Templates of Movies

Eve of the Lunar New Year (note I chose the word Lunar as oppose to Chinese as the Chinese are not the only race that celebrate this event) to get out an about to tidy up my outstanding errands. This include among others reopening my long barred Celcom number, shopping for gizmos and helping friends connect themselves.

Dreading the jam, I was assured that the Chinese normally stay home by this time and I should have a breeze of a time going to complexes. Assurance were nearly spot on but for one single fact, the complexes were jam packed by people of other race and creed till one cannot move unless u want to engage in a bum shuffling contest. Having half the shops closed also does not help the situation.

By afternoon, I was gracefully "enrolled" to keep friends company watching "Memoirs of a Geisha". Not that it is not a good movie, but I don't normally like to see this type of movie lest exposing the "softer" side of my nature in public. Yup, halfway through the movie, images of James Clavell "Shogun" and Colleen McCullogh "Thorn Bird" came to mind. The other half was spent on "analysing" the movie on its worthiness (read lame excuse for not wanting to engage in the emotional scene). This evidently translated to uncomfortable shifting of body positions and pretext of sleeping.

Ironically, I do find Hollywood movies of this type seems to go through a template of sorts. You can substitute the actors with a different set and you called them Shogun, and when you substitute with aliens and robots, you call them Star Wars. Instead of having Richard Chamberlain or Tom Cruise fighting using Samurai swords, you can have Yoda and Darth Vader with their light sabers.

Having actors and actresses made famous from Kung Fu type movie also does not help. I cannot but wait in eagerness for Michelle Yeoh to fly across ala The Touch and the The Baron suddenly makes death defying jumps ala Mortal Kombat. Well, that will be an interesting feat to see happening in a movie about ladies displaying their art in kimono.

Well, the day ended reasonably well, except that I was so darn tired and fatigue, that putting up a friendly front becomes such a chore and trying to be good company among friends becomes almost unbearble. Dreading that there could be uncontrollable outburst in the car or during dinner, i was fairly quiet rest of the nite. It was not until reaching home and switching on my computer, that I was greeted by a friendly note of sanity check by a friend who thought I was in an angry mood, that made me remember the whole purpose of friendship. Now that really made my day.

Maybe I do need to study these movie templates, you never could tell. These blog posting and others could be turned into another blockbuster, if I can brand it together with Steven Speilberg!!!

The JERK in me!!!

Ever have one of those days, where everything you say and do are all out of Sync, irritating your closest of buddies, getting on your friends nerves and leading to wrong interpretation and eventually distancing your friends. Arrrgghhh, maybe tiredness is getting to me or is this another of my lame excuses.

Ironically, I have always been a believer of the phrase, "If you don't have anything good to say, better not say it". Now, I find myself breaking this rule and I cannot even be a good listener. To all these people, I would like to say SORRY.

Having "Celery" for breakfast

Finally, made the brave move of registering and going to the Gym. After some coaxing and motivational speeches by close friends of mine, I made the plunge. Typical of me, playing it safe and not wanting to go through another of my famous "Hot-hot chcken shit" actions, I registered with a small but convienient Gym and Spa outlet close to where i work and immediately got on with the programme.

Trying to find whatever available time for exercise can be a big pain in the you know where for a guy working in the center of KL. I eventually settled to doing it in the morning, where I will have to reach the Gym by 6:40 am. That means I am out of the house now by 6:05 am, out with all the early shift workers. The only advantage now is that I save RM3.20 of toll rates by not using my normal NPE route.

I normally start off with light warming up exercise and 5 minutes of Cycling. This is subsequently followed up with 20-25 minutes of treadmill so that my heart rate hit 140-145 and ending up on the cycle for another 20 minutes or so. Have been doing this for the last 2 weeks on a daily basis and am begining to feel quite comfortable with this routine. I normally try to burn about 250-300 calories in this initial stage.

But man, was I really out of shape, since I was gasping for air on the first few days. For someone who has a black belt in Tae Kwan Do , a school tennis player and weight lifter, man I am a sorry picture and a typical slob (what you normally see in Fat adverts). At this junture, though I have lost 12 kilos since my acquaintances with my Doctor, I am still a heavy 100 kilos. I have been set a target of 85 kilos if I ever want to have a fighting chance of surviving my diabetes. These 8 days of exercise has some positive results and am quite please with the results so far.

My only concern is to identify and monitor when the feeling of laziness will creep in so as to disturb my momentum and delegate these activites to just a fad. Then it could be another of the famous "Hot-hot chicken shit" phenomena again. Well, we have to wait and see how this goes.

