P has been pretty quiet on the postings front lately because she's been too busy going out! :-) Still at least it provides fodder for rather belated posts, like this movie review.

Pretensions went to the movies with some friends on Monday night and caught the new Batman flick, The Dark Knight. In the style of most comic book adaptations nowadays and in keeping with its title, the movie was very dark indeed and quite shocking at points. Though long at 2 1/2 hours, it never seemed to drag due to the non-stop frenetic action throughout, all the way to the bittersweet ending.

Yes, there are great special effects. Yes, there is lots of blood and mayhem. Yes, there are loads of cool gadgets and vehicles, but best of all there is a strong plot anchored by four excellent actors, as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon face off against archenemies, the Joker and Two-Face over the fate of Gotham City.

For those of you who may have been living in a cave,  The Dark Knight stars the brooding Christian Bale as the titular Batman, and the sadly mourned Heath Ledger as his psychotic nemesis, the Joker. Let me say that Ledger's portrayal of the Joker is truly frightening. I'd always thought that Jack Nicholson was the ultimate Joker, until I saw Ledger in this role. Ledger's joker is a Loki figure, completely demented and perfectly happy to sow chaos and mayhem for no particular reason. Like Loki, he brings Ragnarok to Gotham City in a series of escalating crimes that culminate in the explosion of a hospital. I mean, what sort of person blows up a hospital? In the way he approaches his victims, Ledger is reminiscent of Nicholson at his most frightening in The Shining; both actors manage to radiate mania and you can believe that they will do anything to their victims.

Ledger's suicide followed quickly after he completed shooting this picture, and P can't help but wonder if the manifest psychosis of the Joker might lie at the root of it.

Batman's regular supporting cast of Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) are excellent as always and both have slightly larger roles than in the first movie. P wasn't particularly convinced by Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes. P has read a couple of reviews talking about the chemistry between her and Bale - sorry, the fizzing must have taken place when P wasn't looking. His other ally, James Gordon finally gets the chance to don the Commissioner mantle that most fans of the comics would remember him for, and is convincingly portrayed by Gary Oldman (taking a holiday from the Potter movies?).

Unfortunately for Batman, the Joker isn't his only enemy. DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) starts the movie as Gotham's new white knight and indeed has Batman considering stepping down in favour of him. Unfortunately for Dent, one of the Joker's strikes at Batman leaves him hideously scarred both emotionally and physically and he takes the law into his own hands, becoming the villain Two-Face with his signature two-headed coin toss. Heads, you live and heads you die, that's the way it is with Two-face, and Eckhart portrays his character's descent into hell very convincingly.

For a deep dark thrill-ride with real character depth, see The Dark Knight. It is the best comic book movie P has seen for a long time. One warning: Don't bring the kids.

Pretensions has been a fan of the S'pore Science Centre's series of Science in the Cafe talks ever since a colleague told her about them a year ago. Unfortunately, she can't always fit them in her schedule. However, water has always been a topic of interest to P, since she lives on an island with very little access to fresh water and a continuing cross-strait quarrel with a neighbouring water-supplying nation. :-)

This particular Science in the Cafe talk featured 2 speakers who compared and contrasted the water situation in two very small nation-states, Singapore and Monaco. Discussing the local (Singapore) situation was Dr Liong Shie-Yui from the Tropical Marine Science Institute, while A/P Philippe Gourbesville of the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis spoke about the unique problems faced by the tiny and mountainous Monaco.

The two speakers had come together because of the HydroAsia project,  a 5-nation (Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and China) collaborative project aimed at developing concepts, tools, and good practices for sustainable water management in Asia. It's a very university student-oriented project and hopes to foster a working relationship between the student population at participating universities and institutes, while teaching them about hydrology and hydroengineering. Philippe's visit and the talk was sponsored by the French embassy in Singapore as part of their science and technology collaborative platform, although as Philippe was keen to emphasise, Monaco is NOT part of France.

What both speakers discussed was how to deal with expanding urban populations and how to provide such urban populations with clean and safe water. Both countries are beginning to face the problems of "hyper-urbanisation& quot; ie very high population densities. Monaco eg has the distinction of being the world's most densely populated sovereign nation, with 16,754 people crowded into 1 square km (2005 data). Singapore is just behind Monaco, as the world's third most densely populated nation (6,489 persons per square km).

By 2015, it is predicted that the world will have 516 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants which is going to cause serious logistical problems with transport, water supply and waste disposal.

Shie-Yui spoke about his work on the Marina barrage, which is a dam being built in the south of Singapore at the mouth of the Marina Channel. It will turn what is now Marina Bay into a freshwater lake to increase Singapore's water supply, help prevent flooding (set of pumps and locks to regulate levels) and hopefully be a new site for water sports. As P alluded to in the introductory paragraph,  Singapore has only 4 sources of water, local cachement (ie rainfall and urban runoff into reservoirs), water imported from Malaysia (in an agreement that ends in 2061), recycled or NEWater and desalinated water. Currently 30% of Singapore's water is bought from neighbouring Johore and the Singapore govenment intends to reduce and eventually eliminate this import. The Marina barrage project is obviously intended to help with this as it will form a freshwater lake of about 2 square km containing about 9 million litres of water. The Marina reservoir will eventually connect up to the existing Lower Pierce reservoir with pumps and locks to regulate water flows in the event of sudden tropical storm surges.

The Marina barrage project is intended to be a pilot one, with extensions planned to the other 14 bays around the Singapoe coastline if it is successful. P questioned the speaker about sea-level rise in the event of global warming and it came out that the 15 barrages around the country might eventually be able to keep the island dry in the event of a catastrophic sea-level rise, much as the Netherlands sea-dykes protect it. Singapore's seas have lost quite a bit of their biodiversity due to extensive land-reclamation works around the coast, but some coral reefs remain as do many sea-horse species and these would be threatened by increased urban run-off unless the barrage project(s) succeed, so there is a conservation component to the project as well. 

