Going offline

No, no. It's not the final post of the blog :P
I'm going on leave for about a week. High time to do so, I must say..

And I will be away from KL for a while. For a while, I'm gonna forget of the city. And things associated with it. Hmm..
I'm even switching off my mobile while I'm there..
Hahahha.. let's hope I'm able to resist temptation of checking my SMS and voicemail messages!

I'll give you a sneak peek of where I'm heading..

Nice eh? ;)

* * *

In line with the Merdeka Day celebration today, I'm wishing you a Happy Merdeka Day. May you find what 'merdeka' means to you.

And hopefully, it's not "being at happening place at the stroke of midnight, watching the fireworks".

Footing the bill: a man's responsibility?

I had dinner with a friend last night. It was a good one, with steaks and lobster. Plenty of talks - which I haven't done for quite some time.

Anyway, it made me realise something.

Mostly, when I go out with male friends - doesn't matter if it's a one-on-one meet-ups or in a group - either the guys will take care of the bills (i.e. I don't pay at all), or we go dutch. It's almost non-existence where I'd be paying for the whole event.

Which made me think.. is that normal? For the man to bear the cost of anything?

I can understand if it's a relationship - normal laa if guys wanna belanja the girlfriends (ok, so after marriage might be a different thing hahaha!).. but among friends? I'm all for going dutch, but it's so very rare that I'll be paying for the guys' meals, etc.

So, it's open for debate really.

Some men felt like it's more gentlemanly if they take care of the bill. And some women accept that. While I know some who feel differently.
In these days and age where more and more women are having the same - if not better - jobs and salary as the male species, some may want to be treated equally as the men. Probably that includes taking care of the bills as well eh?

* * *

My friend yesterday said that he felt weird, because I was the one who 'belanja' for last night's dinner.
My response?
"Takpe lah. Other times you're paying, kan?"
LOLs..

OK, OK.. it's never my intention to bully him.
But, being the slowpoke I am, he will always beat me to the cashier and pay for our lunch. Sometimes I get to chip in lah. But mostly when I give him the money, he would look the other way and say "Tak payah laaa", refusing to accept my money.

To a dear friend, here's to more lunches and meals together. Maybe one day you'll let me belanja you again, eh? :-)

Movie Review: Bewitched

Hmm.. have been way too busy these past couple of weeks. But.. I feel like I HAVE TO mention something about this movie.

The Cast:
Nicole Kidman, Will Farrell, Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine.

The Movie:
If you've watched the television series 'Bewitched' before, you might be able to understand better this movie.

The movie focuses on a soon-to-be-a-Hollywood-has-been played by Will Farrell, who is supposed to be involved in the remake of the famous TV series 'Bewitched'. Jack's (Farrell) plan was to cast an unknown to play the witch Samantha. That's where Isabel (Kidman) walks in. Apparently she can imitate Samantha's nose twitching perfectly.

Little did anyone know that Isabel is actually a witch.

There were some hilarious parts, which I thought helped to salvage the movie. There were some parts being way too slow - I was bored almost to tears that day.

Overall verdict:
Didn't impress me much. Storyline's a bit weak. Kidman's acting was at first too... errr dammit I can't even find the word to describe. Hehh.. But I thought the way she spoke was too breathy.. LOLs..
Farrell was a funny man, I can tell you that.

All in all, it's just an average movie. Light entertainment, yeah. So I'm giving it a 5.5/10.
Only watch this movie if you've exhausted your choices :P

"Tuesdays With Morrie"

I've actually finished this book a few days ago. But I just couldn't find the words, nor the time to share my thoughts about this book.

After reading and hearing high praises about Mitch Albom's books (the other significant one being "The Five People You Meet In Heaven"), I decided to grab a copy of "Tuesdays With Morrie" at Kinokuniya last weekend.

It was such a simple book, with words from the heart.
And it moved me beyond words.

I started the book on Sunday night, and finished on Monday evening. On Monday morning, I was already half-way through, and I was faced with mixed emotions: one part of me wanted to finish up the book - the words were beautiful and touched me deeply. On the other hand, I didn't want the book to end - I felt like I was going to say goodbye to such wonderful writing..

Needless to say, I was crying my heart out in the final chapters. And I when I talked to Sheils on the phone (a few minutes after finishing the book), I know she could hear the tears in my voice.

So I've decided that I'm going to share this book with some of the people in my life. I've already given a copy to Al today, and I'm going to buy more copies of the book some time soon. Abah is reading my copy.. hmm, maybe I'll buy a copy for him to keep close by.

