There I said it. If you watched it last night then do drop a note and tell me what you thought. Will update with youtube links once they are up.

Briefly, LGE opened with a flurry of accusations, touching on 5-6 “land scandals”. As the night went on though they focused on one particular scandal, the “40 million loss” related to the awarding of land to a private quarry contractor.

Koh managed to defend himself very well imo. His points were:

- The root cause of the confusion was a slipup made in the land dept 40 years ago.

- He had not met with the government privately to discuss the issue as they were constantly “going public” with new claims of “land scams”

- The “40 million” figure was merely the court amount. The contractor is apparently willing to settle for 1.5 mil.

- He had not fired the individual involved, as he had ordered investigations not once but twice against him but there was no concrete proof that  there was criminal intent involved. The new government had not fired the official either.

- He had not gone public as the case was in court and he would be committing subjudice.

LGE made glaring errors in the debate:

- During the cross, Koh pointed out that the contractor was willing to settle for 1.5 mil; presumably the new Govt knew this as well. He asked why the 40 mil figure was constantly bandied about when the case was still being contested in court. LGE didn’t answer the question but did some pandering instead.

- Koh pointed out that the new govt had earlier accused of having come into an empty office with the state documents missing, but in fact while the office of the CM itself was free of documents, they could all - “thousands and thousands of them” - be easily found in the private archives on the same floor. LGE didn’t respond directly to this.

LGE did a lot of pandering to the crowd, which I thought was a waste of time. It made him look as if he were running for reelection. The constant tirades against the old govt instead of focusing on the topic at hand made Koh’s points seem more valid.

Koh on the other hand only focused on the 40 mil issue. Although he handily rebutted LGE’s accusations on that issue and definitely came out looking good, I would have liked to hear about PGCC.

For my part, the debate did a lot to convince me that the current govt is going down the wrong path in constantly going after the old administration. I remember after Koh’s gentlemanly concession in March, they were initially planning to consult him on governing the state. Gerakan was once an opposition party, and recent events hint that some within the party are dissatisfied with BN. I’d try to build bridges, not burn them.

[update]Lim Guan Eng also made an extremely bold statement during the debate: that his government would eradicate hardcore poverty in Penang within one year. That’ll definitely come back to bite him if he doesn’t deliver.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Dark Knight Returns

Batman first came alive for me when I read Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns (1986), which told the story of an aged Batman returning to fight crime. Its grim take on superheroes and mature themes remain an influence on comic books today (and who could forget the iconic panels of Batman showing Clark who’s boss?)

So The Dark Knight was a much awaited movie for me. Batman Begins was a decent film, but most of the time was spent on the origin story (no super powers, borrring..) and let’s face it you can’t remember the villain’s name, can you? TDK would feature two of Batman’s most famous opponents: the Joker and Two-Face.

Living up to Hype

Early reviews had nothing but praise for the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, which half worried me, would I go in expecting too much? Superhero movies are a dime a dozen now; this summer alone has seen Hancock, Wanted, Iron Man, Hulk, and Hellboy all grace the screen. Is there space for a hero with no powers?

There is :). What I liked most about TDK was that yes, Ledger’s performance deserves all the accolades you can throw at it. But less mentioned is that the rest of the ensemble: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and even Alfred (Michael Caine) all put in stellar performances (Morgan Freeman was good too, but at this point I go “WTF not YOU again” whenever I see him in a movie). In fact, given that I already knew Ledger would be awesome, Eckhart’s portrayal of Harvey Dent knocked me off my feet. He could easily have been overshadowed by the Joker, but his descent from being the “white knight” of Gotham into Harvey Two-Face was tragic and believable. Watch the movie in a different way, and The Dark Knight could just as easily been about Harvey Dent.

A Script Apart

I think that TDK is the film it is because it all meshes together; the acting, the costumes, the action the cinematography, all based on an amazing script. It’s easy to take a superhero movie and turn it into a blockbuster - just get the origin story right, maybe add a catchy theme, put in the fancy CGI, a DID (damsel in distress), a cheesy dialogue about how good triumphs over evil. And trust that the otakus will rush in anyway. Or if all else fails, just pull in Will Smith (god Hancock was bad). TDK has raised the bar, so much so that I look back now to Spiderman - which before this was generally regarded as the standard for superhero movies - and think “Cheer up emo kid!”.

Depicting morality outside of black and white is not just elusive to a hero movie. All movies - heck, games, books, music; every form of art has always struggled with putting forth a valid painting of gray. That is the real reason why The Dark Knight is not only the best superhero movie, but the best movie this year. Batman deals with getting the job done without feeding his darker side. Gordon struggles with having to deal with a corrupt force, his friends among them. Harvey has to balance himself on a pedestal, set up as the moral beacon of Gotham. The insane, anachronist Joker sets up impossible dilemmas for the Batman, one after another. Beneath the violence and choices lie moments that make you think: Now what would I have done?

