Here a few of my favourite American Apparel ads throughout the years. There’s always something fresh and cheeky about these ads. I also love the fact that they use real women rather than perfect models. The beauty is in the imperfection. Enjoy! Check some more out here.

Amazing collection of typography portraits. Here are a few of my favs. Check out the full list.

Dan’s whimsical creatures are of another worldly level. Sad, yet faintly cute and naive, they are both wonderful yet haunting. More of his work here.

This is why you should judge a book by its cover! The full list is available here.

Favourites from a list compiled by Smashing Magazine. Definite recommendation to check the whole list out!

Some of my favourite designs from Smashing Magazine’s Lessons From Swiss Designers. The list is incredible!

These are a few of my favourite websites from Noupe.com’s 50+ Fresh & Unique Personal Portfolio Websites

Here are some of the pics that I have take with my Iphone. They have gone through various photo apps like CameraBag and ToyCamera. I also have my eyes on the new updated QuadCamera which is now ready for the 3.0 software. These photos are very lomo, crappy camera-esque.

Driving down Foveux st in Surry Hills. I felt like we were heading on a stairway to heaven.

One of the many side sreets in Newtown. Even though it is a narrow street, they are always packed with cars. Thats the urbanised beauty of Newtown.

Nepalese Kitchen in Surry Hills. Quite a small restaurant but beautifully laid out.

View from my balcony in Newtown, just before sunset.

Following from the sunset pic above. The colours of the sky, very very beautiful.

One of the many trees in Centennial Park

Lunch in Walsh Bay, a rich port overlooking expensive boats.

The haze on Oxford St. Party central, yet disturbing.

Old room in Marrickville, building was quite old.

Pupsit, one of the designer toy that my boyfriend likes to buy me.

I’d only heard about John Woo’s Red Cliff recently in which epic and expensive were used to describe it, as well as the 4 hour length of the movie. However, I didn’t expect that Hollywood would agree to go ahead and show a straight 4 hour film in one go. My friend Alyssa, was going to go review it for an online mag so I tagged along, still recovering from cold/flu/sinus where I spent the whole day in bed watching Simpsons re-runs, Arachnophobia, Prince Caspian and Species. Fresh from the good trash, I was ready to be injected in some foreign, action packed John Woo style film. I was a bit disappointed that that the movie had been recut to 2.5hrs from the 4 hours of footage that was realised in China. In China, they had released Red Cliff in 2 parts with the each part being released a year apart.

This was the advanced preview screening of Red Cliff on a Sunday arvo in Newtown. Because of that, I’d expected that the cinema would be empty. Running late from trying to gulp down a dumpling soup lunch, the girl at Dendy warned that it was very full in there. So much for my expectation, we ended sitting 3 seats from the front. Because of our lateness we managed to miss 5 minutes of the movie to arrive at the battle between Lui Bei’s army and Cao Cao’s army. I sat there for the first ten minutes trying to absorb the action that was bursting out of the screen. The action was very very bloody, but unrealistic. I’ve known Woo’s directorial style from his previous Hollywood outings Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2 and his style of action is a slow, close up shot of the action. It provides another worldly element to the action. And this is what stops Red Cliff from becoming a gritty, full out bloody assualt.

Just to sum the movie up in a few sentences, Red Cliff is a war epic, based on actual events at the end of the Han Dynasty in China. This war paved way to the next era called the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao, a Northern warlord, has conquered many lands in the North except the south land. The opening battle scenes are Cao Cao’s attempt to capture Lui Bei’s land, a southern warlord. Realizing that they are on the cusp of a defeat, Lui Bei’s army flees, and allies with Sun Quan, the emperor of the South. Together, their army totals 50,000 men, a very small army compared with the 800,000 men that Cao Cao has taken with him for this assault. The all out battle takes place at Red Cliff.

What I particularly enjoyed about this film is the humour that Woo chooses to weave the story with. It is humour that is cheesy, exaggerated but yet subtle. It gives the film a light hearted treatment, but this is not particularly bad in a war epic. With the 2.5 hour version, I felt that the story line was rushed, and some shots were not established in the previous shots which made some scenes jump out of nowhere or happen suddenly. This is very slight though, but noticeably to a very keen eye. I came home and tried to get a hold of the full 4 hour version. After watching the 4 hour version, the shots that were cut made the 2.5 hour movie feel full. Woo had cut a lot of the shots that characterised the main leads and showed them in a different light. The characters are given a full rounded treatment with likeable, human traits. We saw very little of Cao Cao’s army in the shortened version but more is explored in the full version. Any chance to see more of Tony Leung I would thoroughly recommend the full 4 hour version.

Saturday morning and I am covered in hives from my allergic reaction to eating bad pho last night. Even though I could sense that there was something wrong with the meat I kept eating anyways. Thanks to that, I’ve had an allergic reaction to something in the soup. Not a reaction in the sense of my throat getting blocked but rather being covered in hives like I’m having a massive mosquito bite all over my body. Yes, very uncomfortable. But even worse to wake up and realise you still have the left over hive stamp all over my face. Never had a problem with acne, but I now know what it feels to have bad acne.

So I’m hoping that it will go down soon as I have a lunch date with my old friend Wendy and Evan is playing at Utopia. I will never go back to that pho place anymore. I should have heeded the warning.

Which brings me to writing about the latest book I conquered A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I bought this novel in a collection of series involving books that had been banned sometime during their moment of publication. I have tried to read it 2 times before succeeding for the third time. Only because I had watched the movie, I thought it would be similar. But oh was I wrong. The language was the first thing that threw me off balance. Burgess novel is essentially about violence - acts of violence. Rather than describing violence in word - which I can imagine could be a gut wrenching read - Burgess gets words from Russia and uses it consistently throughout A Clockwork Orange. I only found out that he had derived those words from Russia after reading the novel. I initially thought it was just made up gibberish but in fact if you can understand Russian then chances are you would be able to understand this novel a lot better than an english speaking person - taking that you can understand English.

So once I got used to the language it was an engrossing read which brings up many deep issues in society and which are relevant now. It asks is man better off with the ability to choose to do bad or no choice but to do good? A Clockwork Orange explores it in a way that is extreme so you would choose the former condition. Also worth checking is Stanley Kubricks A Clockwork Orange film which lifts the novel and makes the film stand on its own two legs. The novel on its own is worth in reading itself for its play with language and word play used very creatively to paint acts of violence.