must watch: islam in america

Al-Jazeera made a great mind-opening 2-episodes documentary about muslims in america.

check it out on youtube, or you can just watch the playlist that i made below for easy viewing:

Islam in America: The American Crescent

Islam in America: Islamic Stars & Stripes

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After watching the documentary, I was very intrigued to know that Islam in the United States has flourished and eventually formed a shape of its own; without the heavy influence of Arab culture like in Malaysia, but more in tune with what the Americans held so proudly in their hearts: The rights to basic human freedom.

Instead of opting for idol-worshipping by saying YES to each and every word of several Islamic scholars, the Americans tend to translate and interpret the Quran and Sunnah by themselves to fit their livestyle and the need in spiritual stability that they have found in the teachings of Islam. They regard religions as a personal thing thus enabling them to assimilate with American secularism.

For example, the Muslim Feminists, who has their own translation and understandings of the Quran; which is slightly different in parts where it is thought to be undermining the female and contradicting women’s right. They say that these slight differences of ideas originated because the old translations were made by men who lives in a culture that over-powers women and put men on a way-higher paedestal compared to their fairer-skin partners. The culture of the person who translates the holy text should never influence their translation, and this is what is happening in the Arab world; so the feminists have said.

But is it considered OK to have a moderate, Arab-free interpretation of Islam? Wallahuallam.

Then we have the peaceful Arabs making friends with the Jews. We all know that muslims who doesn’t live in a multi-cultural society, hates the Jews whole heartedly; they were brain-washed to label all the Jews as Zionist and they should be eradicated from the face of this earth; well, at least that’s what I was thought during my childhood in Malaysia. I’m definitely not a Jew-lover, but I don’t want to be arrogant and racist about it.

But in America, where multi-cultural diversity is one of the important issues to be looked upon, this common hatred against certain people cannot be tolerated, and it exists only on the lowest degree. Or maybe they have just accepted the fact that it IS the Jews who controls the American economy; so being friends with the Jews is a smart thing to do. .

It is said in the documentary that Islam is the fastest spreading religion in the United States, and they don’t see that trend slowing down, at least for now.

Over are the days of Elijah Muhammad’s Black Panther and Nation of Islam, with his famous Muhammad Ali extravagant; the new wave of multi-cultural Islam in the United States is something big, and should be seen as a tidal wave in waiting to rise and be a powerful and prominent, NEW voice in the Muslim world.

The true conservatives would complain that their American brothers and sister’s moderate views of Islam is not what the true teachings is all about; but to the Americans, they have the right to be an American and a Muslim at the same time.

yikes! movie reviews!

 

Wall E – 8.8
Although this latest CGI movie from Disney is not as awesome as The Incredibles, Wall E is a great movie that could be enjoyed by kids, teenagers and adults. The main theme of the story resonates very well with the current eco-buzz and the CGI animation was top of the line. This is an easy movie to like and an easier one to watch because it is engaging, fun and entertaining. Highly recommended! 

Wanted – 7.5
Never take this movie too seriously because this is one of the stupidest action movies this year. Treat it like an over the top adaptation of a manga turned into an 80’s hong kong action movie with an excessive touch of today’s latest technology of hollywood’s CGI action sequences. The action scenes are fun and exciting, but most of the time it is too serious in being too ridiculously dumb. You are not allowed to think when watching this movie; just try to absorb the visual treat that was presented.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of Crystal Skull– 8.0

They don’t do movies like Indiana Jones anymore these days. This is the example of how a big Hollywood director with tons of money to spend would make a movie. First you introduce the main character and the dumb story that they’re going to be in, then you throw in a HUGE chuck of adrenaline pumping entertainment elements in it, and you’re done. The past Indiana Jones movies were really fun to watch because it portrays Indy in incredible places with impossible consequences. The latest comeback movie still retains that formula, but George Lucas really double or maybe tripled the action sequences; and that makes up for the boring first half of the movie. The camera angle, cheesy dialogues and fight scenes felt really like an Indiana Jones movie, and that is good and bad both at the same time. I saw this on blu-ray and it was brilliant! The first half of the movie is dead boring, but the second half is awesome! Recommended! 

