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Run Lola, Run

Have you had a bad day? Don’t you just wish you can do it all over again? In this movie, Lola (Franka Potente) did just that, in fact she was able to do it three times. It started with Lola receiving a phone call. Manni, her boyfriend, had lost a bag containing 100,000 marks (it’s a german film) that he was transporting for a crime boss. If he does not deliver the money he is as good as dead. His solution is robbing a store to get replacement money. Lola has only 20 minutes to get replacement money to Manni before he proceeds with his plan. So she had to run and run and run. This is like three short movies rolled into one and the whole thing is exciting and hilarious at the same time.

Oh, and it’s got way cool techno soundtrack:

I wish I was a stranger who wanders down the sky
I wish I was a starship in silence flying by
I wish I was a princess with armies at her hand
I wish I was a ruler who’d make them understand

I wish I was writer who sees what’s yet unseen
I wish I was a prayer expressing what I mean
I wish I was a forest of trees that do not hide
I wish I was a clearing no secrets left inside

I wish I was a hunter in search of different food
I wish I was the animal which fits into that mood
I wish I was a person with unlimited breath
I wish I was a heartbeat that never comes to rest

Rating: 4/5

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Nokia 6100 Rebirth

What is it with my stuff? They seem to be all dying! Yesterday, my Nokia 6100 gave up the ghost. It just powered down on its own. Powering it up is a hit-or-miss affair. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. But when it does, it powers down again after a few minutes. Now I wouldn’t mind if the damned thing completely dies but all my contacts are on the phone and not on the SIM!!! As soon as I got home I desperately tried to power it up and was eventually able to. I quickly backed up all the data using a trial version of Oxygen Express which I had hastily downloaded.

The next day, my friend Eeya accompanied me to a phone repair shop that had fixed her phone a few weeks back. I showed them my phone and they promptly flashed it. Bye-bye data. Good thing I was able to back it up. When they’re done with flashing, the phone still didn’t work. All my data gone for no reason! Grrrr. They eventually were able to fix it while Eeya and I were eating lunch at a nearby Subway, so I don’t know what the problem was. But it damn sure is not the flash memory. I hate it when people use their favorite magic tool to fix all the world’s problems. Well at least the phone is now working.

After dropping off Eeya at her place, I rushed home and tried restoring my data only to find out that the trial version of Oxyen Express does not allow restore of back-up data! Curses!!! I tried looking for warez or cracks but it is so new there are no warez and cracks. Looks like I’m gonna have to order it online :(

UPDATE: I finally bit the bullet and ordered Oxygen Express. After a day, I got the download link and the registration details. I quickly installed it and restored my back-up. My phone is back!!! :)

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Car Maintenance Blues

Last Thursday, my car’s air conditioner compressor gave up a few times. It seizes up and stalls the engine. I didn’t mind it much at first because I was just going slow and straight the first few times it happened. However, on the last stall, I was turning and since I’m on power steering, I lost all steering and my only recourse was to use the brakes in order to avoid running into the center island. Once stopped I turned off the AC and did not turn it on for the rest of the evening.

On Friday, I immediately had the car checked and fixed at a highly recommended car air conditioning shop. They confirmed what I suspected: I’ll have to replace the compressor. My choice is a surplus compressor or a brand new one. The drawback of the surplus compressor is that it’s a 50-50 deal. You may get a good one or a bad one. And in the case of a good one, it usually just lasts a year or two. So I chose get a brand new Sanden SD508 compressor. Of course it has a big drawback: price. And also the belt kept squealing :(

I had also decided to finally fix my brakes as it is one of the best defenses against accidents. So on Friday, I went to Cruven to have my brakes checked and fixed. Again they confirmed what I knew: my front brakes’ rotor discs were grooved and are already thin so replacement was the only option. My brake pads were also worn thing, mainly because of the grooved rotor discs. To save on labor costs, the mechanic advised me to also renovate the front shock absorbers. So I agreed. They replaced the rotor discs, replaced the brake pads with Bendix brake pads, and renovated the front shock absorbers. And I ended up with a hefty repair bill :(

But that’s not even the end of it yet. I’m planning to also get the rear brakes fixed soon. Of course, it would also make also sense to save on labor costs and renovate the rear shock absorbers at the same time. Even more expenses! Argh!

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ImageMagick and JMagick on Linux

INSTALL IMAGEMAGICK
Download libwmf-0.2.8.4-1.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh libwmf-0.2.8.4-1.i386.rpm
Download ImageMagick-6.2.4-6.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ImageMagick-6.2.4-6.i386.rpm

INSTALL IMAGEMAGICK-DEVEL
yum install ghost-script-devel
Download ImageMagick-devel-6.2.4-6.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh ImageMagick-devel-6.2.4-6.i386.rpm

INSTALL JMAGICK
yum install libtiff-devel
yum install libjpeg-devel
Download JMagick-6.2.4-0.tar.gz
tar xvfz JMagick-6.2.4-0.tar.gz
cd JMagick-6.2.4-0
./configure (or. ./configure –with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.03)
make all
make test
make javadoc
vi Make.def
Find INSTALL and change the value to /root/JMagick-6.2.4-0/install-sh
make install

To use JMagick, libJMagick.so must be in a directory where the runtime loader can find it or you must set the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH. jmagick.jar must be in your Java class path.

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Infernal Affairs

I’ll have to admit that I was leery of Infernal Affairs when my sister handed me the VCD. Coming from Hong Kong, I thought it is just another one of those gunfire blazing unlimited ammo action flicks. And the title didn’t help: It actually got me expecting some demonic horror twist. But haven’t watched a movie for so long that I actually popped it into the CD drive and played it. Fortunately, I was oh so wrong. The movie turned out to be pretty good. It is essentially a cat-and-mouse game between a police mole in a triad gang and a triad mole in the police force. There were no guns blazing. During the whole movie there were probably just over a dozen pistol shots. And there was absolutely no demonic horror twist. Instead, there was intense palpable drama full of twists and turns as the two moles hunt each other out while at the same trying striving to protect their identities and maintain a grasp on the false life (or is it their real life?) they both live. The game culminated in a tragic ending though not without a few more twists.

Rating: 4/5