At the movies - REC

My wife and I love the movies, ever since we knew each other - that's the main thing for us to do whenever we go out. "What's new at the movies?" would always be the question whenever we go out. Usually it'll be a Hollywood movie, with the action oriented movies the choice and only once or twice did we go and see a romantic/chick flick movie. My wife and I would always try to make a choice that we agree on, and most of the time since we have the same taste in movies, we would pick a movie we both agree on.

A few days back, however we went against the odds and went to catch the movie REC. Now, REC is a Spanish movie. Neither one of us (including DQ & Farid) knew Spanish, but I've read the reviews on the movie, which was generally positive and was curious about why the movie was a success that it is. For your information, REC was remade into a Hollywood movie titled Quarantine. Since we missed Quarantine, added to it the sense of curiosity and adventure (we've never seen a Spanish language movie), we went ahead and chose the movie.

Let me just clarify here, that I'm a fan of horror movies, but I'm scared to watch it alone. I would usually hide behind my wife whenever we see one (okay, not so manly...but I always assume that my wife is braver than me, hehe...), but could never get enough of being spooked by one. REC could become one of the best horror movies I've seen in my lifetime (some of the other good ones that still gives me the chills are Exorcist, Poltergeist and Ju-On, to name a few).

REC started very "innocently", the calm before the storm so to speak. The 1st 10-12 minutes of the movie is only the introduction of the characters: the reporter (Angela), the cameraman (Pablo), the firefighters, and the rest of the cast. The movie is shot "television" style, to portray the television show aspect that the reporter is presenting. With the shaky camera style in place, we also have a touch of realism in the movie.

When the sh*t hit the roof, at first it looks as if it's the usual normal zombie movie, people get infected - infected people bite people - people bitten become infected. All very "normal" of a horror movie, lots of screaming, lots of blood, lots of people shouting to each other - people get trapped & the survival instinct kicks in. All "normal" stuff. But there's a turning point which scared the pants off me. I'm not gonna reveal which part, because it still gives me the chills. You guys can check the movie itself, and I bet there's plenty of reviews out there already. But the way the creators of the movie kept the suspense at the highest level possible makes you want even more. Okay, I have to admit that I hid part of my face underneath my wife's pashmina (as i said: not so manly attribute of me...hahaha), but I just wanted more of it. In the end, we came out quite impressed that a Spanish movie is that good and we enjoyed it. Thank God for the properly presented subtitles, otherwise we wouldn't know how to interpret all those lines in Spanish. (Holla...Vamos...Rapido!...is still etched in my mind..heee).

Now I wish locally made movies can aspire to produce this type of movie (not just of horror genre, but others as well). At least reduce the number of slapstick comedies or sappy romance flick on show...can we have more quality, please?

Kembara Ansara 2009

What was supposed to be the last hunt for 2008, became our very 1st hunt for 2009! Although it took awhile to finally have the hunt, it was postponed from last month, it was a challenging outing for all of us - we were basically "off-form" for this hunt. But we had fun nonetheless...

To start off the hunt, the 1st challenge was finding 5 words of ASMARA (the ANSARA co-op) in a puzzle. Sounds easy, not so for our team...heh, we have our usual slow start to the day. In the end, I think we were either the last or 2nd last team to finish off the puzzle. The next challenge was not part of the hunt, I think even En.Zahrol didn't count on this as well. The 1st question was along the stretch of road beside the MAS training centre. And there was a group of ladies dressed in kebayas going into the building. I think they had an interview session or something that day. And as you know, we have 2 red-blooded male in our team and it was totally distracting! Hahahahaha...oh yeah, that was fun... :-)

We struggled on the 1st part of the hunt, as usual, unfortunately. After finishing off the 1st part (actually, almost giving up on the 1st part), we went thru the rest of the hunt with only minor bumps. There's also the time we miscalculated the distance and mistook a junction, which needed us to re-trace our steps back. My mistake on that part since I didn't counter-check the distance on the tulips against our own trip meter earlier. That took a lot out of the time that should have been allocated to find the treasure items. But we managed to find all the treasures, although we believed that we might have lost some points on the SHORTEA biscuits (ergh...)

At the end of the hunt, as the results were about to be announced, we've collectively resigned ourselves to the fact that we did not do well in this hunt as we should have been. So it took awhile for us to actually realize that En.Zahrol was calling our team's name to collect the 15th placed prize. Le...dapat placing gak...Hahaha...Alhamdullilah... :-)

All in, we've always enjoyed his treasure hunts, although I do believe that En.Zahrol must find a better setting, at the very least a better loud hailer or microphone & speakers for his hunts. Tak dengar laa...

On to the next hunt!

Who is Macam-Macam Adaaaa?

I've always wanted to do this - a simple profile of our treasure hunt team. It was supposed to be updated a week ago, but alas with all the system migration going on as well as tons of other things to do, my blog was not to be updated. Haha... Anyways, here goes...

