02 January 2009 @ 06:12 pm
Hello 2009! Let's do a best of list for 2008!  
So 2008 has come and gone, and 2009 is barely two days old. Nothing much to report on for the year yet, other than doing the obligatory 'best of' lists for 2008. And here we go...

MOVIES
1. Juno (OK, this was released theatrically Christmas 2007, but it was close enough to 2008)
2. The Dark Knight
3. Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
4. Speed Racer
5. Iron Man

TELEVISION
1. The Middleman
2. Star Wars: Clone Wars
3. Smallville (I've been surprised at how good Season 8 has been)
4. Heroes
5. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (yay Summer Glau!)

COMICS
1. All Star Superman (only three issues last year, but it was oh so good!)
2. Secret Six
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight
4. Crosssed
5. Ambush Bug: Year None

I haven't watched enough movies or television to make the traditional top ten lists, and certainly not enough to do 'worse of' lists either. Well, with the exception of comics...

COMICS (WORST OF)
5. Hulk
4. Ultimate Origins
3. Angel: After the Fall (words can't express my disappointment with this muddy mess)
2. Countdown to Final Crisis
1. Ultimates 3

So there you have it. My 2008 lists. What's yours?

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29 December 2008 @ 08:53 pm
Yes, I finally bought my HDTV!  
It's been a long time coming, but I finally got around to buying myself a HDTV exactly nine days ago during the SEC warehouse sale in Batu Maung. Why is it a long time coming? Well, I had initially planned to pick one up shortly after I moved in to my apartment in mid 2006 but things did not go according to plan and my money was spent on other things and it would take me until now to shore up my finances to be able to purchase this a HDTV.

Then again, I believe the 1½ year delay is a good thing. My budget may have increased by RM500, but the technical specifications of what I could afford jumped from a 32" 720p screen to a 40" 1080p24 screen. Well worth the extra RM500 and 1½ years wait.

Which 1080p24 panel did I get? Well, it's the Sony Bravia KLV-40V400A. My living room being as tiny as it is wouldn't have allowed me to fit anything larger than a 37" screen, but I figured 'what's an extra three inches'? Not much, as it turned out, and I'm sure it could've fit a 46" screen. But that's in the future I guess, since the price difference for those extra six inches is enormous!

The KLV-40V400A cost me a cool RM4999, but it comes with a mail in RM300 rebate from Sony (I'm still waiting for that cheque from Sony Malaysia) and a free Sony HDMI cable (these babies cost around RM170 at retail). I threw in an extra RM150 for additional 5 years extended warranty. What did I get for my RM4999?
  • 40" 1920x1080 full HD panel
  • 24fps playback
  • 33000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
  • 3 HDMI inputs
  • 2 component inputs
  • 1 VGA input
  • 3 composite inputs, one of which is shared with an S-Video port
  • A Sony Digital Media port (for hooking up iPods or compatible Walkman audio players or Sony Ericsson cellphones)
  • An ambient light sensor (sounds stupid, but surprisingly practical when watching movies at night)
  • S-FORCE virtual surround sound

>

I also purchased a Toshiba XD-E500KA DVD player during the warehouse sale. When Toshiba's HD-DVD format lost the high-definition format war to Sony's Blu-Ray, they concentrated on making a DVD player that would make the most of existing 480p DVD-Video images and upconvert it to 1080p24 and make it look almost as good as high-definition. The result is the XD-E500KA, which is the only one of its kind and I swear I have never seen my DVDs look this good. At RM450 (plus a free HDMI cable), it is very expensive for a DVD player in this day and age, but it is worth every sen. The image reproduction for the holy trilogies (Star Wars, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings lah) is positively stunning! Extremely fine details such as rain, fabric texture, and skin pores are obvious to see now. As someone who had spent the past two years watching movies on a tiny 15" screen on my notebook, I only have one thing to say - WOW!

The Toshiba XD-E500KA is connected via HDMI and is configured for 1080p24 playback to the screen. Unfortunately, there are some downsides to this player. Most glaring of all is lack of 4x3 support. This means fullscreen DVDs will have the image stretched to fill the 16x9 screen, and there is no way to disable this. Non-anamorphic widescreen DVDs (i.e. Armageddon, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie) are similarly stretched, making the image look wider than it actually is. Armageddon, which was shot with a 2.4:1 aspect ratio looked more like a superwide 2.75:1 movie!

24fps playback only works properly with NTSC mastered discs. Enabling hits feature while playing back PAL discs will result in some stuttering and jittering, as I found out while testing my Region 2 copies of Clerks X, Lilo & Stitch, and Almost Famous: Untitled, and my Region 4 copy of Titanic. Also, do note that the 576p image is downscaled to 480p first before it is upscaled to 1080p.