In contrast, Monaco's coastline is famous for sea grass beds and extensive coral reefs harbouring thousand of Mediterranean species. The tiny nation-state has only 2 square km of usable land but a total of 76 km of ocean. It's famously beautiful rugged hills preclude the building of super-skyscrapers, with a maximum of 15 stories being advisable, in the event of earthquake or landslides. Citizens of Monaco have always been proud of their marine life and marine national parks and have even gone to the extent of building artificial coral reefs to encourage a thriving marine environment. However, due to the rediculous urban density in Monaco, there has always been a huge amount of pressue to extend the city into the sea.

In 2002-2005, Monaco undertook the enormous expense of installing a giant floating pier for luxury cruise liners to dock. It was important that the huge extension to the coastline not impede the coastal current that enables the seeding of corals and the delivery of good quality water to take place, hence it wa secured to the seabed only by a 700-tonne steel stirrup and several sea-anchors. Currently Monaco is holding a competition to build a floating coastal city. Several huge architectural/e ngineering consortia are preparing proposals for the floating city, with a scientific committe and the Prince of Monaco selecting the winning bid (which will be announced by the beginning of next year). The project must solve the existing urban population problems but have zero environmental impact, therefore no urban runoff is allowed ie all water used by the community must somehow be collected. 

Doing some post-talk web research, P found the following image of the Lilypad, a futuristic floating city by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, that, according to CNN, may be one of the contenders for Monaco's coastline. Talk about Blade-Runner!

P will be tracking these two projects with interest and she hopes that Singapore will take a page from Monaco's book in terms of care for the marine environment!

Pretensions does entertain occasionally and found herself making a last minute lunch appointment at Great World City mall, due to its closeness to the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel which was hosting an event. She had eaten at Imperial Treasure (Cantonese Cuisine) once before and had been very happy with both food and service but had not returned for years.

P was a little put off on entry as the stylish lamps and decor did not extend to a very very worn carpet, that looked as though it hadn't been replaced since P's last visit in early 2007. Due to the last minute nature of P's booking, she was not able to take one of the more discreet and nicer booth seats at the side but was stuck at the 5-person round tables in the middle.

Still, all was forgiven once the food started arriving. We'd ordered a small dish of the restaurant's speciality, Roast goose, and it arrived very quickly, with crispy skin and succulent meat. I initially found it slightly salty but that might have been because I started on a rib piece. Dim sum was also above average with the Chee Cheong Fun (rice flour rolls) skin proving smooth, silky and paper-thin enclosing some scrumptious fresh prawns. The dumplings were excellent with P preferring the Har Kau (prawn dumplings) and P's companion the more delicate vegetable and scallop version. The only slight disappointment was the Yee Mee with roe - it was essentially a dish of plain Yee mee although a fairly tasty one.

The waiters were very attentive throughout, coming by to check if everything was alright, refilling tea and changing plates at regular intervals. The nice lady on duty even helped P doggyb ag a bit of the leftover roast goose, doing it all with a smile. This is exceptional for Singapore as the service standards are generally quite horrible. P can understand why the place was absolutely crammed at lunchtime during the week and understand that bookings are mandatory at weekends. The food was generally quite inexpensive as well, with the exception of the dish of roast goose at S$20. P doesn't consider the prices incredible for the food quality though.

P'll definitely be coming back, and soon!

Pretensions wasn't quite sure what to expect from this film when she picked it up in the video store. It sounded like an arty Pulp Fiction and had Ralph Fiennes in it which was enough for her.

In Bruges is actually the directorial feature debut of Martin McDonagh, the Academy-Award winning Irish playwright and director. It is Pulp Fictionesque only in that it stars two hitmen (irish in this case), portrayed by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson - however it lacks most of the characteristic carnage of a Tarantino film until the last 30minutes.

Ray (Colin Farrell) was new to his job when he messed up and accidentally killed a boy-child. His boss (Ralph Fiennes) sends him to the picturesque Belgian town of Bruges to cool his heels, under the supervision of veteran hitman Ken (Brendan Gleeson). The early part of the story with the uncultured Ray forced to live in the storybook town of Bruges and hating every moment of it are quite funny, especially when he starts interacting with the strange characters that seem to inhabit the streets of Bruges. These include the American dwarf actor, Jimmy, the beautiful but slightly insane Chloe and her ex-boyfriend Eirik, who's basically a complete tosser. Ray takes a fancy to Chloe and they return to her apartment, but are interrupted by Eirik, wielding a gun that fires blanks. Ray takes the gun from Eirik and fires it in front of him, blinding him in one eye. Ray also manages to have a disasterous dinner date with Chloe that results in him punching a Canadian at a neighbouring table and walking out. 

However Ray is constantly haunted by the scenes of his assassination gone wrong and the death of the young boy.

In the meantime, Raý's partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson, in fine form) has been enjoying the fairytale air and historical rarities of Bruges. He gets a call from their Estuary-accented and perpetually swearing boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) who tells him that his real mission is to murder Ray, as he has become a liability and the killing of a child is basically unforgiveable. The rest of the movie follows the three as they bumble their way away from and towards Ray's death. Ken decides not to kill Ray after he sees him contemplating suicide and Harry has to step in himself, resulting in an epic final act, that's as blood-splashed as you might wish.

Yet what is most memorable about the movie is not necessarily the violence, but the storybook scenery of Bruges and the ordinary characters of the two hitmen. Even Harry is shown to be normal guy with a family who will undoubtedly mourn him if he does not return from his mission of violence. The other memorable thing is the bizarre juxtapositions of the film - a racist dwarf? A tense standoff over a pregnant innkeeper? Finally, the witty and very humorous (dark humour) dialogue makes the movie very watchable when it feels like it is beginning to drag.

