Puteri Gunung Ledang

I watched Puteri Gunung Ledang (PGL) yesterday (on VCD). It's really rare for Malaysian film producers to come up with a story based on ancient history. Before I saw the movie, I had high expectations about it, but after seeing it, I would just say 'okay'. It's just that I kinda expected for them to put more effort into it the movie.

For example, Malacca, one of the greatest cities of its time, looks more like a shanty town in the film. For an empire that heavily emphasized on trade, the city was nothing near impressive. I was also hoping for more action (despite knowing this is a love story). Also, the actor that played Sultan Mahmud doesn't really fit as a sultan character. They should have chosen somebody with charisma & posh attitude instead.

The early scene where Hang Tuah was in the bazaar with some troublemakers was really cool. Damn, I never knew M.Nasir could fight. Must be some intensive silat crash course. Anyway, I hope there would be more movies like this. Somebody should make a movie about the Portuguese attacking Malacca, definitely more action than PGL. :)

Selamat Hari Raya people!

First of all, Selamat Hari Raya, and for non-Malay speakers, Eid Mubarak. Yesteday's celebration was better that I expected it to be. We (Aiz, Kak Gon & me) went to Malaysia Hall by tram. We arrived around 8:45am. There were a lot of people, and the food was quite okay. There were the usual Hari Raya food - ketupat, kuah kacang & rendang etc.

The celebration wasn't long, as by 11:30am I was already back at home, taking a nap (I had only 3 hours of sleep yesterday). I was up again at 4pm, and took a train to Hawthorn. My cousin Yusuf invited me to his 'open house' (a Malaysian term - where you invite people to your house and serve food, usually held during festive seasons). There were heaps of food, far more than what Malaysia Hall offered.

Anyway, since it was a Sunday, it was kinda hard to get public transport, therefore I only managed to get home around 10:45pm. I heard that my mates at Clayton had their own celebration and it way better than Malaysia Hall. They had loads of satay! Damn, I couldn't make it, because I was lazy. lol. Clayton is so far away!

p/s: The new MCKK Batch 9600 offcial website is now up and running! Visit us here. (a permanent link can be located at 'Friends' - left nav bar)

Elections & People

The Americans had their general election and it wasn't too much a surprise that Bush was re-elected. I was kinda dissapointed, as with the rest of the international community. Some of the interesting headlines I found on the internet are:

How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB? - Daily Mirror, 4 Nov 2004 (UK)
A cowardly vote from the ‘land of the brave’ - Farish A. Noor, Malaysiakini

Anyway, I had just finished reading The Da Vinci Code. It was indeed a spectacular read. I learnt a lot about Christian history, especially a fact about what Emperor Constantite(325AD) did that would tally with Muslim's perception about the current Christian teachings and the New Testament.

But I would not elaborate on this here. If you want to share my excitement, then go get a copy of Dan Brown's book. Till then, I need to continue studying.