Light spoiler ▼

It’s a whopping two and a half hours long, and scorns the typical “Intro-conflict-resolution”, but trust me it’s all worth it, all the way to Gordon’s closing monologue, which would have been cheesy in any other film, but in TDK it sums up perfectly; how the best of us can fail, and how it is in our nature to need a hero to project our hopes and fears to - which Batman paradoxically cannot be, and in the end, the people of Gotham get the hero they deserve.

The Dark Knight is required watching this year, or be prepared to be left out of many dinnertime conversations to come!

Postscript: Shattering records

TDK is on its way to breaking box-office records, and has shot to the top of IMDB’s highest rated movies, which is unprecendented:

Popularity: 39% [?]

Bioshock’s forte is its breathtaking art direction, and it wastes no time in showing it off. You start as an anonymous passenger on a plane that crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. Water and fire are gloriously, fluidly rendered as you swim in the wreckage and eventually you spot the only land in sight: an island with a solitary, imposing lighthouse. The commanding use of light and shadow here set the tone for the rest of the game. It is also the last time you will be in an open space - Bioshock is set in the underwater city of Rapture, and uses clever, claustrophobic level design and a limited but expressive set of enemies to keep framerates smooth.

You soon descend by bathysphere into Rapture, a utopia envisioned by Andrew Ryan to be free of the failures and limitations of the surface. As Ryan’s iconic speech goes:

I am Andrew Ryan and I am here to ask you a question:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something
different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture.

Admist the towering monuments to the greatness of Rapture, something becomes clear: there is trouble in paradise. Genetic advancements have gone awry, turning its citizens into scavenging mutants with only twisted memories of their past lives. They all crave ADAM - stem cells which power genetic abilities - and will gladly kill you for it. Also roaming the corridors of Rapture are Little Sisters, eerie children who harvest ADAM from dead bodies, and the hulking Big Daddies, who protect them.

Gameplay: Well designed, user friendly

Genetic modification is a thinly veiled replacement for what magic and spells are in other games, of course. Througout the game, you use ADAM to purchase plasmids and genetic enhancements which grant you special abilities, as well as more slots to equip these abilities simultaneously. Your abilities are complemented with “conventional” weapons, from the standard-issue pistol, shotgun, and SMG; to the more exotic flamethrower and crossbow. There are three ammunition types for every weapon. There was an innovation I liked: the research camera, which is used to “shoot” enemies, giving you research points depending on how good the photograph was, which leads to combat advantages against that enemy type, or information about their weaknesses.

Combat is unavoidable and plentiful (this is an FPS after all). There is enough variety to keep it fresh, and ample opportunities to use the environment to your advantage. You can use Telekinesis to throw gas canisters at your enemies, Incinerate on oil spills to set your enemies aflame, Electricity on enemies in water to electrocute them, etc. Unlike in Deus Ex, your genetic implants can be swapped out whenever you find the correct machine, leaving you with the abilities for every situation.

Sound: simply masterful

Voice acting, dialogue, and sound direction is impeccable in this game, from the objectivist monologues of Andrew Ryan to the demented screams of the splicers, and the rumbling grunts of the Big Daddies. An one memorable instance I came across a phonograph, turned it on, and the lilting melody of Patti Page’s (How Much is) That Doggie in the Window filled the air. It was a testament to Bioshock’s ability to immerse that I didn’t hear a cute cover of a nursery rhyme, but a haunting remnant of an attempt to invoke memories of the surface world and loved ones left behind:

I must take a trip to California
And leave my poor sweetheart alone
If he has a dog, he won’t be lonesome
And the doggie will have a good home.

But not perfect

That said, Bishock isn’t without its flaws. There is an over-reliance on audio journals to reveal backstory and advance the plot. Granted, the voice acting is absolutely superb, but it still detracts a little from the immersion - what are the odds that *every* inhabitant in Rapture happens to go around recording key points in their lives for you to pick up?

Security-related minigames seem to be the “in” thing in recent games, but most of them miss the mark - the only two games I can remember having decent implementations were Deus Ex, where your skill level determined how long a terminal would stay open and determine how much time you had to fiddle with controls and read classified information; and Oblivion’s lockpicking minigame, which tried for *some* realism. Bioshock’s hacking minigame sadly, falls short of the bar. It’s essentially an adaptation of the puzzle game Pipe Dream. The minigame itself is ok (even though it doesn’t make much sense) - but after about twenty times, it gets old. In theory, hacking is optional, but in practice, since you have very limited ammo and even cash capacity, you’ll find yourself having to hack everything that can be hacked, which spoils the immersion.

