Alan Rickman

Snow Cake. It has been a long time since an arthouse film felt so satisfying for me.

Sigh

Generally speaking,

Jennifer Aniston > Renee Zellweger > Julia Roberts > Catherine Zeta-Jones> Michelle Yeoh > Michelle Rodriquez > Evangeline > Angelina Jolie > most other pop tarts > most people > turtle > most people with make-up.

Jennifer Aniston tops the list because she is simple, renee zellweger a close second because she is a classic beauty. Note that the people at the top are mature in their years-- which is precisely the point, because I dont understand why people are always going ga-ga over people like jessica alba. Somewhere in the list Judi Dench deserves a honourable mention.

I am currently on a modular course in the place where I undertook my basic technician training. A new batch of trainees just came in and I was astonished by their enthusiasm, shouting and marching well and all. Fresh out from BMT, I figure it'll take 2 weeks-- where they would probably receive their first taste of what it feels like to go home at 1pm-- for them to cool down and start some serious slacking.

Hah, to date I havent met half a technician who doesnt want to slack. As a matter of fact there isnt a single day where I saw a section with 100% attendance. True to the culture I have chalked to my name around 6 MCs, dozens of early dismissals, and countless of 1hr tea breaks. The only thing I havent tried out yet is medical appointments and longer-term MCs. Will see what I can do next year. I hate being in the army.

The Apprentice

Andrea just got fired in the latest episode of The Apprentice. I am..astonished at the way the other 3 females in the team cornered her to a corner and pounced on her like hyenas on a wounded wildebeest. It was sickening watching them tear her apart limb by limb and eating her alive.

To me she wasnt responsible for the team's defeat. She accounted for 25% of the team's sales, and when she brought this up to defend herself the others ignored her and continued pushing the blame on her sales incompetency. Worse still, they then brought up reasons tangential to the team's loss and associated them with her. The team didnt lose because of her poor chemistry with the others, the team lost because they surrendered a vital chokepoint--the queue to the ferry leading to the island-- to the other team, and that has everything to do with the incompetency of the project manager, not with any single fault on any other individual.

Females are very vicious. Pardon the viewpoint but I wasnt too surprised that the only person who supported, or at least, did not bad-mouth Andrea was the only guy in the team. Just look at the way the other 3 females talked behind her back, stabbing her repeatedly with their malevolent claws. Sheesh.

To Andrea's credit, she remained calm and dignified throughout the board-room meeting. It was an impressive show, guess she knew she was dead before it started. Guess she knew how vicious her own kind was.

Anyway did you know Donald Trump's daughter is quite pretty?

Beauty with brains.

Festive Season (II)

I initially wanted to write something about yet another injustice I received from my idiotic army superiors, and complain generally about my dreary days both spent and in store for me, and make some scathing remarks against the organization I am enslaved to, and express my bitter sentiments of everything big and small, but in view of the festive season I decided to refrain from being my typical self and just be merry for once. I shall keep those sentiments for a later date.

Despite not being a christian there are several reasons why december is, as I believe it is for many, my favourite time of the year. First, the general festive mood around. While Im not a party-goer I do like to soak in a buoyant atmosphere occasionally. Second, the long weekends. This doesnt mean 3-day weekend over christmas--that's the basic package--, it means weekends extended further via leave, off-days, or MCs. The optimum situation would be where those measures are used to secure an absence from work from the 26th to the 29th, which effectively means a 11-day stretch of break.

Third, the discounts going around. Fourth, the christmas carols dancing around. Fifth, the grey clouds hanging around. Very nice weather really, cold, windy, greyish. If only it would be colder, then you'd have a london-esque feel. If only it would snow.

After This Our Exile is horrible. There's a lot of wanton crying, there's a lot of unjustified, excessive behavior which can be attributed to poor character development and overly artistic endeavours. I don't know why it won the awards it won, to me it is at best a good example of failed artistry.

Sorry I couldnt help myself :)

Festive season

My general practioner gifted a pot’s worth of valrhona chocolate fondue to my family. According to him the cocoa beans were handpicked from Africa and refined in France, and he being the brother of LKY I felt, momentarily at least, when I first came to know about the generous act, that I was part of a noble family which has just been bestowed an Imperial treasure by the brother of an ancient monarch.

Many things to do over the month, many people to meet up, many places I would like to go. Hope this is going to be a decent december.

Here's a nice duet by colin meloy and laura veirs, a track called Yankee Bayonet from the latest album by The Decemberists. I love the way their words drape seamlessly over a simple yet emotive tune on their quatrains, and the resultant song is to me nothing short of an unadorned masterpiece of gently intoxicating rhythm.

Hmm

Old age. What is old age? To some it is the golden twilight at the end of a beautiful day; to others it is the inevitable conclusion at the end of a sordid story. To some it is the bane of their very existence. To them old age is the culmination and epitome of human decay, it is the period where everything is lost. To others it is a welcome part in life. To them old age is the period where an assortment of diaries, photos, love letters, trophies, are dug out and savored over a cup of coffee. To them old age is the culmination and epitome of human remembrance, it is the period where everything is regained.

TV

I cannot say that the multi-storey carpark in my camp is spooky, but the rows and rows of dark vehicles brooding silently in the unlit premise is an impressionable sight to me. I first went there with a staff sergeant. He was test-driving a 5-tonner and I was there to learn. It was night and there was no one around. We drove in circles and circles, the vehicle’s engine noise muffled by the windows, the head lights oppressed by the darkness. It was a unique experience, not least because the scene could have been ripped off from Resident Evil or Land of the Dead. There is just something in driving past rows and rows of identical vehicles arranged neatly in the darkness that strikes me so…I’ll give a more detailed account the next time I go in there alone.

My luck is running out. I have just been posted to the worst team in the worst section of the worst forward maintenance workshop, which is a subsidiary of the worst depot in the worst maintenance battalion around. All this in the context, of course, of serving my two-year tenure with the army, a contract in which I profess to have taken no voluntary part of. I’m on a long spiral down, and I can see neither top nor bottom now.

Away from all that, there are currently three tv shows that I am now consistently in tune with. I am no tv junkie—in fact like a lot of youths out there I would rather spend my time on the comp or in my room-- , but I believe these three shows are, at the very least, interesting watches. They are:

(1) Prison Break
(2) The Apprentice
(3) The Invincible Duo (Channel 8)

Prison Break usually shows on 10PM on Thursdays and 4PM on Saturdays. The Apprentice, 1030PM on Sundays and The Invincible Duo 7Pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Prison Break is incredible. The plot is very powerful, and I admire the scriptwriters a lot. Probably elaborate more after the season finale, but for now let it be established that this isn’t some –pointless- house drama that is merely about one man trying to break out from a prison.

The Apprentice stands for itself. Can’t comment too much on it because it’s the type of tv programme that would only appeal to those who bother giving it a chance in the first place. The main thing I like about it is seeing how people with bad character still remain on the show while those who are nominally good get kicked out. In this show, business provides a different set of glasses with which to view people with, and that is a refreshing change from the sunglasses we are used to wearing everyday.

Number (3) is a curious choice for my palette. Essentially it is a spoof of the martial arts shows we have been treated to since we were young. The exaggeration, inversion and twisting of usual expectations and values is entertaining in this regard (I will not forget the scene where Xiao Yu’Er was stealthily hunting the bad villain when he turned and banged his head against a pillar; it is that simple). On a higher level the show is also an exploration of appearances, and it will be interesting to see whether good or evil—or neither—triumphs in the end. On the highest level the show is a self-consciously light-hearted one. It exists not to be funny, but to only try to be funny, and sometimes there is little more one can ask for on a Sunday night.