TheLocalKing is a User Review site for You & Me. A place for you to review the food you eat, the places you go, the movies you watch, anything you like or... dislike. Explore TheLocalKing to share your thoughts, give your ratings. Find reviews ratings of restaurants, favourite shopping, food, movies, books, CDs. Comment on other sense of taste. ... http://www.thelocalking.com Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:41:55 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.thelocalking.com/images/banner.gif http://www.thelocalking.com TheLocalKing - this the way we are http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/l-change-the-world-death-note-3.html After watching Death Note 1 2, I am expecting a some kind of similar thriller movie for this L change the world. But too bad it dissapointed me after watching it. This movie is all about the last 23 days of this super FBI detective agent named after L , nothing much about the Kina or God of Death, it is completely another story about a group of people who try to develop sell new kind of bio-weapon like ebola virus. Yes I must admit that L still as cool as he was, he is even funnier this time. But the story of the movie is just so typical, nothing much into mind-thinking, or mind-guessing like in episode 1 2. The movie is too much focusing on his personal character where trying to show how capable he is, to solve several difficult problems in a few days time. Also made him too much into actions, seems like an action movie more than a thriller movie! Singapore - Leisure & Entertainment Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:03:26 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/l-change-the-world-death-note-3.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/latest-album-super-sunshine-by-gary-chaw-2636126684.html Guess most of you have already know who is Gary Chaw 曹格. The talented Msian from Sabah striked Taiwan Mandarin pop market last year with his popular songs like Superwoman, 3-7-20-1, Girlfriend, etc... The latest album Super Sunshine is just as good as his last album Superwoman . Although the focus of this album is on Super Sunshine and 无辜 , but personally, I still prefer the 2nd song 起床歌 9th songs, 爱爱, where you can actually find more of his unique music style more fun!! Catch this 无辜 MTV from youtube, you can see obviously that the music company has put more effort more $$ on making his new MTV compare to last album. Singapore - Leisure & Entertainment Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:06:47 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/latest-album-super-sunshine-by-gary-chaw-2636126684.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/lust--caution-the-ra-movie-that-spice-up-singaporeans.html This movie was a big hit in Taiwan HongKong few months back, I was not really interested to watch this movie because of the censorship in Singapore. But after few months of debates, the original uncut RA version is finally showing in Singapore. My colleagues highly recommended this movie to me as he watched in HongKong few weeks back, and he said it was a very good movie. After I watched, yes I would recommend this movie to anyone I know. Don't get me wrong, it is the story line that attracted me, not the sex scenes that you guys imagine (Btw, the sex scenes really gave me a shocked and make me eye opening ) This is the brief story line quoted from Cathay cinema: ... Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a phone call, and then sits and waits. She remembers…… how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theatre troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences – and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee’s trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted – until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee... Many people can't understand or can't accept why the main actress (TangWei) will fall in love Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) and let him go away at the ending part of the story. Which resulted her teammates herself being executed, which is very sad ending... To me, she is just a little poor girl that need someone for love and care, and Mr. Yee is a man who gave her everything and of course, she can sense that he is in love with her... The story line is nice and the film is well taken (Hollywood standard, not those lousy HK movies), but if this kinda of story happen in current time, I guess people will shout at you Siao Arhh ... Catch this movie if you can. Singapore - Leisure & Entertainment Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:00:28 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/lust--caution-the-ra-movie-that-spice-up-singaporeans.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/computers--electronics/nokia-6300---the-slim--stylish-phone.html Oh yeah I got a new phone, the Nokia 6300, super duber cool stylish. Nokia 6300 It comes with the USB connector Nokia 6300 phone is the slimmest Nokia phone that I ever owned (or I ever seen in the market). Even those higher end phones like N73 or E95 are huge and bulky. This sleek phone design comes with stainless steel covers with glossy black finish and moreover is scratch proof. It is very smooth light, weighs only 91g. My only worry is the surface is too smooth that my phone will slip off my hand easily, hahaa. I'm loving it the moment I grab hold of it. Btw, it costs me only $168 with Singtel 2 year contract. Cool interface Size compare with Ezlink This phone can say it best suits to professionals like me, look pro enough to bring it to office look stylish to bring it out to some occasions at night. Not ah beng type and would not go out of style over the years (I mean for next few years). If your plan is ending soon, you may look for this phone, recommended. Here are some of the features: - 2.0 Megapixel Camera - Video Recorder - MicroSD card slot (Singtel plan comes with Free 128MB microSD) - FM Radio - Triband - Connectivity with Bluetooth 2.0 and Nokia CA-53 data cable (but no IR) - A free pouch! Singapore - Computers & Electronics Thu, 17 May 2007 00:13:59 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/computers--electronics/nokia-6300---the-slim--stylish-phone.