Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The movie I hate the most


I never really hate a movie in my life except for this one : The Last Airbender movie by M. Night Shyamalan. What a shitty movie! I was sincerely angry when I was watching this shit. How can Shyamalan butcher the source material! The animated series are so great that I really think it must require some sort of twisted talent to ruin the series completely like Shyamalan did. 

Like I said, I never really hated a movie. When it is a bad movie, like Batman & Robin or Piranha 3D, they are so bad that most of the time I would just laugh at them. But not this time. The thing is, I really love the animated series. I had watched all three seasons at least 5 times. I think I can safely call myself a hardcore fan of the series. When a bad movie of this caliber is made out of my beloved treasure, it just pisses me off.

When Dragonball Evolution came out and it pissed everybody, and then this shit came out the next year, I could finally understand how angry are the Dragonball fans about the movie.  These two adaptations could very well be the worst adaptations of all time.

Extreme love can create extreme hate. I hate Shyamalan so much that I still refuse to believe that he made the Sixth Sense. When After Earth came out, I already hated it before I even watched it. Until present day, I still haven't watched After Earth. It is probably not as bad as TLA, but all his movies after TLA are shit in my mind. He had no redeeming quality anymore.

I am not a very good film critic, but Doug Walker is. His review of TLA movie is so to the point and so funny at the same time. His review is totally a treat to TLA fans because I think all the jokes in his review are meant for whoever had watched the series before. For me, I love it. If I have a bad day, watching this review can totally cheers me up.




















Sunday, June 22, 2014

Train hard and survive


Writing skill is just like a knife. You need to keep sharpen it to keep it effective. I have stopped writing this blog for almost a month. First it was the final exam earlier this month keeping me away from this blog. After that, it was just training, training and training. I know it is just an excuse and it pretty much is. 

Like I said, it is all about triathlon training recently. Unlike last year, I am kinda taking it really seriously this time and I kinda need to. The main reason is the competition I am gonna participate in, the Alpe d'Huez triathlon, is really daunting. 2.2k swim, 115k bike and a half marathon, all within 12h hours time limit. It is not the typical half Ironman 70.3 format, it is way more than that. 

This triathlon is really focus on the cycling part. By looking at the route profile, it can already knock out whoever new to cycling. To give a comparison to any Malaysian cyclist, the route is roughly composed of climbing up and down the Bukit Bendera twice plus a final climb up to Genting Highland. No flat road, the only chance to recuperate is in between climbs, during the descents. And the final climb, the legendary Alpe d'Huez climb is freaking hors-catégorie climb, the toughest category of all.     

Cycling route profile (image from http://www.alpetriathlon.com)
If you are not into cycling and have no idea how tough the route is, then the half-marathon still can get your jaw drop. The run isn't just about the distance but the fact of running a half-marathon at the average altitude of 1900m. Plus some uphills and downhills, it is without a doubt very challenging. 

The top contenders can finish it in around 6 hours and this is the time reference. My physical condition for now, I estimate myself to finish within 9 hours. I can do the swimming part no problem and the cycling averagely. The run? It is all about surviving for me. Never compete in a trithlon of this distance before and regarding the level difficulty, it is gonna to be hard for sure and I expect another great but painful experience again.