Archive for March 2010

Motivation


Just when I thought my life would get any worse, I've just seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Been thinking lately about whether becoming a mechanic was a good idea and that going to college was a mistake and that I should have become a NEET or something cause somehow I just don't feel right about working. Kept doing the wrong things, making mistakes, breaking stuff, etc. I though I would just give up and do something else...

But after today, my mind has kinda changed slightly. Of course I still do feel a bit sad (I'm emokid, what do you expect?) after all the troubles that I caused in the 4 weeks that I've been working at the workshop so far, and after doing something terrible the day before (not work related) I just wish that I could stop doing everything and just lock myself up in my room and think about all the things that I've done. So what happened today that got me motivated you say? Something car/work related of course... *cough*

After working on the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 for so many weeks the car finally got running after everything was done. Then today after some tweaks and stuff the car was able to drive on the road again. Couldn't believe how amazing it is that the car was from being abandoned by the previous workshop owner, to being completed with the people that I'm working with now. But most of all, not only to get the car in a working and running condition was an accomplishment, but to get to ride shotgun in a shakedown was just something else. I guess you can say it was "the fruit of our labor" (even though I didn't really do much lol).

Another surprise was that I get to ride in the Nissan Silvia S15 as well! But I got to say, after being inside both of these cars and being driven at the scruff of the neck my perspective of tuning and cars in general has changed. Boy oh boy what a feeling it was to feel the surge of power coming from each of these car... definitely a lot more exhilarating than my crappy i10! But of course, it didn't happen if I didn't work for 14 hours either... (went to work at 9am, came back home at 11pm)

But really, I do hope this will give me some motivation on doing my training, and work and study hard to achieve my far-fetched goal...

Oh, and the link to the picture above:
sdobbins.com's flickr

Button Takes The Spoils in Melbourne


Congrats to Jenson Button for winning the Australian Grand Prix. Its his first win with the McLaren team as well as winning the race 2 years in succession. (with his other win with Brawn GP last year) The win could have easily been for Sebastian Vettel, comfortably leading the race from the start until the inevitable happen when he retired from the race after a brake failure near the half way point. Surprise of the race was definitely Robert Kubica who came all the way from 9th to finish the race in 2nd, avoiding the chaos on the first lap and keeping his nerves when being pressured by the other drivers. A splendid (but rather boring) drive by him none the less, bringing his Renault car nowhere near where it should have been...

Certainly it was a more exciting and dramatic race compared to Bahrain, with a little bit of help from the rain just before the start of the race. If it wasn't for the rain the race could otherwise be just as boring as the Bahrain race if anything is to go by. Having 4 drivers out of the race in the opening lap of the race (with Jarno Trulli not even being able to start the race with a hydraulic problem on his car), and with a few more joining the DNF party it was otherwise a grueling race for both drivers and machine.

Okay, I'm not gonna bother with the full race report (just read the links below) but I just want to add a few more things here. Next week is gonna be the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang! Not sure if the place where I work would get me a ticket (seems unlikely) but if anything, its gonna be a wonderful race to watch. Just hope that the race ain't gonna be a disaster like last year...

Button wins dramatic Australian Grand Prix

58th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring


The race finished just about an hour ago or so, and its a little sad to say that I missed nearly half of the race! A lot of things happened in the race, and this years 12 Hours of Sebring was sadly not as good as last year. With Audi wasn't able to race Sebring, it was clearly gonna be Peugeot race to win with neither the Aston Martin Racing nor the Drayson Racing could do anything about it in their petrol cars. (seriously, the diesel were always gonna be faster than the petrol with the current regulations) Then again, what lacked in P1 & P2 was made up by the new entries in GT2. Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Chevrolet, (and less likely) Jaguar were in a shot for the GT2 class win.

Other than that, there were also 2 new classes introduced to fill up the grin in ALMS with the Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC or Formula Le Mans in Europe) and the GTC class (which is maily composed of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars). But of course I'm not gonna talk much a lot about those 2 new classes and just concentrate on P1 and GT2. So as the race finished it was obviously Peugeot taking the win, with Alexander Wurz, Marc Gene, & Anthony Davidson driving the #07 Peogeot 908 HDi FAP crossing the line first with the #08 Peugeot of Sebastien Bourdais, Nicolas Minassian, & Pedro Lamy finished some 13 seconds behind in 2nd and the final spot of the podium was taken by Adrian Fernandez, Stefan Mucke, and Harold Primat in the #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola B09 60.

Things couldn't be any different in GT2 as Risi Competizione won yet again in the #62 Ferrari F430 driven by Jaime Melo, Gianmaria Bruni, & Pierre Kaffer having a comfortable win ahead of the #92 BMW E92 M3 of Dirk Werner, Bill Auberlen, Hermosa Beach, & Tom Milner and the #90 BMW E92 M3 of Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand, & Andy Priaulx. So what happened to the Corvette and Porsche then? For the Corvette Racing team, they just had a nightmare of a race with gaining a lot of penalties during the race and the crash in the pits didn't help much either. Porsche was on the other hand was just struck by bad luck when the #17 Falken Porsche lost its right rear wheel and made contact with the #45 Flying Lizards which was in 2nd during that time. Oh what would the race have been like if Ferrari had run into problems as well in the race.

