Well of Souls: The End Is Nigh!

Yep, it really is! So REPENT YE SINNERS! 4 more days till the new year. Hehe.

Long time since i've had a post with any real substance, and for that i apologise. Staying up late nights does that.
I haven't been just sitting around wasting time though, as you my dear reader have noticed, i've been churning out a crapload of skinned models, and trust me, it isn't as easy as it looks... aside from spending hours searching for good reference pictures and textures which usually takes more than 5 hours, modelling and UVW-ing, even low poly ones takes 2-3 hours each and texturing around 2 hours.

I do wish i could do it faster, and handle more complicated models but my skills still aren't up to that level yet, but good thing is i've improved alot and learned some new things.

Anyway, i've a couple of items i'd like to address in this last post of 2005.

First up, another installment of mini movie reviews. Since there's a whole internet full of information about their plot/characters/whatever, i'll give my impressions instead.

+ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the movie based on the books by JK Rowling, FYI if you somehow lived under a very huge rock in a very deep well for the past few years or so. There have been some changes to it's production, from a new actor to play Dumbledore to a new director. The movie itself is pretty good, much better than the previous movies but has it's share of shortcomings as well. The initial part of the movie is rather abrupt, and the transition isn't really handled very well but it smooths out as the show progresses. A larger portion of the book was cut out, so fans might feel the movie lacks something, but even so the movie runs for around 3 hours, so its something that is really unavoidable and i feel the scriptwriters did a sufficiently good job to cover it, though IMO not as gracefully as the Lord of The Rings' translation from book to movie did.
Still, its worth a watch, and the dragon scene is pretty awesome.

+ The Chronicles of Narnia is another book adaptation from the works of CS Lewis, which is pretty good, i admit i was a little surprised because of some comments about the movie i heard. By far this movie is one of the most faithful book-to-movie adaptations i've ever watched, and is even better than the "imagery" that the book gave. The books reads like a children's book, which in fact is what it is, while the movie makes it more of an epic, even *almost* Lord of The Rings-esque kind of epic. Hell, i could have sworn even Galadriel's evil sister is in the movie lol.(Galadriel is the elven queen of Lothlorien for the ignorant, played by Cate Blanchett). Definitely a good watch, goes to show you can't believe everything you hear until you see it for yourself.

+ The Constant Gardener is a rather depressing movie that stars Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, but its a good movie nonetheless. The movie is filled with surprises, twists and turns, and uses a flashback-esque style of exposition which turns what would otherwise be a rather unremarkable story (if told in a straightforward manner) into an engaging one, which just shows the skill of those involved with weaving together the story. Top that off with the excellent performances from Rachel and Ralph, and you get a grade A movie. A recommended watch, especially if you're interested in something more than mindless action and no-brainer "plots" in typical hollywood movies.

Next is some random notable things. Last week, i went on a trip to Pangkor island with some of my uni mates. The journey there for me started at 6am, when i woke up to catch a bus to KL, where we got on a coach heading to Lumut. It took us 4 hours to get to Lumut from Puduraya, a long and boring 4 hours so everyone took the opportunity to get some shut eye.

At the ferry station in Lumut, we were met by some very..... loud ferry ticket sellers who vigorously waved at us, apparently asking us to buy the tickets from them instead of their competitor. The ticket booths were right next to each other.
It was pretty.... scary i must say, their aggressive marketing, and i thought they looked like those prisoners who stuck their hands out between the bars waved and jeered at people passing them in the movies.
Thankfully, we already had all the arrangements done for us by Joe prior to the trip lol.

When we arrived, we checked into a beach resort with some moderately-priced rooms (3 room unit for 310 a night), and immediately went for a speedboat tour around the island. And good thing we did too, for it turned out to be a perfect day to be out at sea, low tides, clear blue skies...

I'd have to say the best day of the whole trip was on the first day, and highlight of that trip was the speedboat tour. Its just an awesome experience just sitting on a fast-moving boat, feeling the wind beating over your face, the smell of the sea...
Our "guide" and "driver" was a pleasant chap who cracked alot of jokes to keep us entertained, and pointed out various "creatures" and things that only the imagination can see in the huge rock formations and flora around the island.
Our guide even dived and brought up some aquatic life for us to look at a coral, a sea cucumber and a sea urchin. Of all 3 the most interesting was the urchin, you could actually see it's individual thorns moving as it crawled around the bucket it was put. Reminds me of a porcupine hehe.
We also passed by the Pasir Giam beach, which was a place of interest because at low tide, you could walk over there safely from the main island, but the "path" disappears under the water at high tide, and our guide said that it only gets low enough a few days a year, so anyone who doesn't bring a boat and get's stuck there has to stay for a year until the next year lol.
After "speeding" around abit, we stopped at a cove where shoals of various colourful fishes frequented, attracted by the many bits of bread us tourists tossed into the water, and i got in with a mask and breathing tube.
Several other tour boats were also around there, so the fishes were having a feast. My finger almost became a part of the feast as well when i was waving a big piece of it at the smaller fishes, when this bigger fish came out of nowhere and bit at the bread. Thankfully it had a small mouth so it was just a nip. Anyway I think i had its cousin for dinner hehe.
After awhile, we went to another small beach and just sat around and enjoyed the view before heading back.
That night after dinner, we went down to the beach to see the "blue tears/blue sand", which are actually small crustaceans called Sea-Fireflies
which are bioluminescent creatures. The shores were filled with these blue lights washing up, which was pretty cool, romantic even... for couples lol.

I also got to see a successful catch of a stingray. The removal of it's sting was rather brutal.... it was wrenched out a pair of pliers while the stingray was still alive. But the locals thought nothing of it, having probably done it hundreds of times already...

The other two days consisted of sightseeing the few places of interest around the island, like the Fu Lin Gong temple with it's mini Great Wall, and the *very* small(reconstructed) Dutch Fort.

And with that, here's some more 3D stuff if you're not sick of it already:

Gondor Guard Helm