Landjournal: Kenmore

Kenmore is nestled among some fucking tiny hills with a lot of green. even the trees are dated in an old suburb like kenmore i think. the architectural aura of the suburb screams 70's and all the rounds are winding like a rally course in the mountains. i wonder how 70's cars can muscle up these hills? must be goddam 30 degree slopes there. The houses are generally clean in the suburb, some boasting refreshing views to far away hills. 40k in the suburbs gets you a decent house at this point, as this morning the auction at meagan street fetched 405k. no train to the suburb though, only moggil rd connects the leafy suburb to the bustling world. so public transport choices are limited. it appears rents are marginally higher than southern suburbs, but without further research it's hard to tell. a shack with 3 rooms is said to be able to fetch 350/week without renovation.

Moviejournal: Stardust

The latest fairytale movie reminds me of shrek for some bizare reason i cannot identify. Seriously, it's a movie below our age bracket. all the typical come of age fairytale stuff element can be found, but it is done in an above average way. Robert DiNero was defintiely a highlight of the film.

Moviejournal: Die hard 4.0

Bruce Willis! (willis, willis, willis.....)

the name alone resonates with so much hardcore objects in popular culture and symbolizes hardcore itself. the latest incarnation of the bald cop with a hard ass attitude is nothing to be sneered at. this cyber punk version of die hard actually uses the tried, test, old and dated story line of kid-rescuing that has seen in so many copy cat films. the unyielding principle of such genre is 1) the antangonist will be wounded, but always not fatally 2) the kid is quick witted and always escape unharmed. 3) the government usually is either the conspirator or brews the conspirator in the past. and 4) happy ending!

Maggie Q makes a shit supporting role in this film as the quiet kungfu type ass kicking chic. there rarely is a time i wish a chinese actor in a hollywood film to die quicker, but this is one. the previous one is probably Bai Ling in Red Corner.

Dispicable Joy

a proposed theorem involving certain mental state i like to discuss is the utter joy of seeing people you pseudo-cared to fail miserably. i'm sure this train of thoughts have been associated
with many evils of the world and hence deems dispicable, but nonetheless when you look deep
down enough that's where most joy originates. be it your arch rival, that smug highschool friend, that dude your boss said was smarter than you, or your boss. these jolly news of doom and failure are the sparkling highlights of your life that, for brief moments, you feel pretty good about where you are and the wrong or right choices along the way that enabled you to avoid such utter disaster experienced by others. we human as a specy thrive on other people's woes and gets high from hearing bad news about things doesn't affect us. it's somehow analogous to sitting on a small island above a rushing stream, everybody else might be rowing their little dingy mad as hell but still can't keep up with the speed of the water, so they got blown away. you are sitting comfortably atop of your little island, smiling approvingly. it's the strange sensation of not competing yet secretly winning. it's the hidden voice that says "i told you so, i wouldn't do it if i were you," or "had i joined the race i could've won".

one comedian once said, the best day of his life is when police rock up to his door, telling him Mr. Smith you are arrested for 4th degree rape and money laundering, and telling that cop Mr. smith is the neighbour next door whose cat shitted on your lawn and did nothing about it. well i made up the cat shit part but that's how it should be.

anyway, inevitably, you are then drawn into the deep analysis of WHY they fail. is it their
laziness? lack of direction? wrong boss? wrong partner? taste of clothes? intelligence? lack of
humour? what is it that made them fail? i hereby call this entire process three degrees of failure-smirking. the first stage of pretence: "oh really? but he has spent SO much effort on it! that's unfortunate!" the second stage of comforting "it's not the end of the world, you are still young/strong/have time/no broke, look at what you have achieved already! (not much)" and the final and third stage of reasoning "why/how come ? i thought he's on the right track, he's smart he doesn't do drugs what is it that he fail??"

Land Journal

* brick breeze holes can't be covered

* council take 12 month to approve lands

* stages are now raising prices quickly

* cost 45k to subdivide land