Whatever it is, the race was still quite enjoyable to watch despite the demise of the GT1 class as well as the slightly smaller grid compare to the years past. The American Le Mans series will still be one of the most interesting endurance race series to watch. How will the Le Mans Series and the FIA GT1 World Championship will compare to ALMS is anybodies guess...

Ferrari 1-2 at Bahrain


Meh, I was expecting Vettel to finish the race on top after seeing how well he was in qualifying, but near the end some mechanical problem on his car forced him to let both Ferraris through as well as Lewis Hamilton into 3rd position so it must be sad to see his win slipped away like that. Oh well, at least he didn't retire out of the race like he did last year! However, it must be a good feeling for Alonso to finally stepped on top of the podium in scarlet red...

Okay, race results aside I think Ferrari has definitely gone back to their winning ways with achieving the 1-2 result in Bahrain as the other teams finished failed to match the performance of the Ferrari today. Ferrari managed to get the maximum points of 43 points (25 for Alonso and 18 for Massa) with the nearest being McLaren with 21 points. With the new point scoring system this could very well mean that whichever team has the most consistent finishes will have a better likely chance of clinching the title as compared to last year.

As for the new teams entering F1, the only team that managed to finish the race was Lotus F1 Racing with Kovalainen finishing in 15th and Trulli finishing in 17th and last place. Although they aren't near the pace as the more experienced team they did fairly well compared to the other new teams such as Virgin Racing and HRT retiring not even halfway through the race. But of course all of this are to be expected coming from the new team with little to no time to develop their cars compared to the other teams. Hope that all the new teams will get better as the season progress.

2 weeks from now will be the Australian grand prix in Albert Park, Melbourne for the 2nd round of the 2010 Formula 1 championship. Who will be on top by then? Who would have made major improvements on their cars? Will there be anything happening in the next 2 weeks? Who knows, we all just have to wait and find out... =)

Alonso leads Ferrari 1-2 in Bahrain

Alice In Wonderland 3D


Not sure what am I gonna say about Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, been taking my time thinking about this movie ever since I watched it late last night. Not really sure where to start from haha. The fact that the tickets that my brother bought were wrong (the person selling the ticket was at fault for giving the wrong tickets and my brother for not checking the tickets earlier) and had to take seats from the side (awful viewing angle, but couldn't complain much) or that the movie was in 3D! (yeah, sadly didn't get to watch Avatar in 3D not could I remember watching any 3D movies prior to this) But then again, all of that doesn't really matter since I finally got to watch this!

If you people didn't already know, I wanted to watch this movie last weekend but both on Saturday and Sunday the tickets were all sold out and even yesterday there were still people watching this? Damn this people must be mad. Mad or it must have been a pretty damn good movie, its your call. For me though, the movie was just exhilarating to watch and was probably worth the money to watch it in 3D. I don't really know what to say really, almost everything about the movie (apart from the seating position and maybe some parts of the movie) was done just about right. Tim Burton has never fail to impress with any of his movies, be it from 10-20 years ago right up will today the way the stories are told are just impressive as ever.

So anyway, I think all the characters in the movie were just splendid. Every character almost played a major part of the plot and developing the story as each scene passes through, almost everyone acted brilliantly in the movie. More so for the 2 main characters, Alice (starring Mia Wasikowska) as well as the Mad Hatter (starring Johnny Depp) were just amazing to watch. Alice was portrayed nicely when she was all grown up, and Johnny Depp was just something else. Its kinda hard to say it but the role of the Mad Hatter just suited him pretty well indeed. Of course I would like to talk about the other people in the movie as well, but I just think they aren't as important to talk about lol.

Okay, well I don't think I'm gonna spoil anyone with the plot here or even have much else to say about the movie. What can I say, its a Tim Burton movie! It supposed to be (like all his previous work) a bit dark and gloomy, but in a way its all good. So what does all this add up to? A worthwhile movie to watch for this year, I promise. If this movie was sold out for 2 weeks straight don't be so surprised. Its just so worth the watch. All said and done though, how would I rate Alice then? After thinking about it, I have to give it an 8/10. Probably the best movie I've watched all of this year (so far anyways), its just as good as it gets. Although there were 1 or 2 things that I want to complain about (like maybe the 3D isn't as good as Avatar and how the last quarter of the movie ended) but other than that, yeah. Its ok...

2010 Formula One World Championship


I wish I have posted this a little bit sooner, but then again I don't usually have time to blog nowadays either lol. Anyway, the 2010 season has kicked off earlier today with the practice sessions at the Bahrain International Circuit with now 12 teams and 24 drivers competing together on the circuit for the first time in such a long long time.

Well I'll probably not gonna post much about today's practice sessions nor about the happenings during the past few months and with how crappy my internet is today I don't think I could link up much photos or anything else at all either! Woe always me... =(

Its okay though, hopefully I can post the race results like I did last year and probably explain more about the teams and the season when I find some free time. Hehe...