Bioshock is also nearly completely linear, which can be a turn-off. There is only one decision you need to make in the game: whether or not to harvest Little Sisters for ADAM, which enables you to purchase genetic upgrades; or to save them, which only grants half as much ADAM. And no, I don’t consider this a spoiler since this aspect of the game was trumpeted in every preview. I found the “decision” to harvest or save the Sisters moot - for one thing, you get “gifts” of ADAM as you save the Sisters, which lessens the penalty. You don’t actually need that much ADAM to get through the game, especially if you have played many shooters. Excepting your first few Big Daddy battles, the game is pretty straightforward otherwise. You know that a game isn’t presenting enough of a challenge when you actually down the final boss on Hard in your first try (and I’m not even very good at shooters, ask my friends!).

Verdict: Instant Classic

Quibbles aside, Bioshock is a game that is destined to be a classic for its immersiveness and artistry, as well as its unique steampunk-noir theme. If there were a reason to go out and buy a good graphic and sound card, this would be it. I liken it to one of those art films which you go “wow!” at, and rave about to all your friends; but know you may never watch again.

Rating: 85
+5 if you really love good graphics and sound
-5 if non-linearity puts you off

Postscript: Technical Issues

When first released, Bioshock featured a fairly restrictive DRM which limited every purchase to two “activations”. This limit was subsequently increased to five, and recently abolished altogether. There were also issues relating to how widescreen FOV was being implemented, but that’s fixed in the latest patch (Turn “FOV locking” off in Options).

Screenshots:

Popularity: 39% [?]

The much-awaited Opera 9.5 was released on Thursday. There are several improvements that I’ve been waiting for, especially the optimized mail and RSS feed engine. Opera no longer freezes for a while when you have a lot of feeds subscribed - according to the devs this is due to better spreading of the load among CPU cores. It was pretty much the only beef I had with Opera. Took me about 15 minutes to convert my 70,000 email messages into the new format though.

9.5 also sees the addition of a live search which kicks in when you type a term into the address bar. It doesn’t only search through past URLs and page headers, it goes through the content of the pages in your history as well - in real-time!

There were other minor changes I found useful - after downloading a file, you can now open its destination folder directly in the Transfer menu. The image toggle, which lets you choose between showing all images, showing only cached images, or disable images, is now enabled by default in the status bar. There’s also a funky feature called “Create follower tab”, which creates an empty tab in the background. Any links you click on your current tab will then be opened in the follower tab, instead of the current page. The “Next/Previous” buttons, which automatically tries to detect if there are any next/previous links on the page, also have a higher success rate now.

The full list of changes is available in the changelog. There are other features that are great but I don’t use much (or rather, that I have never found an issue ): security updates, speed improvements (Opera was already fast anyway), fraud protection, etc.

It’s not all good though (this is to prove I’m not a blind fanboy). As many people over at the dev blog are saying, the release seems a bit rushed (probably to beat FF3 to the finish). As a result, Opera doesn’t seem as stable as before. It tends to crash if you leave it running for a few hours. The new default skin is pretty ugly as well, but that’s easily fixed by getting the classic skin here.

The dev blog does mention that the number of Opera users has doubled since the v9 series launched, which is good but still amounts to less than 1% of the market share :(. Opera users, evangelize more!

Three more days till the June 17 launch of Firefox 3, I’ll update then with any benchmarks I find.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Massive spoiler alert! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie.
Read rest of post…

Popularity: 49% [?]

Indy 4 is almost here!! The early reviews are starting to trickle out already but I’ve been forcing myself not to read them - I gather it at least doesn’t suck though. Which at least says something given all the hype surrounding it.

To entertain myself (and you!) during the wait, I’ve been comparing what we know of Crystal Skull to the previous Indy movies. All pics of Crystal Skull here are from the trailer (and yes, the 130MB version ), so no danger of spoilers here!

Indy’s Sidekick

“Mutt” vs Short Round (Temple of Doom) vs Henry Jones, Sr. (Last Crusade).

What’s a hero without a trusty sidekick? Crystal Skull sees Shia LeBeouf (Transformers) in the role. Seriously though, what kind of name is “Mutt”? There’d better be an explanation.

I’d say most of us didn’t find Short Round as cute as we could have if we weren’t Asian ourselves. He does get a good one liner “You call him Dr. Jones!” and his own jingle that overlays with the main Raiders theme nicely though. I liked him and he’s a fan favourite, but I think that Sean Connery’s performance is just too hard to top :).