Below are two photos I took from Disney's The Little Mermaid special edition disc, running at full 1080p24. As this disc is encoded in 1.77:1 anamorphic widescreen video, the results are stunning, filling up the entire 16x9 panel with glorious old-school Disney animation. A bit of ghosting may be seen in the second image, but that's because I did not pause the image and snapped a photo directly with my camera during playback of the movie. I would've snapped photos of playback of discs such as Batman Begins, The Matrix Revolutions or Spider-Man 3, but my camera's battery died and I got lazy after that. :-P


The XD-E500KA is also DivX 6 compatible, allowing it to play AVI files encoded in the DivX and XviD codecs. This is a welcome feature, especially since my previous DVD player (the Philips DVP-640K) could not render DivX 6 files. Unfortunately, it takes around 10 seconds to load the file and playback is horrid with lots of pixelation. Then again, I blame the fact that it is being played back on a 1080p panel as I have no doubt it would have better performance on a 480i/p CRT screen. Worse, playback is in a tiny letterboxed widescreen window and using the TV to zoom the image only makes the image quality that much worse.

I also tested some 1080i MPEG videos recorded via a HD camcorder in Costa Rica last year, but all I got was an 'unrecognized content' error. :-( JPEG playback is too slow to be useful, as it takes the same amount of time to load a JPEG file as it would an AVI file. Oddly enough, high resolution JPEG images (alternating between 3.2 megapixels and 5 megapixels) are downsampled to a window in the middle of the screen. Lastly, the XD-E500KA also supports MP3 and WMA playback, but I didn't bother testing those.


The only other device I have hooked up to the TV is my aging PlayStation2, which is connected via component cable, the best option it has. By default, the PlayStation2 only outputs a 480i signal. This is the bare basic for standard definition television and was serviceable back in the day when widescreen HDTVs were truly luxury items. Despite this technical limitations, the games do look really good so long as one remembers that it is a 640x480 image expanded to a 1920x1080 panel.

There are a couple of games that offer progressive scan (i.e. God of War, Tekken 5, Soul Calibur 3, Capcom Fighting Evolution) and they look really good. The former three also provide in game 16x9 support. Here's the kicker. Some games, such as the first two titles in the list, provide progressive scan support as a selectable option in the game setup. For the latter two, it involved holding down the TRIANGLE and X buttons after the PlayStation2 logo appears during the boot sequence. This will prompt a hidden menu asking if you want to enable progressive scan. Weird.

I set my component input to be Wide Zoom by default, stretching the 4x3 image from the PlayStation2 to 16x9. This is a requirement in order to have take advantage of games that provide 16x9 support, as the PlayStation2 only vertically stretches the 640x480 image and is unable to send true widescreen images. As such, it requires the TV to stretch the 4x3 image horizontally to make it a proper 16x9 widescreen image. Even so, some non-widescreen games such as Gradius 5 and Hyper Street Fighter 2 does look good with the stretched images. But these are more the exception than the norm, and fortunately the TV has a button on its remote control for me to toggle between the screen modes.

Below are some photos I snapped from Capcom vs SNK 2 (running at 4x3 480i) and Soul Calibur 3 (running at 16x9 480p).


The 2D sprites really looks pixelated when magnified, but the image still looks sharp and good. I found performance for 3D games to be mixed. As seen in the photos above, Soul Calibur 3 is absolutely gorgeous! On the other hand, other games that used to look good on standard definition (i.e. Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Need For Speed Underground 2, Ace Combat Zero) are atrocious.

Over at audio, the speakers on this TV is surprisingly good. I was worried that it would simply be another pair of crap television speakers as I've had bad experiences with my father's Philips 29" CRT screen and my uncle's 32" Panasonic panel, but I was impressed by the audio clarity from these speakers. By default the bass and treble levels are maximized, so I had to adjust them a tad. I set higher bass for my PS2 input versus my DVD HDMI input.

I benchmarked DVD playback with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition, Batman Begins, Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and Pearl Harbor. Game playback was tested with Gradius 5, Tekken 5, Soul Calibur 3, and God of War 2.

Sony's propriety S-FORCE surround technology is used to simulate a three dimensional surround sound field with only two speakers. While it is no replacement for a proper 5.1 home theater setup, it is a darn good alternative. The surround effects were more evident with the movies than with games, even those with Dolby Surround audio.

Unlike its higher end counterparts, the KLV-40V400A does not employ the fancy 3D Xross Media Bar (XMB) interface which was introduced in Sony's PSX DVR and has since been adopted as the interface of choice for the PSP and PS3. Instead, it uses a lightweight Linux kernel for a simple, efficient 2D menu. It gets the job done, and I actually prefer this over the fancy but less intuitive XMB.

With all that said, I can't wait to get my hands on a PlayStation3 console so that I can finally playback true 1080p content. I already have the Iron Man and Transformers BDs lying around, with my copy of Street Fighter 4 on pre-order at Play-Asia. I'm really excited! So, yeah - I am damn happy with this purchase. :-)

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21 December 2008 @ 07:43 pm
Legion of Super-Heroes on Smallville  

Only one word - SQUEEEEE!

