nanking nanking (2009)

We finally finished Nanking Nanking (also known as City of Life and Death) today. Really good film from the start to the end, capturing the feeling of the Rape of Nanking. Anyone even slightly interested in history or asian film should spend some time to watch this.

As an aside, I’m really glad that Stella is a person who appreciates the things that I do as well. It’s great that we are able to watch and enjoy things together. Makes having common hobbies a whole lot more enjoyable and meaningful.

Looking back at 09, looking forward to 10

Now that the new year is upon us, I thought that it would be nice to look back upon all that has happened in the past year and think about the future at the same time.

I guess I can say that 2009 has been a fruitful year for me. I got to do everything I wanted to do, and it was also a life changing year. This is the year where I got the chance of teaching an official class. Granted, it was merely a tutorial class in the university, but I had the opportunity to help young adults with their work. This was especially significant for me as well, as I realized from this experience that I actually liked and wanted to continue with teaching as a career at the jc/uni level. I’ve never been one who knew want he wanted in his life, and I don’t look too far ahead in the future as well. Something like that is certainly something to celebrate about. All these would not have come about without the support of Stella. If not for her support and constant reassurances, I would have gone crazy from the feeling that I’m one of those aimless people out there. Not that it’s a bad thing of course – just that it was starting to get to me at a personal level. So I haven’t yet announced it, but yes- I’ve sent my application to NIE. yay!

As a couple, Stella and I also had many great experiences: I  bought her her first iPod, we watched a broadway musical, a one woman solo play, found great new places to eat, had a picnic at the park, took nice pictures with the lomo and visited HK and Vietnam with friends. These were things that we’ve always wanted to do and finally got a chance to achieve. We also completed our Apple family tree with the buying of the iPhone, so that was pretty significant too. In terms of our gaming life, we’ve started roleplaying and playing a lot more boardgames on a regular basis. This was something we enjoy very much and it is definitely an activity we will continue to pursue together.

Looking into the future, in the next month or so I’ll have to finish my thesis, and then it will be off to Hokkaido for our second grad trip. Hopefully we would have gotten a DSLR by then. After which would be NIE (assuming I get the job), and life will continue to unfold from there, with passion and lots of drive. I’m just really thankful that I have Stella who has been so supportive and understanding every step of the way. 2010 is gonna be a blast.

Happy New Year people!

Travel Bug

It seems that every Xmas and the New Year period, most people go abroad on holidays, or at least go for a short getaway with their loved ones and family.

Looking back at the previous trips that Stella and I have gone on, I have to admit that I’ve finally caught the travel bug. I’ve never been much of a travel person much, and my idea of spending the holidays used to be hanging out at home or just around, and the thought of leaving the country never crossed my mind. However, ever since I met Stella, we’ve been on a good number of trips : Taiwan with my mom and my brother, Korea, HK, and Vietnam. Each trip has further enhanced my experiences of the world, and while there are some who would rather head off to another country and never come back, I return loving Singapore more and more. Yes, every country has its own hard to accept aspects, but at the same time, there is something to like about each. It could be something as mundane as the simple life, or something on the opposite spectrum like waking up to the hustle and bustle of the city – there’s something there, which another country does not have. Every time I return from a trip, I’ll want to go to someplace else, and recently I’ve been thinking about it a lot more. As much as possible, I try to share some part of it on this blog, but yet at times I feel that I’ll never be able to give the country justice for what it is. There are feelings, experiences that mere words and pictures cannot describe. Without making travel like an academic subject, I’ve written in length about the Soul of the City – and I still feel that there is nothing that can beat being there, sitting there, and letting the city flow into you.

In a couple of months, the MA course would be over. We have put aside some money every month in the hopes that we’ll get a decent secondhand DSLR in time for Hokkaido, and start taking some serious holiday photography. Crossing our fingers that we’ll not miss the Sakura season.

Simple report of WFRP3 after one game

Saturday’s game was supposed to be one where I finished up the neverending dungeon of D&D with the players (I don’t know why the fuck we never could get out of there), but as 3 of them couldn’t turn up, I decided to run WFRP3 with Stella and Shang. Since I got the game only the night before, I only had less than 4 hours to read through the rules and get the gist of character creation down. Needless to say, I made a couple of bad mistakes along the way, but overall, it was a good change of pace, and certainly a very promising game, depending on the kinds of expansions that will come out in the near future. I’ve ordered the Adventurer’s Toolkit, and the official campaign, The Gathering Storm, was announced a couple of weeks back. Will be interesting to see how that pans out.