Anyway, for more info please check out these sites:
Official Formula 1 page
Autosport
GP Update
ITV
ESPN F1
BBC F1
Planet F1

Up In The Air


As I mentioned in my previous post, me, my cousin and some of my friends went to watch Up In The Air yesterday. Actually we planned on watching Alice In Wonderland that day, but since the only available seats were at 9pm and 11pm respectively one of my friend suggested watching this instead. Well I didn't know much about the movie other than it was the same director who directed Juno, I thought it was worth a shot watching it. Besides, there weren't much of a choice of watching anything else either...

To be honest, I didn't think the movie was gonna be fun or anything (since it seems to be about "grown-ups" and its a drama movie) but after watching it through it wasn't that bad to be honest. I did enjoy watching Juno I'll admit, and so did I enjoy watching this as well? Very much... but only for the plot and the themes of the movie. Everything else was a bit typical and as with most drama movies, a bit dull haha.

I'm not saying that the movie is bad or anything, its just that there isn't much the movie has to offer. It might be an interesting movie to watch, then again its not for everyone for certain. Funnily enough I find this movie more fun to watch than The Book Of Eli. With that said though, I don't think I could give this movie much of a rating so I'll have to give it a 7 out of 10. Could use better character development for the story, and probably a better ending lol...

Okay, it might not be much of a review but then again I'm too tired and busy nowadays to write something that is long and happen to use a lot of my braincells roflmao!!!

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs


Yeah, thanks for the memories Junni. Its been fun hanging out with you again today, along with my cousin and some of my other friends at One Utama. Although you were probably was busy with your boyfriend/brother (oppa?) or whatever it is you wanna call him, but at least we still had fun right? Hahaha, I know I sure did, and so does everyone else as far as I'm concerned lol...

So what did we all do today exactly then? After settling with my cousin with his headphones (he just had to buy the exact same one as me, zzz...) and an MP4 player earlier in the day, I decided to bring him along with my friends to meet her at One Utama. When we were there and got to meet each other and did a lot of things (mostly being walking around lmfao!) such as eating at Chili's, played arcade games, watched movies (Up In The Air), and probably some other things that I could not remember hahaha. It was fun, we all had laughed together a lot, share some moments together as well as some other random bs we did.

Its probably gonna be really hard to forget this day, just as much as probably the first time I met you back in February. I don't know if you read my blog or anything (most likely not) but if you do you will surely know how much feelings I have for you. I could not care less if you want to move on, have another boyfriend or whatnot, I will still be here waiting *hopelessly* for you. Will we ever get into a relationship. Will we still be friends until the end of time? God knows whats gonna happen the next time we meet...

Sadly I didn't take any pictures of today much. (I think my cousin only took some photos on my phone) Need to get a new phone soon once (I hope!) my income goes in at the end of the month, or if I get an allowance from my workplace then I could buy myself a Sony Ericsson Aino (or maybe some other smartphones with a good camera) soon enough to take photos with. But not sure when that is gonna be... =(

But of course, I also need to thank you for buying me the Girls' Generation album all the way from Korea lol. Never thought you were gonna buy it, but then you did! Haha, I love you a lot Junni, I love you a lot... =D

Oh, and finally the obligatory music video of the blog title. (I don't care if everyone hates Fall Out Boy. This song just is just so fitting with the post okay?)

The Book Of Eli


Its been definitely a while since I wrote anything on my blog but I guess working 6 days a week (and having a lousy internet connection doesn't help much either) kinda takes its toll on me. Not only do I feel tired every single afking day, but I don't have as much time to waste on things like going online, play video games or you know, just loafing around! So yeah, how good is The Book Of Eli anyhow?

I can't say much myself about the movie, but I guess its a bit interesting in a way and yet its rather boring and if you don't follow the story closely you would not have any idea what the movie is all about. Denzel Washington in this movie is just badass, while Mila Kunis is just so freaking hawt! Lolz, well I'm not really gonna say much about the movie or anything but if you ever think about watching this, just be prepared that its nothing as good as what the trailer shows. Although there are a lot of cool fight scenes in the movie, it feels a bit too overdone for me. Also the plot seems a bit stupid when you think about it. Killing each other just for a book? Haha, I wish to see that happen in real life... (well not really, but just a figure of speech so to speak)

Yeah, that is about it for my review lol. If you want to go watch it, go ahead. Its not all that bad to watch, but then again its not that good either lol. So for me, I just have to give it a 6.5/10 rating for the movie. The plot could have a better potential if they didn't sidetracked the story as much, and probably concentrate on the origins of the book more (instead of just some short dialogues) and give a better story of the whole setting (I mean seriously, I didn't even knew why everyone in the movie just looks barbaric). Then again, maybe they didn't care for all of that? Haha, whatever...

Also, I just need to say that I've watched The Wolfman with my brother a few weeks ago (don't think I'll write a review for that) and later I'm going to watch Alice In Wonderland with some friends. *sigh* A good way to release stress and tension after a week of working huh? I think the same as well...

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