Red Cliff 2 赤壁(下)

Finally finished watching the movie Red Cliff 2. It is a modern interpretation of a story based on a novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The novel itself is about 70% true to history, 30% fictitious. As the story has quite a high percentage of fictitious elements, the direct John Woo, decided to take the liberty to change the story to his own liking. OMG, the most famous plot in the original Red Cliff is Zhou Yu spanking his most loyal general Huang Gai to deceive the enemy, and that leads to the success of the battle. Because now we have a super model Ms Lin Zi-ling in the cast too, so the story is changed that Zhou Yu's wife, Xiao Qiao (starring Lin Zi-ling) deceived the enemy, Cao Cao, to help win the battle.

The ending of the movie is even more ridiculous. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Zhou Yu, Sun Quan all surrounded Cao Cao, but Zhou Yu let Cao Cao go. Haha, very good, the only happy person may be Guan Yu. He finally gets rid of the blame of letting Cao Cao escape.

The fighting scenes, especially the fire attack part is not bad, looks grand, but other than that, nothing much interesting.

My rating: 2.5/5.

Watch it if you have nothing better to do :P

10-min Hair Cut

Where do you usually go for your hair cut? I used to go to neighbourhood barber shops, but now have changed to mainly those 10-min cut chain shops. So far I have tried out both QB House and EC House.

The quality very much depends on the particular person serving you. I have been to QB house many times, the experience differs from very good, to average or bad. My recent trip there I was served by John Tay. He was friendly, and most importantly, his skills are good. After the hair cut, I looked very fresh. I am very happy with the hair cut. But then another time, I was served by another guy. He was a bit rude. At the end of the cut, I requested him to trim a bit more here & there. He was not very pleased and complained that I should have told him earlier, blah blah blah.... Lots of complaints! I made similar requests before to other hairdressers at the same QB house branch, nobody has made any noise before, this guy is the first one.

Another bad experience was with EC house (@ Woodlands Civic Centre). The guy used a shaver with a very blunt blade I think. The shaver kept pulling my hair and it was very painful. I informed the guy, politely requesting him to change to another one, but he refused! He said that shaver was a new one. So he stubbornly used that blunt shaver, although with more care. I don't know whether it was the shaver's problem or his problem, after I complained, the shaver didn't pull my hair anymore. It gave me a very bad impression on that guy.

Microstock: Go Exclusive

At present, most contributors submit to a few microstock agencies at the same time. If a customer can't get an image at one site, he/she can get it elsewhere, sometimes with a better price. One good example is a contributor will get a $28.00 for selling an image with enhanced license at Shutterstock.com, while at Fotolia.com, a contributor only gets $6.60.

Going exclusive is a definite advantage for the microstock agencies. This means customers can only come to them to get that particular image at the agency's price. The customer loses some bargaining power.

However, from the contributor's point, is going exclusive a wise choice? Let's say Yur Acurs, the legendary microstock star, goes exclusive with ABC agency. Would it be advantageous to him? It is reported that Yuri makes around $10,000 a month from one agency. Assuming he only make such amount at 3 agencies, then his monthly revenue is $30,000. If he goes exclusive with one agency, assuming his sales boosts by 50% because his fans follow him to ABC agency, and a 50% increase in payout rate for being exclusive, then his revenue will be around $22,500 per month all in all.

Under the current economic conditions, another serious concern for going exclusive is the risk of agency going bankrupt. If you submit to a few agencies, one of them fails, you still have your stream of income from other agencies; if you are exclusive to one agency and it fails, then that's it. Your income will immediately drops down to zero. You have to again painstakingly build up your portfolio with another agency. I am not talking about what kind legal tussle you may have to face with your photos previously at your exclusive agency.

Just my thoughts...

Christie's - A Robber's Accomplice

Christie's just auctioned off the bronze rat's head and the bronze rabbit's head in its latest auction in Paris. They are two of the 12 Chinese zodiac scupltures that once graced the Imperial Summer Palace in Beijing.

This serves as a reminder to the Chinese that if you are not strong enough to defend your own home, robbers will just come in and take whatever they want, and ask you for a ransom to get your OWN stuff back!

I don't really care about the two bronze heads. Wherever they are, not my business, but the Chinese shall forever remember the shame of being defeated by the British and French troops in 1860. More importantly, we must learn the lesson & get strong; otherwise, the robbers will just come in again to loot another national treasure!

Ta Prohm - The Angkor Experience

It used to be sacred place, a place of ceremony, a place where artisans show off their skillful dances. The pass glory has transformed into today's rumble of falling stones. Visitors can only take a peek into the great performances by the artisans by looking at the fading carving at the walls.



The monks are long gone, but the religious teaching remains. What can be a better example than Ta Prohm itself to tell the visitors nothing is permanent in this world? This once splendid temple has been reduced to piles of moss-covers broken stones. Who could have imagined such a great monument will ever fall? Just like nobody had ever imagined Titanic would sink!