A very interesting and unusual gangster movie.

P has a colleague visiting from Malaysia and needed good halal food for lunch. Someone in the office suggested Hjh Maimunah in Joo Chiat and off we went, all 7 of us girls.

Hjh Maimunah is a nice air-conditioned Nasi Padang eatery in the east of Singapore. For the uninitiated, Nasi Padang is a smorgasbord of Malay/Indonesian dishes and the ones at Hjh Maimunah were apparently mostly Javanese (so I'm told). There was certainly lots of selection with about 30-40 different dishes, including Ayam Bakar (Charcoal-grilled chicken), Sayur Lodeh (vegetables in savory coconut gravy), tapioca leaves stewed in coconut milk, various Rendang (dry curried beef or chicken; lots of grated coconut), Tempeh (Fermented soya beans) cooked with Ikan Bilis (anchovies), stuffed Sotong (squid) and the piece de resistance, the Lemak Siput Baba (kinda like escargot in whelk-like shells; you suck them out from the rear end). There were also individual dishes like gado gado and plenty of Kuih Kuih (local cakes) and sweets like Pisang Goreng (Fried bananas in crispy batter) and even Pulut Hitam (Black sticky rice in coconut milk) for dessert.

Hjh Maimunah has been around since the '90s and has two outlets, one at Jalan Pisang (near Arab Street) and the other at 20 Joo Chiat Road. P found the Joo Chiat eatery unpretentious, inexpensive and packed at lunchtime. We took a seat upstairs and thankfully the nice waiters agreed to carry our rice and dish selection up the stairs for us as P couldn't imagine balancing all those plates of rice, sambal belachan (prawn paste chilli) and dishes at one go! The food was good, but the chilli factor was pretty low for a place like this - a bit disappointing really. It did however mean that you could sample even the hottest looking dish (and the Sambal Brinjals looked plenty hot) without wincing. The food was very tasty and P particularly liked the Ayam Bakar and the Sotong. We also tried the beef lung, which P was rather leery of initially but found to be really tasty. We sadly didn't samplethe Lemak Siput Baba as it gets rather messy.

To plagiarise a famous Singaporean - Die, die must try!

P is still catching up with her recorded shows and watched a 2-week old episode of Sayang, Sayang (first blogged about here). It was the one where Marcus and Li Choo go through the truncated version of the 12-day traditional Peranakan wedding. Though technically peranakan herself, P seriously doubts that anyone goes through this rigmarole nowadays, although perhaps a few traditions might still be kept. Peranakan culture saw its heyday in the late 19th to early 20th century.

The Peranakan culture retained many elements of the Chinese one in its wedding ceremonies, but in some ways is even more elaborate and perhaps, superstitious. As Peranakans in Singapore and Malacca acted as trade intermediaries between the British colonists and "native" malays and chinese, many had the opportunity to amass wealth and kept large expensive houses. Weddings became an opportunity for a family to display its wealth.

In the old days, a perfect Peranakan bride was supposed to sew her own bridal costume, complete with elaborate beading on clothes and slippers (P likes beading, but the teeny tiny beads used in traditional Peranakan work would make her go blind after a week). (PirateGirl, I know you're not the bride this time, but can you imagine making your own outfit and shoes for the upcoming wedding?) The bride also had to be prepared as several of the groom's female relatives would drop in on her unexpectedly to judge her fitness. According to the show, they would always come in even numbers and had to be served the traditional betelnut (sireh), areca-nut and quicklime chew (hantar sireh) before pronouncing the bride suitable. They do so by touching the containers. Once all have done so, tea and cakes are served.

A geomancer would be hired to choose an auspicious date for the wedding, depending on the bride and groom's birthdates.

The Lap Chai ceremony held 14 days before the marriage ce lebrates the giving of the dowry from the groom's family to the bride's. 12 attendants from the groom's family would travel to the bride's family bearing gifts including sugarcane (for sweetness in married life), a written marriage agreement and red packets (Belanja Kawin - gift money) of money on red lacquer trays. They would be announced by a band or some trumpets. In the show, this dowry included items of jewellery, but the bride's family was obliged to hand half of it back (luck? politeness?) 

6 days before the wedding, the two families together with the bride and groom hand-deliver invitations to relatives and friends accompanied by traditional Ang Koo Kuih (red rice flour cakes filled with sweetened mung beans). At this point the house is cleaned and decorated.

4 days before the wedding is Hari Kupas Bawang (Bawang means onion, so it is "Onion Peeling day") - this is when the onion/garlic bulbs required for the wedding feast are peeled by friends and relatives before the feast is cooked (over the next few days) by a hired cook. 

The marital bed is "blessed" by getting a young boy (from a family with many boys) to roll 3 times across the bed, hopefully to imbue it with male energy and ensure male offspring. This ceremony is called the An Chng.

2 days before the wedding, the bride has to be prepared for the wedding ceremony, including an elaborate pinned hairdo (putting it together is called the Berandum). The fringe is pulled back from the forehead and tied. It is believed that this can reveal the "experience" of the bride; if the hair stays in place, the bride is a virgin. 

On the wedding eve, the Chia Kang Leh or guest's banquet is held, traditionally at home. At this time, the bride is also instructed in a traditional w ay of walking (a sort of sideways swoop). In the show, Li Choo, as an uneducated chinese, has to be prepared for the ceremony by a fierce peranakan Mak Andam who pinches her everytime she makes a misstep or complains (uncomfortable hair eg). The Mak Andam will dog the bride's every step until the ceremony, combing her hair and helping her to dress. This wasn't shown in the show, but apparently the groom has a similar assistant, the Pak Chindek. After the guest's leave, the bride and groom undergo the initiation ceremony (chiu thau). A special altar decorated with skewers of young papaya and adorned with food, drink, candles, flowers and a pair of glass lamps is set up. The couple bathe and put on white robes and the head of the household lights the candles on the altar.

