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Saturday, June 20, 2009

A Touching Story of a Dying Girl, "Up", and Pixar

A very touching true story that I have encountered on the Internet about a dying girl wish to watch "Up", a new movie by Pixar, and how Pixar send their employee to her house with the DVD, soft toys and a poster of "Up". 7 hours after watching the movie, the girl succumbed to her cancer. Rest in peace, girl...

Really makes you want to cry.


[Plagerised from this source]

"HUNTINGTON BEACH – Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

The animated movie begins with scenes showing the evolution of a relationship between a husband and wife. After losing his wife in old age, the now grumpy man deals with his loss by attaching thousands of balloons to his house, flying into the sky, and going on an adventure with a little boy.

Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.

With her daughter’s vigil planned for Friday, Lisa Curtin reflected about how grateful she is that Pixar – and "Up" – were a part of her only child’s last day.

“When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie,” said Curtin, 46. “I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven.”

Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved.

THE PREVIEWS

Colby was diagnosed with vascular cancer on Dec. 23, 2005 after doctors found a tumor in her liver. At the time of her death, her stomach was about 94 inches around, swollen with fluids the cancer wouldn’t let her body properly digest. The rest of her body probably weighed about 45 pounds, family friend Carole Lynch said.

Colby had gone to Newport Elementary School and was known for making others laugh, family friend Terrell Orum-Moore said. Colby loved to dance, sing, swim and seemed to have a more mature understanding of the world than other children her age, Orum-Moore said.

On April 28, Colby went to see the Dream Works 3-D movie "Monsters Vs. Aliens" but was impressed by the previews to "Up."

“It was from then on, she said, ‘I have to see that movie. It is so cool,’” Lynch said.

Colby was a movie fan, Lisa Curtin said, and she latched onto Pixar’s movies because she loved animals.

Two days later Colby’s health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see "Up." However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.

By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.

At that point, Orum-Moore, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help.

Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum-Moore said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum-Moore guessed a name and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said.

Pixar officials listened to Colby’s story and agreed to send someone to Colby’s house the next day with a DVD of "Up," Orum-Moore recalled.

She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.

“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.

THE MOVIE

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn't see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said."

Friday, June 19, 2009

Wikipedia...In a book...

Imagine that you want a book that is full of Wikipedia articles. How would it looked like?

Hint: Wikipedia has more than 2.9 million article in it as of now (June 2009), and most of the article are worth more than 2 pages.

The partially correct answer is:




















Partially correct answer? How come, you asked. Well, that BOOK is only 0.01% of the whole English edition of Wikipedia. You will need to print 952 volume of this gigantic monster book to get all the articles in the English edition of Wikipedia!

The book contains 437 featured articles in 5000 pages, and is 1 feet 7 inches tall! It is done by a graphic designer student named Rob Matthews. [Source]

Thursday, June 18, 2009

My Jungle Home

As many of my friends know, I just move into the new home in Teluk Kumbar, from the Island Glades. The reason for moving is simple: The house in Island Glades is rented from a "kiam siap" taukeh boh (老板娘), while the new house is bought by my parents. Before I begin any story, the new house is a double storey terrace house located between a small hill and sea. Sounds like good feng shui, does it not? You might think it is, until you actually live in it.

Well, anyway, here is where my ranting starts: My house is really a wired jungle. Why wired jungle, you may asked. Really simple: The house got everything that is wired to the house, eg. Streamyx (a.k.a. Shitmyx), Telekom, electricity, water etc. However, anything that are not wired or have no physical connection are not available here. Ya thats right. Nothing that is not wired or have physical connection reach here. My new house does not have cellular connection (Maxis a.k.a. Maxshit, Celcom and local terrestrial TV. The exception being DiGi and Astro.

So is there really a problem with that? YES. TOTALLY. Having no cellular coverage (or rather, blind spot coverage) is a big problem for me, though terrestrial TV blind spot is not a big deal except during bad weather. For me, I discovered that near the window pane of my room on the second floor, there is weak connection to the Maxis tower. And perhaps a few other spot on the second floor which I am not really accessible to. So it this is a good news, is it not?

NO. It is not a good news. Imagine this: Everytime you recieve a call, you must maintain the handphone at the window pane while talking. You may say: "Aiyoh, use loud speaker lah, bodoh!" Yes. It is effective that way. But if the line is bad (Imagine this: When I say:'hello, how are you? I am XYZ' to the other person, the person heard it as 'hell....you...XYZ'), it will be very annoying, both to you and the person talking to you. Especially if you talk with your gf/bf that way. It is very annoying and can really test your patience. Solution: Get out of the house to make a call EVERYTIME.

