Van Nisterooy no angel

From "I'm innocent" to "I accept the charge". Van nisterooy is repentant and feeling guilty over his tackle on Ashley Cole? Maybe not.
Here are the fixtures of Manchester United following the match against Arsenal, with the ones in bold matches he would miss as a result of instant acceptal of the FA charge:

Crewe
Portsmouth
Manchester City
Newcastle United
Charlton Athletic
WBA
Southampton

Chances are Alex Ferguson prefers him to take a rest and make a return against Newcastle, rather than risk losing the appeal. Losing the appeal would result in van Nisterooy sitting out matches more important than the one against Crewe(which he is going to be rested anyway), which might include the one against Newcastle.

Pretty obvious to me.

Video Evidence in Football

The Manchester United - Arsenal showdown at Old Trafford two days ago(25 October 2004) was again not short of controversy. I'm sure heated arguments, or even heated blows would be exchanged between manure and gooner fans all around the globe. The credibility of the result - 2-0 to Man U is in suspect.

For those that did not watch the game, here are the casts and the role they played in the game, in order of prominence.

1. Mike Riley - referee - blind man
2. Arsene Wenger - arsenal - cry baby
2. Ruud van Nisterooy - man u - disguised assassin
3. Ashely Cole - arsenal - battered thug
4. Wayne Rooney - man u - qualified diver(?)
5. Jose Reyes - arsenal - target practice for tackles
6. Kolo Toure - man u - failed diver(!)

Arsene Wenger whining about referees? Actually thats nothing new. In fact, we get different managers whining about different referees almost week in, week out. The fact that it was Arsene Wenger whining gets amplified by tabloids and sports columnists. Around the same time, Kevin Keegan was doing it(on his 3-4 defeat by Newcastle)

"... but the most astonishing thing was that the referee here today was not strong enough and made too many mistakes, ..."

So instead of focusing on the credibility of the result, I shall discuss the meat of the problem. I'm convinced that if two teams were evenly matched (which I feel this match was), a third party human errors should not have an impact on the result, tilting it towards one particular direction.

Which brings me to the point: technology (video evidence for example) must be installed in football games to assist referees.

Putting video evidence to use is a complicated matter, as discussed in this article.

Why sensors are not installed in goals to assist in goal line decisions(whether the ball has crossed the line) is beyond my comprehension. FIFA does not have a valid point in opposing the move.

Apart from installing justice to a game that is long devoid of it, using real time video evidence would also take some pressure off the ref. As a result, violent cases against referees would decrease significantly.

Afraid that it would distrupt the flow of the game? Why not experiment first with lower and conference division leagues?

A while ago, I read an article (in soccernet) suggesting that football should adopt what the Americans are doing with their professional sports. In NHL(or is it NFL, I can't remember), a team has 3 chances of appealing against any decision and review the decision using video evidence. If the appeal fails, one of your "chance" is wasted. If the appeal succeeds, you retain the "chance". Once a team have used up the 3 chances, they can no longer appeal against any referee decisions during the game. This would restrict teams to only appeal if they are VERY convinced that the decision going against them is wrong. The idea seem very logical to me and would certainly improve football as a professional and spectator sports.

The only problem? What if there are situations where even video evidence could not show the obvious? Take the penalty kick earned by Wayne Rooney two days ago as an example. The video is out there, everybody could see it, but still there are arguments on whether Rooney had dived or not.

At least, I would rather accept a decision made by a panel (of four?) studying video evidence, than the decision by a referee that had to run everywhere and spot every single detail on the pitch for 90 minutes. The decision have to be made rapidly of course. Not happy with a decision going against your team? Either shut up, or blame it on a conspiracy by the FA(football association). No more finger pointing at a single referee.

I do not take in to this whole idea about football being fascinating because of the uncertainties. Many tend to confuse injustice and incompetence with uncertainty.

My solution to the problem? Everybody on the pitch should wear touch sensitive clothing, complete with sensors for measuring even the force of contact.

"Mr Wayne Rooney, exactly 0.00001 Newton of force was exerted upon you by Sol Campbell, therefore, I judge you to have dived and you shall receive a total of 352 minutes of ban from playing professional football, starting from now."

Now that would rule!