After the bride is handed a set of ceremonial objects, the young boy from the An Chng ceremony holds a chinese weighing scale above her head and passes it down to her feet to remind her to weigh her actions. The bride's hair is then dressed with gold and silver pins to form a crown.

During the ceremony, the robed and beaded bride and groom first bow and pray before the ancestral altars of the two households and begin a tea-serving ceremony where both have to serve tea to all relatives present from eldest to youngest. There is a traditional feast of 12 dishes (Makan Choon Tok)  for the bride and groom, although they do not partake properly, each swiping their silver chopsticks in each dish and touching it to the lips of the partner. They then share the Kuih Ee (traditional glutinous rice balls dyed red in a sugar syrup - sweet and sticky for a similar relationship), though only 1 piece each is eaten. The rest of the bowl is left under the bed and the number of maggots spawned over the next 12 days is supposed to indicate the number of children. Finally, before the happy couple are left alone, a live cock and hen are chased under the bed. Which emerges first dictates the sex of the firstborn, with the peranakan's following the traditional chinese preference for males to carry the family name.

There are apparently plenty more traditions (including several to test the bride's virginity), but P would like to suggest that those interested to know more visit the newly opened Peranakan Museum in Singapore, which has four galleries devoted to this ceremony.

Pretensions is probably behind everyone in the planet on this topic, but she just got round to viewing her recorded shows from her week in Korea. One of them was a Discovery Channel documentary on Dede Koswara, also known as the Tree Man of Java.

Originally a fisherman, Dede contracted the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) as a teen. This virus normally causes small warts on sufferers, but Dede suffers from a congenital immunodepressive condition which meant that his immune system was unable to contain the growths. Starting from small horny growths around a cut knee, the disease caused huge bark-like growths to sprout from his hands and feet. As his disease progressed, Dede found himself unable to ply his trade as fisherman or builder or manage any domestic tasks. His wife of ten years left him with his two sons as he was no longer able to support them an d he turned to being displayed as a freak in a travelling circus to make enough money to live.

In the documentary, Dede's disease is diagnosed by US dermatologist Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland, who flies to Indonesia to treat then 34 year-old Dede. Gaspari felt that Dede's disease might be treated by administering daily doses of synthetic Vitamin A that might arrest wart development. However, post-documentary newsa coverage of Dede has shown that the Indonesian Health Ministry refused to let him fly to the US for treatment by Gaspari. In fact, a row developed over Gaspari's removal of Dede's blood and tissue samples to his laboratory in Maryland, with the Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, blasting Gaspari for doing so without authorisation.

Fortunately for Dede, this was resolved and Gaspari has since advised doctors at Indonesia's Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung on methods to treat his condition, including administering Vitamin A and surgery to remove the worst of the warts.  The first operations were complete in January this year and successive operations left him with enough movement to send text messages and complete sudoko puzzles (albeit very slowly). 4 lbs of warty material have been excised from his feet alone. The doctors treating Dede also discovered that he had previously undiagnosed TB which would probably have killed him in another 5 years, so Dede's operations have improved more than his looks and mobilty.

Ever the optimist, Dede hopes that he will eventually recover enough to find love and marry again. P hopes he will too!

Pretensions was looking back on her last week in South Korea, and their, shall we say, intense attitude to gaming. Korea University, one of the holy trinity of universities in South Korea, has launched a Global Games Education course this June in collaboration with Korean MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) giant, Nexon. The collaboration is intended to groom talent for the games industry and students can take an internship with Nexon as part of their course. Students can also opt to continue on to a Masters in the subject at Carnegie-Mellon University in the States.

Nexon Corporation is the developer of hit MMORPGs such as the quirky anime-celtic Mabinogi and hit MapleStory and now has divisions all over the world. It is just one of the Korean game giants, the other being NCSoft, the developer of Lineage 2 and Guild Wars. Korean MMORPGs have their own unique slant on gaming not completely similar to Western success stories such as World of Warcraft (which is also popular in Korea btw) . For example, Mabinogi allows players to pursue non-violence and apparently there are lots of players who seem to like playing virtual musical instruments around campfires for the interaction. Others are more traditional, yet even Lineage 2 plays up its factions' socio-political aspects a lot more than most traditional western MMORPGs. Most conspicuously, the mainstay of the Western PC game, the first-person shooter (FPS) is conspicuously absent from the Korean gaming scene. I'm not sure why - perhaps it's a self-fulfilling prophecy generated by the Korean media coverage of MMORPGs, which have huge magazines dedicated to them. In contrast, many popular Western games are little known in Korea (Half-life 2, huh?).

Jim Rossignol of PC Gamer wrote an excellent piece on Korean gaming culture which I don't intend to reproduce here. Not so much has changed since 2005 when the feature was written. Gamers are still regarded the way athletes are in other countries, aka as beings to be admired for their skills. The PC is still the major gaming machine thanks to the wonderful broadband penetration in Korea (90% of household are broadband subscribers and it's fast), even new whizz-bang consoles like the Nintendo Wii have had underwhelming sales in Korea. Starcraft, Blizzard's hit SF strategy game is still plenty popular in the land of Kimchi, the US games company's announcement of Starcraft 2 last year played to 10,000 eager people. Korean gamers can even learn English through Starcraft with special Starcraft English training books!

