Approximately 80% of the time, my Singtel iPhone is unable to connect to twitter.com or refresh my tweets view in Twitterific (which uses the Twitter API). This only happens when connected to the internet via 3G or GPRS. If I connect via my own WiFi network, Twitter works whenever the whale isn’t flying.

Either something is wrong with the DNS resolution over on their end, they’re blocking twitter (which makes no sense to me; it’s not the highest traffic application), or something much worse. Whatever it is, I am getting seriously pissed off.

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photo.jpg, originally uploaded by sangsara.

I got an iPhone last night after 5 hours of queuing at the launch event. Which was nothing really, considering that I’ve been waiting 592 days since the first iPhone was announced last January. It’s just not worth getting unsupported Apple products, so I never got one on the black market. And now at last! Carried home in the obnoxious little Singtel paper bag you see above, I have an iPhone and it’s really freakin’ sweet.

I’m very glad that Apple let me post a review like this on the local App Store.

40 Duxton Hill
Singapore

Date dined: 31/07/08

Although the term “Australian cuisine” suggests something between a tribal cook-out and a white suburban barbecue, there’s a lot more to eating down-under than grilled meats. Roast beef, for one. Many ‘traditional’ Australian favorites have their roots in English recipes, a warning sign if ever there was one, but these days – as Australia’s cultural identity is being transformed by her migrant populations – one is as likely to find a Roghan Josh as a Sunday roast.

Uluru, a fairly new restaurant in Singapore’s KTV-happy Duxton Hill area, seems to embrace the cosmopolitan face of Australian cuisine a little too readily, as there is nothing on its menu that stands out as being definitively Australian. Items run the gamut from grilled salmon steaks and Japanese-seasoned scallop salads, to fish & chips and cuts of prime Wagyu beef. International cuisine it is then, although Victoria Bitter (VB) and other Aussie beers put in some effort.

The French Onion soup was above average, but the Cream of Tomato soup was even better. It tasted as if it were made from ripe tomatoes grown in a field of bacon, if one could do such a thing. The two flavors were perfectly twinned, leaving a rich result that was possibly the best part of dinner.

My burger ($30) was ordered medium-rare but turned up very close to well done. It lacked the beetroot that one would expect to find in an Australian burger, but by the time it arrived I was hungry enough not to care about the beetroot. Honestly, who likes the stuff? The slices of jalapeno pepper in its place, however, were a matter of gross misjudgement. The accompanying potato wedges could have used some salting, or even ketchup, but this was not provided. Ho hum.

I’ll probably be skipping dessert on my second visit, as the Granny Smith Apple Tart was soft in the crust and very hot inside, suggesting the use of a microwave oven, and for $16 including the wee littlest scoop of ice-cream in the world, represented pretty poor value. Top marks for the inclusion of fresh berries on the side, though.

The braised beef cheek, ribeye steak, and baby back ribs ordered by others at the table fared much better, so it is possible that some Australian heritage is at work here after all.

* * * ½

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Singapore Garden Festival, originally uploaded by sangsara.

I went with my mom and girlfriend on some complimentary tickets, and on the whole can’t say I’m too sorry I spent a Saturday afternoon looking at indoor “fantasy gardens”, even if they were largely useless vanity projects for rich landscaping companies. Some, like the one above, made for good photos.

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Altar, originally uploaded by sangsara.

It’s been settling for two days now, and I think Get Smart was better than Wanted and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, but worse than Kung Fu Panda. I liked some of the references to the old series, and I always like looking at Anne Hathaway too, but an unnecessary remake movie’s gotta have more to offer than that! I doubt many people are on the fence about seeing this anyway, so I won’t go into any details. It’s an alright 2 hour movie to see in the middle of a hot afternoon, but don’t make it the high point of your night out.

I laughed a couple of times, so I’d say it was worth 3/5 stars. For the record, Wanted got 2, Zohan got 2.5 (mostly for its opening minutes), and Kung Fu Panda got 3.5.

I saw this last night and was rather disappointed with the story. This movie has gotten something like 88% at RottenTomatoes.com, which is in a region previously reserved for Studio Ghibli and Pixar movies (or Disney, if you’re old enough to remember a time when they didn’t suck). So naturally, I had my expectations high enough that anything short of a beautiful, sensitively made film that delivered the old “if you believe, you can do anything” message in new ways was going to feel like a waste of 10 dollars.

Kung Fu Panda, sadly, is not that ‘something new’. And it is very flawed, structurally. I think they were just hoping that the animation and inherent panda cuteness would make up for the fact that the writers never managed to solve the problem of how to have an unfit panda convincingly best the world’s greatest warrior in combat, apart from using his ass/belly as a bouncy surface. As a result, the film looks like this:

2 minutes of Panda being a bad-ass (dream sequence)
is followed by
55 minutes of Panda shown as well-meaning but incompetent as a fighter
followed by
5 minutes of his teacher having an epiphany
followed by
1 minute of training montage
followed by
10 minutes of Panda being a full-fledged kungfu expert
followed by
10 minutes of doubt
followed by
5 minutes of unbelievable, unjustified competence
followed by
THE END.

I know I sound like a picky asshole who can’t just relax and enjoy a summer blockbuster for kids, but the bar has been raised by others that came before, and so Kung Fu Panda has to work a little harder. In ways, it is the perfect example of Dreamworks’ approach to animation, and offers several reasons why they consistently fail to deliver something as timeless as say, oh… any Pixar film? These include: loud, brash characters who don’t change so much as they do unlock their artificially stunted potential that everybody else saw from the beginning. Pop culture jokes (admittedly fewer here). Uneven pacing and plot progression. Disregard for the passage of time – and this is a big one for me.

In order to build believability, you have to let certain events breathe. Compared to something like Ratatouille, Kung Fu Panda occurs almost in real-time. It honestly feels like everything happens overnight. The result of such carelessness is a lack of drama and audience emphathy for the characters. How are you supposed to feel that Po (the panda) is really ready for his challenge when you’re given at least 30 times as much evidence of his unreadiness as his 1 minute training montage? Classic heroes were products of sustained hardship. Rocky had the heart, and even Remy from Ratatouille had the nose and talent from the beginning. Po, in contrast, is only shown having a fan’s interest in the history of kungfu. It’s like saying little Johnny Redneck by ringside can throw it down with a pro wrestler after a weekend of training with Hulk Hogan.

Animation is a feature film industry where you have far more time and money to get things right, and so directorial failures are even more disappointing. I imagine the guys at Pixar (and I’ve read a little to this effect) hammer the hell out of every detail for their films in pre-production. They’re not afraid to throw away great scenes in order to find even greater ones. The results haven’t just been the best 3D animated films; they pretty much legitimized the form. Kung Fu Panda has a couple of dead-air scenes that I think John Lasseter wouldn’t even wipe his ass with.

One last thing. I’ve had Pixar movies move me to tears. Those guys know how to write emotionally effective scenes that don’t feel like manipulation. And when the time comes to deliver an inspirational message, they know how to show rather than tell. WALL·E pretty much proves it by having two non-speaking leads. Kung Fu Panda on the other hand relies on lines as false as fortune cookie proverbs.