A different Lunar New Year (1)...

... but first, some other stuff.

ISM? Cham liao...

Had a great EL Hons outing @ Settlers' Cafe, Holland V on the eve of LNY's Eve; 24 ppl turned up, with quite a lot of new faces who didnt turn up for the BBQ. Which means some ppl who went to the BBQ in turn, had not been able to make it to Settlers'. We were divided into two playing tables; my table took on Cranium and Guesstures (some sort of charade-like game).

Cranium was the ultimate fun game for us; had real fun moulding plasticine, drawing with our eyes closed, humming tunes and guessing word puzzles. Play of the Day has to come from ZW, who mis-spelt "playwright" and consequently led to his team's "downfall;" they were stuck at the big cranium for turns and eventually lost a PK with the 3rd team.

Thanks to LR who offered to get me a discount from her supervisor @ Settlers' after seeing my nick on MSN the night before; ended up with no discount cos we were quoted a Students' Package. Photos up soon.
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On LNY eve, Dear accompanied me to do some last minute clothes-shopping @ JL. $50 was the budget; got a shirt and bottoms, with some topping up by Dear. I dunno if others experience this same sort of feeling: when window-shopping, or when reserves run low, you feel like buying whatever eye-candy that you set your sights on, but once you have the money, you are so hesitant to shop for something you really want (Dear can attest to tat haha). Especially when it's last minute shopping.

After dinner, met with Dear again to watch Jack Neo's sequel to I Not Stupid. And it is here that I would wanna comment about a particular review that I came across for I Not Stupid Too (forgotten where already). It went along the lines of having little of the satirical tone of the first installment and some sort of educational programme for parents in how to manage your kids; ended up with a 2.5 out of 5 rating. Didnt bother to check who the reviewer was, but I could understand how the reviewer felt when s/he was sitting in during the preview:

"What nonsense... nowadays where got kids join gangs... got parents say 'I lub you' to their children one meh?... "

"Did Liang Po Po do his research on the classroom environment or not? Sure liddat one meh..."

"Aiyo, bobian lah, local product must give face; if not, give 1 can liao..."

"Oh! Let me send LNY SMSes to those on my handphone contact list; doesn't seem very real anyway, the movie...."

Not relevant? Not realistic?

From the opening lines of the show, I knew this movie ain't simple. "How long has it been since you praised someone? How long has it been since someone praised you? Very long ago, isn't it?" Revolving around two families with different environments and a common underlying problem, the movie attempts to deliver a strong parenting message to the audience. The PC-ness of the ending is formulaic and essential (for a family show), but several scenes were very emotively charged, at least for myself. There was this scene where one of the teenagers repaired his dad's laptop in secret and showed up at dad's office to pass it to him for an important presentation, but all dad could do was to blame the breakdown on his son, and further fault him for missing school to go look for him. Yeah, the feeling of being not appreciated, add the feeling of being accused - so doubly wrong, doubly hurt, doubly misunderstood.

Bottomline: If you have an untroubled life in your teenage years, skip this and wait for Da Vinci Code / X-Men 3. If you appreciate middle- to lower-class realism eoungh, try it.

Signing off............... Second part is up soon.........
RC