Pain Unacquainted

Packed day today. =) Or yesterday, because of the past-midnight thing, but it's still today to me anyway.

Just heard from Kathy yesterday (or the day before yesterday, respectively) about Times books warehouse sale in Expo, so I checked it out this morning. This kind of events is usually crowded, so I kiasu-ly made a point to be there right at opening time (10 a.m.) -- then at least I could enjoy an hour of less crowd.

Turned out it wasn't necessary; the crowd was pretty small the entire time I was there. I kinda figured out why -- there weren't many that attracted me there. The titles I would've been interested to buy, I already had. There were quite a lot of novels on sale, but I didn't know most of the authors, so I had no idea if they would be good.

-- the pain she wrote

I did find two catches at the end. One is Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition at half price, which I guess is only because the cover is damaged. Famous as it is, I've never really been interested; but as I was flipping through the book, I found that I liked the writings at all the pages I stopped at. =) It's been translated from Dutch, so I suppose half the credit goes to the translator, but the content was good to start with.

The other is a computing textbook by Wayne Wolf at 7 dollars. Considering how these books can cost around 70 dollars, I'm glad I found it. =) I was indeed looking for some general reading on embedded systems for my research, and it was only after I was satisfied with the content that I flipped back to the cover and realized who the author was -- whoa, pretty famous in my field leh. Hueheu. Slow, slow. But at least it means my judgement of this book is not biased hor. =D

Whirled a while through the Metro sale next door too, but didn't get anything from there. Come to think of it, in these sales I've always seen people getting pillows. Ha. Were they really such a good buy when on sale?

In any case, people, these sales will be there until 2 Jan, so you can still catch them if you want. Times promises to add new titles everyday, so maybe there's still hope.

-- the pain i failed to see

My next event of the day was Confession of Pain (傷城). I googled some reviews on this movie some time ago, and ended up reading an unrelated quote of how revenge is a confession of pain. It's very relevant after all, then. (I wonder if this is considered a spoiler? Too late for a warning anyway, so sorry. XP)

My partiality for Tony Leung aside =P, I think it's a very good story, though I seemed to have tuned my expectations the wrong way and ruined my own enjoyment. =( I went in expecting a good mystery thriller, but it wasn't meant to be that at all. The actual fact was revealed from the start, and the thrill should've been in figuring out the motives and making the connections. And the focus of the film wasn't even this, but the emotional struggle of the characters. Ah, what a waste of all those powerful acting on me! X(

On the side, this movie sort of redeemed Takeshi Kaneshiro in my opinion, after all his lovey-dovey roles and playboy-ish looks. (I didn't watch much of him in fact, so this was my biased perception lah.) Then One Last Dance (茶舞) (next target) will most likely redeem Francis Ng from my personal, unfair, villain image of him. Hurhur. (Eh, but he's still acting as an assassin yah? Ha.)

Today was also a losing-to-the-shopping-temptation day; after those books, I got attracted to a Shiratori Emiko CD when whiling time between the movie and the next event. (If you remember, she was the one who sang the original Japanese version of Melodies of Life, the theme song for Final Fantasy IX.)

I hesitated at first because almost half the track listing of that album ("Beauty Power Super Selection") are cover versions, and I was curious about only one song in there. (By the way, the track listing in that link doesn't correspond exactly to the CD I got; probably a different release.) So I went round and round the shop looking at other stuff, cooking the decision over until the moment before I exited the shop. =P As it turns out, that one song rather disappoints, but I do find a few favourites among the original songs. So at least I can comfort myself rather justifiably. Huhuh.

-- the pain i do not know

Last appointment of the day was dinner with several friends, one of whom just lost her mother. Given the aggravating circumstances surrounding it, I've had the thought of how undeserved (for lack of a better term) that was. Now I realize how immature that thought has been. I was in awe of how positively she was taking this, pivoting strongly on her faith.

It's only then that I really saw how true it was, that life trials make us strong. My share of crises has not been quite as hard. How weak I still am compared to these friends of mine... and yet I certainly do not wish for such trials to come to me just so I can have that learning opportunity. (Though this particular trial is of course, generally, inevitable.) There's time for everything for everyone, maybe?

After the dinner Igid suggested making a stop at Gramophone (which we didn't manage to, in the end), and I mentioned that I really liked their slogan: "Without music, life would be a mistake." (Found out later that this was actually a quote from Nietzsche.) While I of course agreed, I admitted it might be over the top for other people whose interests lie elsewhere. But Igid thought it wasn't wrong really; music exists because it is meant to exist, so it would really be a mistake if it didn't. =D

Interesting point of view, eh. Though if you twist it around, if music didn't exist, then it would be just as 'correct' as it must've been meant not to, right? Ah, the wonder of what-if-s. But regardless, everything is as it is, all's right with the world -- isn't it.