India made me wanna blog again

I have left blogging a long time ago. Although occasionally I do write a post or two, they were mostly afterthoughts which sometimes are left in drafts and never published. Most of the drafts are for my property and financial blog : Legal Cat-asthrophe, as I was using it to write my books or to promote my new book.

Being a writer may have made me a bit of a snob. I expect to get something in return for the information I published. Not as if I get paid all the time. When I write articles for magazines or online news portal, the value I get from them is being recognised as an expert on a particular subject. It does bring me business and that is actually enough for me. Although I do crave to be able to command monetary gains for being a blogger, I just didn't have the tenacity to achieve it. In short, I couldn't care less. In fact, I believe, the era of celebrity blogger has long passed. Now it is the era of celebrity instagrammer or Youtuber.

Anyway, this short post is about how I am thinking (not daring enough to say I have returned) to being a blogger as the trip to Delhi for the New Delhi Book Fair 2015 was an experience I couldn't not to tell others about. As I mentioned in my Twitter feed, it was not just a journey, it is an experience.

The people I met, the people I get to have lunch, dinner and supper with, talked to, asked about history of the places I went, were just amazing.

So, let's hope this is not the last entry about India and it will be a starting point for some more jottings....

(next post will have pictures!)

A library at home

We have only one shelf which we could not fit all the books we ever bought. Our magazines are not organised properly. They are just stacked on the floors. Years of living does that to whatever collection you decide to not throw away.

So, we bought shelves from IKEA. Not really a made-to-order library but it is just what we need. Some guys from IKEA installed it and on one fine rainy morning I decided to move all our books from that one shelf (and some of those on the floor beside my bed) to that new shelves.

With some help of course (they were checking the titles)

Tired helpers

A few questions I asked on Twitter while working :

How do you organised a home library? Do you lump Stephen King with Neil Gaiman? Is Haruki Murakami a horror writer? How about Terry Pratchett and Paulo Cuelho? Different genre?

One of the best answer comes from Pete Teo (yes, the singer, songwriter and producer) :

"home libraries shld b filed by instinct. The only person who cn find books thr shld b the owner. Otherwise it'd b charmless.:)"

Peter Pan the Musical

Okay, I know it is a show for kids but I was a tad bit disappointed when it didn't stay true to the original Peter Pan. I mean Peter Pan the theater. I mean, it was a theater before it was a book. The advertisement did say it was a West End production.

Maybe it should have been labeled a "SHOW FOR KIDS" or something in that line. It would have prepared us for the way it was presented.

Don't get me wrong. It was an entertaining show for kids and except for the rain which happened at the end which made us wet and not being able to enjoy the Night Park as allowed by the organiser, it was entertaining enough. 

It would have captured the attention of any hyperactive kids. So, if you do not have any plans yet for the next one month of school holidays, other than sending them to whatever camps there are for kids nowadays, do bring them to watch Peter Pan the Musical at Sunway Amphitheater this December. It runs until 2nd of January 2011.

All this thanks to All Malaysia Bloggers Project which is part of the Star newspaper. As for the Peter Pan Musical, you can get more information here.

Some pictures on the day from where I sat with a few other bloggers/social media people.

What I want to do at least once in my lifetime

This is not my ultimate bucket list or I am doing it due to some illness which may kill me but I am doing it just because I want to...

1) Stay somewhere where no one know who I am for more than one week or at least a month...

2) Travel to Las Vegas;

3) See the sun rises on top of some mountain (not really too keen but if there an easy climb somewhere...)

4) Go to Disney whatever...I mean, it can be Disneyland, Disney World, Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Tokyo, Disneyland Hong Kong, but my ultimate will still be where Epcot Center is...

5) Go see Yellowstone;

6) Go see the midnight sun;

7) Go to Antartica;

8) Go to the Oscar (or the Grammy; the Emmy or even the Tony);

9) Publish a book (which is very much in the making and getting nearer and nearer);

10) Go to KLIA on the midnight of the day before New Year's Eve, points to a departure monitor and go where my finger is pointing, without reservation or without any luggage with my wife there and then

Just some wish which I might be doing next year or maybe if I am stable enough...But it all starts with a dream...

Wouldn't be amazing to be on a deserted island for a month just with your love one...