PC Bangs, the collective gaming rooms where players can play LAN-based PC game competitions are still around and uniquely to P, actually seem intended to appeal to more than male gamer nerds, boasting posters of fashions and popstars on the walls. They're also a lot less stinky and dirty than eg the mainland China equivalents (Wang Ba).  This sort of social acceptablity and sociability of gamers seems to be the unique point of Korean gaming culture - it'll be interesting to see how this progresses over the next ten years or so!

Pretensions finally got round to downloading the demo version of Guitar Hero 3 Mobile from the Windows Mobile site. The good news is that it works fine on her LG KS20 Windows Mobile 6 phone (those familiar with WM6 know that not all apps work on all machines) and P had great fun struggling to play Santana's Black Magic Woman on her dinky phone. 

For those not familiar with the game, Guitar Hero was originally developed for the Playstation in 2005 and enables you to play out your rock god fantasies. The original PS2 version came with a guitar-shaped controller that brought new meaning to air-guitar players lives everywhere. You fly along 5 giant frets and little onscreen coloured buttons indicate when you need to press and hold a fret. Do it correctly and you play a funky Black Magic Woman, do it badly and your horrible plinks and plunks get booed by a virtual audience. Guitar Hero proved tremendously popular, appealing to bedroom rockstars worldwide and spawned 2 sequels and numerous spinoffs.

Not being a console nerd, P managed to avoid GH until it came to the Windows Mobile platform. The mobile version is apparently as close to the original as possible, but has 3 frets rather than 5 so that it can work with a phone/PDA D-pad or touch-screen. The game features MP3 sound versions of rock classics such as Red Hot Chilli Peppers Suck My Kiss, Kiss's Strutter and Black Sabbath's Paranoid. It's great fun, as good hi-fi sound (obviously this depends on your phone) and is tremendously satisfying when you manage to pull off a decent rendition of a number. P can easily imagine annoying a supermarket queue with guitar riff fun.

The game is not completely bug-free, at least on P's platform, as too much fooling at the menu stage sometimes resulted in the sound turning off and P could not get it to come back on without restarting. However, it worked about 85% of the time, which is OK for a non-essential app. 

US provider Verizon claim that more than 250,000 songs a day are played on the GH3 mobile platform, so give it a go and see what you think! Apparently, GH4 will be dedicated to Aerosmith so that's something fans can look forward to.

Today Pretensions was invited to a business lunch at the famous Hai Tien Lou, a fine-dining cantonese restaurant at the top of the swanky Pan Pacific Hotel. The approach to Hai Tien Lou is through a clear glass lift, that whisks you rapidly up 37 floors to the restaurant floor. Chi-chi decor offsets massive picture-windows that offer a wonderful view of Singapore, particularly the Marina Bay, PSA containerport and Bugis areas (depending on which way you face).

The restaurant is famous for excellent cantonese food, so how did it fare by the standard of P's tastebuds? Well, it's OK, but give me Canton Wok any day at less than half the price (Canton Wok was opened by an ex-chef of Hai Tien Lou in the Joo Chiat suburb and has a much homier feel and far more down-to-earth prices). P's choices were more or less dictated by her dining/business partner, so, we began with the Trio of Treasures, Peking Duck, a Scallop and a very dressed-up battered prawn. The duck was excellent and the scallop juicy and sweet; P was rather underwhelmed by the prawn. You must admit that the presentation was lovely though (see pic on right hand side). This was followed by a homey soup, the Chef's special which was Watercress and pork rib. Tasted fine, 'though the dish isn't difficult - I kid myself that I could manage this at home.

P and her companion then munched through some tenderloin beef marinated in a rather oversalty sauce (a recommendation of the waiter) - the beef was actually meltingly tender but the sauce was way too overwhelming; and Kai Lan in XO sauce. P's not normally a vegetable fanatic, but she really liked this dish - the Kai Lan was sauteed to perfection, sweet, crunchy and green, but not raw and the sauce the perfect complement.

Prices were what you'd expect for a fine-dining venue, S$12 for one soup, S$28 (P thinks) for the Treasures and more than $35 for the beef. P's companion did the gentlemanly thing and paid, so she's not entirely sure what the total damage came up to but suspects that it was at least S$60 per person once the beverage, 10% service charge and tax were added in. Still, service was generally excellent for Singapore (except for the overzealous waiter who attempted to serve us the soup while the appetiser was still being eaten) and the ambience was wonderful. P is still not entirely sure what the fuss is about, but it's a pleasant enough place to eat if one has enough money to spare.

While Pretensions was in Korea last week, she was treated to a display of Korean robotics at an exhibition. For those not in the know, the Koreans, like the Japanese, are spending a lot of money on developing various kinds of robots and computational intelligence techniques.

Renowned Korean University KAIST (the MIT of South Korea) was showing off their Einstein Hubo. P found it vaguely disturbing for some reason; maybe it's Einstein's disembodied head on that robotic frame. Anyway, it walks (kind of), smiles, talks (can say hello and "I am Albert Hubo" and waves at the audience. Apparently it can do Tai-chi, 'though P finds this too bizarre for words. P's colleague said that she had nightmares that night about Einstein running amok in Terminator style. Inventor Jun hopes that Einstein can lead the way to developing robotic servants for the home. Hmm...

P also had a close encounter with EveR-1, although they had communication problems despite sharing a common gender (perhaps it would have been different had the talk revolved around nail polish). Yes, EveR-1 is the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology's robotic femmebot. Thankfully, she is only capable of movement from the waist up, but is able to sit decorously and respond to your remarks (sometimes). P had visions of particular scenes in Austin Powers movies (afficionados will know which she is talking about).

ETRI's POMI (Penguin Robot for Multimodal Interaction) is a robot with emotions - it responds to your actions and speech with coloured lights on its "face" and apparently smells, emitting nice smells when pleased and not so nice ones when unhappy. It's meant to interact with children apparently, but I wonder what they would make of it. Anyway, it's supposed to be a step up from last year's robotic koala (though I think the Koala was more cuddly).

