The way I see it

So I discovered this great little movie studio, called 'The Asylum,' which specializes in 'Mockbusters' and other such homages to big budget films.  The studio has had some recent outputs of sort of blockbusters a look at their releases includes 'Transmorphers' 'Almighty Thor' and numerous throw-backs to those cheesy 'American Pie' type movies '18 year old virgin,' 'Celebrity sex tape.' Now some of these films might seem like blatant rip-offs of the Hollywood films but they aren't, well not exactly anyways.  In my experience of watching these 'bad' films they might take the premise of the original story or film and then go in a different direction. The first film I saw from 'The Asylum' was a western (I think their only western) and it was called '6 Guns.'  Now I think this movie is supposed to be something like 'True Grit' mixed with a little 'Red Dead Redemption' but maybe I am missi

Yesterday I wrote a list of things that would deter me from hiring a person, but why was I so negative?  I think it is a lot more entertaining to see 'worst of' lists but it is really not so encouraging.  In this frame of mind I thought I would write 5 things that would make me want to hire a person and add a few notes for each one.  So without further ado a detailed list of five things that make me WANT to hire you 5. Be confident This might seem like an obvious thing but you would be surprised how many interviewees I have had come in with little to no confidence in themselves or their ability.  It is tragic to me that some of the best potential employees, I have met with, lost out on a job because they did not wake up, look in the mirror and say 'I can do this.' On the flip side or the dark side there is arrogance.  Please be careful with your confidence. Telling the person interviewing you that you can do their job and their boss' job better because of yo

Top Ten lists are everywhere... travel websites, David Letterman's show, year-end movie lists the list (UGH) goes on.  So I thought in honour of top ten lists everywhere I would do my own! I'm knee-deep in recruitment and I am not seeing much that is good but I am seeing a whole lot of what I don't like at all.  It seems that some people have no concept on how to get a job and their entire interview turns into one spiralling train wreck of mistakes. Agree or disagree I thought I would vent some of my frustration with this fun list... yes it is just for fun and yes it does have some truth in it. So here goes the Top Ten Things that make me NOT want to hire you. 10. You have no concept of English despite applying for a job in that field. 9.  Yu cuhn't spel tu sahve yore lyfe. 8.  You were 20 minutes late for the interview. 7. You didn't show up for the interview. 6. You make ethnic slurs or generalisations. 5.  You are more handsome than I am! 4. Y

I can never express how important it is to read... and I'm not just talking about my blog here.  Reading is critical for some many reasons! As an educator it is an absolute chore to get any student to read.  Why you ask?  Glad you asked that... it is really quite simple. People are lazy.  People are lazy and don't want to take the time to invest a couple hours in reading.  Reading is a multi-faceted exercise we learn from it consciously and unconsciously, it helps with our lexicon, it helps with our compositions and it fosters our imagination.  It can also help you learn cool words.. like 'lexicon'.  I read a lot and I read a bit of everything.  Right now I am reading textbooks which is not so much fun but I can still figure out a lot of interesting things from them me getting paid to do it is just a plus I guess.  So far I've gone through the two lowest levels of books and I am on to the 'pre-intermediate' level.  I've already done this before but i

Yeah I know Sunday isn't necessarily the seventh day of the week but I wanted a catchy title. Sue me.  Today has been a lazy day.  I'm having trouble sleeping so I have been up for a looooooong time.  Shelf one I am a collector.  It has been suggested to me that I should write a post about one of my collections so what the heck it is Sunday so why not.  Today I will be talking to you about my kotobukiya statue collection.  For those of you not hip to the kotobukiya jive they are a Japanese toy manufacturer that focuses on mature collectibles... no no I'm not talking about anything obscene I mean they're for an adult collector.  Shelf two So anyways Kotobukiya has released a series (or rather a few series) of these statue/figures based on a few different licenses. Currently I have some of the Marvel and DC comic lines and now i have the first in their 'Tekken' video game line.  They are quite nice; however, they are mor

For those of you out there in Cyberville who are uninformed Nintendo has a 3D handheld console called the '3DS.'  The 3DS has glasses free 3D effects for its games which is changable depending on your desired level of viewing. Anyways back to the purpose of my post.  There is an interesting function of the system which is called 'street pass.'  This function allows you to communicate with other 3DS users while your system is in standby mode and you are walking around or standing somewhere where other users might walk by.  There is a catch, which is that you need to find other users!!!! So far I have 'met' some 20 odd users who all chill out in your 'plaza' which is a virtual platform for you to view your aquintances and play some built in games. The street pass screen along with my 'mii' avatar I know what you are asking yourself 'What is the point?'  well the point is that you can play the games only if you have these 'friends

Today I'm supposed to be giving some interviews.  So while I wait for my candidates to arrive I thought I would share my thoughts on the interviewing world. Interviewing people for a job is a lot harder than you might think. There are some people who interview very poorly but are very good employees and on the flip side there are those fun people who interview fantastically and you regret hiring after about 12 seconds.  In the end it is like most things in the world an imprecise science of gauging a hundred different variables and then hoping for the best. I've had some funny interviews in the past... I've had people come in looking like they are on the way to the beach, some looking like they are going to the pasar (market) later, some looking business ready, and I've even seen some come in club ready.  There have even been some people who were not proficient in English coming in...  By far my favourite interviews have been the ones where the interviewee says somet

One of the many wonders of living in Malaysia has been figuring out the taxes. As a foreigner who hasn't been able to grasp anything close to the basics of Malay (Satu Lagi!) I have to use an English language form to figure out what I am doing then cross reference back to the official Malay form.  It's not too bad actually you just kind of do your rough work on the English one then use the Malay one as your final draft. At this point I think I can do taxes here better than some of the Malaysians i know! So it looks like a banner year here as I may just get a couple hundred back in rebate...  just enough to buy a couple XBOX or PS3 games! It's good no matter how you look at it...

So yesterday I did my usual thing of bringing work home.  Different syllabus material but syllabussy none the less.  Basically  I'm just reading some textbooks at the moment and trying to break down the text into a workable context for the school.  It's tedious work but it needs to be done. I took my break and played 'Skyrim.'  For those of you who are not hip to nerdy things Skyrim is a massive role-playing game on multiple platforms where you... well... OK i am not sure the actual plot of the game.  You kind of go off on adventures, save damsels, slay dragons, wander around aimlessly, etc. So I decided to start some quest where i explode a dungeon with some big burly dude (not my first choice for partners but it's the game so what can you do?). After finishing my exploration I discovered that I had actually been playing for some 3 hours and it was pretty much time to call it a night... How the hell did that happen? The thing I really wonder is how i managed

Well here we are in my first blog post... actually my first blog post on 'blogger.com' and I am not really sure what to do from here or where exactly to go...  I guess I should talk about my life. At this precise moment I am taking a break from my syllabus writing as my eyes are about to fall out of their sockets and I have the distinct feeling that my brain is going to ooze out of my head if I don't step away from it.  So here I am stepping away from it or more precisely, here I am minimising a word document and using IE. The writing is actually not difficult nor is the material it is the monotony that is a killer.  You see there is a feeling of being Oz when creating this kind of document as you are planning everything for a year.  A year of learning.  A year of objectives. Being the man behind the curtain is, however, quite tedious as you are building a series of layers (of learning) that are taking place year after year in one document after another that are essent