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/outing--night-life/hsbc-treetop-walk-at-macritchie-reservoir.html Tiring of the city life in Singapore? It's time to relax and have a light outdoor activity at HSBC TreeTop Walk at Macritchie Reservoir!! Last weekend a few of us sweat ourselves to "crawl" up the treetop bridge at Macritchie, old men like us took the shortest walk path from Venus Drive carpark near Upper Thomson Road (see map below). Being long time never in touch with the nature, this is really a relaxing & enjoying journey where you can get rid of the city noise and recharge your battery with fresh oxygen & sunlight! The tree top free-standing suspension bridge connects the two highest points, Bukit Peirce and Bukit Kalang in MacRitchie. You may catch a nice view of the community of plants and animals that live in the forest canopy. The total length of the walkway is about 250m and its height from the forest floor varies, with the highest point at 27m. The gate will be closed at 5pm sharp, so please be early!! There is a Ranger Station about 0.5KM before the TreeTop Bridge, we rested for a while and lucky enough to?snapshot some of the wild?animals! Ranger Office Monkeys You see what i see? Catch some other pictures that I took along the way... ? Singapore - Outing & Night Life Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:26:28 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/outing--night-life/hsbc-treetop-walk-at-macritchie-reservoir.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/computers--electronics/starhub-hdtv-channel-for-singapore.html HDTV is finally here in Singapore... First in SouthEast Asia!! Wonder how many of you have the HDTV at home? Can't wait any longer to subscribe and enjoy my movies at home!! Anyway, many people do not?know what exactly HDTV is, or how to choose a good HDTV for their home. I found this website by MDA Singapore?which?provide all information about HDTV that you need to know before buying one... Personally I prefer Samsung LCD with Full HD enabled. http://www.hdtv.org.sg (http://www.hdtv.org.sg) Term Defination 1080i 1080i means that the resolution of the picture is 1920 vertical pixels by 1080 horizontal pixels and i stands for interlaced scanning. Interlaced scanning is based on the principle that the screen shows every odd line at one scan of the screen and then all the even lines in a second scan. 720p 720p means that the resolution of the picture is 1,280 vertical pixels by 720 horizontal pixels and p stands for progressive scanning. Progressive scanning offers a smoother picture as 720 horizontal lines are scanned progressively or in succession in a vertical frame that is repeated 30 times a second. 1080p 1080p means that the resolution of the picture is 1,920 vertical pixels by 1,080 horizontal pixels and p stands again for progressive scanning. This format works on the same principle as 720p; the only difference is that in this type there are more pixels and the resolution is better. 16:9 16:9 is aspect ratio of movie screen and widescreen DTV formats used in all HDTV (High Definition TV) and some SDTV (Standard Definition TV); it stands for 16 arbitrary units of width for every 9 arbitrary units of height. 4:3 4:3 is aspect ratio of traditional analogue TV screens; it stands for four arbitrary units of width for every three arbitrary units of height. Artifacts Artifacts are defined as unwanted visible effects in the picture caused by disturbances and errors in the video transmission or digital processing. Artifacts include “edge crawl” or “dot crawl” or “hanging dots” in analog pictures, and “pixelation”, “contouring” or “blockiness” in digital pictures. Aspect ratio Aspect ratio is ratio of width to height of a TV screen. It may be either traditional analogue TV screen or 16:9 ratio of widescreen DTV formats for all HDTV (High Definition) and some SDTV (Standard Definition). Contrast ratio Contrast ratio indicates the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks a display can show. The higher the contrast ratio, the greater the ability to show subtle color details and tolerate ambient room light. For example: A contrast ratio of 10,000:1 indicates that white colour being 10,000 times brighter than black. In general, lower contrast ratio numbers translate to coloration that may not match the video source as closely as a higher contrast output. CRT (Cathode-Ray Tube) CRT stands for cathode-ray tube. Invented in 1897, even nowadays it is the most common display technology for televisions. The tube uses an electron beam to scan lines on the screen coated with phosphor, which glows when struck by the beam. The other display technology being used more and more often nowadays in television sets is LCD. Dolby Digital (Dolby AC-3) Dolby Digital, also called Digital 5.1 or