Interloper View

I expected a lot of people wanted to see this movie but was still surprised when I tried to book the ticket online one week before the movie started in our local theaters. Half the seats were already taken. Had I waited until Thursday, I would not be able to get any good seat. The movie continued from the post credit scene of Thor: Ragnarok where the ship carrying the survivors of Asgard encountered Thanos’ ship. From then, it was action all the way. Since most of the Marvel movies were building up to this story, majority of the characters also appeared here. The few missing were Hawkeye and Antman. The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy were powerful but no match to Thanos and his lieutenants. From previous movies, Marvel were willing to kill off major characters such as Odin, Quicksilver. However, the number of characters killed off in this movie was still surprising. The carnage and destruction surpassed the two earlier Avengers movies. However, I was still surprised that t...

I obtained six months free subscription for this service from my membership with TheStar website. Selection Dim Sum only provide Asian contents - Shanghai, Korean, Thai. Selection include movies, series and documentaries. So far I have seen a few Thai movies. The movies are quite innovative. Download Download for offline viewing are available for both movies and series. Downloads expire after 14 days. We cannot specific the resolution of the download but will prompt for language selection if there is more than one available (usually Mandarin or Cantonese). Mobile Data protection This is one area lacking in the Dim Sum application. When I tried downloading two movies, it ended up consuming 3 GB of my quota. I later found that a setting to restrict the use of mobile data in the setting. It is strange that this is not the default option. Tracking view progress View progress is tracked across devices similar to iFlix and YouTube. Price The subscription is RM15 per month. I did not find a...

I was reluctant to subscribe to any streaming service but since it was offered free, I decided to try it out. This is my impression of the service. iFlix Logo Selection IFlix provides a combination of Korean and English movies and television series. There is a collection of Marvel movies, of which Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest. Series includes shows from TLC, ABC, Nickelodeon, and ABC. The Korean selections are from O!k and tvN. There are also some Malay movies and Malay series as well as Malaysian Football. I found some great Korean movies and series which I would not have found without this service. Only one of two series are up to date - The Flash and Britannia. The variety is enough to keep me occupied. Download Download for offline viewing is only available for series. Downloads are disabled for movies. Downloads expire after seven days. When downloading, we are prompted for the resolution to download, so that we know how much storage will be consumed by the dow...

Telekoms has been pushing the Unifi branding on all its products. The latest product to use this branding is a mobile prepaid service called mobile@unifi. During the three months promotion period, the sim card is given free (list price is RM10/-). Each person is allowed to request up to 5 sims. The first one million sims come with 20GB data, 10 minutes talk time and 10 sms. To me it looks like a great deal. An excellent opportunity to test the dual sim feature on my new phone. However, using dual sim significantly reduces the the battery life due to the use both antennas. Initial experience was good in terms of coverage, probably because I was with the city limits. When I first started using the sim, it was H+ but turned to 4G when I went for lunch. While using for the past 3 weeks, I had only had two occasions where the 4G signal was on but I could not browse the internet. However, when I tested the speed, it was disappointing; even though 4G was indicated but the download speed was o...

Finally purchased Samsung A8 Plus on the launch weekend on Jan 21, 2018 after getting frustrated with the need to keep rebooting my OnePlus One. As part of the launch, it was bundled with a 10,000 mAh power bank (which allows me to have two micro USB to USB-C adapter - one from the power bank and one that comes in the box) and 64 GB memory card. I planned to purchase A8 initially but bought the A8+ instead because of the additional memory (6 GB vs 4 GB) and storage. Difference between the two models are as follow: A8 A8+ Battery 3000 mAh 3500 mAh Weight 172g 191g Screen 142.0mm (5.6" full rectangle) / 140.2mm (5.5" rounded corners) 153.6mm (6.0" full rectangle) / 151.8mm (6.0" rounded corners) RAM 4GB 6GB Storage 32GB 64GB Price RM1799 RM2499 Performance Performance is great, I did not feel any lag even with after launching multiple applications. There a Device Maintenance options that allows m...

I received this as book as part of a Samsung for Kindle offer in February but finally got around to reading it. The book centers around one of the characters from Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger. In the first part of the book the author, Peter David kept criticizing Charles Dickens on the development of Oliver Twist and the focus of the story and how weak Oliver was. It was kind of irritating for the author criticized the very work that he was going to use for the book.   Other than the criticism, the story development was well done; introducing the characters and linking the various characters together. Starting by showing Jack Dawkins by escaping (which explains why he has the nickname Artful Dodger) from his expulsion to Australia. The vampire conspiracy and how it resulted in the two other main characters, the princess and also son of Van Helsing was well done and believable. Once the main story started, transition between the events and also sprinkle of some backgr...

Spider-man: Homecoming is the latest reboot of Spider-man. I expected it to be great but the feedback from my family were as follows: My son: “The story is too cliche”. My daughter: “It was Meh!” My wife: “The story does not get me emotionally involved!” What I liked The introduction to Toomes was good, providing with his motivation; change to survive. However, I felt a bit irritated with the time spent on Peter making his video. I realize it is meant to show us his enthusiasm and excitement but I felt it a bit out of place. His interaction with Karen (his suit) was hilarious. The potential for the suit is incredible; maybe even more capable than Ironman suit (even though they were both invented by Tony Stark). Using Captain America videos to teach children good values was great. The movie ties very nicely to other MCU movies explaining what happens alien technologies leftover after the Avenger battles. Which makes me wonder, does the same happen for the battle occ...