Step Brothers – 7.0
If you liked the weirdness of Talladega Nights, you’d probably like this one too. Weird, uncomfortable jokes are thrown around randomly throughout the movie to keep the ‘funniness’ level on average, and it stays that way. This is indeed, your average comedy movie, and Talladega Nights is way funnier.

Bad Taste – 6.5
Peter Jackson’s debut film is a cheesy splatter movie that has an excessive amount of guts, intestines, brain splatter and all the other gory elements that you would expect from an 80’s horror movie. This film is bad and good all at the same time.

If I Were Superman – 7.4
‘If I Were Superman’ is a fantasy Korean comedy about this lady journalist who followed a man who claimed that he’s Superman who has to help save the world. At first glance, he seemed to be mental but as the story goes, the journalist slowly found out why he became this way. This film was supposed to be a tear-jerker but unfortunately, the ending was so obvious that I felt empty watching it. The first half of the movie is really fun to watch though, as you observe the main character’s foolish ways of going out all the way to help people in need.

Miracle of Giving Fool – 7.2
I’ve never watched a Korean tear-jerker that focuses on the love of a brother to his kid sister, like the one portrayed in this movie. The use of a retard character to fish for sympathetic emotions from the audience is an old movie-making trick, but it worked pretty well and the director did a good job in keeping the constant sappy mood the whole entire movie. I just thought the director took too much time in building the main character before moving into the real meat, making the movie a little longer than what it should be for a simple story that it has.

Miss Gold Digger – 5.5
The title says it all. This Korean movie is about choices and sacrifices a woman has to face in her relationship with several men that have the potential of providing her with money. Too bad the story is not ‘crazy’ enough and not so entertaining.

Grizzly Park - 5.0
A group of ‘troubled’ teenagers went to a wild park, and then a big bear came and tried to kill them all. Dumb, and not scary at all.

Reincarnation – 7.0
The movie starts with a high note and sets a nice mysterious vibe to the story, but it gets convoluted quite fast and leaving the viewer more confused than they are scared. This Japanese horror has its ample amount of scariness, but you have to pay close attention to every detail to fully understand the story.

OneChanBara – 5.5
Based on the cult Japanese video game, the story focuses on one onechan (お姉ちゃん – means big sister) who wears only red skin lingerie while she slices zombies with her samurai sword. The acting was bad, the special effects were laughable and the story is as lame as any bad fictional Japanese movie with low budget; but the last fight scene with the high school girl samurai was not so bad.

SNUFF: a documentary about killing on camera – 6.0
This documentary got several people to talk about snuff films, their origin and why they’re called mere urban legends. They also revealed the back story behind some of the popular 80’s snuff movies like Faces of Death and Cannibal Holocaust. Just like the sub-title, this is a documentary about killing on camera, and sometimes enjoying it.

Stop The Bitch Campaign (援助交際撲滅運動) – 7.0
During the Japanese economic crisis during the late 90’s, the social sickness of the Japanese youngster was at its peak, especially with the trend of high school girls who involved in prostitution through telephone clubs around Tokyo. Two guys who worked at a telephone club were so sick and tired of this social problem, and decided to help the Japanese society and established a plan. The plan is to set up a blind date for paid sex with random high school girls, rape them and then leave them humiliated without paying them. Based on a manga, the story was quite bizarre and least to say, their plan didn’t went as smooth as they would hope, because every character in the movie is fucking evil. This is one crazy Japanese movie.

Duyung – 4.0
Just another really, really BAD malay movie. Apek Saiful tries too hard to be funny in this one, and it is very uncomfortable to watch. This film is extremely boring; because the story introduces too little interesting plots throughout the movie. Ignore this shameful failure.

Cicakman – 5.0
Movie budgets, especially for a fiction movie, really does matter. The visual presentation of this movie is acceptable when you think about the limited budget, but the horrible acting, uninteresting story and the desperate attempt at comedy are just too frustrating. You want this local adaptation of Spiderman to be good, but it is just too boring and lame. I know this is just an experiment from KRU; but bad experiments will lead to good ones, IF you’re patient and work hard enough.

Camp Rock – 6.0

The story and plot development is so fucking lame and cliché, only 10 years old girly girls are going to like this movie. Why do they make the same movies over and over again?