OK, more than one word then. I have to admit Smallville Season 8 has been exceedingly good and IMO is the best season of the series. Looks like getting rid of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar was what this show needed after all. :-)

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18 November 2008 @ 12:21 am
The first appearance of Boba Fett  

This 9-minute clip is from the little seen curio (and much maligned) Star Wars Holiday Special that was only aired once by CBS in 1978. What's interesting is Boba Fett has more lines of dialogue here than in the entire original trilogy, and the voice actor even sounds like Temeuera Morrison, the man who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. Still, the animation is awful and the character models for Han Solo and Princess Leia are totally weird. But who cares? I'd still pay good money for this if Lucasfilm ever decides to release this on home video.

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17 November 2008 @ 11:33 pm
Korgoth of Barbaria  
I gacked this from Topless Robot's list of the five best and worst one-off cartoons. Korgoth of Barbaria was a one-shot that aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, but was unfortunately not picked up for a series, which is a shame, because this is abso-fucking-lutely HILARIOUS!

Here's a quote from Topless Robot...

"It aims to be a mockery of every stale swords-and-sorcery staple: the post-apocalyptic world that excuses all sorts of monsters, the wanton medievalized cultured, and, of course, the Conan-esque hero who murders his foes in the most creative slaughters this side of Brock Samson."


With character designs that reminds of a mix of Kevin O'Neill and Frank Quitely, and what can only be described as Den meets Beavis & Butt-head, what's not to like?

The special is split up in the following three YouTube videos below...


PART I

PART II

PART III

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14 September 2008 @ 07:33 pm
Sliders - my favorite episodes  
It took awhile, but I finally finished watching the entire Sliders yesterday evening. I was a fan of the show when it was aired on RTM2, but they stopped airing after the second season and I've always been curious how the show ended. And now I know... and it was rather meh. It's obvious that the show's quality really took a dip when John Rhys-Davies left, but I stuck with it and ultimately thought the later seasons were rather underwhelming.

The show lasted only five seasons with a total of 88 episodes. The first season was only 10 episodes long, with the pilot being a two-parter. The second season lasted only 13 episodes. Only the final three seasons had a full complement of episodes, with the longest being the third season which lasted 25 episodes. Season four had 22 episodes, while season five had 18 episodes.

While it had more hiccups, there were more than a few memorable episodes. When it was good, it provided excellent social commentary and science fiction. However, when creators Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss left, the stories became more action oriented and became bad rehashes of genre conventions and losing sight of the original intent of the show.

John Rhys-Davis (Maximilian Arturo) left the show midway through the third season, replaced by Kari Wuhrer (Maggie Beckett). Sabrina Lloyd left at the end of the season, and Charlie O'Connell debuts early in season four as Colin Mallory. By the fifth season, Cleavant Derricks (Rembrandt Brown) would be the only original cast member left, with the rest of the team consisting of Robert Floyd (a combined version of two alternate Quinn Mallorys), and Tembi Locke (Diana Davis).

Below is a list of my favorite episodes. A full summary of the episodes may be found here.



SEASON ONE
101/102 - Sliders - the first episode, setting up the unique dimension hopping high concept and introducing original characters Quinn Mallory, Professor Maximilian Arturo, Quinn's friend Wade Walles, and innocent bystander R&B singer Rembrandt 'The Crying Man' Brown.
104 - Last Days
107 - Eggheads
109 - The King Is Back
110 - Luck of the Draw - the first season finale, guest starring Nicholas Lea (X-Files' Alex Krycek)

SEASON TWO
203 - Gillian of the Spirits
206 - Time Again and World
208 - Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome - this episode features a cameo by William B. Davis (X-Files' Cigarette Smoking-Man)
211 - The Young and The Relentless - a soap opera style pastiche, with a title that is obviously a lift on The Bold and the Beautiful
212 - Invasion - the first appearance of the Kromaggs, who would go on to be a recurring threat in season four

SEASON THREE
302 - Double Cross
304 - The Guardian
308 - The Fire Within
312 - Season's Greedings
316-317 - The Exodus - the first appearance of Maggie Beckett



SEASON FOUR
401 - Genesis - Quinn Mallory and Maggie Beckett got separated from Rembrandt Brown and Wade Welles at the end of the third season, catching up with them three months later on their home world only to see it enslaved by the Kromaggs and Wade shipped off to a Kromagg breeding camp
411 - California Reich
413 - Lipschitz Live!
414 - Mother and Child
419 - My Brother's Keeper
422 - Revelations



SEASON FIVE
503 - Strangers and Comrades - guest stars Jerry Doyle (Babylon 5's Michael Garibaldi)
507 - A Current Affair
509 - The Return of Maggie Beckett
515 - Dust

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31 May 2008 @ 01:31 am
The X-Files - my favorite episodes  
I posted an entry about receiving the mammoth 61-disc X-Files: The Complete Collector's Edition boxed set back in February. Housing well over 150 hours' worth of entertainment (201 episodes + one feature length motion picture + special features), it took a bit of time but I finally finished watching the entire box as of last weekend. Yay me! :-)

Below is a list of my favorite episodes.