Oh, I am not finish with call yet. There is still this SMS thing. Remember that my room is on the second floor. So what? Is that a big problem? YES. IT IS A BIG PROBLEM. Now the 1 million dollar question again: Why?
Ok. Lets imagine this: One day, I am at downstairs watching my favourite movie. You SMS me at that time. No problem. I can just run up stairs, type my message and reply you. Then I go downstairs again to continue my movie. Sometimes the SMS continues. So I run upstairs again, read the SMS, reply and go back downstairs. Maybe 1 minute later, another SMS come. Maybe this time is from the other person. So I have to run upstairs again...You can see where this is going. So: YES. It is very tiring and annoying to do that almost every day. I have to run an average of 5-10 return trip a day just to answer the SMS. Everyday. Solution: Either shut my handphone until I get back to KL or just run up and down the stairs everytime, or worst still, stay upstairs all the time.

Not every thing about it is bad. For example, I get to exercise everyday. Climbing the stairs is a great exercise for the legs, as well as for my mind as I learn to be more patience with myself. This is especially useful since I am pretty much a hikikomori (引き籠もり) during the holiday.

Anyway, now that I have ranted for the day, heard some SMS is coming. Gotta go do my work out now. Chao!

And feed the fish will ya~!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Hello World!

"Hello World". This phrase is usually used (at least from the website that i visited) when a new things (proof of concept/programmes/hacks etc) is released to public to tell the world that "I am born to the world! Welcome to me!".

So what does it implies here? Pretty obvious, is it not. It is to tell the world that this is the my first blog post in my life after 22 years 7 months and 8 days! Hurray!!! Lets celebrate!!! Lets party!!! .........................Looks like I drowned myself in my little world of fantasy again...Paiseh...

Lets continue, shall we? Why do I create my blog? Do I even talk about myself much? In fact, I am the quiet type who can't even talk anything that is not related to him (ie. gadget, geeky stuff, F1). Life? I don't have a life. Nothing interesting anyway. Movies? Anime can lah. Real movies not too much other than "It is funny", "It is boring" and "Not bad". Politic? I am aware of it, but I am not good at political analysis. So I can't talk much about it. I can only say that BN sucks shit! Sports? I am not as expert as those of them around me (especially the fan of Chelsea FC stayed together with me), I can only remember their name. Motorsport? Now that is my area of expertise...But then, nobody around me is a motorsport fan anyway. So not much to talk to my friends about with the new technology like KERS, slick tire vs grooved tire and double decker diffuser. Technological stuff? Well, at least a few of them are interested in it.

Summary to the paragraph above: I can't talk. I sucks at talking. I have no capability of extending a conversation beyond 2 minutes. Thus, the best way to express myself is to blog. With this simple mind and childish of mine, I hope to keep a public "diary-like" blog about myself. And hopefully nobody do read it. Embarrassing. So that I can laugh at myself when I am 50, 60 or even 70 years old. Ambitious? Perhaps. But will I continue till that time? I have no idea...


Perhaps the good things that happens around me is that my friends do talk. A lot. And with high value thoughts too. Kyle's the politic expert and the Duke of Apple, Ryan the General of Gaming, Skyrider the ultimate Chelsea fan, Lala the King of Fashion and Entertainment, 3Jin the NSAIDs addict (at the time of writing, 3jin revealed that he LOVES NSAIDs) and Alvin the underage. And the most special person in my life, Siew Ling who I share my life with.

So why the sudden, you ask? Well, ever heard of the theory of "Haem-haem interaction" of the red blood cells? When the first molecule of oxygen binds to the haemoglobin, it will increase the affinity of the haemoglobin to bind to 3 other oxygen molecule. BUT that is not my main reason. My reason? I have thought about blogging for quite some time now. But lack of determination stopped me. Why start now, you ask again? To be honest, seeing many of my friends started blogging recently (Alvin, 3jin) reignite my flame of interest again. So my bloggy, here you are, for me to rant, for me to talk and for me to torture! Wakaka!

So let this be the first (hopefully not the last) blog post I will ever write. Perhaps I should rant more in my blog. It is my world anyway, where the world spins around me. I am the Emperor. I am the King of the Universe. Everyone shall bow to me here!

Oh, and if you are free, go feed the fish!