Before July is over, I like to state that it is my birthday month and I have treated my family some time back. I am not going to reveal the date but suffice to say that it falls in the month of July. I got my birthday ang pows from dad and youngest sister. I also got a birthday cake, 1kg chocolate sponge cake with my name on top. The photo is still in my camera and I am too lazy to install the digital camera software to my new lap top to process the photo. Because of the nature of the audience of this blog, there will be fewer photos and personal stuffs mentioned here. I also don’t want to cause jealousy and envy just by reading this blog of mine. But it will still continue to entertain with updated news now and then.
Alzheimer’s Disease is something close to my heart. That’s because my mother’s eldest sister died from the illness last year in 2007 after more than 15 years of battle with the disease. The symptoms are obvious. Initially, she forgot where she placed her pens and her personal things. There were tremors on her hands when she lifted the spoon to her mouth to feed herself. As it progressed, she also forgot names of familiar faces and at one time walked around the house naked. Her memory lapses were getting worse and eventually she could not feed herself, brush teeth or even bathe. Later on, day time nurse and night time nurse had to be called in to take care of her round the clock. She was lucky in a way because the family had the financial means to hire nurses for her and for her monthly visits to the hospital for medication. I could see that from a happy woman, she deteriorated so much and became an invalid with frequent bouts of anger and temper. Alzheimer’s disease is a debilitating illness that takes away the quality of life of the sufferer. There are links to read up more on this disease such as Alzheimer’s Memory Walk.
I was in Gurney Plaza’s Golden Screen Cinemas some time ago to watch Made of Honor, a warm-hearted romantic comedy. Here is the synopsis. It is crystal clear that best friends Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) are madly in love with each other, and should be together. Tom and Hannah are beautiful and good people, but apparently not smart enough to figure this out now. So we have to wait it out for the next couple hours. Yes, this is formulaic romantic comedy, and taxing one’s patience. Further complicating our pain, the fleet of writers—Adam Sztykiel, Deborah Kaplan, and Harry Elfont, depict Tom and Hannah literally on paper as smart, charming, and engaging, except for this glaring blind spot. However, despite the narrative devices and clumsy direction from Paul Weiland, I was enrolled by a scene with Michelle Monaghan. As Hannah, Monaghan looks wistfully at photos of her and Tom on her cell phone. She resonates with a sense of sadness and regret. Later Dempsey as the clued in Tom implores Hannah, “Please don’t marry him…”
A lot of “Made of Honor” is over wrought and contrived; however, Dempsey and Monaghan’s charm make you wait it out. Dempsey is the handsome engaging player lug-head, who underneath it all has a good heart. Michelle Monaghan is radiantly beautiful, funny, and smart. She is a younger Sandra Bullock. Monaghan is humorously vulnerable as Hannah, who is smart in settling for a relationship, because she fears she can’t have what she really deserves. Monaghan is amazing.
We find that Tom and Hannah (Dempsey and Monaghan) became best friends as a result of Tom’s college high jinx. Today Tom is very wealthy as a result of an idea he had for a cup holder sleeve. Hannah is the passionate art curator for the museum. Tom and Hannah are best friends with killer chemistry. Hannah is Tom’s go to date for his father Thomas Sr.’s (funny Sydney Pollack) numerous weddings. The count is up to 6. Even Thomas jokes to Tom, if Tom doesn’t marry Hannah, he’ll make her number 7. Hannah, being Tom’s tolerant and patient best bud accepts Tom’s one night stands with hot women. She is even versed in his rules for sleeping with the same woman on consecutive nights. Tom also has his buddies, including solid Felix (Kadeem Hardison), with whom he plays basketball. Tom seems to have the perfect life. Then following Tom’s father’s wedding reception, Hannah tells Tom that she has to go to Scotland for 6 weeks on business. Tom facetiously says, “What am I going to do without you?”
During her absence, Tom starts to get a clue about Hannah– being the one. So he decides to tell Hannah, that they should be together when she returns. However, Hannah returns with great news: She has fallen in love and is getting married in 2 weeks in Scotland. The guy is Colin (dashing and charming Kevin McKidd), who is a Scottish Duke and apparently the perfect guy. Really. Tom and his crew later get a glimpse of this at a ridiculous pick up basketball game experience. Anyway, Hannah asks Tom to be her Maid of Honor. Tom accepts. His bud Felix reminds him that he can “steal the bride” from inside the wedding. Predictably the rest of the Brides Maids are annoyed with Tom, particularly Maid of Honor runner-up cousin Melissa (angry Busy Philipps), who Tom slept with once.
For the most part “Made of Honor” is by the numbers romantic comedy. It does manage a touching turn, because we really want to know why Hannah ends up choosing Colin. It is transparent to us that Colin is the perfect guy, but he is not the perfect guy for Hannah. Fortunately, Dempsey and Monaghan’s charm and chemistry for the most part wins over “Maid of Honor”. Sydney Pollack provides welcome comic relief and staid fatherly advice. Kathleen Quilan is great in the supporting role of Hannah’s mother Joan. Too bad she doesn’t have a bigger role. But she has a moving moment with Monaghan as Mom talks about Hannah’s late father.
“Made of Honor” is enjoyable for what it is: cookie cutter romantic comedy. We can suspend our disbelief, because Dempsey and Monaghan are great together.
