January 2004

Last Thursday Jo and I went to watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead, to cap off horror week. I don't want to get into a big remake vs original debate here or anything, so I'll just stick to another issue that kinda bothered me.

The original Living Dead Trilogy (Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead) created a new genre of horror films with the zombie flick. Technically, there were zombie movies before but it was Night of the Living Dead that gave us the zombie flick as we know it, with hordes of undead corpses lumbering forward, craving for human flesh. These Old Skool Zombies are the stereotyped zombies of old... they lumber with their arms outstretched, they moan "brains..." and they are slow and stupid.

Most zombie flicks and video games since then have stuck with these zombies... Resident Evil included (of course, Resident Evil was heavily influenced by the original George A. Romero trilogy, so that's not too surprising). But lately there's been a trend of zombies that are a lot different from the zombies that we've all come to love and fear. 28 Days Later and the new Dawn of the Dead remake feature zombies that aren't slow and stupid, but are instead lightning fast motherfuckers who function more like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park or the Aliens from... well... Aliens. These Nu Zombies are fast, they snarl like aliens, and they aside from not being able to open doors they're not too stupid at all. In many ways, they are more terrifying and dynamic than old skool zombies.

But you know what? I don't like these nu zombies at all. To me, they're perfect examples of the rapid decline of original ideas and the recent trend of fusing old ideas together in an effort to create something new. Like in videogames... instead of coming up with exciting new concepts like The Sims and Nights into Dreams, most of them are just shit like "Let's just make another First Person Shooter but this time we'll put Star Trek characters in it!"

Old skool zombies lumber. They're supposed to lumber and be slow, because their scariness lies in their slow but inevitable spread. They're like a cancer. They're not supposed to be able to chase you and kill you on sight... they're supposed to destroy your will to live by growing in numbers until you feel that there's nowhere left to hide, and you give up running and accept that the zombies have overrun the world. A good example of this lies in Kevan Davis' ingenius Zombie Infection Simulation. You should really check it out cos it explains in dots a lot better than all the words I can muster.

Also, in the original Living Dead trilogy, the zombie invasion is rarely the theme of the movies; rather, the zombies are a vehicle to drive forward other more intelligent themes. Night of the Living Dead was a zombie horror flick, plain and simple. But its sequel (Dawn of the Dead) was not content to be just Night of the Living Dead with more zombies and a bigger place to hide in; Dawn was instead a clever satirical jab at consumerism that was funny and witty as well as being horrifying at the same time.

And then comes Day of the Dead, which had barely any zombies at all! This movie tackles the concept of what the people will do when an apocalyptic threat destroys our civilization and life as we know it. What happens when everything we take for granted is not there anymore, and how will we survive as a human race? (If this sounds familiar, that's because 28 Days Later is exactly the same movie, except it's made 17 years later)

The way nu zombies behave don't really allow for too much character development. All the characters are too busy hiding from the souped up zombies to really do much growing... Which really reduces the films to nothing but thrills and scares on a scene by scene basis. If you ask me, the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead is not so much a remake of the 1978 version as it is a remake of Aliens, minus the character development. Because that's what it really is... Aliens in a shopping mall with nu zombies instead of the xenomorphs. It's got the body of a zombie movie, but it sure as hell does not have the soul of one.

In case you're wondering, we named Peanut after the yellow M&M, since you know... he's yellow, and sorta shaped like a peanut. Though Frankie still insists on calling him Valo, after the lead singer of HIM. I was also thinking of naming him Sponge-Bird Greenpants, because he's yellow like a certain Nickelodeon character and has green feathers around his legs and belly.

Anyway, the two of them aren't best friends or anything yet, but hopefully Peanut will settle in nicely and they'll start hanging out together instead of fighting for the food tray and glaring at each other in a John Woo style face-off.

Where in the world is Dave Robson? If you're all wondering why Dave's been rather low-key lately, that's because he's been backpacking around the galaxy exploring new worlds in search of adventure and excitement... though of course, he craves not these things. He's just sent me some snapshots of his holidaying, and I thought I'd share them with you.

This is Vreni Island, where Dave has been kicking back at the casino, slowly losing all his money. Slowly, but steadily.

Anyway, now that I'm more or less out of the army and I have more free time, I can endeavor to join Dave on his adventures and check out what the galaxy has to offer. And if you purchase a copy of Star Wars: Galaxies, you can too!