Femme Fatale

Irina Spalko vs Elsa Schneider (Last Crusade)

S: How dare you kiss me!
*kiss*
I: Leave me alone - I don’t like fast women.
*kiss*
S: And I hate arrogant men!
*kiss*

The love scenes in an Indy movie are always hilarious. It’s hard to top Alison Doody’s performance as the sexy Nazi from the Last Crusade, but if there’s anyone who can it’d be Cate Blanchett! As if to make the point, her bobbed ‘do is the total opposite of Schneider’s blonde bombshell look. Will Spalko pull a double with Mutt too I wonder…

Archeological thingamajig

Crystal Skulls vs The Ark of the Covenant (Raiders) vs Sankara Stones (Temple of Doom) vs The Holy Grail (Last Crusade)

(No pic of crystal skulls in the trailer :( )Ah what is Indiana Jones if not for treasure hunts? Unlike some other movies (*ahem*National Treasure*ahem*Tomb Raider), the story leading up to them is usually the right balance between an afterthought and being too convulted. I personally liked the Holy Grail’s plotline best.

Scary tribes

Scary tribe vs scary tribe from Raiders vs scary tribe from Temple of Doom

Many movies have Nazis, but savages never go out of vogue in Indiana Jones. Kali worshippers from ToD were the scariest hands down… they freaking tore out human hearts, roasted their victims as human sacrifices, poked a voodoo doll of you full of needles if you got too annoying, and converted you by forcing you to drink blood!

Life-threatening Trap

Revolving column vs Gigantic Boulder (Raiders) vs Crushing Ceiling (Temple of Doom) vs Tomb filled with burning petrol (Last Crusade)

Another Indiana Jones staple, served with copious amounts of creepy crawlies. I’d say the crushing ceiling from Tod was the most entertaining since it looked his closest to death.

And that’s it! I can’t wait! See you next week with a review!

Popularity: 50% [?]

Been practically “off the grid” the past week - discovered and promptly became a fanboy of How I Met Your Mother, a CBS sitcom now in it’s third season. A little surprising for me since after the end of Friends and Will and Grace I thought the whole “group of young adults in the city” sitcom thing had been milked dry.

The premise seems generic at first. It’s told from the perspective of Ted Mosby in 2030, telling his children the story of how he met their mother. I was actually quite disappointed with the pilot - the characters seemed generic, and I was like “Bah I know how this’ll go”. For all the brilliance of Friends, you always knew Ross would end up with Rachel. But HIMYM pulled a doozie when it ended its pilot with future Ted stating to his children “And that’s the story of how I met your Aunt Robin.” Jeng jeng jeng!

At first I only continued watching because I wondered how the heck a show would last when it told you up front that no, its flagship couple would in fact *not* end up together, but gradually I began to appreciate what set it apart.

Flashbacks and creative narration have always made for good viewing - Friends had the hilarious bits of the gang in college, Will and Grace had that amazing episode where Will first came out to Grace. And House isn’t a sitcom, but the Emmy-winning episode Three Stories is a shining example of the method. HIMYM exploits these techniques to the fullest, using its narrative setting to jump back and forth in the “story” for that episode (because of this, HIMYM isn’t performed live and every episode takes about three times as long to produce).

It also rewards viewer loyalty by doing this even between episodes! In the third-to-last episode of Season 2, the story centers around Ted, but we see flashes of Marshall wearing a hat at his wedding table, and of Robin’s apartment with a particular ornament missing. The next two episodes tell us the stories behind them and weave deftly into the season finale. A far cry from the more episodic (and rerun-friendly ) format of other shows.

And of course there’s Barney, who steals every scene he’s in. I’m not sure whether it’s because Neil Patrick Harris ( who recently sort-of criticized Britney Spears guest appearance on the show ) is just a damn good actor, or if he gets all the best catchphrases (probably both). I’d watch the show for him alone!

The rest of the cast aren’t bad, but they pretty much stick to their roles, letting the script and direction shine instead. I thought Robin was too good-looking to be believable at first, but after a certain episode in Season 2 (”Let’s go the Mall!”) she was redeemed.

HIMYM uses Internet buzz well. Barney constantly refers to “his blog” in the show, which is an actual one hosted at CBS and updated regularly, but sadly it seems that its archives got lost in a site revamp. Josh Radnor, who plays Ted, has a blog at TV Guide.com, it’s not updated regularly but has some pretty good stories.