For the past 1 week or more, my computer was sent to the technician’s place for repair due to virus. It keeps booting up on its own very frequently and was very irritating. My work was hampered and I could not do anything much. It cost about RM190 for the repair. Thank goodness, the technician still installed Windows XP and I have Microsoft Office 2003 for my work which can include a PDF converter direct from MS Word for the quotations. I have been very busy yesterday to catch up with more than 5 quotations for our clients’ enquiries after getting back the computer.
I was in Gurney Plaza recently and watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Here is the synopsis: During the Cold War, Soviet agents watch Professor Henry Jones when a young man brings him a coded message from an aged, demented colleague, Henry Oxley. Led by the brilliant Irina Spalko, the Soviets tail Jones and the young man, Mutt, to Peru. With Oxley’s code, they find a legendary skull made of a single piece of quartz. If Jones can deliver the skull in its rightful place, all may be well; but if Irina takes it to its origin, she’ll gain powers that could endanger the West. Aging professor and young buck join forces with a woman from Jones’s past to face the dangers of the jungle, Russia, and the supernatural.
It was the same old formula of plenty of action plus some supernatural stuff towards the end.
Now it is about 2:10pm and my colleague will come fetch me to Kuala Lumpur in one hour’s time at around 3:00pm or so. I have finished writing 4 articles of 500 words for USD10 this morning and got paid immediately through my PayPal. This co-writer is from USA and writes articles full time at home. He sleeps at 4:00am and wakes up by 8:00am to continue writing articles. Just how hard working he is to earn money. And whatever extra work he has, he passes them to me. We have been chatting online via Yahoo Messenger. His payments are very prompt, immediately after I sent in my work. So far I have received US dollars from him for the few articles I have written so far. This is a very convenient arrangement as I work in my home office every day and get to write articles on a part time basis.
I was searching through old photos and I found this set taken in Pang Seafood Restaurant which is diagonally opposite Penang Chinese Swimming Club. This is a small lobster thermidor of about 580 gm but cost a whopping RM$110. If you like to eat lobster thermidor, I suggest going to Teluk Bahang where you pay only half the price and taste more scrumptious with plenty of cheese. For frozen lobster, you pay about RM10 per 100 gm while for fresh lobster, you pay more at RM16 per 100 gm.
These are garlic scallops and cost RM25.00 which is worth the money. The scallops are big unlike the ones we tried in Can Ton Food Bay in Sunway Pyramid which cost more and are smaller. Fried garlic is sprinkled on top.
This order is crab meat Japanese toufu but we could hardly find any crab meat. The yellow toufu was soft, succulent and tasty.
Our last order was ‘choong piah’ with black Perry sauce. We found this restaurant from the brochures delivered to my house. And my drink of orange juice makes a refreshing round off to my dining experience. If you like to dine here, the address is 501K&L, Jalan Tanjung Bungah, 11200 Penang. Sorry, I don’t have the telephone number as it is not stated in the bill, so you cannot book first. But there will be plenty of tables for you to choose from if you come early.
Above is a video taken during the Disney on Ice show some time back. She is a good figure skater and entertaining. I could not record other more interesting parts of the show as my digital camera batteries went flat shortly after. Enjoy!
I was reluctant to reopen my blog because some readers cause brouhaha on my side. This blog is the bone of contention for some parties and I indirectly got involved. Sometimes no news is good news. And other than Google Adsense, I don’t earn a single cent from it. It is more of a hobby than anything else. My two other blogs remain close for now and I will decide when to reopen them. Those are earning from Bidvertiser and it is even much less than my Adsense. The amount is not more than USD10 after one year of adverts. Just how miserable the earnings are.
Two nights, I watch this adventure and battle movie in Queensbay mall during Wesak. It was jam packed with viewers and by the time I booked the tickets, only the front rows were available. But it was a movie well worth the money. Here is the synopsis of the show.
While standing on a train station in 1941, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are magically whisked away to a beach near an old and ruined castle. They soon discover that the ruins are Cair Paravel, where they once ruled as the Kings and Queens of Narnia. Although only a year has passed in their world, 1300 years have passed in Narnia.
Trumpkin, a dwarf whom they rescue from drowning, tells them the sad tale: During their absence, a race of men called Telmarines have invaded Narnia, driving the Talking Beasts into the wilderness and pushing even their memory underground. Narnia now is ruled by King Miraz, a cruel despot.
Miraz also is an usurper, having killed his brother, King Caspian IX, to take the throne. His nephew, Prince Caspian, is initially ignorant of his uncle’s evil deeds, but learns the truth, and also about Old (pre-Telmarine) Narnia from Doctor Cornelius, his tutor. Miraz was childless and was thus willing for Caspian to be his heir, but when the Queen has a son, Cornelius warns Caspian that his life is now in danger. Caspian escapes and finds himself among the Talking Beasts. They accept him as the True King of Narnia and promise to help him regain this throne.
An army is assembled—although it is far short of the mighty armies that Narnia has been able to assemble in the past. Prince Caspian fights as best he can, but has been slowly losing to Miraz. Desperate for help, Caspian has blown Queen Susan’s horn—and it was that act that called the four children to Narnia.
Having heard the story, the true Kings and Queens of Narnia make their way to the battlefield. But the journey is long and hard, and the children lose their way. It is then that Lucy sees Aslan. Unfortunately, the others do not believe her. Their faith is tested, but in the end, Aslan leads them to Caspian.
The forces of evil are defeated in a battle by Aslan’s table. Miraz is killed by one of his own men. In the end, Aslan returns the Telmarines back to their world, and the children back to the train station.
