof of the highest building in the world at that time? It was so windy and dangerous and…high above the ground.

Putting aside the marvellous GC works of the movie, critiques and writers had mentioned one other subtle yet integral element that makes the movie clicks is the corny love story between an ape and a woman. Integral element - yes. Love - not quite so. (more…)