New Moon is just a fad

Was given free tickets to watch New Moon, thanks to Project 500 which tried to get people to test their product and used the tickets as our reward for doing as such. A letdown of a reward, if you ask me. Not really impressed with this whole Twilight franchise. I rather stick to Harry Potter, though have not read Book 6 and 7. Watched all the released film and think they have done a great adaptation with the books. Ironically, Edward Cullen is in one of the Harry Potter movie before he became a bloodsucking creature.

I think the Twilight crowd are more infatuated with the actors in the movies than the storyline itself. That were what the filmakers were banking in and it worked. The audience really love the two movies for the lovey doveyness that you fill and not the story which are nothing new in the vampire myth (except for the skin shining like diamond thingy, which I find is quite ridiculous).

I still think the definitive vampire movie is Dracula with Oldman and Winona in it. You need that much blood to make a vampire movie real. Not some poster boys looking like they were going to break into a song at any moment.

Anyway, if I really want to pass judgment, I should be reading the books. Not watch the movies.

Found these stacked in my business partner room.

Maybe I'll glance through them. That is if I really have nothing to read.

Relaxing weekend

I have so many blog posts to put up but I was so into my 'me' time the whole weekend that I finished reading 2 books and was in bed until noon.

On both Saturday and Sunday, I was sitting at a local Starbucks, just reading a book and sipping coffee. It was my wife who was running around showing people houses and all.

I felt refreshed and now am ready to face the world.

Then it rained on Monday.

The whole day...

My obsession with certain authors

 

If I start to love certain authors, I will add their books to my collection, including those which may have been published a long time ago. Koji Suzuki is a Japanese who writes horror which were made into films either in Japanese (The Ring) which was then remade by Hollywood (The Ring). The books are futuristic and were never translated well on-screen.

Some other authors are John Grisham whom I read whether he writes all those legal thrillers like The Summons or some of those Americana he wrote on a lark like Skipping Christmas and Bleachers.

Then of course, people like Terry Pratchett whom my wife and I just couldn't get enough of. It is a shame he is diagnosed with Alzheimer and hope he will still be able to churn at least a few more books.

Again, I just love good book, like so many of you out there...

Simple pleasure in life

 

Sometimes, the greatest pleasure in life is seeing stack of books on offer for sale. I can browse through all of these books whether I have seen them countless of time or was just my first time passing through where they are on sale.

If I am bored or the wife is out shopping, I can just go into a bookstore and browse through books. It can be fiction or non-fiction. Classic or brand new. New or second hand.

And this love for books is shared with my wife. Nowadays, she devoured books faster than me as I have become too engrossed with internet life. Maybe I need to be away to enjoy the pleasure of books again. The amount of unread books by my bedside table is getting higher and higher.

No technology can take the place of certain things like the pleasure of reading a book.

Immersing yourself in your spouse's hobby

I love football. The English Premier League kind. Not the American kind. This is something my wife does not share. Unlike reading which both of us enjoy. Immensely that we can argue over who gets to read first the new book we bought. Nowadays, as I am quite busy, she has first dip on all the new book except if we go away somewhere then it is fair game.

Another of my current hobby is blogging. Which has grown to another monster on its own. Maybe one day Stephen King will make a horror story out of it. There was this one TV movie in the local station in which blogging became a subject matter which I think has approached the subject more on the romantic side. After all the title was a giveaway. "Blogger Boys" it was called. In a few years or months, the Thailand filmaker will surely has one of their idea about how blogging can be a horror story. They already did a turn on handphone, cameras and even eyes. 

Anyway, this post is more about the issue of loving or at least understanding your spouse's or partner's hobby. Be it taking pictures. Watching football or some who go the distance and go watch LIVE game, live. Theater. Writings. Travelling. And then some. I mean, there are so many weird hobbies around the world that what I have mentioned are just the 'normal' ones. 

But (of course there is a but) if you are obsess with a hobby, chances are there will always be conflict between you wanting to an activity which you have to concentrate on your hobby and what your spouse would want to do. 

Unless it is like something called movie watching, which most can enjoy together. Except for horror movie, which I have not watch in movie theater for quite sometimes as my wife does not like it. But if it was movie like Transformers or Terminators, then she was as eager as me.

 

A hobby most couple can share

I hope this won't be another dissappointing summer

This summer, I had the opportunities to watch quite a number of advance screening. For those who know me, they would know that I am a movie addict in which I would always try to watch movie as soon as it opens especially the popular ones. Some of my friends when I was still studying had this game of trying to beat me as the first person to watch a movie.