Session report (A Day Late, a Shilling Short) :

Rogen the Woodelf Thief and Thoradin the Dwarf Slayer have been staying in the Red Moon in for a couple of days. Rogen, on a personal quest to steal a precious wizard’s orb, is restless. A package that was due to arrive a day ago – the sender being his friend- was late. Thoradin, looking for a glorious death in battle, follows him in search for a good fight.

There, along the road, with dark clouds in the distance, they see a carriage, overturned and under attack by a couple of gors and ungor beastmen. Rutger Abend, Rogen’s friend, was badly wounded and was battling a gor while the ungors tore at the carriage. Rogen let loose an arrow from long range, which hits the gor in the arm, attracting it’s attention. It howls in rage, and points to the two heroes. The ungors charge and the battle was in earnest. Thoradin promptly lept into the fray, and attacked the beastmen, while Rogen let loose a hail of death from afar. It was at this point where the two realised that the gor had a warhorn slung across its waist. They knew that they had to kill it before it had the chance to call for reinforcements. And they did.

Unbeknownst to them, there was a merchant trapped inside the carriage, and it was at this point of time where he decided to pop his head out and started calling for help. The dwarf, just finishing his kill, was startled (takes one stress) and promptly forms a grudge against the merchant. The merchant (I presented him in the most annoying noble way possible) started whining for help, commanding the two heroes to get him and his stuff out of the carriage, to the dwarf’s irritation. Rogen, remembering the package, tries to find his package, to no avail. The Dwarf threatens to kill the merchant, and decides to untie the horses and ride away, but as luck has it, fails his climb roll. As he struggles to mount the horse, and has Rogen searches in vain for his package amongst the mess of the carriage, a distant horn sounds from the forest.

Three beastmen appear from the trees, lead by a fearsome and cruel looking wargor. They immediately heads toward the carriage. At this point, the dwarf, being sorely irritated by the whining merchant, decides to use his Perform a Stunt card, and throw the merchant in front of the beastmen and attempt to escape. Predictibily, the merchant gets hacked by the beastmen, who then proceed towards the heroes. Rogen starts firing arrows from the back of the carriage, and Thoradin turns around to fight. The fight was bloody, and the dwarf took a lot of wounds, but killed the wargor. Rogen, in a bid to avoid a blow by a gor, ducks around the carriage, forgetting that Rutger was still leaning against the carriage. Rutger’s decapitated head lands in front of Rogen, a grim reminder of what happens when you can’t defend yourself. He promptly unleashes an arrow at the gor, which falls quickly with an arrow in its eye. A crack of lightning, and the rain begins to fall in ernest. Rogen then sees his package, lying on the ground a distance from him. It must have fallen out of the carriage.