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In an effort to get my mind off creepy spectral apparitions and other spooky things that walk around at night (hopefully resulting in a better night's sleep), I watched Jason X with my sister on cable. I think this must be the first bad movie she's ever seen (although she does watch a lot of Jap TV shows) because she remarked "Why do people make bad movies?"

It's really sad when a videogame about a schoolgirl with a camera in a haunted mansion is scarier than a high budget movie with one of the biggest horror movie franchise characters ever.

20th April, 2004

On the weekend, I went to my favorite games merchant in search of Silent Hill 2. He didn't have it there, so I thought as a substitute I'd pick up Fatal Frame, a game that Wong had been raving about. What Fatal Frame and Silent Hill had in common is that they're survival horror games, a genre that first arrived with Alone in the Dark, and then made insanely popular by Capcom's Resident Evil series.

10 minutes into the game while playing it alone in the day, I decided to put it down the same way I should've put my movie tickets for The Ring (US and Jap versions) and Ju-On away. This game is intensely fucking spooky! I mean, I'd only go through the prologue level of the game, and already I was spooked beyond repair.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, Fatal Frame is a game where you play as a girl named Miku who goes into a haunted mansion in search of her missing brother. The haunted mansion has a long history of demon-worshsip and strange occurrences, so Miku decides that the best way to arm herself is with a torchlight and a camera that can see ghosts. I mean, if Jill Valentine can outfit herself with flamethrowers and grenade launchers, you'd think that the least Miku could pack is a pen-knife!

But then again, whereas Jill is up against zombies, Miku has pitted herself against ghosts. Zombies, be they the slow lumbering type that chant "brains..." endlessly or the big fast type that smacks you with killer tongues, are physical things that can be blown apart by machinegun fire. Besides, you can always hear those things coming because they have tell-tale footsteps and groaning.

And that's another thing... Zombies are undead creatures who are brought back to life by voodoo curses, cosmic radiation or crazy biotech scientists like David Saxby. They didn't ask to be brought back to life, and now that they're alive again, all they want is some warm flesh to eat. They eat to survive, more or less like we do. Aside from that basic need, they don't have any ulterior motives or agendas... they're pretty straight-forward and down to earth undead creatures when you think about it.

Ghosts on the other hand, are bitter vengeful spirits who have decided to stay in our world of the living to scare people. They have the chance to go away and rest in peace, but they simply refuse to let go. Instead they choose to stay and haunt you by popping up every now and then when you least expect it with their vicious mind games and endless moaning until you go insane and become as miserable as they are. In other words, ghosts are the undead equivalent of psychotic ex-girlfriends (Or so I heard... because my ex-girlfriends are really nice and understanding people who would never take offense at this last statement and then put some kinda voodoo curse on me, or kill themselves so they'd appear in the mirror every time I brush my teeth).

You know what? I'm going to play Rainbow Six 3 instead. I'd rather turn around and be jumped by a terrorist with an AK-47 than a creepy little girl singing "Ring around a rosy..."

Mainey has chicken pox. Poor Mainey... I wonder what she can do when she's stuck at home for 2 weeks. Maybe I'll move the X-Box into her room so she can play DoA X-treme Volleyball (which Jo has denounced as being sexist).

I'm a 21 year old, stuck in a 24 year old's life, with the body of an 18 year old. Fuck my life is messed up.

A new threat has arisen to oppose the existence of the Twin Walls! The 7th Brigade Senior Medic, better known as the motherfucker with a fugly moustache, has recently made known his disapproval of the Twin Walls. But he's not in charge of the medical center, and is not our senior medic, so he can go fuck himself. I can't stand that guy! Is it too much to ask that he stay in his own neck of the woods, and shave that ridiculous moustache off?

Anyway, since the sanctity of the Twin Walls has been threatened, I thought I'd put up some pics of them to share before they're torn down forever.

And in other news, I've just gotten back from taking Drakey to the vet. Lately Drakey's been acting sorta moody and really hostile towards everyone, so I was afraid my poor birdie was a little bit sick or something. And Drakey was like over-eating in a major way...

After seeing the vet, a few revelations were made. Firstly, Drakey's health is fine despite being a little bit overweight. Secondly, Drakey's not a he, but a she. Drakey's a girly-bird! Which explains the frequent mood swings.

Of course, now that Drakey's gender is confirmed... it makes her name kinda a misnomer if you know the origins of the name. But I can't change her name now. It'll confuse her, and besides, she's learnt how to say "Drakey-Poo!" It'd be a shame to have to teach her to say a new name.