Name: Farid
Designation: Team Leader / Mascot / King of the Poses (check out my facebook to see his many poses)
Strength: Friendly with everybody... strong route question and treasure question solver; the team's voice of reason and the "glue" that holds the team together.
Weakness: Needs to be "pure" of heart, eyes, spiritually and mentally - so no hanky panky stuff at least 48 hours before any treasure hunt!




Name: Deq Nie / DQ / Aini
Designation: Team Member / One-time driver
Strength: Bubbly personality...like the hubby - strong treasure question solver and have the weirdest reasoning for the route question answers (which weirdly enough, I always agree!), when both hubby and wife are on form, they can answer questions with relative ease...
Weakness: Refer Farid's...husband and wife sama laa...





Name: Azz / Anna
Designation: Team Member / Former Navigator, now Driver
Strength: Good sense of direction, strong route question solver, usually the odd one out...the other 3 of us may agree on an answer but she has another way of answering it...Not always right, but when she does get it right...adoi laaa...She's also the team's organizer for all the hunts, handling our finances and schedules...
Weakness: Could never agree with me...hahaha...




Name: Kamal (it's me...!)
Designation: Team Member / Former Driver, now Navigator
Strength: Jack of all trades, master of none...I can answer here a bit, there a bit...There was this one time when I almost managed to answer all the treasure questions on my own, well...almost la...Haha...
Weakness: I start all the treasure hunts questions with "D'huh???"...I'm always the slowest guy off the block...



As a team, we have not been able to be serious during hunts. There's always something that would make us laugh. Be it some crazy idea of what would be an answer to a question we couldn't solve or the non-ending "arguments" that we always have that no one can win. Hahaha...we can answer some difficult questions with ease, but would get the wrong answers for the easy ones. Sometimes we tend to over-think about a question, when the answers are so easy even a newbie can answer it!

As we would describe ourselves: "Macam-Macam Adaaaa...!!!"

Good riddance 2008? Hello 2009...?

It's the new year. 1430 Hijrah, and 2009...For me, 2008 has been a challenging year, both personally, and professionally. I wish I could just erase 2008 in terms of professional field, but I would have to erase several good things that happened during the year for me.

Yeah, disappointingly I'm still in shift work, which do not bring me joy. I just wonder what is it with people in this company that sees me in shift work. I despise it even more after this year, not because of the many sacrifices that I have to make to work in this field, the time it took me away from being with my family or the destruction of my social life. No...I hate shift work because of the boredom that it brings.

Yeps, it is so so boring to work in shift, and I wonder how long I can stand working this way. It holds no challenges for me anymore and I need challenges every single day that I come to work. And how do you find challenges in something that bores you? That is a conundrum that I still do not have the answer.

I found solace in photography and in Treasure Hunts, and for that I really appreciate the support that my wifey - Azz, my close friend Linda, and the 2 of the most lovable people I've known - DQ and Farid have given me. I might have gone crazy have I not found something that I can re-focus my negative energy on. We hope to do better in Treasure Hunting in the future, and I hope I can improve my skills in photography further, which is currently at level 0. Heh.

For my family, I hope to build my own small family soon. God has other plans for me, so those tini tiny patter of lil foot hasn't arrived in our home yet. But we haven't given up hope yet. When delayed, good things come even greater, insyaAllah. Credit and salute to my wife for being strong for the both of us, and not giving up hope yet. I know then as I know now that I've found my soul mate in her. I can never say enough of how much I love her.

My mother is still battling on against cancer. The latest news haven't been great, but that didn't break her spirit. I'm disappointed that I couldn't do more for my mother, and couldn't spend more time with her in her time of need. Credit to my mum, even when she's this sick the only thing that seem to disappoint her is that she couldn't take good care of my father. Talk about being unselfish, that's my mum - THE iron lady.

For my dad, I pray that he stays healthy, and at least pay attention to his health. He's so preoccupied with taking care of my mum that he forgets sometimes that he's not in his best health. And I hope he gets better at his golf as well. :-)

For my brother, I hope he finds a wife to take care of him. I know he's worried about our parents that he rarely takes care of himself; he either buries himself in work or in food. I can see it in his eyes how worried he is, he rarely spoke of how he feels as he tends to hide it inside him...I pray in my heart that he finds someone that can see how good of a person he really is.

For my elder sis and her lil family, I love u guys to bits. I wish I can spend more time with you, as everytime I see Amir and Asyraf; they seem to grow up so fast (!). I pray for your success in life, and salute your patience and strength. Oh yeah, in case u don't know...Kakwan, you're the unofficial coordinator for all of us for any family gathering. So keep up the good work. Hehe.

For my lil sis...find a good man to take care of you, please? She grew up so fast in the last few years, it's only a few months back that I realize that she's working already and driving her own car(!). Damn, I'm getting old. Haha. For her strength and courage in taking care of mum, I salute her. She does it almost automatically, I don't think she knows it, but when my mum needs her, she's always there! As I did for my brother, I pray for her to find her true love as well...and I know that she'll be successful in anything she does and makes us all proud.

Onwards to 2009 / 1430Hijrah...!