Why I Don't Take Seats on LRT

I take the LRT(Light Rail Transit) to work daily. The journey to my workplace(from the first station Kelana Jaya to Ampang Park) takes about 40 minutes. For those that do not take the Putra LRT, its trains are small and its frequency can be questioned. As a result, at peak hours, it may be jam packed with people right from the first station. Traffic jams are slightly more evil than jamming and rubbing shoulders with total strangers, thats why I chose to take the LRT to work.

Now back to the topic, why is it that I rather stand for 40 minutes than to take a seat in the LRT? Firstly, it must be made clear that LRT seats during peak hours are limited. Secondly, I board the train from the first station, therefore sometimes I have the luxury of empty seats staring conspicuously at me.

Malaysia is full of obese, oversized women.

(Actually, the world is full of obese, oversized women; On second thought, the world is full of obese, oversized people, but thats irrelevent)

Now how would that pose a problem to poor ol' grumpy and sleep deprived killarkai taking a seat so that he does not have to sleep-stand(or stand-sleep) for 40 minutes?

Problem: Its hard as hell to distinguish between an obese woman and a pregnant woman. Especially if one is wearing a baju kurung, or loose fitting clothes.

Apparent Solution: Give the benefit of doubt to any obese woman, just let any of them take your seat.

Problem 1 to Apparent Solution: In that case its better not to take the seat in the first place because there are too many obese woman.

Problem 2 to Apparent Solution: Give your seat to an obese woman that look pregnant(but actually not) and stand further away, the obese woman standing right in front of you might be pissed. (Why not me?! She will think)
Give your seat to an obese woman that stand right in front of you, and you risk pissing off the pregnant woman that look obese that stands a few steps away.

Real Solution: Don't take the seats in the first place. Leave the million dollar question to the intellects.

I guess its time to practice the art of stand sleeping.

Found an extremely useful product for me in the web, do contact me if you sell one of these.

P.S. It is not my intention to insult obese people, or obese women in particular. You guys just need to have some exercise and eat less of McDonalds =)

How to Make a Great Movie Based on a Video Game

Movies based on video games are stinkers. Generally, most of them piss gamers off (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within had virtually nothing to do with the game Final Fantasy), some drawing in peanuts in terms of gross, all ruthlessly mauled down by critics and reviewers, and a number of them were absolute cinematic catastrophes. (The House of the Dead, Street Fighter)

Here are the numbers to prove the point:

Movie Title	Rotten Tomatoes rating (out of 100%)	IMDb rating(out of 10)	US Gross(in USD)
Tomb Raider	17%	5.2	$131,144,183
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life	24%	5.2	$65,653,758
Mortal Kombat	26%	5.0	$70,433,227
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation	5%	3.1	$35,927,406
Street Fighter	27%	3.1	$33,423,000
Resident Evil	35%	6.2	$39,532,308
Resident Evil: Apocalypse	22%	5.8	$47,758,000
Super Mario Bros.	8%	3.5	$20,844,907
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within	45%	6.5	$32,131,830
The House of the Dead	4%	2.3	$10,199,354
Pokemon: The First Movie	8%	3.4	$85,744,662
Wing Commander	7%	3.6	$11,578,022
Double Dragon	-	3.1	$2,341,309

*Rotten Tomatoes reflects the view of critics/movie reviewers, IMDb reflects general moviegoers’ opinion on the movie.

Based on data, Tomb Raider made the most respected profit (having a production budget of $90,000,000 and raking in $274,500,000 in terms of worldwide gross) despite it being loathed by reviewers. Its secret?

1. Angelina Jolie. Take away Angelina Jolie, and you take away Millions of dollars with it.
2. Bath scenes, push up pads, tight and skimpy outfits.
3. It is hard to piss off fans of the video game. There are too little interesting characters, personalities, storyline, unique minions and villains to mess around with. As long as it features Lara Croft kicking butt with double handguns it would do the job.

This is further reinforced by the fact that although the first episode sucked (I will not go into that), the second episode still attracted a number of “willing sufferers”, myself included (the sequel grossed $65,653,758 in the US). We all knew what we were going to get all along.

Anyway, the title of this article is not “How to Make a Movie based on Video Games that sells well” but “How to Make a Great Movie based on Video Games”.
So far, not one single video-game-turned-movie was loved by fans of the game, equally fancied by non-game-fans, acclaimed by movie critics and reviewers, and also proved to be a successful hit financially.

Here is a general guideline, mostly lessons learnt from the above failures, you break one of these, you break the movie, and the movie will end up in the long list of “video game movies that stunk”.