SEASON ONE
103 - Squeeze - the first appearance of Eugene Victor Tooms.
108 - Ice - yes, the thinly veiled ripoff of The Thing. This episode is really star-studded as it guest stars Xander Berkeley, Felicity Huffman, Ken Kirzinger, and Jeff Kober.
111 - Eve
117 - E.B.E. - the first appearance of The Lone Gunmen
120 - Darkness Falls
121 - Tooms - first appearance of Walter Skinner.
124 - The Erlenmeyer Flask - the death, but not final appearance, of Deep Throat.

SEASON TWO
202 - The Host - first and only appearance of the Flukeman.
205 - Duane Barry - Chris Carter's directorial debut, and the first appearance of Duane Barry. Guest stars Steve Railsback and CCH Pounder.
211 - Excelsis Dei
212 - Aubrey - guest stars Terry O'Quinn, who returns to play a different character in Season 9's Trust No 1.
213 - Irresistible - first appearance of Donnie Pfaster
214 - Die Hand Die Verletzt - first episode directed by Kim Manners.
216 - Colony - first appearances of Bill and Teena Mulder and the Bounty Hunter. Guest stars Brian Thompson.
219 - Død Kalm - guest stars John Savage
220 - Humbug - first episode written by Darin Morgan.
222 - F. Emasculata
224 - Our Town

SEASON THREE
301 - The Blessing Way - first appearances of The First Elder and The Well-Manicured Man.
303 - D.P.O. - guest stars Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black.
304 - Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose - guest stars Peter Boyle, and the first appearance of The Stupendous Yappi
305 - The List - guest stars J.T. Walsh and Bokeem Woodbine
308 - Oubliette - guest stars Jewel Staite
312 - War of the Coprophages
317 - Pusher - first appearance of Robert Patrick Modell.
320 - José Chung's From Outer Space - Darin Morgan's final episode, and features cameos by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek.
322 - Quagmire

SEASON FOUR
402 - Home - the only episode banned in most countries and US network television. Guest stars Tucker Smallwood.
404 - Unruhe
407 - Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
411 - El Mundo Gira - guest stars Rubén Blades
412 - Leonard Betts - guest stars Paul McCrane.
414 - Memento Mori
420 - Small Potatoes - guest stars Darin Morgan, and first episode directed by Cliff Bole.
422 - Gethsemane - first appearance of Michael Kritschgau.

SEASON FIVE
503 - Unusual Suspects - first appearance of Suzanne Modeski and guest stars Richard Belzer as John Munch.
505 - The Post-Modern Prometheus
506 - Christmas Carol - first appearance of Emily Sim.
510 - Chinga - only episode co-written by Stephen King.
512 - Bad Blood
513 - Patient X - first appearances of Jeffrey and Cassandra Spender. Guest stars Veronica Cartwright.
515 - Travelers - first appearance of Arthur Dales, guest stars Darren McGavin.
516 - Mind's Eye - guest stars Lili Taylor.
520 - The End - first appearances of Gibson Praise and Diana Fowley, and is the final episode filmed in Vancouver. Guest stars Mimi Rogers.

SEASON SIX
601 - The Beginning - first appearance shot in LA, and guest stars Wendie Malick. First appearance of Alvin Kersh.
602 - Drive
603 - Triangle
604 - Dreamland - first appearance of Morris Fletcher, guest stars Michael McKean.
606 - How the Ghosts Stole Christmas - guest stars Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin.
607 - Terms of Endearment - guest stars Bruce Campbell.
608 - The Rain King
611 - Two Fathers
612 - One Son - the destruction of the Syndicate, and the death of The First Elder.
614 - Monday
615 - Arcadia - guest stars Abraham Benrubi.
619 - The Unnatural - David Duchovny's directorial debut. Guest stars M. Emmet Walsh.
622 - Biogenesis

SEASON SEVEN
703 - Hungry
706 - The Goldberg Variation - guest stars Willie Garson and Shia LeBeouf.
708 - The Amazing Maleeni
712 - X-Cops
715 - En Ami - only episode written by William B. Davis.
719 - Hollywood A.D. - guest stars Garry Shandling, Téa Leoni, and Harris Yulin.
720 - Fight Club - guest starring Kathy Griffin and Rob Van Dam.
721 - Je Souhaite

SEASON EIGHT
804 - Roadrunners
806 - Redrum - guest stars Joe Morton.
808 - Surekill
809 - Salvage
812 - Medusa - guest stars Penny Johnson Jerald.
821 - Existence - first appearance of baby William, and the deaths of Billy Miles and Alex Krycek.