I'm still looking for "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" - the book is sold out at MPH Alpha Angle. Perhaps when I go to Kinokuniya this weekend I'll be able to get myself a copy.

* * *

There's sooooo many things we go through in life. Sometimes we just forget the simple things.

Reading this book made me realise that, sometimes what we deem important are not quite so urgent.
And what we think we can push aside, and to be K.I.V.'ed ... well, perhaps those are the things we should've assigned 'Top Priority'.

It's a great book! I'm recommending this to everyone.
So.. what are you guys waiting for? Go buy a copy.
Or borrow one. Hehehe.. :)) Read up!!

Movie Review: Fantastic 4

Bear with me, as I'm trying to get these reviews out while I can still remember the movies. LOLs..

This review is partly in response to Anne's request for a review on Fantastic 4 (F4). Hhmm, initially I wanted to nickname them 'Fab 4', but that reminds me too much of the guys from 'Queer Eye for The Straight Guy' series, who are called 'The Fab Five'.
So, scrap that idea.
:P

I watched this movie with my cousin Lene. The last time we went for our movie outing was to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith.. that's like 2 months ago!


The Cast:
Julian McMahon (as Victor Von Doom), Jessica Alba (as Sue Storm @ Invisible Girl), Ioan Gruffudd (as Dr Reed Richards @ Plasticman / Mr. Fantastic), Michael Chiklis (as Ben Grimm @ The Thing), Chris Evans (as Johnny Storm @ The Human Torch).

Hmm.. honestly? It's the bad guy who catches my eyes. Hehe..
Fine, fine.. Probably I'm biased, 'coz I love watching him as the evil Cole in the TV series, Charmed.

I liked the guy who played Ben Grimm, Michael Chiklis:
(a) He looked like an adorable teddy bear, I tell you
(b) He's bald (you know me.. I'm a softie for bald guys.. hehehe)
(c) I thought The Thing was wonderful (eh, this one was errr a computer-generated image, right?). The way he saved the firetruck on the bridge.. woohoo.. such strength!

I thought Chris Evans was cheeky - he pulled his Johnny Storm character well. And rather the hotstuff too.. (pun intended!) ;-))

But, I dunno.. This is just my opinion. But Mr Fantastic somehow didn't steal the show very much. Only a few scenes stood out - Mr Fantastic wrapping his stretchable body around The Thing; the part where errr one side of his body sort of 'almost melted' after going inside that machine.

And, Invisible Girl was.. well.. nothing much to look at :P
Oh.. but her power of generating the 'protective shield' towards the end of the movie.. now that one.. WOW! (ok ok.. let's not get too carried away here. It's a movie, Yam! :P)

The Movie:
It's based on comic character created by Marvel. Now I'm not so much of a comic reader. Superman, Spiderman, Batman.. I've seen movies of them with the real people. Never have I read any of these comics. Same case for Fantastic 4 here laa.

(The comics I've read / followed are mostly from Japan / Hong Kong. The BM-translated, of course, LOLs.. Raja Rimba, SlamDunk, Sailormoon, Conan - Detektif Kecil. I used to spend a lottttt of my pocket money buying these comics! Actually, sometimes I still do buy the Detective Conan series LOLs..! Yeah yeah.. don't mock my taste la.. I loved these comics tau! Eh BTW, are these actually called comics? :P)

Arghh..! I'm digressing here! Sorry sorry!

OK, back to the review!

If this was the 1st of many movies involving our 4 superheroes, then I don't mind at all being a bit of a drag. Heheh.. it's a drag, yes, but only a bit jer tau!
For 1st instalments, this action sequence were not bad at all.

I was on the edge of my seat masa the 'clouds' came towards their space shuttle (actually, what to call it ek? Spaceship?? Rasa macam cerita Startrek pulak to call it a 'spaceship' hehe).

In terms of storyline, I thought it was quite easy to follow - me being a non-reader of Marvel comics. I could understand - without much difficulty - how these 4 humans became the Fantastic 4.

My heart really went out to Ben / The Thing when he was so frustrated with his new conditions. Both Lene and I was cursing his wife (or was it his girlfriend/fiance?) during the scene on the bridge. What a biatch. How could she!??! (ok, deep, cleansing breaths... )

I think I'm still a bit blur as to what changes happened to Victor Von Doom. I know his body is turning into erm.. titanium? Steel? And also, he errr seems to be able to draw electrical energy from erm.. energy source?? Blur kat sini.

A few good lines / scenes helped to make this movie worth watching. Some funny lines too were given to the cute Johnny Storm / Human Torch. Nice car too. Pity what happened to it towards the end ekkekeke..
Although I didn't think much of Ms Alba's facial expression to help deliver her emotions (macam erm, kurang 'feel' di situ).