1. Stay faithful to the original.
Final Fantasy was one of the better made movies(of the above), but to the regular fans, it was much more rewarding and entertaining to watch Yuna at a cosplay session than to watch the movie.
In contrast, Mortal Kombat reeks bad. It has bad plot, bad acting, bad dialogue. Its winning move was a simple one: stuff in all the characters that you could think of in the video game, and make them perform tricks just like the video game, and there you are, a decent profit, (70 million US gross on a 20 million budget), and some very happy and entertained game fans that are shouting “this movie sucksssss!” while whispering “guilty pleasure” in their hearts.

2. Choose the director wisely
Paul W.S. Anderson directed and screwed up Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil. Recently, he screwed up Alien vs Predator. Need I say more?
(Alien vs Predator is based on the video game that is based on the comic that is based on the two movie franchise, Aliens and Predator, so it is not strictly a “video game movie”)

3. Have a brilliant script and coherent plot
Easier said than done. If you chose a video game from an action based genre (FPS, brawlers, fighting games), chances are the story in the game is weak and characters not very well developed (or not developed at all in the case of hitman and doom). Make sure the screenwriter do his homework!
In the case of a video game that already has a well known and well liked world, storyline and characters that fans can easily relate to, chances are non-fans will also be hooked with the movie that is based on the video game. In this case, it is a no-brainer that you base the script on the already established game world and characters, or even better, base your movie 100% on the game. Lord of the Rings did not kick ass by introducing purple orcs, half-naked avians and harpers.

This point leads to my multi-million idea:

MAKE A MOVIE BASED ON AN ADVENTURE GAME

The following illustration is a comparison between the recent box-office hit Pirates of the Carribean and the classic adventure game Monkey Island(great potential to be made into a movie).

Protagonist

Will Turner


vs


Guybrush Treepwood

Verdict: Guybrush Threepwood puts Will Turner, the boyband member lookalike to shame with his humor, wit and creative use of insults (and whatever he lay his hands on- pretzels, balloons, plastic chickens).

Love Interest

Elizabeth Swann


vs

Elaine Marley

Verdict: A governer’s daughter against the governer herself as the love interest? Elaine Marley packs a mixture of charm and authority and shines in this contest. Elizabeth Swann may have better luck in a beauty contest or screaming contest.

Antagonist

Barbossa


vs


LeChuck

Verdict: Both are ghost pirates. Both are captains of their respective ghost ships and command a horde of terror. I call this a draw.

Trusty sidekick

Jack Sparrow


vs

nobody

Verdict: Jack Sparrow ain’t the regular trusty sidekick, his pinch of evil stands out amidst his kindness; moment of brilliance shines in his clumsiness. Guybrush Threepwood does not have a trusty sidekick nor any regular strong allies, Pirates of the Carribean really got it right this time with Jack Sparrow.

Final score: Pirates of the Carribean 1 – 2 Monkey Island Movie

If a movie has the potential to beat Pirates of the Carribean, you know it is definitely worth making it.

Besides the main characters, there are also a handful of interesting side characters in Monkey Island - Murray the talking skull, Stan the salesman that can’t stop talking, Hernan Toothrot the hermit that does not wear pants. All these colorful characters, along with the misty, mysterious setting of islands – Dinky Island, Booty Island, Melee Island, Monkey Island, stitch ‘em all up with the intense rivalry of Guybrush vs LeChuck and romance of Guybrush vs Elaine, it will surely be a masterpiece!

My conclusion: to make really great video game movie, take a game that already has a strong script and make an adaptation. Games from either the adventure or RPG genre have such good stories that put many movie scriptwriters to shame. Giving Lara Croft a bad pass with her father does not help, neither does giving the doom marine dude a name and the ability to talk help.

The trend of cashing in on hype and turning action games into movies is still continuing, check out the list of upcoming movies based on video games:

1. Alone in the Dark
2. Doom
3. Blood Rayne
4. Dungeon Siege
5. Metroid
6. Far Cry

The long list of video games turned movies(and turned stinky) is expanding, stay tuned!

Source:
1. Rotten Tomatoes
2. IMDb
3. The Numbers
4. Coming Soon

Eye Scream #2

Hamsters in Love!



Location: Pet Family, Taman Megah
Event: Window Shopping
Comments: Had 2 hamsters last time, unfortunately both were male, there weren't much love between them. This is my first time witnessing the power of er... animal instincts in full glory, had to snap it!