SEASON NINE
905 - Lord of the Flies
907 - John Doe
909 - Provenance - first appearance of The Toothpick Man.
911 - Audrey Pauley
913 - Improbable - guest stars Burt Reynolds.
915 - Jump the Shark - the deaths of The Lone Gunmen.

So that's the list of my favorite episodes of The X-Files. Agree or disagree with my choices? Let me know! There will be more X-Files-centric posts over the coming weeks as I unload all the observations I have made over the course of the past few months re-watching the entire series.
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01 August 2007 @ 06:53 pm
Transformers Animated 2008  
Check out the sizzle footage of next year's Transformers Animated series. God it just looks awful!



Hopefully it dies a quick death. Why fuck with a winning formula? I mean the past few series (Armada, Energon, Cybertron) have been pretty cool so why have such a kiddie-centric series? Fuck!
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24 September 2006 @ 10:21 pm
X-Men: The Animated Series in Japan  
When X-Men: The Animated Series was exported to Japan, new Japanese anime introduction sequences were created specifically for the show. Apparently, the original American opening sequences weren't good enough or something. And a quick search on YouTube yielded both versions of the anime intro sequences made. Now, it should be clarified that the actual cartoon itself is identical to the American version (with the obvious difference of language, that is), and only the opening sequence is changed.

Original X-Men anime intro

1994 X-Men anime intro



Pretty cool sutff, although I prefered the 1994 version. Nevertheless, I have to agree that this is vastly superior to the American intro sequence, and I wonder what it would have been like if an anime studio like Gonzo or Gainax is ever commissioned to do a proper X-Men anime series or OVA.
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07 July 2006 @ 02:24 am
10 Top 10s  
As of the time of writing this blog, I now own almost 5900 comics (and have read probably read hundreds more than that), almost 200 DVDs, have probably watched around 500+ movies, played 200+ PC and videogames, and listened to over 2000+ songs. That got me thinking -- what are the ones that I always revisit over and over again, after the flavour of the month has come and gone? And what were those that made an impact on me, that totally changed my tastes and perception?

Of course I hope that whoever is reading this reply with their own favourites, or even comment on (some might say dubious) tastes. Here we go...

COMICSGRAPHIC NOVELS
WRITERSARTISTS
MOVIESDVDs
TV SERIESSONGS
GAMESTECHNOLOGY
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19 June 2006 @ 01:23 am
I Love The 1980s  
I was a child of the 1990s. It was during the '90s that I became a teenager and really got into stuff like music, movies, pop culture, and so on and so forth. While I do have vague memories of the '80s, it was not until the past 2-3 years that I started appreciating the 1980s. Now I feel like I was born 10 years too late.

What was so good about the 1980s? Everything! OK, so I don't know exactly what the economics or politics was like over 20 years ago, and reading about historical facts cannot possibly compare to actually experiencing and living in any particular era. In my opinion, the 1980s had the best music, best movies, best cartoons, best TV, and even the best comics! Especially music and movies! Particularly music. Maybe I am showing my age, but I hardly listen to anything recorded after the late 1990s, so it's been almost a decade since I appreciated new music.

It was during the period between 1982 to 1993 that we had musical acts like Michael Jackson, Sheena Easton, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, Culture Club, Tears For Fears, Spandau Ballet, Fine Young Cannibals, NKOTB (OK, so this was a guilty pleasure), Richard Marx, and many others that are slipping my mind right now producing amazing music that I feel are infinitely better than the noise made by current so-called "artistes". And then there's movies such as Sixteen Candles, Say Anything, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Secret!, Weird Science, Back To The Future, The Never-Ending Story, Batman, Dances With Wolves, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. And not to mention television programmes such as Misfits of Science, Manimal, Automan, MacGyver, Quantum Leap, Airwolf, Family Ties (god I had such a crush on Tina Yothers!), ALF, Out of this World, and sooo many others that made the 1980s such an amazing decade!

I think my love affair with the 1980s came about after watching The Wedding Singer starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. And boy did it have a significant impact on my taste in music. My iTunes favourites list consists almost entirely of 1980s staples these days, and thanks to avenues such as VH1 and the Internet, it's easier than ever to get more 1980s lovin'!
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05 June 2006 @ 07:34 pm
What were your favourite Buffyverse TV episodes?  
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a show that came out of nowhere... and promptly got me hooked! I admit that I was stubbornly refusing the watch the show simply because of the oh so silly title (it's still a very title despite my affection for the show), but boy was I surprised at the quality of this amazing series! I own a copy of the entire series on DVD, and I will always have fond memories of the suspenseful wait in between DVD releases as they ship from Amazon. Oh... and the first season was rather naff, and it was only with the second season that I became a truly blue Whedon-ite.

On with the nostalgia...