And yes, I’ll say it: HIMYM is as awesome as Will and Grace, and even - wait for it - Friends. Yes it’s that awesome! Too bad it doesn’t seem to be showing on Astro any more.

Popularity: 52% [?]

You reach the season end of a show you recently started watching… :(

BUT then you notice the scrollbar at the bottom - there was another episode left to watch!!

How I Met Your Mother has been growing on me . Been getting cranky after being too long away from sitcoms! It seemed lame at first but blossomed out after the middle of the first season. Surprising for a show that tells you in the first episode that the main love plot ala “Ross and Rachel” is doomed not to work out! Not quite up there with WnG or Friends yet, but I’m giving it time. Barney especially is a legendary character.

Exhibit A: ”The greatest pickup line of all time”

Popularity: 53% [?]

Wow can’t believe I forgot to post this! And that no one reminded me!

Spiderman 3

I wonder if Kirsten Dunst is tired of spending the latter part of Spiderman movies screaming and screaming. At least she didn’t have to get wet this time round (good for her, I mean).

But I have to admit the action was mind-blowing; all the fight scenes looked good. And the overall story was passable. Didn’t think that much of the “archvillian with heart” stuff, but thought the whole overconfident Peter plot was done well (how many times have you said “Yes, I understand” when you really don’t?). Didn’t find Peter making a fool of himself all that funny.

The Peter-Harry teamup was cool enough, but though you could see Harry’s death coming a mile away it was still cheeesy. Especially with the sunset.

Pirates of the Carribean 3

Couldn’t wait to get out of the cinema while watching this one. Convulted, insanely long plot. And what are all the gazillion white crabs supposed to signify? Didn’t get it at all.

The evolution of Pirates 3 is pretty similar to Dragonball if you think about it. First you have a nice simple story about people going off to find lost dragon balls medallions. Simple plot, manageable cast.

Then you revisit the story and go off again finding lost uncles fathers with more action, more plot.

But people want more! So you kill off a hero, go off to faraway planets the other side, make some of the bad guys the good guys, and stuff it with even more action and characters.

And what was with the whole arc with Calypso? I didn’t see any point in it. And Elizabeth’s “freedom” speech had me gagging. I hope we won’t be seeing more calls for “freedom” in Transformers too.

Lost Season 3 Finale

Lost had me worried this season. Some cast members were even commenting on the lack of screen time they were getting. And while love triangles are always fun for the fans, it was getting way too draggy.

But the finale (and the episodes leading up to it) just blew my mind. The writers did a perfect job of weaving together the myriad subplots. My heart was literally thumping hard every second; one of the (increasingly rare) times when you have a total suspension of disbelief and you absolutely have no idea what’s going to happen next. In fact, it was so good, I’m not going to spoil it for you!

Watching the Lost finale before the House, MD season finale was a bad bad idea. It made House seem dull by comparison (which is saying a lot, since I love House). And House’s “twist” at the end had nothing on the one Lost had…

Popularity: 22% [?]

Ok, ok I’m a little late to the party. But for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, think Friendster except instead of sharing friends you share inane bookmarks.

Useful for me because I’ve been piling up a lot of bookmarks and need a place to organize them. Trying to decide between Del.icio.us and BlinkList atm.

Del.icio.us has a (much) larger userbase, useful for finding sites related to your interests. It was also acquired by Yahoo! recently so there’s no chance of it going under, and you can expect updates and features to come regularly.

I like BlinkList’s interface though - more personal. When you add a page to BlinkList, you don’t have to open a new window, and you can view the tags you already have. That’s a nice implementation of AJAX. It also lets you rate and “star” bookmarks so they stand out. If you’re looking for the Boleh spirit, MindValley, the company behind it, is partly based in Malaysia; could also be a reason why BlinkList feels faster for me. Drawback is the smaller userbase.

[Edit] If you want the stats, Del.icio.us has 1,000,000 US visitors and BlinkList about 200,000.

What’s impressive about both is they support Opera well. Kudos! What’s bad is that both don’t let you mass edit bookmarks to say, delete them or make them private. There are several other options that I didn’t try: Furl (ugly GUI), Magnolia (GUI too good, maybe if I had a better connection..), BlueDot (too MySpace-y), etc.

[Update] You can read a more detailed review here.

Surprisingly, Google Bookmarks is pretty lame.

[Update]I’ve settled on BlinkList. You can view my BlinkList here. I’ve also added it to the bottom of my sidebar.

On the subject of socializing, wth is wrong with the BN “bocor” clowns? You don’t need a PR agent to realize a simple, unconditional “sorry” is what’s needed here. Meanwhile, DAP and PKR are happily milking the issue for all it’s worth.

Popularity: 37% [?]