AC-3, is a five-channel surround sound system which delivers CD-quality digital audio and provides five channels of full frequency for front left, front right, center, surround left and surround right speakers, plus one channel for LFE (low frequency effect) subwoofer. DTV (Digital Television) DTV stands for Digital Television. Two basic DTV standards are HDTV (high-definition television) and SDTV (standard-definition television) Front-projection TV Front-projection TV comprises 2 parts – a separate front projector (usually placed on a table or ceiling-mounted) and a reflective screen (or simply a wall). The projector is placed at one end of the room, the screen is at the other end, and the speakers may be placed wherever they will provide you good sound experience. The picture can be rather large but remember – the larger the picture, the more visible the pixels or scan lines and the darker the image. Ghosting Ghosting means multiple overlaid TV images or “ghosts” which you can notice around the objects while watching TV. Ghosting is caused by the broadcast signal traveling to your TV through various obstacles, for example hills or tall buildings, and your antenna picks up the original TV signal along with signals reflected by the obstacles. If the ghosting is changing rather than static, it may be caused by the signal reflected by flexible objects, for example trees. HDTV (High-Definition Television) HDTV stands for High Definition Television. This highest-resolution subset of Digital Television offers film-like picture quality with impressive surround sound. With twice the vertical and horizontal picture resolution, the picture of HDTV is approximately twice as sharp as that of NTSC. HDTV has widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 and Dolby Digital sound system. Currently used HDTV formats - 1080i and 720p both offer reduced motion artifacts like ghosting and dot crawl. HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) Is a specification developed by the Intel Corporation to control digital audio and video content as it travels across Digital Visual Interface (DVI) or High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connections. It is a form of digital rights management (DRM), developed by Intel, Inc. to inhibit the unauthorized distribution of digital video material through copying. It consists of "keys" (data) incorporated in the video data together with proprietary encryption (scrambling) circuitry and software in the various video components (tuner, TV, DVD player, etc.) that handle HDTV. Material that is protected may only be transmitted digitally and to components that decrypt the material prior to processing and re-encrypt the material before transmitting the material to another component using certain digital transmission formats including DVI that include the encryption. Interlaced Scanning Interlaced scanning is a method based on the principle that the screen shows every odd line at one scan of the screen and then all the even lines in a second scan. There are 30 frames shown per one second and this can make larger screen flicker, which is the usual problem with interlacing. However, LCD and plasma screens cannot display interlaced signals and must first convert them to a progressive format and then they can display the transmitted images. LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Displays. It refers to a flat panel technology which uses liquid crystals sandwiched between two glass plates for example in laptop computers, other small portable displays and also in televisions. Letterbox Letterboxing means copying the widescreen format with aspect ratio of 16:9 to video format with aspect ratio of 4:3. The result of this process is that the full picture is presented only on the middle part of the screen, with black bars above and below it. This arrangement is referred to as “Letterbox” and you can see it on your 4:3 TV while watching movies. On a 16:9 TV letterboxing does not block out so much of your screen and makes your experience more profound. Picture-in-picture (PIP) Picture-in-picture is a television feature in which you can see one program inside a small window on the screen, while watching another program on the large background screen. You can choose whatever you wish – you can watch two TV programs simultaneously or you can watch TV and video or DVD at the same time. Pixel Pixel comes from the words “picture element” and it refers to the smallest element in a television picture. Pixels are single displayable video dots from which the overall picture is made up. Plasma Displays (PDP) Plasma display is created by thousands of tiny tubes filled by ionized gas in a plasma state. Ionized gas is very light and flat panel TVs made by this technique can be even hanged on the wall! Plasma displays offer excellent resolution and color and they are the most suitable for the home theatre. Rear Projection Rear projection is a TV system where the picture is projected against a mirror inside the cabinet and you can watch it as you would an average television. Until recently, the rear projection TVs comprised three CRTs but the new types of rear projection TVs include LCD. Resolution Resolution reflects the density of lines, and dots per line which make up a visual image. It is measured by the number of pixels displayed. The level of resolution directly affects picture quality. Usually the higher number of lines and dots means also sharper and more detailed picture. Analog TV has a little over 200,000 color pixels