SEASON ONE
101 - Welcome to the Hellmouth
102 - The Harvest
103 - The Witch
112 - Prophecy Girl

SEASON TWO
213 - Surprise
214 - Innocence
217 - Passion
219 - I Only Have Eyes For You
221 - Becoming, Part 1
222 - Becoming, Part 2

SEASON THREE
303 - Faith, Hope and Trick
307 - Revelations
309 - The Wish
312 - Helpless
314 - Bad Girls
315 - Consequences
316 - Doppelgängland
318 - Earshot
321 - Graduation Day, Part 1
322 - Graduation Day, Part 2

SEASON FOUR
410 - Hush
413 - The I in Team
415 - This Year's Girl
416 - Who Are You?
420 - The Yoko Factor
421 - Primeval

SEASON FIVE
507 - Fool For Love
510 - Into The Woods
516 - The Body
517 - Forever
518 - Intervention
519 - Tough Love
520 - Spiral
522 - The Gift

SEASON SIX
605 - Life Serial
607 - Once More, With Feeling
608 - Tabula Rasa
612 - Doublemeat Palace
616 - Hell's Bells
617 - Normal Again
618 - Entropy
619 - Seeing Red
622 - Grave

SEASON SEVEN
704 - Help
705 - Selfless
706 - Him
707 - Conversations With Dead People
715 - Get It Done
716 - Storyteller
718 - Dirty Girls
722 - Chosen

I simply can't choose a favourite, especially when there's just so many outstanding episodes. Sure, episodes like Hush, Innocence, and Once More, With Feeling are right up there, but how does one rank them in any quantitative manner? Personally, I feel it is an impossible task.

And then came Angel, starring everybody's favourite vampire with a soul spinning off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And surprisingly enough, it sometimes surpassed its parent series, not exactly a common occurrence for a TV spin-off. Below are my favourite episodes.

SEASON ONE
103 - In The Dark
108 - I Will Remember You
109 - Hero
114 - I've Got You Under My Skin
118 - Five By Five
121 - Blind Date
122 - To Shanshu in L.A.

SEASON TWO
207 - Darla
210 - Reunion
211 - Redefinition
215 - Reprise
216 - Epiphany
218 - Dead End

SEASON THREE
308 - Quickening
309 - Lullaby
310 - Dad
311 - Birthday
315 - Loyalty
316 - Sleep Tight
321 - Benediction
322 - Tomorrow

SEASON FOUR
402 - Ground State
405 - Supersymmetry
407 - Apocalypse, Nowish
410 - Awakening
413 - Salvage
416 - Players
419 - The Magic Bullet
421 - Peace Out
422 - Home

SEASON FIVE
507 - Lineage
509 - Harm's Way
512 - You're Welcome
514 - Smile Time
515 - A Hole In The World
519 - Time Bomb
520 - The Girl In Question
522 - Not Fade Away

Now that everything's out of the way, what were your favourite Buffyverse episodes?
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19 May 2006 @ 07:38 pm
It's been a long road... Getting from there to here...  
Finally finished the fourth and final season of Enterprise yesterday evening. And despite all the bad online reviews from Trekkers and non-Trekkers alike, I find myself liking the show, and the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise. Sure, the first two seasons were rather drab and too reliant on the generic and boring Trek TV formula established by Star Trek: The Next Generation and perfected to mediocre results by Star Trek: Voyager, but boy did things pick up with the Xindi arc in the third season, which in turn revitalized and re-energized the show for a great fourth season. (Yes, I even enjoyed series/franchise finale These Are The Voyages...)

Below is a list of my favourite episodes...

SEASON ONE
101 - Broken Bow
108 - Civilization
112 - Cold Front
114 - Dear Doctor
117 - Shuttlepod One
125 - Shockwave, Part One

SEASON TWO
202 - Carbon Creek
204 - Dead Stop
210 - Vanishing Point
215 - Cease Fire
216 - Future Tense
219 - Judgment
222 - Cogenitor
223 - Regeneration
226 - The Expanse

SEASON THREE
306 - Exile
307 - The Shipment
308 - Twilight
310 - Similitude <-- my personal favourite, and the best Star Trek episode I have ever seen
318 - Azati Prime
319 - Damage
320 - The Forgotten
321 - E²
322 - The Council
323 - Countdown
324 - Zero Hour

SEASON FOUR
404 - Borderland
407 - The Forge
408 - Awakening
409 - Kir'Shara
411 - Observer Effect
412 - Babel One
413 - United
414 - The Aenar
418 - In A Mirror Darkly, Part One
419 - In A Mirror Darkly, Part Two
420 - Demons
421 - Terra Prime
422 - These Are The Voyages...

