Seen any good movies lately?

I looked back at my last two posts, and couldn't help but say: "Oh my. Did I really write THAT much?" But hey, what's the point of having a personal blog if you have to limit your words, right?

anyway, back to the topic. Try to ask someone, anyone, maybe even yourself: "Have you seen any good movies lately?" and they'll probably scratch their head and went "ummm..." or "uhhh..." before answering. As for me, yes, I did watch a good movie recently. And it's called The Godfather. A 34-year old movie starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Well actually, I've also recently watched The Devil Wears Prada, which was a pretty good movie, as I found out. Meryl Streep is excellent, as usual.

But my point is, it's been a long time since there's been any good Hollywood movie. I recently overheard one of my classmates (who was sitting right in front of me talking real loud, btw. So don't you go thinking I was eavesdropping or something!) talking about the lack of good movies recently. She said that she couldn't stand it anymore because she hasn't gone to the cinema for a month (not too long by my standard) and she just have to watch something. Then she went on and said that the Black Dahlia was stupid. My sister said the Eragon movie never really took off (pun intended) and hence lousy. My brother said that the last half-decent movie he watched was The Departed, but I don't think that counts as a Hollywood movie since it was adapted from a Hongkong movie. This makes me wonder what movies the Academy have lined up for 2007's Oscar. Casino Royale? Urgh. That 9/11 movie which title I can't remember? Probably, if American propaganda is firing up again :)

I wonder how the host will pull off the show and mystified all people into thinking that 2006 had great movies. Ellen Degeneres, my heart goes out to you, girl.

Resuming the journey again...

since I got nothing better to do after the exam, I resumed playing The Longest Journey. undoubtedly the BEST adventure game I've ever had in my entire life (Sierra's classic 'Quest' games notwithstanding). Hell, I think it's the best adventure game EVER MADE! I really can't tell you guys how... ('cool'? nah, that's a juvenile word) fantastic this game is. The artworks are gorgeous, the characters are mesmerizing, the writing is brilliant and perfectly-executed, and its made by Europeans! :P It's a 1997 game, not too old, if you ask me. It's only been... holy cow! Nearly 10 years?! And this year I just turned 24! Damn I'm old!

But I digress. Good adventure games are truly rare nowadays. The sequel to this game, Dreamfall, has an epic and really engrossing story, and I just can't wait what happens in the next game. It's one of those sci-fi games with cliffhanger endings that left you wanting more so badly. The downside is, like most sequels, it's not as good as the first one. There's barely any puzzles, too much time is spent looking at the characters talking to each other, and you can finish the game with hardly an effort in under 20 hours. But my biggest disappointment with Dreamfall is the lack of personality in the dialogues. In TLJ, the dialogues are longer, witty, hilarious, but captivating, even without facial animations and with only limited character animations. Also, TLJ is much more puzzle-oriented. It probably has, oh, around 50 times more puzzles than Dreamfall. Dreamfall's story is great, true, but you've gotta give the gamers something more to do besides walking from point A to B, initiate a dialogue (mostly non-interactive), then walk some more to point C to see another dialogue.

I'm worried because this is usually the case with Japanese games. Japanese games have good stories, but there's rarely any puzzle (or at all) in them (read: not challenging). Hopefully, the next game in this fascinating series will be much more of a game than a movie than the second one.

courtroom TV shows in America

di acara TV sini ada acara yg lumayan menarik ditonton: acara TV yg nunjukin courtroom trials di amrik. well, it's the small cases only, mainly kasus2 perdata, small sue claims, divorce, etc. ada banyak pula tuh, acaranya. di channel Fox aja ada... 5 acara dgn hakim yg bebeda. ada hakim yg nanganin divorce, ada yg nanganin tuntutan2 kecil, ada yg nanganin masalah DNA test. nah, yang terakhir ini nih, DNA test...

di acara courtroom yg ini, one of the person in the couple (be it the man or the woman) filed a petition to the judge to have a DNA test in order to prove whether or not he or she is the true parent of a child. sounds ordinary enough, tapi yg bikin aku takjub, sebagian besar pasangan2 ini gak kawin. acara ini tiap hari, jadi kalo dikalkulasikan brp banyak pasangan yang ngajuin petition ini tiap hari, berapa banyak stasiun TV yg ada acara kyk gini, ya hitung lah berapa anak2 di amrik sini yang hasil MBA. untungnya hukum sini udah mengcover masalah2 kayak gini. jadi kalo tbukti memang anaknya, biarpun gak kawin, ya si cowok tetap harus provide child support utk menghidupi anak dan istri... ngg... pasangannya.

it kinda make me think, you know, about the situation in my own country. hukum soal2 kayak gini masih lemah di Indonesia. kasihan anak2 yg hasil out of wedlock gitu, di Indonesia kbanyakan mungkin udah di aborsi, di bunuh pas lahir, atau dibuang k panti asuhan. coba ada hukum kayak gini, jadinya kan si cewek dan anaknya agak... yah bisa dibilang dilindungi hukum lah! jadi mereka bisa fight back gitu.

note to self: don't EVER have a child out of wedlock. don't EVER have sex before marriage. IF (and that's a BIG 'if') the moment comes that someone is coming on to you... RUN LIKE HELL!!!

December 9 2006, 2:21 PM: Survived the hardest part (hopefully)

Alhamdulillah, my Old English final exam went smoothly. The only part that I couldn't do very well was parsing those singular words... is godcundrum (divine) an adjective? is læg (lay) a verb? yes and yes. but that's only so far what I knew about 'em. The professor probably expected something like þone: 3rd person demonstrative, dative/genitive, etc. Overall, the exam went smoothly. And I was able to finish my paper and send it to my professor's email. It's an interesting method, that. Not only you save paper and printer ink, but it also save a lot of space and save the professor all the troubles of having to sort through 20+ 5-page papers. I'll be sure to implement this when I got back and lecture in Indonesia...

anyway, I'm REALLY relieved now that the exam is gone. That's HUGE load off my back. When I got back to my apartment I sujud to the kiblat and raised my hands in grateful prayer to Allah SWT. My mid-exam was a total disaster (my score was 48 out of 75), but I'm pretty confident with this final exam. Hopefully, with His help, I might be able to pass this course after all!

Amen!

this could only happen to me...

where are the updates? well, the strangest thing occurred to me, ladies and gentlemen. something that usually only happen to 90 year old seniors or a 20 year old with an alzheimer case:

I FORGOT MY FREAKING BLOG ADDRESS!!

go ahead, I give you 15 seconds to laugh.

well, it's not really my fault. I mean, Blogger didn't send any confirmation whatsoever to my email, so I had no record to remind me of my blog. besides, when I tried logging in with my username they said there's no such account by that name. How dare they!

rants aside, I'll write down any stuffs that I could remember of my past experiences in the US in a different post. for now, I'll just write down something else.