The 2nd last Qualifiers for the Catan Finals was held at The Outpost Cineleisure on Saturday.

I only went to support both my younger brothers who joined. Due to some bad circumstances however, only 4 contestants showed up (including both my brothers)! The other 2 were Tracy and Dennis from Mage Cafe.

We were all told that it would start at 12, but it got postponed until 2.30 instead even though the 4 contestants were already there. Grrrrr. The reasoning was that we need to have 8 confirmed players before we can can begin, so we ended up asking around for the casual players to join in. Luckily managed to get Charlie (Ziet’s GF), Jeff, Heng, and Richard.

First Round (Table 1)
Ziet (2nd Place), Ching, Heng, Richard (1st Place)

First Round (Table 2)
Charlie, Tracy (2nd Place), Dennis (1st Place), Jeff

Richard caused the biggest upset of all, when he singlehandedly won the first round – even though it was his FIRST time playing!

Final Round
Dennis (1st Place), Tracy (2nd Place), Ziet & Richard

The last round was a really drawn out affair, as Dennis who could easily have won, decided to hold the game back to ensure that his partner Tracy could qualify as well. Of course Ziet kena-lar, but the gang bang was to be expected since Ching didn’t make it through to support him. It was just how obvious the gang bang was being conducted that made the whole thing hard to swallow. The ugly side of alliances in Catan was never more apparent before today.

But Dennis & Tracy’s final victory was won fair and square despite being unsportsmanlike, but I guess that’s the way you have to be if you want to even think of winning in Germany. Personally however, Settlers of Catan was simply not designed to have ‘2′ victors. I feel a league system with an accumulated Victory Points scoring system would have been a fairer method to determine the best players.

Anyway I got back, and after some deliberation, decided to call off my initially planned trip to go watch the Singaporean Jazz singer Anne Weerapass (performing at Alexis in Jalan Ampang). Faz said it wasn’t worth the trip so instead, I joined her, and her buddies (Mia, Adam and her sessionists) for a short yum char & chat session at Murni.

Came back, got bored and popped a DVD into the player.. Sunshine (2007)

Yes, this was the movie that came and went without anyone noticing – even though it starred Datuk Michelle Yeoh in one of its lead roles. Lol.

The reviews all over the web are EXTREMELY mixed on this one. It’s got its legion of die hard supporters, and then its got another legion of trashers. I happen to lean more towards the die-hard supporters in this case.

I felt the movie was extremely ambitious in a good way. The characters were all round solid, but more importantly, the sets and visual effects were STUNNING. Director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later fame), took a very original step by focusing only on the psychological aspect of the characters. This means no Hollywood blockbusterish atmosphere ala Armageddon and Day Before Tomorrow where you see scenes of widespread destruction on Earth. From the very beginning, you are thrown into this lonely, suffocating claustrophobic spacecraft hurtling towards the sun, carrying 8 specialists and a fission bomb the size of Manhattan Island. Objective : Detonate the bomb, restart the dying sun and save our planet.

The first 2/3rds of the movie was simply excellent. There was this feeling of dread (very much like Event Horizon) permeating throughout the movie. You know that something really bad is about to happen – but you simply don’t know what. However, when the movie decides to reveal the ‘what’, that’s when the movie takes a dive. A psychological sci-fi thriller suddenly becomes preachy, philosophical and B Grade horror-ish. Enough about that here, I don’t wanna spoil the ending for you . Sunshine’s concept still blew me over, and the way it leaves much of itself to the audience’s interpretation puts it in my good books somehow. I just find it sad that Fox decided to can the movie without giving it a true chance to shine in the box office (just like how they did the Firefly series – stupid Fox).

But well, at least Michelle Yeoh’s got all round great reviews for her role in this movie.

At the moment of posting, Sunshine (2007) has an average rating of 7.4/10 (21,548 votes) on IMDB.

Monday (27.08.07)

A bunch of us guys (Me, Chin Li, Nic, Ziet, Ang & Roy) decided to go shooting at Tbun. Because its so rare that we decide to do this, here’s a photo for old time’s sake… .