This time around, I managed to watch Wolverine, Star Trek and Angels & Demons before anyone else. Thanks to having blogs and joining certain forum blogging community. Come to think of it all these are sequels or prequels. Of those 3 movies, Star Trek and Angels & Demons were good. Surprisingly, they were not what I expected. I remembered those summer (I think the year when Tomb Raider 2 was released) I was not satisfied with the offerings of that summer at all.

Sometimes, with all this sequals like Transformers 2, Star Trek 13?, Wolverine (which is like X-Men 4), I would very much love it if I could revise the movies which precede this sequels (or in the case of Wolverine and to a lesser extent, Angels & Demons, the prequel). If only those guys from Blockbuster opened up their store here in Malaysia.

There are video stores here or maybe there is only one, but they don't carry that many old title. This would be great for really old movie like the first Terminator or the early Star Trek movie which I I thought as corny then. Seeing the new one makes me want to see the storyline of the old movie like The Search for Spock or The Wrath of Khan.

Advance screening of Angels and Demons

This spells Illuminati, either way

And you can know more of this in the movie Angels and Demons, which does not have any angel and demon at all. I was given the chance to watch it when the 'other' internet advertisment company here in Malaysia, Advertlets gave out tickets for the early screening. I did not win it the normal way as I did a posting but did not received any email from them. I considered myself out of the race then. However, on the day of the screening I log on to my Blogger United account which is frequented by the Advertlets owner and lamented that I may not be watching. Then I message him through twitter and guess what, he asked me to attend the screening. It pays to join a bloggers community website sometimes although I am one of the more passive member.

  It was a great movie, surprisingly, as I still have not read the book. My wife bought it and commented along the way on how changes are made especially to the main character way of dressing which was supposed to be inappropriate for the Vaticans. There was one special effect at near the end of the movie involving an explosion which I think was spectacular, although I had watched Star Trek and Wolverine this summer. As I have recommended others to watch Star Trek than Wolverine, I would say that this movie also can be recommended.

It made me want to rent that movie, the Da Vinci Code, and watch it again. If there is an internet site like the Blockbuster here in Malaysia, I would have rent it. That is why we still rely on our only cable company and sometimes those downloads that we do for movies.

Chick lit

I try not to read pop culture chick-lit like those written by Danielle Steel, Candace Bushnell or Sophie Kinsella. Its not that these books are not interesting but I do think this is like looking through women magazines. As I like to read everywhere to finish a book, I will be hard pressed trying to finish these books. Just like women magazine, a man would seems to be a bit uncultured reading women magazine. But, seriously, they just don't appeal to me as I don't really understand the thinking of women.

I do love a few titles like the one written from the male's prespective by Mitch Albom and sometimes I do find books written by women to be just the thing that I need after a hard days work. I love the book of J.K. Rowling though not to the type of frenzy that I would line up to get the first earliest copy in store. I read them just for the sake of knowing what the hoopla were all about but I actually have not read the last 2 books of the Harry Potter series. The movie later this year and the last one which is supposed to be 2 movies might clear help.

Come to think of it, I managed to influence my wife to read more of my type of books which borders more on fantasy and science fiction like those by Terry Pratchett and an occasional Stephen Kings (as she hates horror). Maybe if I really don't have anything to read, then I may read these chick lits...

* Don't blame me for calling them chick lits. Even some bookstores do refer them as such

Real life is weirder than fiction

There is a lot of truth in the statement of Stranger than Fiction. I heard somewhere that in fiction, the story has to make sense but real life does not has a script. It will act as it will and that is why there is a lot of stories on how people do certain things which is way weirder than what you find between story books.

When one writes a fiction, there is the introduction of characters and storyline, a climax and finally a finale. Even in movies usually the stories go like a tangent which most filmakers follow. If the film kind of follow real lie, which films that tried to be Oscar contender usually are, it became kind of boring. People will ask where is the climax? Why was the story did not fully develop and why was there was no ending. This is what audience will say, not the critics who will usually try to look deeper. These are in films and books.

Real life never play like that. Stories intertwined with each other. There will be so many characters that they can't pin down just one main character. That man you buy your breakfast from, what stories can you gauge by looking at his face? That cleaner at your office? The people you meet every other day? Each has their own stories and I bet all are spectacular in their own.

One of my favourite writer, Jeffrey Archer, writes both fiction and non-fiction really well. He has books which compiled real stories from his prison days, a memoir and all the while he still writes fiction. I was an avid fan of Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less which is about how 4 men tried to get back all the money a millionaire swindled from them. He even managed to make the fiction seems like non-fiction as some of his stories did not play out like any ordinary fiction.