There was also a rather fiercely contested robotic soccer game, which had more falling players than the UEFA cup. All good fun - now where's the remote? 

Pretensions read in the Saturday Straits Times about plastic surgeon David Tan who has set up what is probably Singapore's only baroque-themed clinic. According to the article, Tan spent US$295,000 on leather-look wallpaper, leather door handles, a blue crystal chandelier decorated with pink feathers and fur-backed Milanese chairs for his boudor, ahem clinic. Apparently his clients, including society women and celebs, decorate their homes in this way and he wanted to make them feel at home.

Interestingly, United Overseas Bank is currently offering the following specials at his clinic (feathers optional, presumably).

• Fraxel® Restore Laser – Results you can See and Feel™:  S$6,000 for 5 sessions (U.P. S$7,500)

The latest US Food and Drug Administration approved non-ablative fractional technology for deep skin resurfacing and a flawless complexion. Ideal for acne scars and melasma.

• Pixel™ Ablative Fractional Resurfacing: S$2,600 for 4 sessions (U.P. S$3,000)

A medium depth laser resurfacing procedure to improve skin texture for a youthful appearance.

• TiTan®: S$4,000 for 3 sessions (U.P. S$6,000)

Uses infrared light to stimulate new collagen formation deep beneath the skin’s surface, tightening skin on the face or abdomen (post pregnancy) to enhance youthful appearance without surgery.

• C6 Medlite™ Laser Toning: S$2,250 for 5 sessions (U.P. S$2,500)

A quick and safe laser procedure to rejuvenate the skin. Improves texture and pores.

• Ellipse® I2PL: S$1,750 for 5 sessions (U.P. S$2,000)

The latest Gold standard photo rejuvenation system helps to maintain a fresher and younger look by removing age spots, visible veins and acne.

• Botox® and Hyaluronic Acid (HA) Fillers: 20% OFF regular price

Soften and smoothen out wrinkles and grooves almost instantly. Done either alone or together with laser treatment for dramatic results.

• In-House Skin Care by Dcreme: 15% OFF regular price

Specially formulated skin care by Japanese scientists for all skin types.

6/12 months Instalment Payment Plan available

Would you get a Botox from this man?

Pretensions suffered numerous AV problems on the flight back to Singapore, which resulted in her watching the beginning of Untraceable at least three times. Unfortunately, it didn't really improve the movie.

Untraceable features the usual feisty attractive female FBI agent (Diane Lane) with her trusty male sidekicks (Billy Burke & Colin Hanks) up against the inevitably insane serial killer. The kicker in this movie is that this serial killer streams the torture and murder of his victims live on the internet, with the time taken for the victim to die in inverse proportion to the number of people logging in to view it. P was hoping for a witty commentary on the "Bare-all, tell-all and stream it live on Youtube" culture on the Internet, and indeed the movie brings up some serious questions. The comments on the killer's site (killwithme.com) reveal a total lack of social responsibility and a drooling voyeurism which is very very disturbing. As bloggers, we should ask ourselves if the internet really has desensitised us to violence and porn? Do we really think of another human being only in terms of the spectacle he/she can provide?

So, Untraceable could have been the Silence of the Lambs for the internet generation but instead, degenerates into another sick torturefest along the lines of Hostel or Saw. What happened? Firstly, the torture of each victim is lingered on lovingly despite being more or less irrelevant to the plot. I mean, is it really necessary to watch human skin bubble and sear like a chicken on a BBQ? Perhaps the director was trying to make a point, or make us accomplices to the killer, in the same way that those who logged in to the killwithme.com site were accomplices, but I felt it could have been handled a lot more subtly (Give us Hitchcock rather than Uwe Boll!). Second, the identity of the killer was revealed far too early, taking away any sense of mystery the viewer might have felt. Third, the plot is creaky to say the least. How come a top FBI cybercrime expert can climb back into a car that's had its computer hacked into by the film's villain? And what kind of paragon could possibly manage to blink in morse code while being lowered into a vat of acid?

Watch this at your own risk, unless torture is your thing.

Pretensions did finally manage to secure tickets to Nebbia at the Sejong Arts Center in Seoul. Nebbia is circus acrobatics made performance theatre - it is a collaboration between Cirque Eloize of Montreal, Canada and Teatro Sunil of Lugano, Switzerland, under the direction of Swiss-Italian Director, Daniele Finza Pasca. The name of the show, Nebbia, means "fog" in Italian and that is the theme of the show, alluded to in the spoken segments and bridging the gap between the plebian and the surreal.

P would like to start by saying that she really enjoyed the show, which was a good thing since obtaining tickets worked out to be harder than winning the lottery, or nearly so. P has already blogged about her experience with booking online and consulting the hotel concierge. Well, P flogged across town to the theatre after work one day, as the website had said that the Sejong Arts Center was open until 8pm. Was it? Maybe only on performance days, but it was distinctly closed when she got there on Tuesday. Some english-challenged but helpful staff suggested coming back 3 hours before the performance, though not on Wednesday since it was the Asian premiere and was already sold out. P, however, seldom leaves it this late as the chances of tickets are distinctly small, so she tried coming back on Wednesday afternoon, to be told by (more language-capable) staff that you couldn't book direct. In the end, P inveigled theatre staff to call a ticket hotline and book it for her (no matter how dangerous it is to give out credit card numbers - at least she knew who she was giving it to). With this, she managed to secure one of the last few tickets to the Thursday night performance.

