The Game of Pride

Apparently, I enjoyed sports which “compete with someone” instead of “compete with myself”. Since recent months, I have been enjoying table tennis (or “ping pong” in Bahasa). Well, by competing with someone, you will definitely got “Pride” involved.

I recalled years ago, when I was in junior highschool, I was completely beaten by a friend of mine in table tennis. At that moment, my pride was lost. So I have never played table tennis ever since.

Just few months ago, I feel like trying table tennis again. So, I embrace myself to play with a friend of mine, here in my workplace. Well, as what happened years ago, once again I got completely beaten (and my Pride once again lost). But this time, I don’t quit. I learn table tennis techniques from many friends here. I also played a lot, with many opponents, hoping I would play better than before.

I am currently undergone a table tennis tournament. I have had hard and intensive table tennis trainings for a few months, hoping this time I would be able to regain my Pride.

You can see the pics here some of my “style” while playing table tennis. Yesterday, I played 7 games with my sparring partner. It was a very rough game, because my thumb is injured :p

Transformers, Two thumbs up! 5-star Ratings!

This movie is highly recommended! You really can’t missed this one!

I really impressed with this movie! Although I’m not much a fan of the cartoon series of Transformers, I really surprised with the story and the marvellous 3D animation. I would say, this movie outrank Fantastic Four: Return of the Silver Surfer and Spiderman 3.

Non-stop action starts from the beginning. You will see many fully-loaded action scenes. You can really feel the excitement boosting your adrenaline. I have never seen such realistic 3D animation. The animation looks very much real, blends perfectly with real world objects. As said by Cinemags, the rendering took 36 hours to create super-realistic 3D objects. The movie Toy Story (or was it Cars) only took 2-3 hours rendering.

Besides the impressive 3D animation, I really love the U.S. military’s chain-of-command and technology. I love it how every military commands given by top authority get executed very efficiently, especially in infantry units. Cinemags said that US. Dept of Defense really involved in the making of Transformers, especially showing off the prototype of next generation fighter jets: F-22 Raptor. I also love it when A-10 Thunderbolts gives stunning action very early in the movie.

Just as in Spiderman 3, this movie gives not only superb cinematic experience, but also words of wisdom. Some of which I recall was “one shall stand, one shall fall”, “no sacrifice, no victory”. Optimus Prime is not only the strongest autobots, but also a charismatic leader who is willing to sacrifice itself to achieve victory.

A bit out-of-topic, you will definitely notice many sponsors in the movie, such as: eBay, the military communication equipment has Cisco logo (the IP telephone), Nokia handphone get destroyed, the Japanese got many credits in robotics, and some others which unfortunately I have forgotten. I really want to see the movie again, just to enjoy the animation, and to take note of the complete sponsors :p

Thanks to mr.Neofreko, I finally got some pictures of Transformers. Complete pictures available from http://movie.yahoo.com/ ^_^

I just got a very nice article on "The Making of Transformers Movie". It spells out everything I wrote here, about how they design the robots, the military involvement, the selection of cards, and many more. Enjoy the article here ^_^