As can be seen by the exponential increase in the number of GREAT episodes in the latter two seasons, Enterprise really does pick up after suffering two limp, mediocre seasons. Overall, Enterprise is a very worthy addition to the Star Trek lore, and was cut before the show could realise it's true potential.
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30 April 2006 @ 10:31 am
Saladin Rules! Colour Me Impressed!  
Just caught the trailer for Saladin: The Animated Series, and I have to say it looks and sounds absolutely amazing! Check it out here.

Believe it or not, it is actually a Malaysian production. When my friend first told me about it, I was preparing for the worst especially when it the best that local animation houses could do was 2-frame barely animated dreck like Keluang Man and it's ilk.

Kudos to MDC for greenlighting this project, and I really hope Saladin: The Animated Series is financially successful. It's unrealistic to compare ourselves to American, Japanese, or Korean animation houses yet, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Malaysia boleh! (and for once, I am not saying it in a cynical tone!)
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Current Mood: impressed
 
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13 April 2006 @ 12:07 am
A few random notes from here and there this week  
  • Windows Vista is horrible! This is not a new observation, as I have been a Vista user for the past few weeks. And I have to say I really hate a lot of the new features Microsoft implemented. The biggest problem I had was the inability to install applications directly from MSI packages, unless I am logged on using a local administrator account. While this is probably not an issue for home users, what about those of us who use domains? I also really disliked the centralized Start Menu, especially since I am very persnickety about the way my Windows Start Menu is configured. With each passing incarnation of Windows that passes me, I become increasingly disenchanted with the Windows operating system family. I feel that Windows reached it's zenith with Windows 2000, and everything has been progressively downhill since.
  • Anthony Bourdain's No Reservation on Discovery Travel & Living (The Travel Channel for folks in the United States) is becoming one of my favourite television programmes. I don't really get to watch it on a regular basis since I suck at remembering television schedules, but I thoroughly enjoyed his escapades in Sarawak, Vietnam, and Sicily. I wonder if The Travel Channel ever plans on releasing it on DVD? I'd certainly pick it up!
  • I've never been a fan of Jeff Matsuda's artwork, from his early days on Rob Liefeld's NewMen, to his latter day work on Marvel Comics' Wolverine. However, I do enjoy his design work on Kids WB's The Batman series, especially on characters such as Firefly, Clayface, Mr Freeze, and the bestial Joker. His visual interpretation of Batman, although pretty cool in its own right, is nowhere near as bad-ass as Bruce Timm's design from the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series though.
  • There's a Klingonese version of Wikipedia! How frickin' cool is that??
  • I've started including words like grife, gorram, and frack in my cursing vocabulary. Geek points to whoever's able to point out the origins of these words!
  • Made another order over at Mile High Comics' online store, primarily because Chuck Rozanski's having one of his semi-annual super discount codeward sales. I managed to score the entire runs of Camelot 3000 and The Establishment for way below cover price, as well as patching up holes in my runs of Captain Atom, House of Secrets (the brilliant Steven Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen version from the late '90s), and Alpha Flight.
  • Scrambled eggs, toasted bread, and orange juice. Mmmm... yum! (I haven't actually eaten that traditional breakfast-y combo in eons though. Just a though that popped into my head)
  • When is ASTRO gonna get off it's butt and get some new G4TV programming in? I'm getting bored watching the same stale episodes of Filter, Icon, Attack of the Show, and Judgment Day already!
  • Microsoft Office 2007's new ribbon interface is new, and fits well with the overall Aero Glass interface Microsoft designed for Windows Vista. However, I can't help but feel uneasy over Office 2007's reliance on XML. Internet Explorer and FrontPage nearly hijacked HTML, I wonder if Office 2007 is their way of doing the same for XML? To be realistic, this is rather unlikely especially since XML is used for a variety of standards (e.g. ATOM, RSS), but who knows?
  • Rebranding FrontPage as Sharepoint Designer in Office 2007? I guess Microsoft has thrown in the towel and realized no real web developer uses Frontpage anyway, especially since Macromedia Dreamweaver is more superior, less system resource intensive, and compliant with W3C HTML and CSS specifications. By rebranding it as Sharepoint Designer, we now have a real purpose to use the stupid application. Heck knows the code in the ASPX files used in Sharepoint is enough to drive a sane person crazy what with their Microsoft specific junk code and all!
  • Music from the late 1980s to the early 1990s are simply the best! I love VH1! 'nuff said!
  • I have a standing invitation for a free pint in Ireland. Which is funny, since I don't drink. :-)
  • Astraware's portable version of Monopoly has lost it's challenge, even when I am pitting myself against 3 AI opponents. To anyone who have problems playing Astraware's version, there is a kink in the AI that can be used to your advantage. Offer exactly US$101 to whichever AI opponent who is holding a deeds who want, and they will gladly offer it to you (unless you already have two out of the three deeds required for a set. They're not that stupid). This rule doesn't apply for Park Place and Boardwalk though.
  • Infinite Crisis # 6 popping up at Splash Page Comics this weekend. (It's an unfortunate fact that us Malaysian fans get out comics a week late)
  • Why is love so gorram difficult?
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Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: 'We Built This City' - Starship
 