On collecting the tickets, P was handed a white handkerchief and instructions in Korean, which quite mystified her. However, the performance was thankfully in Italian-accented English and it was explained that waving the handkerchief was to serve as a form of applause. It quite fit the surreal dreamscape of the performance, which in turn found a perfect home in the wood and technology surrounds of the Sejong Arts Center, one of the nicer theatres that P has been in. Plush and very comfortable seats, and back-of-seat screens for subtitles, plus a grand acoustic, helped soften the blow of some very costly tickets.

At the beginning of Nebbia, we are introduced to the main theme and set for the show, a fog-draped french(canadian?) village with its cast of colourful characters, such as the Fishermen trio, the Mayor, the Fool etc. As the fog palpably descends, all things become possible and dream turns into reality. Psychology becomes literal as we see the lights swirl and follow the Fool and strange juxtapositions (graceful acrobatics amidst dangling pig carcasses) are commonplace. Apricot coloured lights bathe the upthrusting rods of a make-believe forests, which becomes a sea of spinning and stopping plates as villagers play tag amidst wandering tricycle-like automatons. A strange diamond-like cage ascends and descends setting off a tranquil arial ballet staged by some of the villagers, whilst others play the haunting recurring theme of Nebbia on violins and accordions. The entire company takes the stage clad in stiffened white tutus, men and women alike, to dance a rollicking jig. A youth sets off spinning flying apples bathed in mist and lime-green light. Between everything comes threads of the fog, flowing languidly off the stage and up the aisles, carrying the audience into the surreal dreamscape of Nebbia.

Sejong Arts Center was completely full and the Korean audience seemed to enjoy it, although some of the jokes appeared to get lost in Korean translation. P thoroughly enjoyed an excursion into a very strange world - catch Nebbia if it comes to your part of the world!

P arrived in Seoul about 5 hours ago and is looking forward to spending 6 days here, most of them working, sadly. However, Seoul always has a habit of bringing it home to her just how foreign she is. Maybe this is due to its highly homogenous population and the fact that Pretensions doesn't read Hanggeul (I can read Chinese, albeit badly, so find China and Japan easier to get around in).

Don't misunderstand, P likes the food (love Bibimbap!), the merchandise (great designs) and even most of the people, but then she runs headlong into problems similar to those described below.

Pretensions basically wanted to go see an avant-garde Canadian performance circus show called Nebbia (italian for fog) on one of her free nights. The Seoul performances begin on Wednesday, so she logged into the venue website and was told that there was no english booking form. Right, she thought, fine, P'll ask the concierge to book them, since she's staying at a five-star well-reputed hotel. After 2 hours of trying, the poor zealous concierge eventually throws in the towel. Essentially, every ticketing website in Korea seems to require either a membership number or an alien registration number to issue you a ticket. They're also pretty much Korean language only. Also, they charge only to the person whose membership number is keyed in; so you can't get a Korean friend or colleague to book the ticket for you and charge it to your credit card. They would have to pay first and have you pay them.

The only way to get a ticket without having any numbers is to go direct to the Concert Hall and book it there. No phone bookings/no internet bookings, even with a valid credit card. Possibly a tour agency might be able to sort this out, but P wouldn't want to bet on it.

As far as P is aware, booking concert tickets seldom leads to high-security breaches and many countries allow you to book from beyond their borders. Why not Korea? Especially with their passion for musicals and acting! Someone out there needs to start a ticket agency for foreigners (if it's not illegal); they'd clean up!

Pretensions had a 6 hour flight to Korea today and used the time to catch a couple of movies that she hadn’t got around to in the cinema. The first is already out on DVD and the second should be soon.

The first, El Orfanato or The Orphanage (in Spanish with English subtitles) was produced by Guillermo del Toro, the creator of last year’s surreal fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth. Unlike that film, The Orphanage is a relatively straightforward but creepy ghost story.

Laura (Belen Rueda) has a happy childhood in an orphanage with a group of fellow orphans. She is adopted, leaves the orphanage and makes a life for herself. Much later she marries and moves back to the orphanage, intending to make it a home for disabled children. She adopts an HIV-positive child, Simon, and all seems well at first. However, she is unaware of sinister events at the orphanage that occurred while she was away; events that seem to have left a lingering trace in the very walls…

When her adopted son vanishes, Laura embarks on a frantic search for him that will take her to the boundaries of the land of the dead and beyond.

There is a lot to like about El Orfanato; it has a wonderful sense of tension that peaks in some genuinely disturbing moments. However, it suffers from too many ghost-story clichés; inevitably, everyone thinks the heroine is going crazy from bereavement and I think I’ve seen the auto-rotating roundabouts in the playground in several movies and TV shows now. However, the climax is wonderful as the bereaved mother realizes that she has inadvertently started the whole chain of events and several seemingly innocuous scenes suddenly tie together. What would you do if you realized that you accidentally killed your child? What would you give to bring him back?

P’s second film choice was deliberately a lot more cheerful. Run, Fatboy, Run, is a British-themed underdog story by Friends star David Schwimmer.  The plot may seem rather tired but excellent acting by UK veteran comedian Simon Pegg as leading man, Dennis, and a strong supporting cast, really makes up for it.

The movie begins with a terrified Dennis leaving his heavily-pregnant fiancé Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar. Five years later, he is an overweight out-of-shape security guard for a woman’s lingerie store, reduced to (barely) chasing down cross-dressers making off with powder-blue bras. A born loser, Dennis visits his son by Libby on weekends, but manages to make a mess of that too, by getting arrested for trying to buy scalped tickets to a “Lord of the Rings” production off an undercover policeman.