Maybe that is the beauty of life, you will never know what will be, will be. Que sera, sera... 

Last minute

I think this is what they meant by procrastinating. Putting off something which you can do a few months ago. It is four o'clock in the morning. I have just sent my assignment for one of my Islamic finance Masters class to the lecturer using the internet system reserved for us. Thank God there was no problem for the system to receive my assignment although it did warned me that I am sending the assignment late. The dateline? Yesterday 14.3.09. When I sent it, the clock had just turn to 15.3.09 more than four hours. Hmmm... Hope he is not too strict in that matter.

Have you ever done this? Doing something at the last minute. I remember those long queue when the police discounts to motorist who had summon in their name. A lot of people turned up 2 days before the campaign ends although the whole of two weeks before that rush, the queue was empty. 

I have been doing this sleep late at night to do assignments since my school days. I even sent my thesis for my bachelor degree at the tail end of the dateline. My professor was strict then but she was nice enough to accept my final draft. I got an A- for that effort. Maybe not all people will accept it or do it on a regular basis. 

Just cannot take a swipe at my EPL rival. Just now somebody said the score of 4 -1 which was suffered by Manchester United due to lost against Liverpool. Some smart aleck says ManUtd still can come and ask to be move as he claims he is disable. A team which like to score last minute. Hmmm... not that time. They lost, big time...

Do you do things last minute?

What will you be remembered for?

So, he won. You might be thinking who? Then you are one of the rare people who don't care about the happenings in that faraway land called Hollywood (although you may live just across the road to the signage). I am talking of course about Heath Ledger, as expected, winning the supporting actor Oscar. Yes, that make believe land where everything is rosy and will never be affected by the economic woes and real life. Or is it?

Just to make a point, the film that manage to surprise filmmakers and those in front of the screen is Slumdog Millionaire. It is about the rags to riches story of a man who manage to win the Who wants to be a Millionaire gameshow in India. The start of the movie will show you how he was being tortured by a policeman who just couldn't believe he did it through his own initiatives. So, the story is his journey in life and how he learned what he has learnt. 

Last night had a story of rags to riches of its own. Penelope Cruz. Heath Ledger. Slumdog. Danny Boyle. All came not from America. When Penelope mentioned her hometown, I bet no one in the audience came from there. Heath was the breed of actors coming from Australia who for the past few years had conquered Hollywood through their acting skills eclipsing even the best that America had to offer. As for Danny Boyle, he epitome the best film I ever know when I was an undergraduate. He was the one who adapted and directed Trainspotting in which it shows the the cocaine addiction of a group of friends living in Edinburgh speaking with unknown English accent. Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle were discovered through that film.Through that film, I discovered Irvine Welsh other books, which I love.

Back to Heath, that must be great for him right? At least that must be a good way to be remembered for right? Winning something after you are dead and people keep on harping on the good that you have done and trying to forget how you really died....

Girlie magazine

Not porn but magazine for women. Why are they so thick? You need to go through a lot of advertisements (see my posting on Ads for women) before you can get to the articles or pictures. That is why sometime you see women just flipping one after another page before stopping by at a particular page which interest them. 

There are so many advertisement and they can process the advertisement that pass through their mind in very fast that they only need just a glance before actually stopping at the important one for them. Observe any one of them flipping a woman magazine if you don't believe me. I saw my mom, my wife and my business partner do it. Especially when they are at the hair saloon.

How do I know all this? I mean, how do I know what are the contents of women's magazine? Of course, I am those not so rare breed of men who reads women magazine nearly every month. Eager even, awaiting for those that my wife buys on an irregular basis as she does not have a particular favourite. Cleo, Women's Weekly, Bazaar, Female and some others. I sometimes go into waiting rooms at clinics or saloons while waiting for them finish doing whatever that they are there for just so I can flip through the latest one. Dome Restaurant is also a favourite eating place as they have all sort of magazines either for women or men.

Once I was told, it was a big no, no for men to go through women magazine. I don't think that is a problem anymore as I have seen men sitting down at Border's flipping through them just like it was made for them. Even the publishers have noticed this and adds a few pages for the men.

You got the latest Cleo? Can I borrow it awhile?

