Good news. Asia Europe Foundation is sending me to…. Singapore(duh) for a 7day Art camp. Yes u heard me, singapore. Damn it. I should have applied for the next one, maybe it would be in europe. Anyway, it seems like fun with participants from europe and asia countries like japan, korea, uk, germany.

Went to the sg toys and comics convention. It was horrible. The moment I went in , I had this urge to turn and go out. First thing I noticed, There is no space design or layout. I couldn’t see whats in front and everything was cramped up in the space, it was as if they were trying to squeeze in as many booth as they can.

Next , I noticed alot of irrelevant booths. Wii??? Arcade games?? Hellooo is this a games convention or toy and comics, that’s not all. The worse thing was a robotics booth, now that is totally irrelevant with some old uncles manning it and looking all geeky. While I respect them for their passion and geekiness, they were totally in the wrong place. Anyway, it was just bad. Personally I think its good that there is a start and that I understand the need of income because it’s a free event. However, that doesn’t mean you can ignore planning, visitor experience, quality of the booths and etc.

There was no focus in this convention, they say comics and all i see are some lameass local comic booths and not even the big players like chuangyi. There were multiple local comic studio booths but they were more concept art than real comics. Toy wise, it is all confusing as well. Things were everywhere and anywhere. The only correct thing they did was to get imaginary friends studio and the idea of a live painting session is good, only that they should make it a live event on stage. Overall i think they didn’t achieve much. Like what did it do? If you look at comic conventions in japan, it’s just purely comic or anime and they get authors to come down and lotsa interesting programs along with it. I just hope next year it will do better in planning.

After that i went to the fleatique flea market at singapore art museum and it turned out equally disappointing and with the same problem. There were no QC to the stalls there and there were no planning of the stalls or if there were, it was bad. EVerything was for girls and i didnt see the point of having a live band playing by itself in some room. It just aint integrated. What happened to the good old days of timberluxe flea market!!! It was seriously the best, maybe not if u consider the elitist zouk flea market. The point of all these is that while it is impt to QC. Btw, I didnt stay longer than 10 mins in both places so i didnt bother taking any photos. end of story.

The oceans would be lonely without its giant companion, the whales but their numbers are decreasing yearly due to whaling activities. Help them by creating and launching your origami whale into the sea! These would be eventually sent to the japanese prime minister to review their policy of whaling.

I’ve been watching much japanese B grade movies lately but before I say anything about it , I have to first define what I mean by B grade. It essentially only means low budget but not necessarily qualifies it as a lousy movie, it’s just non-mainstream. Anyway, those that i’ve watched are mostly violent ones. Why did I even get started on violent movies with blood splurting out like a fountain and limbs being cut off in every other scene. It started off purely as my interest in samurais and ninjas with movies like death trance . Then I discovered more and more of these indie movies and I must say some of them are really warped and psychotic. This one movie I watched today is Tokyo Fist.

The summary sounds ordinary and cliche enough but when you start watching it you immediately know it can’t be such a movie. Here goes,

A businessman, Tsuda, runs into a childhood friend, Tajuki, on the subway.

Tajuki is working as a semi-professional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Tajuki might be having an affair with his fiance, Hizuru.

After an altercation, Tsuda begins training rigorously himself, leading to an extremely bloody, violent confrontation.

This is one movie that either says alot or nothing, depending on how you perceive it. I found it scary to watch as I follow the developmentof the characters( the plot wasn’t much). To me this movie is more about the characters than the plot. Everyone was going crazy and I felt at some point that it was getting to me as well , for most part I didn’t really understand why things were happening but then I thought its just not a movie to expect to know why. What the movie was saying to me was not about boxing or losing your girl, it was purely about losing your mind and the experience of it and also how fragile humans can be.

Tajuki is working as a semi-professional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Tajuki might be having an affair with his fiance, Hizuru.

If anyone is interested, here’s a link
http://www.crunchyroll.com/group/CRSeries_-_Tokyo_Fist_-_Movie . I seriously don’t recommend this
to anyone who watches mainstream hollywood stuff all the time cause u wld prob scold me after watching it.

The United Nations environment Program recently created a website with the help of the google maps api to highlight issues in climate changes around the world. I have been rather concerned about environmental issues in recent years, especially after watching so many movies that speaks about possible world destructions. Unfortunately, it is just a movie to many, like my good soldier Gary, who told me that he hopes if anything bad happens, may it happen after he dies. Shame on u gary lol.

Back to the topic, the website offer many links on the map that compares 2 satellite images that are 20 years apart and you can really tell the difference. Click on the images below to view enlargements.

These are the effects of global warming , ice shelves are melting at an alarming rate such that low lying countries might be affected in the near future. According to the alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm. Belgian Architect Vincent Callebaut came up with a concept design for a proposed solution for such a scenario in the near future. The solution is

Ecopolis A floating city that’s designed for 50,000 refuges affected by the rise in ocean level. If nothing is done to slow or stop this process, we can definitely expect a world of floating cities in the future, much like waterworld. The very first step we can take is to stop using plastic bags in major shopping centers, it’s all for the good for our earth. My five cents worth.