Hey… it’s not always this perfect…

What does it take to watch a movie for free? Here’s a hint:-

1). Read the newspaper/magazine; join an online website and participate a contest or just print out & listen to a local radio and participate the contest on live air (sometimes SMS is required to get the free movie tickets that this one cost money)

2). Line up at the designated area where the only rule is first come first serve; sometimes require identification

3). After collecting the free complimentary tickets, go to the cinema (either Golden Screen Cinema, Tanjong Golden Village or Cathay Cineleisure) and watch the movie at a certain date and time

Very simple right? And it happens in Malaysia apparently, partly become a culture here that is very popular among the citizens especially in one state which is Selangor Darul Ehsan.

I have collected in the past so many movie complimentary vouchers/tickets and watch almost a lot of movies for free, which was pretty good. When we go collect for a free movie show, I need to cut out from a newspaper article that mentions about that movie and/or with a cut out for the free movie, and redeem at least 2 tickets each. Usually, the maximum you can collect is only up to 1 voucher/article for 2 free tickets. That is on average the most. But sometimes, you are lucky to receive at most 4 tickets at one voucher or win them and other times, only 1 movie ticket.

Once you have this in hand, you need to go to certain locations to redeem them. Most of the time are in local cinemas where a table is readied and you need to queue for it. It becomes a first come first serve basis. After that, once you get the complimentary tickets, you will wait at least an hour to watch this movie and then, voila - you got yourself a free movie to watch. On average, most of the time a free movie is shown either very early in the morning or at night. Other times, getting the free movie complimentary passes, sometimes it does say you can only watch it when the movie is free listed. So it is important to check the dates of the movies you got it for free.

If you are lucky, you might be able to watch box-office hit movies like I did (Transformers, Cloverfield, Shrek 3 and recently, Iron Man) which was pretty good. At best, you’ll get glossy covers and expensive print out vouchers. But at times, when we go for premiere movies such as these, the cinema halls subject to security check on patrons in any case of recording materials that maybe carried into the cinema hall. After all, piracy is quite popular in Asia.

There is a few pet peeves on watching free movies. Whenever you got a free movie to watch, you need to know whether there are any seating numbering or whether it is given to you as free seating. When it comes to free seating, we need to rush in with so many others and get your seats. Seating in front can be a bit of a problem. It does for numbered seating because if you are not lucky, you will watch very close to the silver screen.

Another pet peeves is when collecting free complimentary tickets, you might meet selfish people who will cut line just for the sake of getting free movie tickets. And at worst, no crowd control even. This will lead to unwanted argues and even, shouting match.

But with some good and bad points in watching free movies, is it worth our while to go through such troubles, especially when the venue time and date is on weekday nights or weekend mornings and if its a week day after work? That’s entirely up to us seriously.

Still, free movies are very popular and it’s on an increase rate more people will go for it even though seats are limited. Sometimes you will even meet familiar faces who always go for free movies. In any case, I am not sure other countries do practice this but in Malaysia, it has become part of culture because… if its free, why not grab it?

Yesterday (April 13th) was the finals for Gamer’s Hideout (GH) League Double IT challenge or competition. Lots of people turn up for this event for local gamers in Selangor state whom are also regulars that shop their original games over there… well, the ONLY shop that sells original games (that’s another story but if you are interested to know about the local scene of gaming in Malaysia, just message me).

So there I was an hour and and a 1/2 early and it seems I’m the only contestant there for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Everyone was setting up the consoles for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with six monitors/consoles and a gigantic 47 inch Toshiba TV.

Oh, before I forget, this is purely an XBox 360 event. There aren’t any Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3 event like these (and the owners of the other two consoles are quite angry about it) but it’s always an XBox 360. So there are two games involve: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (COD4MW) and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (GHIII).

Prize money are shown there and it’s one of these events that brings people up for challenge. I was up for it for GHIII because I love the game a lot. And there were 19 of us that registered for the challenge during the qualifications but yesterday for the final, 1/3 did not turn up at all and thus it’s much faster to finish.

For GHIII, this was the Pro-Face Off challenge. Each contestant have to choose a song and the difficulty that is available in the game (not included downloable songs) and challenge each other in a 2 round match. The winner is based upon the score/percentage of both players and the number of frats pressed that will determine the outcome of the result.

There are lots of popular songs there to be choose to play like "When You Were Young" by The Killers, "Barracuda" by Heart, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar, "Black Magic Woman" by Santana and so on. But the killer song of all was "Through The Fires and Flame" by Dragonforce, a seriously crazy song that is more than 7 minutes long and pressing the frat buttons until your eyes and fingers will definitely bulging out for good.

The guitar controllers are the only controllers allowed during the match (not the standard Xbox 360 controller). As you can see, there are two different controllers there - the Guitar Hero II X-Plorer wired controller (white version) and the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Gibson wireless controller (black version) that can stand at least 30 feet away from the screen. Some of the best players are there but at the end of the match, it has unexpected results.

I on the other hand lose a match during the match but I had fun knowing lots of other guitar heroes there (even though they are not real guitarist, except one player who does play real). It was a long day and it started from 2:30pm till 9:30pm (for both games). I left early as I was tired and found out who won later at night. Still, it was pretty cool and I hope GH will do more events in the future (I’m aiming for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 if they are up for it).