Just like life is full of ups and downs, Ta Prohm has fallen for hundreds of years, then in 2001, it shot back to international fame for being the location where the final scenes of Tomb Raider the movie was shot. The scene of temple ruins interwined with the trees and the forest has been deeply planted into the mind of thousands of movie goers.

Life is full of ups and downs, so when you are down, don't be too upset, because your up days have not come yet...

[You can find my other entries on Cambodia here.]

Thousand Smiling Faces - Bayon

Angkor Wat is well-known in the world, but in terms of architecture, it is just plain simple a temple structure with more decorations, but Bayon, overwhelmed by the fame of Angkor Wat, has a very unique feature - the thousand smiling faces.

When King Jayavarman VII built the city of Bayon, he ordered his face to be seen in every part of the city. I was amazed by this special feature of the ancient construction. Everywhere you go, every corner you turn, you will see his smiling face. It is like a ghost, it is like an angel, it is like your own shadow, following every step you take.

Do you find his smile has the same quality as that of Mona Lisa? His eyes are closed, but the tips of his mouth are tilted upwards, obviously smiling. What is he smiling about? For the great achievement of his own? For this architecture wonder, historic monument he has created? Or... Nobody can tell, he is just smiling, in all directions, to all the visitors, to friends and enemy. He is never tired, he is always smiling.

[You can find my other entries on Cambodia here.]

JB Food Experience

How can one go to JB without enjoying some good and cheap food? We did a little bit of food hunt as well.

Breakfast at OldTown Cafe at City Square. I ordered the ice-fire bun. I was wondering what it means by ice-fire? Would fire dancing atop ice cubes? When the food was delivered, alama, it was just a bun with butter sandwiched. Our explanation is that the bun is hot, so it is the FIRE; the butter is cold, so obviously it is the ICE! Nice name, but lousy stuff. Big thumbs down! For coffee, I orderd Nanyang Memory white coffee. Oh, it was very strong. Its strength does not come right away, but it will 'release' its energy slowly.

Ice-Fire Bun from OldTown Cafe

Our lunch was a coffee tucked in somewhere in Taman Johor Jaya. We ordered some rice noodles, and Hokkien noodle. All noodels, hungry for noodles, hahah.... Well, the taste was quite ordinary, not worth a special mention.

After lunch, we enjoyed a bowl of Chendol as dessert at a road side store. Well, the chendol was not bad.

Road-side Chendol

Dinner was at a back alley that I will never ever go on my own. My friends brought me there for an experience.

The Food Back Alley

We ordered the samba stingray for RM20.00. Take a look at our stingray below, the portion is big. You can't get this for S$10. In terms of taste, it was good. The fish was tender. It kind of melts in your mouth. It is mouth-watering by just thinking about it.

Then I ordered a bowl of rice noodle with fish. Alama, it turned out to be a bad choice. The taste was not really bad. It has this special sour taste that you can't find in other such noodles in Singapore. No, it is not rotten food, the sour taste is that kind of sour that you will find in Thai Tom Yam Kung. Other than that special, nothing is worth mentioning, even not worth that RM6.00 I paid for this small bowl of noodle.

Sounds like JB does not have lots of good food hor. I guess you really need to be a 'hunter' to go to those popular good food haunts. In addition, Malaysians' taste is also a bit from Singaporeans, a different understanding of standard of hygiene too. Another common problem is once a stall/store becomes famous, the standard drops off the cliff. Good food becomes bad food.

How to Get To Jusco at Tebrau City

There are three simple ways to get to Jusco@Tebrau City.

1. Take a taxi. You know JB taxis don't run on fare meter even if there is one in the taxi. You always have to negotiate a fare to your destination. The last price I heard is RM22.00 from City Square to Tebrau City.

2. Take a public bus in front of JB Central/City Square. There are a number of buses that pass by Tebrau City. Two of them I know are Bus 6B & Bus 188. The cost is RM2.50 per person per trip. Alight at the bus stop after you see Tesco, a recently opened shopping mall, which is just a stone's throw away from Jusco.

Dari: Bandar Raya
Ke: Taman Johor Jaya

3. Of course you can drive to Jusco. After you pass the custom, just take the Tebrau Highway straight.

Ok, what is there at Jusco. Jusco is the anchor tenant at Tebrau City, another mega shopping mall in JB. Comparing with the last time I was there, the only difference now is more shops have closed down. The things there are too expensive for Malaysia's standard of living, in my humbe opinion. The newly opened Tesco is slightly better. At least I can still find some good buys there.

Oh, by the way, there is a toy shop in Tesco selling remote-controlled helicopters at the price of RM89.00, the same model selling at City Square is RM99.00, a slight price difference.