Secret Diary of A Call Girl

Some of you may know it but some of you may just have read the book or the blog. Thanks to the beauty of the internet, I have watched all the episodes in Season 1 and Season 2 (except 2.5 which seems to be missing) of this interesting television series about the ups and downs of a London call-girl who spill all of her career history. It will of course, never comes to be shown in the Malaysian television as the subject of a working girl will never find it's way through the Malaysian censorship board, but you might never know as I thought I will never see the Sopranos on Malaysian TV and it is now being shown (although I have seen all of the episodes more than once on the net)

The blog and the books that the television series are based on are titled Belle de Jour : Diary of a London Call Girl but the title was shorten for the television series. Maybe they just want to say that you can displaced the call girl anywhere and they don't want the stigma of the series to skewed towards London only. But, who cares why the name of the series is not what the name of the source it was taken. I didn't even know that the blog or books exist before the series. Heck, maybe the real call girl has already become rich than she could possibly imagine.It must be a dream to a few of those who has a blog to achieve what the owner of the blog had managed to do.

The star of the series is someone my wife can relate to although I am more interested when she is naked. Her name is Billie Piper who is supposed to have done a few stints when she was still a  young lady as a singer. I actually may have heard of her but never really know her. Maybe she is famous in UK once but for the life of me, I can't remember her. Maybe her songs did played on the radio once but I may have forgotten it. Anyway, it seems that she started acting only after 2003 in television series which you can only find in BBC, which is not a favourite among Malaysian (unless you are a cult TV series follower of Dr. Who)

However, the Secret Diary series is also a kind of a naughty way for my wife and I to enjoy a show which can actually excite us both in the bedroom. It is not that we try to imitate what was shown on TV but with the show being classified as "18" in the UK television and shown late at night, you can just imagine the scenes that are shown. It becomes like when we watch the L Word although we never finished the series yet. And the Secret Diary seems to be heading for a 3rd Season although the 2nd Season finale had her appearing in a talk show as if she had retired from being a call girl.

Come back Belle, I can't wait to see what you have more up your knickers...

Ogling Olga in Quantum of Salaciousness

I was given free tickets to go and watched the new James Bond flick called Quantum of Solace, thanks to Celcom which receives payment promptly every month due to the auto-debit scheme that I set up with my credit card. I pay you every month promptly and all I got was these free tickets (oh! and the pair of RM1000 tickets for Celine Dion concert). So, they gave me two seats to the movie to thank me on my gullibility for paying without checking what they bill me.

Anyway, the reason for me to really want to go and see this movie was the new James Babe, which is Olga. Olga Kurylenko to be precise.

If you type Olga without her surname, you will get a few images that shows ladies who you wish were never ever featured in a James Bond movie, except maybe as villains, although even the James Bond's ladies villains was never ugly (Pussy Galore anyone?). As these images are copyrighted, use the search engines for you to see yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Back to the James Babe - Olga.

When I first hear her name and saw the status update of one of my facebook friend "...is ogling Olga", I had this image of a witch or a gypsy with bucktooth and warts all over (thanks Checo).

When I googled her, I found out that there were no warts on her, except at the right places on her chest (which I had hoped to see, no such luck!) and her teeth was perfect. A train could run on those teeth...As for the black dress that she wore, it fit her perfectly. As the white t-shirt and jeans.

How's that for social/racial profiling?

I should have not done it as I have just finished reading Paulo Cuelho's The Witch of Portobello about the hardship faced by the gypsies and the label that they have to endure while living in Transylvania which is infamous for Dracula, which was explained by the book to be written by an Irish writer who never visited Transylvania, not even once!

Oh, sorry, I think I lost track just now. You may want to know how was the movie and all. What I can say is, Daniel Craig is perfect as James Bond if you want him to be like Matt Damon in the Bourne movie series. There were car chases at the start of the movie, a chase on foot, a chase in boats and planes, big explosions, Olga to ogle and a lot of other James Babes. Some died, some survives. There were the blood and gore of the new James Bond and sleek cars. Craig has perfected the avenging James Bond look and now the words that they should use as a tagline is "No More Mr. Nice Guy". And you do know that the Craig's Bond is going for third movie in another 2 year as the villains seem to be a new bigger and 'bad-asser' group. Quatum of Solace is a good 'middle movies' perfect for the next sequel with new villain already intorduced in a 'blink-and-you-will-miss' scene.

Olga also epitomed the new breed of James Babe where James Bond can rely on them to watch his back and they can still rocks his socks off...

In short, Quantum of Solace was like any action movies. Except for Olga... and the car... and a brooding James Bond...

Go watch it, especially if you are going to see this person (not these pics though) :