Otai – 3.0

This film is a shame for the Malaysian film industry. I’ve seen a lot of Malay movies for the past 23 years of my life, and I can say that this is the WORST Malay movie that I have ever watched. The main theme of the film degrades women and the poor, the acting was terrible, the jokes were fucking lame and there is not a single element in this film that is good, except Nasha Aziz, IF you’ve watched the video taken by the peep-freak at her apartment some years ago. I really think the director; Prof Madya A Razak Mohaideen should quit the film industry and stop tarnishing the overall quality of Malaysian movies. What the fuck was he thinking? Seriously. Where the fuck did he got his Prof Madya title? If any of you are a student of this prof, don’t ever listen to him when he tries to school you about how to make film, because it was obvious that he doesn’t realize that he has no talent or the intelligence to make a decent movie. He might be a genius in a lot of things, but making movies is not one of it. Stay away from the Malaysian movie industry, please! End of a ridiculously long rant.

first time getting a japanese driving license

yesterday i went to the akita prefecture’s 運転免許センター(unten menkyo senta – driving license centre) to apply for a japanese driving license.

i parked my bike at a leopalace apartment (which is prohibited) close to the eki, and then took the bus to the place. it was a 45 minutes ride and i spent the whole time reading a book on how to talk to women properly.

i don’t remember when was the last time i ride a normal bus in japan so i forgot about how the system works. thanks for my superb observation powers, everything went smooth without any embarrassment. anyways, this one time, 2 girls got into the bus while text messaging with their cell phone, and the bus driver immediately gave them a ‘bad’ look and announced into the bus speaker system: 携帯はやめて下さい！ (keitai wa yamete kudasai – please don’t use your cell phone). i didn’t know that you’re not allowed to use your cell phone in a japanese bus!

i reached the centre safely, thinking that i have all the documents that i needed. of course i was wrong. i brought along my current passport, but they also need the previous passport as proof that i have stayed in malaysia for at least 90 days after i changed my ‘lesen percubaan’ to the ‘real’ license.

nothing can be accomplished without the older passport, so i have efficiently wasted my time that day. i spent the bus ride back listening to the best hits of siti nurhaliza.

i got back to my bike and immediately realized that i have lost the key. i tried to back-track to where i’ve been but how much further should i go back? i searched desperately for my keys.

i can’t find the damn thing anywhere! i double-checked every pocket and every hole. if i have a vagina, i would probably searched there too.

yyyeeeeaaahhh….

it is just a bad day for me. so i got no other choice but to pick up my bike, and carry it home with me. the damn thing is heavy! berat dosa apa la basikal nih.

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today i went to homac to buy a saw to cut the lock of the bike, and on the way home, i stopped at marudai to buy dinner. their kimchi nabe were discounted 100yen so i bought it at 298 yen. cheap.

the kimchi nabe is a very simple meal, consisting of thekimchi paste, fish, shrimp, scallop and vegetables.

to prepare it, first you boil two cups of water. then put the kimchi paste in. then after about 5 minutes, put all the other ingredients, then wait for another 10 minutes.

then eat! if you want to, you could also add udon or mochi, but i just put one extra chicken egg in the combination because i was not that hungry. this korean dish is spicy, delicious, and definitely warmed me up.

now i can blog about this.

*the seminar that i was supposed to present this friday had been rescheduled to next week’s thursday. i am suddenly free for a moment!*

graphic card upgrade !!!

:WARNING: EXTREMELY GEEKY CONTENT:

i am planning to buy a kick-ass gaming rig with all the bells and whistles that the latest technology could offer including 64 bit OSes, multi-core processors, dual-GPUs, EAX 5.0 audio solutions etc…. next year.i am going to buy those next year, when i move to tokyo for work.

and that leaves me with my 5 years old crappy Pentium 4 computer at the moment, and this is not good because i still want to be able to play the latest games with a decent visual quality in a decent FPS count.

there are tons of amazing games that is coming before i got my new kick-ass gaming rig next year. games like dead space, saints row 2, diablo 3, red alert 3, far cry 2, left 4 dead, CoD: world at war, star craft 2, fallout 3, barbie horse adventure: riding camp… i could go on and on and on!

this year is going to be a great gaming year for pc, and i don’t want to miss it.

and that wish is impossible to achieve with my current radeon x1980 pro. the card was a beast once, several years ago. now its just a weak old card not capable of running crysis proper even in low settings.

