One character that we like is Mitzi, a young “bossy” girl living next to the koala brothers. Vivian and I couldn’t really figure out what exactly kind of animal she is — looks like a koala but with long tails. One day when Vivian flipped through books and saw a photo of tree kangaroo, and thought Mitzi has found her kind.

Last week at Currumbin we actually took some photos of tree kangaroos — it was my first time seeing one in person. Does look a bit like Mitzi, doesn’t it?

Until I checked the Wikipedia when we came back, and found out Mitzi was in fact a possum!! Well, I still think she looks like a tree kangaroo, but I am not sure whether she really knows her identity anyway, when she is living with 2 koalas and one wombat.

And the reason that I have been procrastinating to write this entry until more than one month later is, that subsequently I loved H2G2 so much and I am now half way through reading the 5th and final book of the series, Mostly Harmless.

I have previously heard of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I know that it has a great following to a point that’s almost cultish. However, besides knowing 42 as the ultimate answer to the Life, Universe and Everything (like most comp. sci. students there), I have never got my acts together to read it. Anyway, I am almost there finishing reading the series, but I will share about it later — let’s focus on the movie first.

It is a comedy rather than a sci-fi. Thou having nice CGI every now and there, you shouldn’t expect Starwars-like space duel in there. It is also very much a British comedy (think Monty Python or Black Adder) — the lines are witty and satirical, but not necessarily “funny”. Martin Freeman was good being Arthur Dent, and had quite an enjoyable performance.

However, this movie also got balanced out by some of the American actors that are just out right laughing out loud type. Sam Rockwell is that super-exaggerated hyper-weird Zaphod Beeblebrox, who probably has the biggest ego in the universe. Very American. Very humours kind of silly. So I guess it has a good combination of both — witty dialogues and fun acting.

And everyone loves Marvin — except maybe the robot itself. The “paranoid android” with brain the size of a planet is really adoring in the movie. He has some of the best lines in the whole movie.

Plot-wise, it is pretty faithful to the original book — for only the first 20 minutes. After Dent and Prefect got picked up by the Heart of Gold, they basically just jump to everywhere with the Infinite Improbability Drive. Though the movie also ends with them going to the Restaurant at the end of the universe, but how they got to that point is all totally different. Many die-hard fan hated it, like how fans usually hate Hollywood rendition of almost everything. However, I find those additional plots quite well done. They do change the characters a bit (especially the romance between Arthur/Trillian, Zaphod/Questular), but it does finish off with a somewhat up beat ending.

It does, however, include quite a few Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy animation entries. Most memorable one is probably about how the existence of God being proved wrong with the Babel fish (as I have blogged previously, which is on the DVD as bonus material). The self-discovery of the sperm whale while it plummets into planet Magrathea was also there and very nicely done, and it is about as thought provoking as in the book.

And that’s one thing about the Douglas Adams’ writing. As a self-professed “radical atheist” (i.e. not agnostic), the movie reflects very much his view of “godlessness” and the view that world we see is really what there is. Everything just happens — randomly and in an improbable fashion. We are all like that self-discovering whale plummeting into a planet — realising our existence, making sense of the surrounding, and then bang! we are gone. It’s full of those pictures in both the film and the books, and some of them can be considered quite offensive (if you can’t take light-hearted humour). However, I believe it would be useful, as a Christian, to take some of these out and analyse them, so that we would know how to answer when we are similarly challenged.

Would I recommend this movie? Yes for sure. I loved it. However, it might not be for someone who gets easily confused in random plots. I was certainly a bit confused watching it the first time as I have never read the book before, so reading at least the first volume might be a prerequisite. It might also not be suitable for those who get easily offended by seemingly heretic religious references, even though they were written as jokes. Go and watch something else instead.

PS. I rented it from Civic Video next to UNSW for $2 overnight on their Tuesday specials.

“The Babel fish,” said The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quietly, “is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

“The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’

“‘But,’ says Man, ‘The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’

“‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

“‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

“Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn’t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best- selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloddier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

Very clever, witty little snippet of one of the best selling science/humour fiction. I watched the 2005 Hollywood remake on DVD last night, and really enjoyed it. I think I shall start reading the series. I will also review the DVD later this week.

But the argument for the non-existance of God? Flawed right from the beginning, as proof has never denied faith, but rather, it can be an important building block to strength faith.

Nor can the absense of faith diminished God into nothing, as God is never a product of mental exercise. God, as the creator of this universe, reigns regardless how much faith his creatures have.

Well, I just realised that my description makes this movie sounds very sexist, but in fact it is not the case. A very entertaining comedy (some might even call it a chick flicks) that features good acting and NOT Will Smith blowing things into pieces. Kevin James, of “Albert” in the movie, is a classic, as someone who almost stole the whole show. Vivian and I were laughing all the way through. A nice DVD to rent for a relaxing evening for sure.