Not The Nine O'clock News

Hmmm, was having one of my insomniac session last night, went thru some old tapes of British Humor about Lawyers in court:-

Situation 1
There were three lawyers, sitting at the bench addressing the judge:-

Lawyer A stood up and mentioned "In this court, I appear for the plaintiff".
Lawyer B stood up and mentioned "In this court, I appear for the defendent."
Lawyer C stood up " In this case, I appear to be in the wrong court room"

Situation 2
There was one time in the UK, you can become a barrister by going thru distant learning and the standards of English in the courts were appaling. Lawyers could not pronounce even the simplest of words. As this lawyer/barrister was summing up his argument, he kept pronouncing the words horrendously and as he came to the word "tissue", he kept pronouncing it as "tiss-sway" of life.

The judge, getting impatient with the barrister, corrected him by saying "It A-tish-shoo"," A-tish-shoo", to which the barrister responded "Bless U , my lord".

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The Four Amigoes

Inspired by Pick Yin and Mel

Four Jobs you've had in your lives:

• Marine Structural Engineer, Systems Developer, Network & Security Administrator, Internet & Security Consultant

The last four movies you saw:

• The 40 year old Virgin, Memoirs of a Geisha, Fantastic Four, Madagascar
  

Four dream destination

• Oslo, Gold Coast, Auckland, Munich

Four recent conversation topics:

• Apparels for exercise, Reducing Aches and Pain, In and out of love, Initiating Startups
  

Four websites you visit daily:

• The Star, Lelong.com, Technology Review, Jeffooi
  

Four of your favorite food:

• T-Bone steak with Mash, Mee Rebus Dali (Aji Don Alley), Marble cheesecake, Magnum ice cream.

Curve Skylights

The Curve Damansara has a nice center piece skylight which provide natural lighting to foyer. Its like looking up a big umbrella from below.

I find the view mesmerizing.

Street Market - Curve

Was at the curve early (10:30am) to do some shopping for my next project. Having got some valuable advice from a dear friend, I went there eager to burn some cash. (Rule number 1, shop don't open until 11 to 11:30 am - mental note to self) .. well all is not wasted, managed to get a few shots of the colorful Street Market.

With the flurry of activities and the colorful scenarios, there are many photo oppurtunities and subject to capture on stills.

Sacrifice (Korban) - [POEM]

Well, my brains ain't working these couple of days. Please bear with me at my feeble attempt to interlace articles, photographs with (what seems to be) poem. Here goes:-

Night has ended for another day,
Morning has come in a special way,
Smelling the freshness, you might say,
Begin our journey, to god we pray.

Getting out of bed is a difficult chore,
To begin the day, oh such a bore,
Brushing our teeth, eyes closely shut,
Scraping our gums, its pain in the butt.

Driving in our cars, facing the jams,
The traffic is heavy, our legs got the cramps,
These challenges we endure, day after day,
For us to make a living, in our special way.

Arriving to work, the start of a heartache,
Causing much stress, we get stomach ache,
Getting pounded with work, hour after hour,
Impacting our sanity, with so much power.

Unwinding with frens, sipping our coffee,
Surfing and Blogging, its all done for free,
Sometimes our pride get into our way,
We get into arguments and go separate way.

To mend relationship, we swallow our pride,
Braving ridicule, take each step in a stride,
Lest we meet our maker, before our time,
Not making amends, its such a crime.

Friends face difficulties, looking for direction,
Giving them equal time, gives me satisfaction,
Sometimes we seem to loose our way,
Perserverance and friendship will save the day.

Ice creams and Cakes, they are so lovely,
Tasting and eating them can be heavenly,
Abstaining from having them can be saintly,
Giving into urges, is living dangerously.

To all the above, we have choices to make,
Sacrificing ourselves, is no piece of cake,
Sacrifice can be just a simple word,
Taking to extreme, it can be absurd,

Flower meet Camera; Camera meet Flower

Was out and about trying to familarize with the camera. Us old folks finds information captured by these new watchmacallit gizmo fascinating. Didn't know how much details was captured and available until flickr photo upload summarises the details of the photos itself.