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i want to still be able to play games, but i am not ready yet to flush big money for a big upgrade; so my only temporary solution is to change my current video card to a better one. it should be reasonably priced, and of course it should be powerful enough for the new games coming this year.

so i went into the cyberspace that some people call the internetssss, to find the solution to my problem, and immediately i could see that the sapphire radeon hd 3850 is my new savior.

a little note here. since i bought my dell dimension 8300 back in 2003, the motherboard is as old as madonna and it only support AGP configuration and single-core processors. i cannot upgrade my processor to intel core 2 duo because of this, so i am only left to find the most powerful AGP card available… since they don’t make AGP cards anymore these days. man i wish i had picked a PCI-Express motherboard instead that day in Shinjuku Bic Camera when i purchase the dell… ;(

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the new card cost me 16000 yen, which is right in my budget. as you can see in the picture above, the cooling system used in the hd 3850 (above) is quite similar to the x1980 pro (below).

my old radeon x1980 pro before getting thrown away after years of dedicated and awesome service in satisfying my gaming rage. thanks a lot old dude, now make way for the newcomer !!!

i had no trouble installing the hd 3850. i only need to change to power suppy connector from the 3 pins to 4 pins installation, and i am done.

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after the hardware-part is done, next is the software department. i downloaded the latest catalyst driver from ati and everything went smooth sailing. now for the real test: gaming.

first i loaded up call of duty 4, and it was just fantastic. i was able to play at 1280×960 in high settings with no problems like the hiccups that i would experience with my old radeon x1950 pro. it was brilliant.

then i tried loading stalker clear sky, and i was really satisfied with the quality/performance the the x-ray engine 1.5 is showing on my screen. i’ve never played stalker this beautiful with such a steady FPS. awesome.

pro evolution soccer 2009 played brilliantly. so does the witcher enhanced edition.

then i tried brothers in arms hell’s highway. the minimum spec for this game includes at least a dual-core 2.66 ghz processor, versus my crappy 2.8ghz Pentium 4; and my worst dream (i’m exaggerating here) had come true, although my GPU is powerful enough, my pathetic processor is bottlenecking the whole system, i’m only getting 15-30 FPS throughout my play through.

then i tried crysis warhead, and the result is the same: stutters and poor performance probably because of the pentium 4 bottlenecking everything. although the game is still playable in medium settings, it would really be awesome if i could play in high settings, and experience all the fancy lighting and the advanced particle/shader tech that the game engine has to offer.

well, one cannot hope for EVERYTHING to be great, but it sure would be nice. with that said, i am still pretty satisfied with my purchase, and hopefully the new hd 3850 could hold all the beatings that i am going to give it, before i bought a new gaming rig.

man… i still got ps3 and xbox 360 games that i need to finish… bila nak buat kenkyu?

Leah Dizon : The New Shotgun Bride ?!!

Before singing her last song on the last day of her first national tour, Leah Dizon shocked the crowd with an announcement that she got married with a japanese stylist; and she is pregnant with his kid. She said she is happy with her family now and she will take a brief break from the entertainment industry.

I was drinking my milk when I first saw the news on TV this morning, and it was an awesome WTF moment that I almost burst milk everywhere.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m kind of a ‘fan’ of Leah Dizon, and this news is not something that I look forward to when I am drinking my milk in the morning.

She said that she is taking a brief break before coming back, but judging from the harsh and difficult competitiveness of the japanese entertainment industry, I don’t see her ever making a successfull comeback.

Well, all that I can say is thank you for all the awesome photobooks and all the silly but cute music videos. I just hoped she had used some decent cock blocker to avoid this from happening; that way maybe she has a longer career. She just topped the japanese gravure industry and are just trying to set her foot in singing… such a loss.

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youtube link
news link

*her last sentance ポイしないで下さい (poi shinaide kudasai) means don’t throw me away!*

I felt the same way about Hirosue Ryoko when she annouced her dekichattakon, and I thought she would never make a good comeback, but I was wrong. After having her kid and divorced her husband, she came back into the entertainment industry just fine.

*dekichatta kekkon = shotgun marriage