Unfortunately, Libby is now being wooed by a smart, smooth-talking, well-heeled American stockbroker, Wilt (Hank Azaria). Wilt is everything Dennis is not and fear of losing Libby prompts him to attempt the London Marathon in competition with Wilt. This may seem an impossible feat but Dennis’s cousin Gordon (who has bet heavily on Dennis completing the marathon) and his upstairs neighbour Mr Ghoshdashtidar(wh o thinks Dennis can be “a good man”) decide that they will be his coaches and the scenes that ensue of them flogging Dennis through the streets with makeshift paddles and beating pots and pans beside his bed are classic slapstick gags. Expect lots of pen** jokes too, and plenty of self-deprecating Brit humour.

The ending is rather predictable (guess who wins Libby?) but the movie had me rooting for the underdog by the three-quarter mark, so I guess, rather like Dennis, the movie won me over with its sincerity, despite a lot of rough edges. Good fun and quite inspiring to keep going despite all odds.

Inspired by OldSchool's post on '80s gaming goodness. Pretensions has decided to post a list of games that she'd like to acquire and play on her PC in the near future, given unlimited time to game. She's a RPG/Strategy fan, so look elsewhere for your FPSs - no Crysis here! She also has no time for online persistent worlds, sadly.

1) Spore - To launch in September 2008 (we hope, it's been delayed a LOT). For the mad scientists among us, Spore allows us to play god (or Mr Potatohead, depending on how you look at it). Starting from single-celled amoeba, you can design your own creatures from scratch, dictate how they look, walk, interact etc and let them loose to multiply and discover fire. Heck, some races may even make it into space! Spore's creature creator is already out and can be downloaded from the EA site (200MB download). Apparently, thousand s of new creatures were uploaded to the site the day after the free demo was made available. P is planning to download and play this in late July when her schedule clears slightly. Warning: Spore has incredibly cutesy graphics!

2) Mass Effect - Out already. P doesn't like the way the character creation has been dumbed down from Knights of the Old Republic, but Bioware creates top-notch RPGs. They understand that the story is paramount, even in space-operas, which is what this is. Basically, you have to save the galaxy from the threat of the Saren, by lots of shooting, some jedi-like powers and piloting a space-ship or two. There's even some romance and a blacked-out sex scene (which led to this game nearly being banned in S'pore due to the infamous lesbian sex; ie if you chose a female character). Character interaction (no, not that kind) is very important with moral choices leading to Paragon or Renegade ratings, 'tho this isn't as extreme as KOTOR light side/dark side choices.

3) Empire Total War - Summer 2009. This installment brings the Total War franchise into the 1800s and the building of the British, Dutch, French etc empires. Basically, imagine your table top wargame in painstakingly detailed 3D with you as the leader of a nation-state intent on building an empire. Colonies are important, as are dragoons. If you ever wanted to reenact Napoleon's or Nelson's battles, this is one for you. And the graphics are GORGEOUS!

4) Fallout 3 - Autumn 2008. From the company that created Oblivion, this is the decade-late followup to a seminal PC game. In 2077, China rains weapons of mass destruction on the US, the surviving citizens retreat to underground bunkers and emerge hundreds of years later to discover ruined cities inhabited by (yes, you guessed it) homicidal mutants. You start out in Vault 101, as the young son of Liam Neeson (no, just his voice), who goes missing when you turn 19. Your investigations turn up evidence that he's left Vault 101 and attract the attention of the vault's insular leader, the Overseer. Things get hotter for you in Vault 101 than in the radioactive wasteland beyond, and you decide to take your chances with the latter. Lots of ultra-violent fighting, a very dark sense of humour and lots of quirky characters make this game stand out from the rest. 

5) Dragon Age - Before April 2009. Described as a "spiritual successor" to the ground-breaking Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age comes from the infallible Bioware team. Not many details are available yet, but while there are the obligatory elves and dwarves and a magic system, it will be a dark, mature fantasy world, ie plenty of politics and people stabbing each other in the back.

To all fellow PC gamers: May your mouse never fail you and remember, there's always the "load saved game" button.

Pretensions received this heart-warming story from a friend this morning - very nice to have as a string of P's colleagues have been hospitalised over the last few days due to sudden medical emergencies. It was all getting very depressing, so this lovely story was the perfect antidote.

50 years ago, then 20-year old youth Liu Guojiang fell in love with widow Xu Chaoqing, who was almost a decade older than her beau. The relationship was roundly criticised for all the reasons that we've heard before (older woman, younger man, children from previous relationship). In order to escape the constant criticism, the couple ran away to live in a cave in Jiangjin country in Southwest China. They had no running water, no electricity, not much in the way of food and a rocky scramble down a mountain to get to anything like civilization.

In order to make life easier for his wife, Liu initiated a massive project in the second year of their marriage:hand-carving a 6000-stair rock pathway down the mountain. This stairway took 50 years to complete.

Their son, Liu Mingsheng, called it a "ladder of love". "My parents have lived in seclusion for more than 50 years because of their love for each other. They had no electricity and my father made kerosene lamps to lighten our lives," he said.

Sadly, Liu Guojiang passed away in 2007, but he was so in love with Xu even in his last moments that noone could release his grip on her hand for some time after he had passed on.

The chinese government has now decided to preserve the ladder and their cave as a testament to their love.

The video below is in chinese.

Like many here at Tblog, Pretensions turns to inkspector when the platform's technical limitations start to get to her (Check out inkspector's Tblog tips and also her delish recipes!). In this case, P's XML file hasn't been updated since the 14th of June and since she is using it to power her "Recent Posts" widget (right column), this is a bit of a problem. Before turning to artificial getarounds like Feed43, P wanted to check if she hadn't inadvertantly "broken" something, not being a particularly high-powered techie person. Many thanks to inkspector for her reassurances and btw, the Feed43 workaround seems to be functioning well so far, fingers-crossed!

You also have inkspector to thank for a prettier P blog, as she pointed out that P had managed to include two non-working image links - if any of you are still having problems with P's images (and there are plenty of them), please please comment here and she'll try to correct them.