Points to Ponder - Self indulgent

It has been a very colorful weekend to say the least and coupled with a very exhausting Raya. I made some new friends and met some old friends. Ironically, it has been a very philosophical few days. I guess these philosophers chooses to come out of the closet, gang up together and chose the last few days to pose interesting points of views for me to ponder.

a) Why do you spent RM200/- a month to see the Doctor for medication when you can spent less then that at the Gym to get your health back?
b) You seem to allocate quite a bit of time for your friends, when are you allocating time for yourself? Are your friends more important to you then your own self?
c) How is it that you can help people get a job and you can't get one for yourself?
d) Why are you living your life with full of redundancy? (referring to my habit of having two of everything - wallets, notebooks, handphones and ironically cars too)

and a few more which I feel best not to publish at this point of time. I had hope these were rhetorical questions which I need not answer, but discussions do bring a different perspective of life. All great questions, which need to be answered in the coming weeks, I suppose.

Watch this space.....

Petition for a 28 Hours day

I am really in need for an additional 4 hours extra in a day. The amount of time spent daily now seems not enough (tak cukup) for me to get through without feeling exhausted. Taking a typical snapshot of a day in my life:-

a) Journey to and from work - 3 hours
b) Time spent in Office (incl lunch) - 11 hours (average)
c) Time spent on spiritual healing (incl. reading on throne) - 1.5 hours
d) Prep, cleansing, grooming, ungrooming, bathing etc - 1.5 hours
e) Unwinding, Dinner, Self actualization, TV, catching up with news etc - 3 hours

That leaves me 4 hours of sleep in a day.

Now , if I want to include Blogging, visiting friends and oogling at girls at The Curve, then I may have to forgo sleep. Now, if I also include the time spent on pissing off some of my friends, I may have to cut back on grooming and bathing. Well, not that I have not become a zombie before, but can whoever programme the day extend it by just another 4 hours for people like me get a little more rest so that we can engage in more intellectual discourse.

Who was it that thought up this 24 hours day? Please can we revised it to be a 28 hours or 30 hours day, especially coming to this digital Age. Anyone wants to volunteer to signup this petition?

Get Well my friend

It is a very humbling experience to go to the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur especially to visit a friend who has been warded for extended fever. Commonly not a case where it warrants to be warded, but because he is also a sufferer of Chronic Luekemia, the Doctor could not take any chances of him having any form of infection which may affect his Leukemia.

Having to step in to the wards of GHKL, not only brings back memories of Cataract surgery I had 9 years ago, but also reminders of how much I detest hospitals. After watching him enduring 1.5 bottles of drip and his raising confidence level, I left. You can read about him and his musings here.

Get well, my friend.....

Update (5/1/2006 - 1000am). Jatt is still in the ward due to rising body temperature. Doctor is still keeping him under observation.

Rekindling an Interest

My outlook of life has always been through third party or friends. I get a lot of satisfaction in seeing them succeed while I choose to gloat privately. However, I now am not sure whether, is this just an excuse for me not being able to act on my own or is there truth in seeing the successes of others.

I also realize that I have always been dependent on friends and enjoy company of friends be it man or women. Somehow this does not give me the confidence to act on my own accord. So for the year 2006, I have made a resolution to try other activities which expands my horizon while trying to be slightly independent and indirectly enlarge other circle of friends.

It is not that the current colleagues and friends are not important, contrary to that, they are my saviour. However, one such casualties have made me reflect on myself and I thought maybe I should rekindle my interest in photography.

I have spent quite a significant time doing my research at sites such as these Digital Photography Review which gives excellent lab review and camera usability test. Friends have also written articles on choice of camera here and advice sought from others [you know who you are;-)]

Ultimately, the choice of camera lies with yourself really and of what you believe the value that the camera brings to you. As usual, always playing it safe and concern of phenomena of "Hot-hot chicken shit", I chose to stay on middle ground and stay with a mid range camera choice. Will provide updates as I familiarize myself back with photography.

Anyhow, thanks to all of U.

Forward Looking - 2006

I hope and look to God for direction and assistance to help friends of mine who are/maybe in distress. As I look back at 2005, I realize that people close to me whom I have been mentoring are in some form of distress one way or another. One has lost his job, another has leukemia, another is on the verge of loosing a job, another lost her investment.....

I seem to be the only common denominator. Perhaps I shud be removed from the equation (sometimes I do think about it). I do hope and pray to God that life for my colleagues and friends can be better. God willing...

Looking forward to a better 2006.

Life in a hurry - what's the rush?

As I look back on 2005, I made a few new friends who seems to be in such a hurry. I also came across this beautiful song from Billy Joel which the lyrics goes like this:-

Slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart, tell me
Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do and
Only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told..
That you can get what you want or you get old
You're gonna kick off before you even
Get halfway through
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight,...
Too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong, you know
You can't always see when you're right. you're right

You've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?
And you know that when the truth is told
that you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get half way through
Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

I would like to dedicate this song to some of my new found frens and a reminder to myself.