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14 March 2006 @ 12:59 am
'Lina was on TV!  
It's true, [info]qinyen was just on TV a few moments ago. So let's just take a few moments of silence to let that sink in -- [info]qinyen was on TV a few moments ago! It's so cool to see a friend on TV (my love for Lauren Graham and Linda Park notwithstanding, they are unfortunately neither friends nor acquaintances in this imperfect world). Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was utterly uninfectious as it could barely stop [info]qinyen from going to bed rather than staying up to catch her own pulse-pounding TV debut. blueh

So, the show was some local entertainment/variety show called Everyday's A Friday, which was obviously a lame advertorial vehicle for the TGIF restaurant. Ironically enough, a show named Everyday's A Friday airing on a Monday night/Tuesday morning? WTF? Stupid NTV7. I wonder if they even noticed this little bit of irony.

Anyway, Everyday's A Friday aired from 12:15am to 12:45am, and I have to say it is 30 minutes of sheer awfulness. It's so lame and cheesy, from the slo-mo cocktail mixing action to the canned laughter that is the staple of many bad American sitcoms, to the inane chatter between host Serena C and guests Reshmonu and Dina. Lame lame lame lame lame all the way. Of course special mention has to be given to the Bottom 10 List. WTF? KNS - trying to be funny arr? Trow your mudder old shoe!

And where was [info]qinyen throughout all this? Doing pretend claps and laughter in the background. Of course it is hardly fair to criticise her performance here, since she's simply a background extra. She should've worn an Alan Moore wig or a V porcelain mask. That would have spiced up the show! :-D No screen caps in this update -- was busy doing an impromptu audio commentary of the show with [info]qinyen. :-P

Oh well, it was an interesting experience at the very least. I've been looking forward to this ever since I first heard about this from [info]qinyen before Chinese New Year 2006, and it was anticipation erroneously misplaced. If this is the best that NTV7 could do, it's no wonder that the station is so very quickly losing ratings to TV3 and 8TV.
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Current Mood: disappointed
 
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05 March 2006 @ 02:46 pm
Toei Spider-Man is Crack-Tastic!  
Man, this is just sheer crazy crack, and the silly fan-made subtitles make an already hilarious show even more crack-tastic!



Marvel Comics must've been insane to allow Toei to do this back in 1978! Every cliché we have come to associate with sentai shows are present here, from overacting evil overlords and their skimpily dressed female assistant, the magic self-replicating goons, and the giant monsters and robots!
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Current Mood: amused
 
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20 February 2006 @ 12:30 am
I've been tagged by Steffi B... chain blogging... NYA!  
4 Jobs I've Had In My Life
  • Lab Assistant
  • Assistant Writer
  • IT Trainer
  • Technical Support Help Desk
4 Movies I Could Watch Over & Over
  • Disney's Beauty and the Beast
  • Empire Records
  • The Matrix
  • Transformers: The Movie
4 TV Shows I Love(d) To Watch
  • 24
  • Babylon 5
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
4 Places Where I've Lived
  • Melaka
  • Sungai Nibong, Penang
  • Kajang, Selangor
  • Bangsar, KL
4 Places I've Been On Vacation To
What is the meaning of this word... vacation?

4 Places I Would Rather Be
  • My office cubicle (believe it or not!)
  • Kinokuniya KLCC's graphic novel section
  • Leisurely ride on an almost empty Putra LRT train
  • any mamak stalls with a bunch of friends
4 Of My Favourite Foods (sob sob, can't eat most of them anymore!)
  • Hainanese chicken rice
  • White sandwhiches with fresh lettuce, white pepper, and margarine
  • Taman Lip Sin Duck Rice
  • McDs Egg McMuffins
4 Websites I Visit Daily4 Beautiful People Worth Tagging
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Current Mood: entertained
 
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17 February 2006 @ 12:56 am
(no subject)  
You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.

</td>

Moya (Farscape)

69%

SG-1 (Stargate)

69%

Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)

63%

FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)

63%

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)

56%

Serenity (Firefly)

50%

Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)

44%

Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)

44%

Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)

38%

Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)

25%

Enterprise D (Star Trek)

25%

Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)

19%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

WTF??!!
But I don't even like Farscape! :-(
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Current Mood: shocked
 
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16 February 2006 @ 11:32 am
Andreas Katsulas Passes Away  
I just read a few moments ago on http://www.cinemablend.com/new.php?id=2206 that Andreas Katsulas has passed away, at the age of 59. For those not in the know, Katsulas played G'Kar, the cantankerous turned spiritual leader of the Narn people in the classic sci-fi television series Babylon 5. G'Kar was a very interesting character, and it Katsulas really showed his acting prowess by being able to emote to succintly despite the think layers of prosthetics and makeup. You will be missed. :-(

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Current Mood: sad
 
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