while HDTV, with 1080 vertical pixels and 1920 horizontal ones, has more than 2 million pixels creating the image. SDTV (Standard-Definition Television) SDTV stands for Standard Definition Television. The SDTV picture, having either in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios, is better and of higher quality than the one of PAL, however, it does not reach the quality and resolution of HDTV. SDTV is based on 480 lines of vertical resolution and in both interlaced and progressively scanned formats. Set-top Box (STB) Set-top box is responsible for receiving, converting and sending the picture and sound of the broadcast to the television. If your HDTV-ready TV has no built-in HDTV tuner you must connect it to a compatible HDTV STB first. Until then it will not receive and display digital television programs. Widescreen Widescreen TV is the television with 16:9 aspect ratio. 16:9 is the aspect ratio of movie screen and widescreen DTV formats used in all HDTV (High Definition TV) and some SDTV (Standard Definition TV); it stands for 16 arbitrary units of width for every 9 arbitrary units of height. ? Singapore - Computers & Electronics Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:03:09 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/computers--electronics/starhub-hdtv-channel-for-singapore.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/eat--drink/the-vietnamese-cuisine---orange-lantern.html Hmm, i tried this vietnamese restaurant at Harbourfront Shopping centre. I have no idea why it is named "Orange-Lantern", but it sounds abit imcompatible with the food it serves. Alright, this restaurant is really an authentic vietnamese cuisine, because I have a chance peek into their kitchen and found that all the chefs are true-blue Vietnamese ( I can tell from their talking ). And some of the waitress are vietnamese too! I tried the 3-courses beef noodles where it has 3 different types of beef ( beef balls, sliced beef and briskets ). The soup is very nice and I like the sliced beef the most, fresh and well cooked. Of course, vietnamese food always come with alot of beansprouts and vege ( raw!! ) The drinks they offer are kind of "innovative"? or strange? haha, I tried the XX leaves drink where it tasted like a kind of fruits. Not very nice, so I don't recommend that... Singapore - Eat & Drink Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:52:20 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/eat--drink/the-vietnamese-cuisine---orange-lantern.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/the-departed---hollywood-version-of-infernal-affairs.html Guess I am one of the first batch who watched The Departed - Hollywood version of Infernal Affairs. Plus I am watching in the very new VivoCity's GVmax, the largest cinema in Singapore!! Well, the cinema is as large as those old cinema I visited when i was still a kid. The screen is at least twice bigger or much bigger than the normal one you watched in other cinema. I couldn't count how many seats are there, but the side row already have 8 seats! The story is almost 80% same as the HK's infernal affairs, even most of the scenes or dialogues are exactly the same!! For example: the cement hand of Leonardo (LiangChaoWei) is broken by Jack Nicholson (ZhenZhiWei), or Martin Sheen (WangQiuSheng) is being thrown from a high rise building and died, etc... Although I knew the story is the same as Infernal Affairs, but after I watched this movie, I still feel that it worths the $8.5 to get into the cinema and watch this movie. This because of all the crews they have, their acting skills are so astonishing that you can't believe! especially Leonardo DiCaprio (i start to like him now). And also the director is Martin Scorsese, the one who made The God Father I, II & III. Rather than that, you may also see how is the western cultures differ from us... Singapore - Leisure & Entertainment Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:05:55 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/leisure--entertainment/the-departed---hollywood-version-of-infernal-affairs.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/eat--drink/famous-dessert-rice-dumplings-at-smith-street.html The famous rice dumplings ( Tang Yuan ) at Smith Street, Chinatown is one of my favourite dessert stall in the town area. The smoothy Tang Yuan skin filled with the rich Peanut. I love to eat the rice dumpling with the "not so sweet" peanut soup. Singapore - Eat & Drink Thu, 05 Oct 2006 10:57:02 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/eat--drink/famous-dessert-rice-dumplings-at-smith-street.html http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/outing--night-life/sentosa-from-blinkymummy.html I spent 10 hours at Sentosa today. Damn tired now. Lemme eat, rest, shower, arrange the pics, then report. Tired siah!!! This was what I found at Sentosa this morning. 10:42:00 PM (http://blinkymummy.blogspot.com/2006/02/sentosa.html) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This post is originally posted at http://blinkymummy.blogspot.com/2006/02/sentosa.html (http://blinkymummy.blogspot.com/2006/02/sentosa.html) by blinkymummy. I love the way she introduced Sentosa of Singapore ( I couldn't write it better ), so I imported her blog here to share with my friends. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Singapore - Outing & Night Life Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:38:48 +0100 http://www.thelocalking.com/singapore/outing--night-life/sentosa-from-blinkymummy.html