As for the guys, there might be some hint in there from our date doctor. After all, as the psychologists in the special feature section of the DVD have concluded, that ‘competence’ is what most girls look up to. That reflects a bit on the Sunday sermon last week on 1 Timothy 2:11-15, where Josh showed sympathy towards those Asian churches that employ female preachers in a general congregation. Not that they are supporting the feminist movement (and discarding the word of God), but they are forced into the situation as there is no competent, motivated, willing and able guys taking up the leadership!

So, not just for the girls, but for the sake of your home churches that are lacking male leaders, stop playing World of Warcraft and do something about it!! No, I am not inferring to anyone specific :)

Another interesting observation in the movie is how people do their research. Hitch needs to know about a particular person. Gossip column editor needs to find out someone’s secret. And they all go to the same place — Google — just like the rest of us! The word “google” has been used a few times as a verb in the movie, and when someone says “search about him”, that usually implies “google him”!

Are you googlable? (sorry for using it as an adjective) It might be a bad thing, but it can also be good.

Bad if you happen to be The New Idea or Women’s Weekly’s next target, and I suggest that you shouldn’t keep an on-line journal or blogsite if you are living in a life-style that might attract gossip column’s attention. Or learn about robots.txt.

Good if you need some kind of credential. Not if you appear in the crime section of the news paper often though. However, if you know that people would google your name for information, it is then important to put that good side of you on it if possible. Fresh-grads from Comp. Sci/Eng often complained to me that they cannot find a job because they have no experience, and almost all jobs require some kind of credential. I am pretty sick of it already so I am going to make it clear — in this information age, it cannot be easier to be somebody! FOSS projects — pick up a few and gain some experience, right from your bedroom. And make sure you are googlable. If I am going out to hire a software developer now, the rule is simple. If your name cannot be googled, you will not be hired. Period.

My reaction after watching it — huh?! Yes, it is that bad. Again this movie proves that Reeve not only sucks at Kung-Fu, his woody acting made the already irrational plot really painful to watch. The final 15 minutes is such a twist, in an unexpected way. Unexpected in the sense that you wonder how much worse can it get. I shall call it a happy ending — the baddie is gone (sort-of), hero and heroin are together and the world is temporarily a peaceful place — just that audiences probably won’t experience that happiness in its setup.

And the movie is full of religious themes — God, Lucifer, heaven, hell, angels, demons, redemption, 1 Corinthians with 21 chapters — and heaven and hell are portrait in the way that they are two powerful leagues trying to steal people from the big blue planet in the middle. Theology wise, huh? Theology? At least Angela got it right at one instance with John Constantine, as she questioned him that he cannot possibly buy his way into heaven. However, later on Constantine demonstrated that there is still a chance he can be accepted by God by performing the work of self-sacrifice, i.e. you are just buying it with your own life, except the whole rapturing process was interrupted by Satan… Oh well.

However, it does give us a nice effect on how terrible hell is. They are trying to create a burning scene where you would not want to be there, even just for a minute let along for eternity, according the documentry on production. Today people hardly believe in the existance of hell…

The only redeeming performance (no pun intended) are from Rachel Weisz and Peter Stormare, the guy who played Satan/Lucifer. That’s in comparison with Reeves, of course.

Give it a pass when you are in the DVD shop next time.

However the plot wasn’t unfolded in a logical way. Too many coincidence without purpose and explanation. Ending is also quite predictable. However, it does have some things for the audiences to ponder upon.

My favourite quotes in the movie:

Silvia Broom: Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.

Silvia Broom: Non-violent solutions may take longer, but the outcome is certainly worth the wait.

These were certainly not what the FBI agent was expected, who initially assumed tragedy and grief would give her desire for revenge. And he was partially right, as being merciful and compassionate is really not part of our human nature. Silvia still needs to overcome her own grief at the end, with what she believes but not what she desires.

By the way, Civic Video in Kingsford, is now offering $2 a movie on Tuesday, and that applies to over-night DVD’s as well. They said they were just trying it out to attract customers, so the deal will be offered for limited time only. Sounds like Tuesday nights will be video nights for me then.

What’s not so good:

• Hayden Christensen’s acting (even though better than Episode II)
• Stupid dialogues between Anakin and Padme that was supposed to be romantic
• Yoda fighting with shorter-than-usual light sabre
• How quickly Anakin has fallen to the dark-side after his initial mistake – pretty much “Doh! I should have not done that! I’ll serve you anyway, my Sith Master”

What’s good:

• Final duel – the tension between Obiwan and Anakin Darth Vader
• Ewan McGregor – more Alec Guiness like than the previous two
• Fully packed action
• No more Jar Jar Binks
• … and after all – it is Star Wars

Yeah – that’s why I gave 9.9/10 to the previous two prequels as well – I enjoyed all of them. Gotta sleep now, and I might blog more about Star Wars tomorrow.

And that was already quite an achievement. A big step for Scott, that is, who has not owned a TV set in his household since he moved down to Sydney in 1995. That’s right – 10 years!! Most people have learnt the fact with disbelief, but somehow I had survived the decade without loosing my side of humanity. Not that I explicitly abstain from he evil box, as someone might call it, but I just don’t find a need to watch it.