Bloodied and worn from battle, both adventurers scramble up their horses and ride off into the distance.

~~~~

Thoughts: This was surprisingly good. The action was smooth, and there was hardly any pause in game to refer to the rulebooks. Mainly this was because everything that you actually needed was there on the cards. After the dice mechanic was understood, both Stella and Shang took to it quickly. There was certainly some grim humor in the game, from the thrown merchant to the friend left to die. Due to the speed of the mechanics, I felt like the players did quite a bit in one 3 hour game. This is important, as I do not get the opportunity to run 6-7 hour games. The d&d game

The dice mechanic was pretty awesome as well. There’s nothing like it that I’ve seen in other games (not that I have a lot of experience, but still,). It almost seems like you are reading tarot cards, interpreting the results to advance the story. Not only do you know whether you succeed, you know why and how you succeeded. That’s powerful.

Where there have been criticisms levelled at FFG for turning WFRP into a boardgame, I am inclined to feel that the fears are mostly unfounded. It DOES have tactile components to represent stress and fatigue and recharge points (and FFG does produce good quality components), so if your idea of a roleplaying game with chits diminishes the value of what an RPG ought to be, then this is not the game for you.

What I didn’t like particularly was the abstract movement. While I do not like the tactical simulationist style of D&D 4e, the abstract movement was a little tricky to handle, at least from a GM’s point of view. I understand the rationale though, as it lends better to a rules light and story heavy kind of setting where combat is not the only part of the game but one of the key events which progresses in the story, but I could imagine it getting a little complicated with more players and enemies.

Conclusion: In sum, I liked it, and I hope that Stella and Shang liked it. I will probably replace D&D with this game. In fact my mind is already rife with ideas for a long term campaign, and I hope that I can finally have one campaign under my belt. Been one of the things I’ve always wanted to do but never had the chance to do so.

iPhone day + meetup with Lalang

Yesterday, we got our iPhones together! We had been talking about it for a long time, and we decided to take the plunge. I also signed up for the mio home plan for the rest of my family during this process. Stella got the 16gb white iPhone, while I decided to get the 32gb one, since it would last me quite a while. So we’re both glad and happy owners of new iPhones, and I think this more or less completes our Apple product family ownership. Guess which belongs to who?
Later that evening, we met up with Lalang and Alvin for dinner at Cafe Iguanas after buying our iPhone covers, followed by more drinks and music at the Pump Room. Although the band came late, we were still entertained by the great music and the jokes that the lead singer cracked during the course of the first set.

Stella and the beer tower :
Both of us:

We stayed on for the second set, and during that time, there were various song dedications, of which one was for the CEO of Starhub. I must say that he was really sporting about being called up on stage and even danced and sang to the song Can’t Take My Eyes of You. The classic moment would have to be when the lead singer called out who’s from M1, Singtel and Starhub respectively just for kicks, and each time, separate portions of the crowd raised their hands and roared in response. It was crazy. As if everyone somehow got the joke and knew what to do.

We then took a cab home and had some delicious processed food at the 7-11 just below Stella’s block. It was nice, just chilling in the middle of the night in the cold evening and chatting. I was glad that I could finally be out with the girlfriend, especially when I’ve been somewhat bedridden and roombound for most of the week. So this was really refreshing.

Wonderful Friday. I love Fridays!

Test post

This is a test post from my iPhone. Testing out the wordpress app.

oops I did it again

So I managed to somehow aggravate my back once again. Am now resting in the comfort of my room, trying not to move around too much. Never take for granted the ability to move around unimpeded, because it is certainly a bitch to be wincing in pain whenever you turn in bed, or get up from a chair. So much for the weight loss efforts too. Think that’s gonna get a reset, since all I’m doing is sitting after eating everyday.

books are good, tv is bad, and freaks do exist in society.

Funny thing happened today: Stella and I were on the train home from lunch with Nat and there was this particular guy who somehow dashed and pushed his way across half a busy train cabin before plonking his ass down on a seat. Soon after, he opened his media player, and proceeded to play some opera track out loud to the entire train, all the while oblivious to the many stares that he was getting.

The question now is whether people like that do indeed know that they are doing something socially deviant, and if so, do they resist conforming because they want to? or because they do not actually think it is wrong. Even if they do not think it wrong, how is it that they still persist in deviant behavior despite the various signals that the environment may be providing? A lack of understanding/knowledge of socionormative cues?

In other news, we’ve taken to clearing our weekly Fringe episodes during the weekends, and realised that this frees up a lot more time to do other stuff. Just last week I taught Stella the freestyle down at the pool. What a difference an hour can make. I wonder how many hours have TV junkies(like me) spent, glued to the box set, where these hours could have been used in some alternative and arguably, more productive manner. Of course, watching shows together with a loved one is excellent bonding time in my opinion at least.

Currently reading a couple of books simultaneously. I think sooner or later I gotta stop starting on too many books and concentrate on actually finishing them. Reading The annotated H.P Lovecraft, Palace of the Plague Lord (Warhammer Fantasy), To Kill a Mockingbird and Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (Kenzaburo Oe).

You don’t scare me

While I’ve been running D&D for the group for the past couple of weeks, somehow or another I’ve been thinking of getting back into Call of Cthulhu. Part of the reason behind this is due to the ease of running CoC games, but the other reason is also because I’ve always had a fascination with horror.

Of course, the main question that arises when thinking about horror is the question of why do we get scared? what makes us scared? Some are afraid of mutilation, some are put off by things that go bump in the dark. Others, like me, appreciate the fear of the unknown more than anything else. Whatever it is, horror roleplaying, or horror appreciation takes two hands to clap: the producer being willing to scare his/her players, and the receiver/player being willing to be scared. It’s difficult, admittedly, to suspend belief of the real world and take the world of the gamemaster seriously, but if you do, you’ll be treated to an experience that you’ll never forget.

Now, anyone willing to be scared?

Our second 10k run

Went for our second Stanchart Run today. Due to the lack of exercise/training and putting on the extra weight, I found it pretty sluggish and difficult to complete the route. Will train harder for next year’s run. Knees and calf muscles are now screaming in pain from the trauma today. The good thing was that Stella ran in the 10k men’s run as well, so we got to run together, and it made the whole race a lot more bearable.

After the run, we headed out to Raffles City to claim some free coffee using my brother’s vouchers, and had some brunch at one of the restaurants in the area. Chatted about school, teaching and advertising. It’s always nice just sitting around and chatting to one another about life, hopes and dreams.