Better use up all my rental coupons fast, I called Tai Koo branch today and they confirm closing about May or June which means they won't have any new titles coming in. Or maybe I'll trade a large amount of old vcds with them for cash coupons but damn! I'm leaving for 11 days and it seems nothing left to buy once I'm back.

If I absolutely have to see a movie as soon as possible, then I would have gone to the theater, as a loyal customer and a movie lover, I personally like dvd's with all the extras, and the better sound and picture quality, compare with the pirate vcd/dvd.

I only wish that there will be a store that carry imported dvd's, foreign films, cult films and more obscure stuff. I'd join it in a heartbeat!

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I'm almost certainly a third-party victim of the virus. Some spam emails are being sent from an infected PC.

Such virus is causing Window$ computers to send thousands of copies of itself to every email address it can find, there's nothing you can do about it - and no amount of virus scanning will fix it because, having a mac, you're not infected.

Some may said it's not because Mac is any better, it's because the software wasn't written for Mac. Open a mac virus on a PC, it don't work either. So if I had a Mac virus that wasted my time on the Mac, would that be a good reason to use a PC instead?

I've never read a blog about how devastating the virus attacks on the Mac has been, or OS X having a virus problem. Can someone name a potential virus to which OS X is susceptible to attack? We can read about new viruses weekly on Window$, sometimes daily, surely we have sorrow-stories hourly about the Mac viruses that rave the world, right?

Oh well, I'll just enjoy the virus-free OS X while it lasts.

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I just had a wonderful chat with someone in Belgium, we used Sherlock to translate it, with the help of Sherlock, I speak French and he speaks Chinese, it was cool! And thankfully we didn't lose in translation.

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I failed to mention something in yesterday, that the master swordsman - Hiroyuki Sanada, you may know him from Japan's Ring and the oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film - The Twilight Samurai, a good post-Kurosawa samurai movie, he is one of my favorite Japanese actor, create very memorable character. I wanted the story to be more about them rather than Tom Cruise.

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Kung Hay Fat Choi everyone! Holidays are just too short!

I had a pretty hectic holidays, as I'm sure many of people did, but I did manage to spend some time reading The Hobbit, as well as re-reading The Silmarllion.

Mom had been cooking for days, so there was plenty of food, I was too stuffed. I love Chinese New Year, it was great to meet up with relatives. I have the 7 cousins. The eldest one is 13, struggling in her teenage year and the youngest is only 9 months. The little kids were running around and screaming and do stupid things. When I was watching Queen's video of We Will Rock You, they sing "wee will wee will rock you!" and repeat it all time. They're so cute!

I saw The Last Samurai during holidays, I liked it, some great action sequences and some walking around sequences featuring Tom Cruise and Samurai "Bob" (die gloriously in the end though) I like the movie isn't like where a white man goes to a foreign land, learn the foreign culture, show them how better white culture is, beat up everyone and some more people, impose his overall superiority and then goes home a hero. The Last Samurai is a story of Samurai teaching an American how to fight and retain one's honor, it made some effort to get away from the usual cliche story-line, Tom Cruise comes to respect and admire Samurai way of life. Cruise delivers a fairly impressive performance (along with the rest of cast), he didn't try to make himself the center of attention during the movie, though he had ample opportunity to do so, like screaming "Freedom" before a battle charge!

Some may wonder Cruise's character - the drunken captain was supposed to be the last Samurai, I have to say the Last Samurai is Ken Watanabe, Cruise is the last samurai's buddy. Ken Watanabe made me believe he was a Samurai. He sells and plays this movie! Too bad he is not on the posters.

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It's chilly cold today (around 8C, it's really uncommon for here), news said this year is the coldest Chinese New Year in 6 years.

I could imagine how bitter nasty bone-freezing cold in Hokkaido. (around -15C)

Tonight was company annual dinner, two of the tables are engrossed in playing Poker. It was the most fun I've had in a while. Eating. Laughing. Lucky draw winning. Story telling.

Holidays start tomorrow and will be away from work for a total of 5 days, a long holidays to mess.

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It looks so much like Ulala from Space Channel 5!!

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So it has been a week, guess I have things worth to write.

Saturday night went out with old friend Clara, ate Japanese ramen in Causeway Bay and went to the Flower Market in Victoria Park afterward, took nothing but pictures, and straight back home to read The Silmarllion.

Since Derek has to work overnight on Saturday, there wasn't much thing to do on Sunday, I finished The Silmarllion, I can't tell if I like it, I had a hard time to remember the various names of Gods & Goddess. Maybe it was because the style of writing is a very different one from The Lord of the Rings, LOTR is a narrative story, I enjoyed the interaction of the LOTR characters. I find The Silmarllion much duller than than LOTR, it's more like a history or mythology in its style. But it's worth reading for completeness, it is a very detailed book. (if you want to know more about the Elder Days and Elves) The Silmarllion is grand enough by any measure. Perhaps a few months later when I come back to it and that time I love it.

I hope to proceed to "The Hobbit", in this book parts of the tales which are related in LOTR.

I saw Underworld last night, I liked the story, vampires vs werewolfs, unfortunately this cool concept gone horribly wasted. The movie is a mess.

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Saturday was the LOTR marathon with Eddie and gabefung, started from 10.30am, with two small break between each one, we walked out the cinema at 12:00am, after the credit end and the curtain draped. Almost 14 hours, that's about the same as a flight fly from Hong kong to Vancouver!

I'm so excited that I had the opportunity to see the extended version of Fellowship and Two Towers plus Return of the King once again at the theater, absolutely fantastic! Grand Ocean has the bigger screen than standard, it was awesome!!

I reckon Peter Jackson in Return of the King, he was the captain of the black ship. After repeated viewings, Gabriel and I also reckon a cute big-eye girl repeated on screen, first she was one of those Hobbit children who gasps during Bilbo's story, then in Two Towers, she was a frighten child in her mother's arms, in the cave at Helms Deep. In Return of the King, she was in a black rope bidding farewell to Faramir's troop, near the end back to Sam's wedding, she was there as well. Gabriel told me she is Peter Jackson's kid, credited as Cute Hobbit Children and Cute Rohan refugee children.

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