Overall:
I enjoyed this movie. I'm giving it a 7/10. Well, leaning towards 7.5, in fact. Hehe..
Let's hope the 2nd movie on F4 is as good, hopefully better la of course.

* * *

Yes Arin, I like this movie. Hehe..

And actually Lene almost jumped up from her seat in a couple of scenes. So, that's a good indicator that she was totally into the movie. By that standard alone, this one's definitely worth watching.

Movie Review: The Island

OK laa.. Yam here is NOT turning out to be a movie critic.
But I'll just share with you what I think of this movie..
BTW, be prepared to read a couple more movie reviews after this one :P
I just had a back-to-back movie session yesterday with Lene hehe..

Watched this one last Thursday with a fellow blogger, who for the time being remains nameless LOLs... That is until he says 'Yam, I've got not problem with seeing my name in your blog'
:P

* * *

Cast:
Ewan McGregor (yummy.. hihihi), Scarlett Johansen, Sean Bean, Steve Buschemi. Erm, the big guy from 'Green Mile' was there too. But for the life of me, I cannot recall his name.. *sigh*

McGregor gets a few good lines. Plus, he's adorable hhahaha.. What's not to like? ;-)

Plot:
Different. If you're against cloning to begin with, this movie will probably be another one of your back-up argument.
I didn't read much review on this movie when I said OK to watch it - although I did ask my friend if this was a horror movie. (beb, if you had said 'Yes' to that question, I'm not sure if I would've followed you into the cinema LOLs..)

As this movie did play on human conscience and moral issues, I find it to be thought-provoking at times. Interesting indeed.

This movie takes place in 2019 - not too distant a future, I must add. About a group of 'survivors' from the contamination that plagued Earth, who lives in a errr facility - a controlled environment. Daily food intake is monitored - well, actually everything is monitored: dreams, urine content, etc. They're not even allowed close proximity with another person.

Their purpose in life? (well, while they're at the facility, anyway..) To win the 'Lottery'.

This facility has a daily 'Lottery' draws, whereby the winner would be taken to 'The Island' (and hence the title of this movie). This island being the only remaining 'pure / uncontaminated' location on Earth, the winners of the lottery would of course be absolutely ecstatic about winning.
Little do they know that being the chosen ones would spell the end of their existance.
(Nak tau lagi? What are you waiting for? Go and watch the movie! :P )

I was a bit put off by a few scenes - I thought the 2 main characters did too much running lah. And somehow I was hoping to see more for the ending scenes - macam too abrupt pulak ending dia hehe..
However, I did enjoy most of the action bits - note the highway-chasing scenes, fuhh..!

Overall rating:
I'm giving it a 7/10.
Worth watching, obviously.

* * *

Hehehe.. 1 down, 2 to go!
(Anne, review on Fantastic 4 coming up! LOLs..)

Taken things for granted (a.k.a what hazy days teach me)

There are things in life that we take for granted.
To list everything would take me wayy too long; so for now, I'll just concentrate on these past few hazy days...

1. Sunshine
I realise that I've taken for granted the brightly shining sun. With the haze, all I could see was a giant pinkish-orange coloured ball up in the sky.

2. Blue skies
If I were a kid and I came to awareness two days ago, I'll go: "The skies are grey / white in colour. Blue? No wayy! That's not the colour of the skies!" (ok, ok.. not in so much nicely arranged words. But hey.. thoughts do get formed in a kid's head you know :P).
I miss the blue sky. This morning, I thought the haze is not as bad as the past couple of days. Although that's the case, I still couldn't see any blue colour in the sky.

3. How the weather really does affect my mood
This one surprised me actually. Hmm.. maybe I'm not as 'in-tuned' with my moods as I thought I was (a big boo-hoo to Yam).
I remember a song from The Carpenters: "Hanging around, Nothing to do but frown, Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down..."

Rainy days don't really affect me much - well, beside the at-times-mumbling of "bloody hell, I forgot the umbrella again!".
But now.. the hazy, gloomy weather seems to make ME gloomy. Macam, teramatlah tak ceria nya saya dua-tiga hari ni. Looking out the windows at work, I couldn't see much outside. (Made me realised that this is kinda how we look at life. When we couldn't see much beyond a few steps ahead of us, some may get depressed, gloomy, feeling down and unhappy.)

4. The rain
Somehow, these past few days, I've been hoping for some rain coming our way - hopefully to help ease the haze situation.
I guess I've always taken for granted that in Malaysia, we're gonna be having sunshine & rain all year long.
Wrong again, huh?