There’s a blue sky above us,
I gaze upon the white clouds,
My eyes are tired,
Feeling at ease,
A sigh came out

The ground is soft,
With greenery of beauty,
The wind blew and the grass in unison,
There’s music in the air,
Whistle into my ears; soft and gentle

I closed my eyes and I sense my surrounding,
I feel the wind glide against my skin,
A smooth and yet elegant, calm and wonderful,
I feel a thousand times deeper,
And a million times happier

Yet life without someone to share with,
Is nothing more of a lonely place to be in,
A hole in the middle that is so dark,
There’s nothing in the center,
No sense of wonder and cheer

How I loathe this feeling,
And still I am able to move on,
Even with all the haunts behind me,
I am fixing as much as I can to rebuild a broken frame,
But it will not be complete unless someone understands

In any journey taken, there will always be a few bumps ahead,
One such as mine is a long toll of hard knocks and frustration,
I am punctured with holes deep inside my body,
I bleed but it’s not seen for I am invisible,
What I am is difficult to reveal

A day will come when someone close hand me patches,
To close these holes in me,
And for a certain period of time when it comes,
I will heal, and I will be alright,
I’m just another ordinary person, but one and only

I open my eyes, and I see no one,
I look around in a room that is empty,
No furniture with just a window,
Moving towards the light that shone through,
I see a cliff facing the sea and the breeze of a distant wind,

I walk through the door I see a clear blue sky,
I smell the green grass, soothing and a big tree not far from where I stand,
I found a spot where I can laid my body against the huge root,
Just lying down, making myself comfortable and feel good of myself,
The wind blew against my wind and the tree makes the sound so relaxing I barely want to know where I am,

The tree shades the sunlight for me,
Just hearing the rustles of the wind makes my heart feel warm,
And happiness swarm all over my body,
I glee a bit, chuckle later,
Just smiling and sigh with ease,

The smell of sea is wondrous,
Like rain patters on your skin in a cool rainy day,
The tingles running through my fingers,
Just a little more, I’ll probably curl nicely like a ball,
How much comfort can you get as paradise is here?

I woke up and I see my room,
Still dark and rainy as I hear the heaviness of rain pouring down outside my window,
I still can smell the cool breeze; hear the whistling of the wind,
I curl myself deeply within, just hugging my pillow,
And wishing if one day my paradise will come, as I hug intimately and close my eyes
to sleep.

I never realize how much Friendster has change since I became a member.
Friendster is all about networking between friends. Then it started to change
and added blogs, reviews and now applications. Now it feels like a Facebook to
me, one I de-activated because it was boring.

Oh hi, I forgot to introduce myself.

Duncan is my name and I’m a Chinese Malaysian. Some of you know me for a very long time and some of you just know me recently. Here’s something I would like to share when it comes to blog – I do not blog. Seriously, I don’t blog about life in
the last 3 years. When blog exist, it was all about providing news to the world
in another perspective without editors. Who knew it became a personal internet
diary that some loggers can even become celebrities (namely Steven Lim, Jeff Oii,
Kenny Siam and a few others) after typing their daily lives on the internet and
share it to the world (1/3 of the world that is). Sharing your life to the
world was the one principle I refuse to do. My personal life, my own business.
But then, all that change 4 years ago when I met Suet; the one person that
change my life tremendously from a very passive guy to an active slightly
out-going person. And my parents hated that…

So because of that change, I used to have 3 blogs; the first one I can’t remember
where it was but I wrote it out of anger. The second was in Multiply, and I
only become active later after realizing I can do movie reviews there (which I
love) and started my own blog there. The 3^rd would be also another I
can’t remember where it is and again, it was out of anger too. The reasons I
have Facebook because my friends invite me in. But after 4 years in
relationship with Suet ended, I register another blog site that suited me the
most of my very own personal thoughts inside… it’s a secret ;).

I de-activated Multiply and Facebook because I see no point in continuing from
there. But the real reason is my memories in Multiply is a lot harder to
swallow and I wanted to start something fresh and new. Facebook doesn’t appeal
much after much browsing (I still don’t get it why it’s so popular… but then it
is a matter of personal taste). So with both accounts de-activated and started
my *secret* blog, it was a new beginning for me since late last year. Suet
found out about it after my de-activation and continues to read my updates in
my *secret* blog. So I gave up and don’t see a point of me de-activate my blog.
No point running away as well. What she did to me was a good thing that I accept
it and it is a fact that I change for the better, but what her indecisive
decision on our relationship when a “3^rd party” gets involve
seriously make me realize there’s more to this than just love. It was also my
final call for even consider a relationship. “Trust” is very hard to gain these
days, and the truth is it is harder to “trust” someone now after knowing that
anything is possible that can happen to you. I still remember saying to her she
will be my last and if things didn’t work out, I will not commit myself in any
relationship. She said the same thing too during when we were together. Truly
now she is the last for me but not true for her since she found someone who can
give her more than I could (took me a while to realize what it was until when found
out, it gives me more reason not to commit or even go dating with anyone).

That’s life. The funny thing is, she still wants to know what I have been up to when I don’t want to know. Every once in a while, she will email me about what I have
been doing lately. I reply in the first few emails at first but gave up because
I find myself not changing at all and be depress about the whole thing just
doesn’t make sense. I yearn to move on… and I miss out all the wonderful things in life that I wanted to do since young. Now, I believe I can do it, one small
step at a time. My first would be learning a new language and I just started
learning Hanguk (Korean). My next would be… well, that would be in my *secret* blog. No, I am not telling because now I’m getting to my point what will I blog
in friendster.

This blog will just be my radical opinions, poems (I wrote a few in Multiply and
it’s all gone now, I still do have my backup written poems), small little
things to talk about I would to dip myself for trouble and anything else come
into mine. My personal blog life will not be here. I am sorry as it is hard to
trust someone these days to just let someone into my life easily. It takes… a
little knowing and understanding. So I hope you respect my decision on this.

Well, this is my first introduction for Friendster blog. Hope you enjoy reading this one and the next one soon. I take my leave and hope you have a good day ahead.