Ju-on: The Grudge 2

I went to watch Ju-on (part 2) today at the movies. It's definitely one of the most scariest movies I've seen in years. I bet the director must be some suspense freak. It seems the ghost appears anywhere he wants, and kills anybody, lol. There was this part, where a couple was driving on the highway, and suddenly they ran into a cat. They stopped, and since there's nothing to be done, they went on. Slightly before moving away, the girlfriend looked back and saw somebody took the dead cat. (apparently they ran over the ghost's cat, and it was the ghost (named Toshio) that came and took his dead cat away). After driving for a few minutes, suddenly the girlfriend looked so freak-out. His boyfriend asked why, but she didn't answer. She was only looking below the steering wheel. When his boyfriend looked there, Toshio was there, below the steering wheel. How sick can the ghost get? To add to the horror, Toshio is a small boy (around 5-6), and he's purple in color. Wicked eh?

The atmosphere of the cinema was more like a roller coaster ride, as people were screaming and yelling, even before the ghost came out. Just now, after dinner, I went to a nearby VCD shop and bought Ju-on (part 1). Haha. Even though the story give me the creeps, yet I had a strong urge to watch the first part. Haha. Yeah, the first part was good, because it explained the whereabouts of Toshio and his sadistic family. To add to the horror, I watched the movie around 1am.

NFS madness

Almost all of my friends know that I'm no car freak. Well, recently, I've been playing a few racing games (GT3, NFS, Rally etc). I bought NFS Underground around 2 weeks ago. NFS isn't as tough as GT3, because GT3 controls and maneuvers are much more realistic. Anyways, check out my car in Underground.


The thing about Underground is that, you can't simply upgrade your car whenever you want. You'll have to play certain tracks, obtain certain points, and the upgrade will be unlocked for you. On the contrary, in GT3, the upgrade is always accessible, all you need to do is prepare the money. Another thing about Underground is that its upgrade is more oriented towards style (paint, vinyl, accessories, body parts), where as in GT3, the upgrade is only on the car's internal parts. Apart from that, in GT3, you get to choose a wide range of cars. You name it, they have everything.

Can a language disappear?

It rained again today, so all my plans of going for jogging had to be cancelled. So I sat in my room, looking at my laptop. I begin to wonder about the languages in the world, and I recall reading a report in a magazine about how many languages has disappeared. Then I begin to think to myself, can the Malay language disappear? Well, the Malay that we Malaysians speak is rather different from the Indonesian language (though we do understand each other a little bit), and since the Indonesian population is so big, I assume it's going to be there for at least 800-1000 years time.

With Encarta Encyclopedia 2004 as my reference (I used to have Brittanica 2003, but then, Encarta is much more user friendly), I started to research on the ancient languages of the world. There happen to be hundreds, or perhaps thousands of them. But what really interests me is the Semitic language. The Semitic language is divided into 4 groups. In order to make it look simple, I have created the table below.

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North Peripheral Group

Assyro-Babylonian language (also known as Akkadian)
Also known to be the oldest semitic language (spoken between 3000 BC and 400 BC).

North Central Group

Ancient and modern Hebrew.
Ugaritic and Phoenician.
Aramaic - the language of Prophet Isa (Jesus)

South Central Group

Standard Arabic and modern spoken Arabic dialects

South Peripheral Group

South Arabic dialects, now spoken in parts of the southern Arabian Peninsula (and in ancient times by peoples such as the Minaeans and Sabaeans); and the languages of Ethiopia
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Frankly, it never occurred to me that Prophet Isa spoke Aramaic. I really wonder how it sounds. Anyways, after reading further, I found out that Aramaic survives today in Eastern and Western dialects, mostly as the language of Christians living in a few scattered communities in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.

Staying a little bit longer

I managed to change my flight date from the 22nd to the 29th of February. Since I'll be staying a little bit longer in Malaysia, I decided to give the Japan Club of KL a call. I asked them about the Igo Club that they have. (the receptionist on the phone doesn't know about Go, but she knows Igo. Lol). They play on Saturdays, from 4pm to 9pm. Even though I haven't figured out where the exact location of the club is, I'll give it a try this Saturday.

Luck? or strength?

Greetings. I played a game against a 8 kyu yesterday, before going to sleep. To my surprise, I won the game. Even though my opponent resigned, calculation wise, I won by 106.5 moku. That's so big, I can't even believe it! I studied the game a few times, to locate my opponents mistakes, and indeed he made some. But I was also astonished by my game play. It was brilliant game play, and it has been quite some time since I last played an excellent game. =)

A joke

My family left for Jeddah by a late night flight from KLIA. So, now, I'm back at Melawati, living with my aunt for the next 11 days before my flight back to Melbourne. Anyways, I've been doing some surfing, and I thought that maybe I would like to check the Malaysian Go Association. So I went to their website, and they happen to put up a kifu of the final games of the annual tournament.
I heard from a friend on KGS (also another Malaysian) that the game they (Malaysian IGO Association) put up was so bad, and it was merely around 12-15 kyu level. Well, now that I've seen it with my own eyes, I believe it. Haha. It's laughing stock! By the way, here's the site. You can see the game for yourself through the site.

Single digit kyu, finally

After nearly 2 weeks of hiatus of playing Go, I started playing again, won a few games, and got promoted to 9 kyu. Now, that's what I call an achievement. Finally, I'm a single digit kyu. Looks like the path of becoming a shodan (1 dan) is well on its way.