Oh and I've finally got a working Guestbook up and running again. Just check out the Misc Page and check out the new Guestbook and GuestMap! Yes, you can now show everyone just exactly where your crib is!

In an effort to grow and mature as an individual and be a better person, I have now removed all traces of hair from my armpits (which coincides with the last military style hair-cut I ever have to suffer). I've been thinking about doing it for a while, and today the impetus came from being in close proximity with one of the Bravo Company medics... lets call him Roob.

Roob is quite well-known in the medical center for stubbornly refusing to take showers for many days at a time, which results in horrible body odor. I think Agent Smith puts it best when he says:

"It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."

Yes, the smell really is that bad. Wong's Dispensary usually smells strongly of anti-biotics and other medication... but when Roob walks in, it takes mere minutes for his hyper-odor to overpower and infect the entire Dispensary, to the point where I'll be gagging on the opposite end of the room AFTER he has left. And it's the kinda smell that's like... well, what you'd expect a rotting corpse to smell like... a kinda gross organic smell. Zombies would smell exactly like him.

Anyway, Roob also has an amazing amount of chest hair that pokes up from under his uniform... and it's really quite mesmerizing in the same disgusting way you can't help but be transfixed by the sight of blubber bouncing on a fat guy running after the last piece of steak in the cafeteria. That thick bush of hair just flops out of his collar, and you can't help but think that it's somehow retaining all the stench of his BO and letting it build up until it explodes... like when you try to hold in a fart.

So after that, I decided that I had to expunge the hair from my armpits, especially in this hot and humid Singapore weather. And I took no less than three showers today. Gawd, I wouldn't want to smell like him.

Note: There's no such word as "ironical". You'd think people would learn the proper usage of that word after Alanis Morrisette released a hit single called Ironic.

I know this is the Easter Weekend and all, but honestly I'm having a total religious overload. First I watch The Passion of the Christ on Friday with Jo, and then that was totally depressing since it just gets shoved so hard into your face how inherently evil mankind is and how we're all just sinners. After that I went to crash at Jo's place, and the morning after her dad just sits us down for a modified "Birds and the bees" talk. Except this one wasn't about sex... well, it was sorta... Basically it was suggested to us that we shouldn't sleep together in the same bed anymore, because that exposes us to unnecessary "temptations of the flesh". And that if we to succumb to the temptations of the flesh we'd all burn in hell.

I shit you not! I am not exaggerating this at all! Anyway, I was kinda just lying there on her bed embarrassed as fuck, doing my best not to break out in a snigger when someone's telling me that it's his duty as a shephard to prevent us from falling prey to the temptations of the flesh and not letting us go to hell.

I just finished Tony Hawk Underground in like less than 24 hours. That's a new record for me. And on the other hand, I can't even get past the first mission in Rainbox Six 3. Anyway, just to add to the rest of the sins I've been committing, I'm playing bootleg versions of these games on my modified Special Edition Translucent Green X-Box.

Okay I haven't updated for a whole month, and for that I apologize. And I really doubt this situation will change much in the next couple of weeks either... BUT, in 2 weeks time I will start clearing my leave, and I will be more or less a free man from the shackles of the Singapore Armed Forces. Yes, once I'm actually home more often again, I'll be able to keep updating this site and filling it with the inane crap that everyone comes here to read!

So until then, please be patient... and if you want you can check out the other stuff this site has to offer, like trivia about my videos, some drawings and writing, and Zombie Hockey.

And if you haven't already seen the hidden ending of Zombie Hockey, there's a secret code to access it. At the first stage interval (which comes up when you score 10 points) hit Z instead of the Spacebar and you'll see the hidden ending.

April Fool's Day!!! What's so April Fool's about this update? Well, that's because this update wasn't put up on the 1st of April, but the 7th of April!!! Well that's just so fucking hilarious, I think I need to shit.

Some people are Hot, and some people are Not. Most of the time, people can figure that out by themselves but sometimes some people, especially males, need reality TV shows like "Are you Hot?" to help them distinguish hotties from... well, more unfortunate looking people.

How can you tell? Because if you flip through male magazines like FHM and shit, you'll be bombarded by a whole barrage of photos containing scantily clad unfortunate looking people. These people are far from hot, so why are their photos included in the afore-mentioned magazines for people to ogle at?

Because these people are what's known as Prawns. And like the seafood, you just wanna rip their heads off and keep the bodies. Males fail to notice the prawns' significantly unattractive faces because most of the time their eyes are focused on their other assets... namely T & A. Especially when they are dressed in bikinis and lingerie.