But why coming back to TV again? I am not 100% certain about it either. Maybe just to check out what I have missed out? Also, Vivian also wanted to record ABC‘s Miffy cartoon for Anna – so we ended up investing on that pile of computer components at the corner as our HTPC and TV.

PC is a 4 year-old Duron 1Ghz running Windows XP Home previously used by Vivian as her desktop. Loaded with 2 old hard disks totally 60Gb of storage, which should be enough for around 8 hours of SD DTV recording in MPEG2. I also put in a new Compro DVB-T300 analoge/digital TV tuner, a new MSI PC54G2 802.11g WiFi card, and a no-name brand 400Watt power supply to handle the load. All purchased from eBay. Also bought a used Microsoft wireless keyboard+mouse from eBay as well, so I can remote control the PC from a distance.

Monitor is Dell E1905FP 19″ LCD, which I wrote about here. It’s big on the desk, but feels a bit small for a living room. Digital TV is very clear through our external antenna, but I have not had a chance to try recording yet.

I still need to fix up the TV cabinet, which we bought raw from Knott’s Pine. It has been sitting in the toilet at the back for 2 weeks, stained but not yet clear-coated. Might need to do that this weekend. Then our TV project is complete!

Now the question is, what is worth watching on TV these days?

Watched The Butterfly Effect (Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, directed by Bress and Gruber) on DVD with Vivian on Tuesday (thanks to Grace for lending it to us). It has been one of the more enjoyable yet profounding movie that I have watched recently, and I highly recommend it. The acting is okay. Ashton Kutcher was casted in the lead role “Evan”, but I think it was probably an easier role than other supporting roles who have complete different personalities in different parallel realities. There ain’t much special effect either. The blurring visual effect when Evan’s old journals were read was cool, but that was about it. However, The Butterfly Effect has an interesting storyline.

Evan is someone who has frequent mysterious blackouts during his childhood, and every time that happened, he would lost that part of his memory. In his college years, accidentally he discovered by reading his old journals, he could go back to the past where the memory was lost, and subsequently change what actually did happen. However, small change in the past results a completely different future, and most of the time it is for the worse…

Interestingly this movie has two distinct endings. The theatrical ending was a happy ending. After a few failed attempts that made the life even worse, Evan has finally made one good decision which even though made him and Kayleigh strangers in the future, everyone else turns out to be just fine. The director’s cut ending on the DVD was, however, much more thought provoking and impactful, and in my opinion a better version of the two. Instead of travelling back to the time when Evan and Kayleigh first met, he went all the way back to his mother’s womb, following the footsteps of his two other still born siblings, and choking himself with his umbilical cord to death, so that nothing about him will ever happen in the future.

It was a sad ending, but I found it a much well done closure than the weak happy ending. It followed the flow of the story, where more Evan wants to change the past, worse it will become. It explained how his mother lost his two other still-born siblings, as they too made the same decision to go back to the past to end their lives. Moreover, it reflected what his father, Jason, has said in the psychiatric unit – this ability of changing the past is not a gift, but a curse. “You can’t play God! You are not a God!” Jason yelled out.

Indeed we cannot play God as we are mere mortals, and Jason was absolutely right on this point. However, very often we wish that we could be in Evan’s shoes, having abilities to change events in the past. “What if I choose that job instead of this one?” “What if I went to a different university?” “What if I stayed on the Gold Coast instead of coming to Sydney?” But instead, one should have asked, how would God guide me in my current situation?

We all reject the ruler – God – by trying to run life our own way without him. But we fail to rule ourselves or society or the world.

Two Ways to Live Box 2.

That very point makes the happy ending unrealistic. At the end Evan burnt all his journals, trying to make a point saying that he would not go back and change the past anymore. Did he forget that he had just done it through watching a home-made video? Sooner or later, he would find something that is not perfect in his life, and he would try to use his ability to “rectify” this imperfection again. Well, as a sinful man I know that I would!

“Butterfly effect” is used to explain situations where a small change in the initial condition can lead to a greater change in the outcome. The often used analogy to explain this concept is that a large scale storm can be caused by wing flapping of a butterfly far away. Personally I do not see this kind of explanation appropriate due to the way it is worded. The analogy should have been like, if this particular butterfly did not flap its wings, that large storm elsewhere might not have occurred. Butterfly wing flapping is a determining factor, but it is not necessarily a significant factor.

But what does the butterfly effect tell us about the world? This world is complicated, and our ability to foresee the future is very limited – weather forecast is one example. You can have the computational power of the entire world, but any unplanned glitch can dramatically change the outcome and render your simulated result worthless.

Yet, God is still in control, and he is the one that sets everything in its place. Like the pattern in the Mandelbrot Set, He is the order of this seemingly chaotic world, caused by the sinfulness of mankind. What all we can do is just humble ourselves before him and put our trust in him, that on the day of Judgement everything will be reconciled.

At least I’ll have the teaser to watch again and again…