* * *

It's almost 4pm now (I started writing this post at 10.30am. Was distracted a few times :P), and it seems like there's some sunshine outside. It does look better compared to yesterday, alhamdulillah!

I certainly have not been feeling on top of the world for the past few days, but I'd like to take the haze as a trigger to appreciate the few things in life I've been blindly accepting for granted.

Hi, I'm KLCC. Can you see me?

You see, on normal days, I stand proud and allow lots of people to take pictures (of me, with me...). But lately things haven't been quite normal. Mainly due to the haze (I feel like it's getting worse by the day).

Oh, don't get me wrong. I still stand proud and allow photo-taking.. But I think I won't look my sharpest in those photos.
This morning, I saw someone looking at one picture in The Star newspaper - showing a couple snapping a photo with me in the background. Only thing is.. I couldn't see myself! Are you sure I should be somewhere in that photo???

* * *

:Þ

Yeah.. the haze seems to be getting worse. I think today's really bad. Made me seriously think about getting a mask (eh, what do you call it ek? nak tulis facial mask, terbayang SK-II's mask ehehehe..) to cover my mouth and nose.

Anne posed a good question: "Are you sure sure you guys are having BBQ this sat - will not contribute to the open burning?"

Heheheh..

So.. decided to practise some of my rusty organisational skills. SMS'ed & called Mak and Mak Ton, and they both said: Postpone BBQ. We'll have it another time then.

Everything's cancelled. I SMS'ed the siblings and the cousins, on the cancellation. Takut kena fine if berasap-asap from the BBQ. Boy SMS'ed back and tanya: "If asap rokok also kena denda ke?"
Well, if I'm the one doing the decision, my answer would be: "Yes."
LOLs..

Hmm.. looks like I'm free for a movie this Sunday.
Maybe Lene and I will get to watch Fantastic 4, after all.
Finally! :))

Movies non-uptodate :P

OK laaaaa... I'm sooo ketinggalan with my movie-watching plans.
The last movie I watched at the cinema was Batman Begins.. (sheesh.. that seems like ages ago!)

Am supposed to get together with Lene and watch Fantastic 4. We planned to watch it last weekend. But after the things that happened last week, I thought it was wiser to be around the house la. In case something came up..

Pastu we change our plan, was supposed to go this Saturday. Then I realised that Saturday is Joy's majlis pertunangan (yes, another one almost gonna bite the dust :) am soo happy for Joy :D) However, since it's a working Saturday, I'm afraid I'm gonna be wayyyyy late arriving at the kenduri. Hmm.. When I talked to Ta earlier today, I told her: "Do not makan kenyang-kenyang! Please nanti second round makan temankan aku." LOLs..

And, this Sunday's not a good day either. Apparently there's gonna be a BBQ at home.(Note to self: Confirm menu - discuss with Mak. To contact Weene and confirm if she has to order lamb / chicken. To inform Inn, Lene, Weene about menu - confirm if they have to bring / prepare anything for BBQ. Cewahh.. macam la terer sangat organisation skills :P )

Oh yeah... which means I'll be soo looking forward to the movie errr meet-up (hahaha... OK tak if I call it a meet-up? :P) this coming Thursday evening. hehehe...
And I'm not telling you what movie we're watching - nanti ada pulak yg cerita the details of the movie :P Dah lah tak suspense nanti.. kekekeke...

* * *

Eh.. when am I watching Fantastic 4 then? And.. who am I to watch it with?

Almost a deja-vu

Last year in August, Abah had a mild stroke.

Now it's August, and this is almost a deja-vu.

No, no. Not another stroke.
This time he's hospitalised due to a low blood pressure. Somewhere around 90/60. Plus a scratch kat intestines dia, which lead to bleeding lah (probably the reason for the low BP). Plus his hemoglobin (eh betul ke spelling?) count is too low. Plus his blood sugar is wayyyy high.

I've been out of the office since Tuesday afternoon (Abah was admitted to the Emergency at SJMC on Tuesday noon). Have been travelling to and fro Subang Jaya from KL. Penat jugak laa.. (wonder how do some people survive when they have to commute daily like this). And I must admit, I don't think so I fancy the traffic at all! :P

Alhamdulillah Abah has been discharged Friday afternoon, and Doc has given him a week's medical leave for Abah to rest at home.

As for me, it's back to work on Monday.
(Note the late hour. I couldn't sleep as I've slept a few hours yesterday afternoon after arriving home from SJMC. Plus I've finished a whole book last evening.. hehe.. dah lama tak finish up a book within a day!)