I recently tried Android for Work (also known as Work Profile). It is similar to the multiple user I wrote about previously except that the apps reside within the primary user account. This approach as a few advantage over the multiple user account, they are: Alarm from the work profile will appear on the screen. In multiple user mode, only alerts of the active (selected) profile are visible. The problem of turning on the Do Not Disturb and switching profile will not happen. This option is available in more brands of Android phones. Will not encounter issues of non responsive screen (i.e. keyboard for entering password does not appear) is drastically reduced ~ not too sure whether this is an issue with my phone or the general problem with using multiple user. The Device policy is applied only within the work profile. The disadvantage of using the work profile is that applications that can be added to the work profile are restricted by the Company administrator. In order to...

The thriller for the movie looked interesting enough with lots of action so I thought how bad could a story of King Arthur be. The movie is a complete departure from the legend of King Arthur. Modred was killed by Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, at the beginning of the movie. Excalibur is made from Modred’s staff; that was never the case in any of King Arthur’s tale before. In the past, King Arthur is crowned the king immediately after he pulls the sword from the stone but in this movie, he had to learn how to use the sword. Merlin did not appear in the movie, instead you have a mage that is more like the Beastmaster than a mage. Vortigern, Uther’s brother took over the kingdom. The story was also very confusing. There was a point where he threw away the sword and then later he has the sword again. How does Arthur with a handful of comrades evade the whole army of Camelot and why does the army support Vortigern and try to kill the true heir of the kingdom. The 2004 version ...

I decided to watch The Mummy because I was given a free ticket. I tried going yesterday but the cinema hall was full (except for the first two rows), so I decided to book the ticket online and went today. The story was straight forward; an ancient princess made a pact with the devil and was sealed alive in a tomb. She is then set free by a person with questionable ethics who in turn was cursed by her. In the end, that person becomes a hero. As part of the Dark Universe, there is a team specialized in seeking out monsters, study them and destroy them. The leader of the team is Dr Jekyll who has to inject himself with a serum periodically in order not to turn into Mr Hyde. Tom Cruise plays Nick Morton who uses his position as a U.S. military officer to recover artifacts and sell them in the black market. His friend Vail appears to be there to provide some comic relief. Overall, the movie was enjoyable but not very memorable. Disclaimer: I was not paid to write thi...

My son wanted to watch Cars 3 but will only be released in August so we decided to watch Despicable 3 instead and I am glad we did. The main villain of the show is Balthazar Bratt, who was a former child actor who portrayed a young super villain which was cancelled when he reached puberty. Gru was fired from the Anti-Villain League by its new leader because of his failure to apprehend Bratt. His minions thought that this would be a good opportunity for them to become villains again. They abandoned him after he flatly refused them. Only two minions remained because they were not present when the rest of the minions made their demands to Gru. This set the stage for Gru to meet his long-lost twin brother Dru. They were separated when their father and mother divorced - each taking one of the twins. Turns out both parents were disappointed with the child they raised. The father was a super villain but Dru was not good at being one while the mother did not want Gru to be a super ...

Files in Portable Document Format (or better known as PDF format) are great. The format is universally recognized and what you see in terms of layout is the same no matter which device is used to open the file. This become a problem when you try to read these documents on a small form factor device like your smart phone. The display is either too tiny or if you enlarge the fonts, you will be faced with the problem having to scroll just to read a line of text. Luckily, there is a solution. Amazon provides us a way to convert these PDF files into kindle format. In that format, the text will automatically wrap around within the screen improving the reading experience. In order to do that, just send the file as an attachment with the word “convert” in the subject line to your kindle device email address. Each device with the kindle app installed will have a unique email address available under the settings tab within “Manage Your Content and Devices” section. There is an option to ...

When the thriller first came out for Wonder Woman, I thought it would not be very interesting; I expected a dated and dull scene set in the 60s. After watching the movie today, I am glad the movie was totally different. It turns out to be one of the best movie from the DC universe since Man of Steel. Since this movie tells about the origins of Wonder Woman, it contains some basic elements such as She was formed from clay (so she is not really one of the Amazons). Her first enemy is Ares, God of War. The first man she meets is Steve Trevor. Her primary weapons are the bracelet and the Lasso of Truth. She goes by the name Diana Prince. I loved the pace of the story, where at a young age, she was already interested in learning to fight against the wishes of her mother. The mother finally relented but asked that her training be tougher than the others on the island so that she will be best and surpass her trainer. Even though Diana was powerful and knowle...

Another title for this anime is “He Is an Ultimate Teacher”. In the beginning, the protagonist, Junichirou Kagami appears to be a slacker giving an excuse that he is ill (with a disease called YD - Yearns to Do) which means he cannot do anything unless it is something that he yearns to do. Instead of looking for work, he would just stay at home to play games and update his blog. His sister was not willing to see his wasteful lifestyle helped him get a part-time job as a teacher in a local high school. In the school, he was faced with a few situations which piqued his interest allowing us to see his capability. The first was a girl who had a beautiful voice who wanted to be a voice actor. She was being bullied by three her classmates. He decided to help her because of the value he placed on voice actors (or gods and goddess to him). He was later fired from the job after being accused of being a molester, he took the blame because he wanted to protect a student of the school....

I was stuck with nothing to do for three days while I was in the hospital so I decided to watch anime to pass time. The title is Bamboo Blade focused events within the Kendo club in Muroe High School. At the beginning there was only the coach and one student; everybody had left the club because two of the members (who are no longer active) took pleasure is hurting and bullying new members. The coach who was always broke made a bet the coach (Ishibashi) from Machido High kendo club that if his team (Muroe) is able to defeat Machido’s club, he will get to eat sushi in Ishibashi’s father’s sushi restaurant for a full year. However, there was a problem the match requires five girls in the team. This triggered the search for new members for the club and how the club grew from a nameless club to one that successfully entered the national kendo competition. Most of the credit goes to Tamaki, a first year student who initially did not want to join the club. However, she decided to...