Author: Wilfrid

Categories
Diary

So I Finally Opened A Trading Account

If there are two things I think we all should start doing from young, that would be skin care and to invest wisely. Ironically, I suck at both departments. It is until recently that something suddenly hits me (I am slow, I know). I don’t have the economy background and I often have this negative impression on the financial market (again, ironic that I have been in the financial services industry for years). Stock market used to be a gigantic gambling ground to me. Then one day I realize that buying shares is very much like taking your hard earned money and invest into the future of mankind. And as mankind progress, those who invest their money rather than leaving their resources rotting inside a current deposit account get rewarded. So, stock market is not necessarily evil. And I am not necessarily evil if I participate in this frantic world that so freely and readily embraces capitalism.

Over lunch, my buddy RC – the one who always unfailingly thrilled me with all his wonderful war stories with the stock market – needed to visit the Singapore Exchange for something that was too complex for me to comprehend (something to do with buying a discounted share offset by dividend … huh?!). None the matter. I followed. And impulsively, I have decided to open an account.

Fortunately for me, I have RC with me to explain the necessity. I am sure most of you are aware of how to trade in Singapore. For those who are interested in the process, this is for you. First, you need to open a CDP account. You can do so at SGX or at a security house. Minimum age is 21 (RC asked me to inquire if his 6 years old son can open a CDP account) and all you need is your IC and a bank account. Next, you need to open a trading account – either with a broker or trading via Internet. I chose DBS Vickers Securities Singapore out of convenience. Then you need to link your trading account to your CDP account (another form to fill up). And finally, choose your payment method (I opt for GIRO).

Viola! It is that simple. Stay tuned in what I will do with those accounts (still haven’t decided if I am going to actually trade). Meanwhile, remember … skin care and invest wisely – the two things you should do from young.

Categories
Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Sugar And Spice – My Heart Bled A Hundred Times

Life is fragile. One moment you are up in the sky, hopping from cloud to cloud. Everything looks bright. You love the caress of the wind on your face. Another moment, everything you stand onto crumble into pieces. What you believe in, what you live for … and you ask yourself: Who am I? What am I? Are we the projection of what the people see and think about us? Are we the shadow of our past and who we are not? Or we are what we identify with? The curse of empathy. We humankind promotes love but yet we have conflicts everywhere, every single moment. At this very moment, millions are displaced in the war-torn eastern African nation of Somalia, the Saudi rape victim is sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison (what does human right means as a female in an Arab country?!), whales are being brutally killed as the source of protein … but no, how I feel now is nothing to do with civilizations that I have yet to encounter or yet another species we are driving to extinction. How I feel, what I feel is the very conflicts or hostility I experience somewhere not thousands of miles away. Then I ponder, is the ability of being able to empathize a curse? What if no one cares about how I feel, who I am, or what I am? Why do I care so much to people around me? I remember those FHM girls lined up in front of a car so that photographers could take a good picture with them, and the car. Someone shouted: which number, which number, how much? That was disrespectful, totally disgusting. We don’t spend time dressing up to work just to be emotionally abused. I don’t spend time dressing up to …

So, our identity can falter. Our will power can falter. And our body follows, feeling weak and all.

I am coughing today. My nose has been running mildly. It’s been one of those days when I don’t feel as though I am hopping from cloud to cloud. And through this process of crumble, through the serendipity of you are not alone, my good buddy – the name cannot be exposed for reason you will find later – met me up for lunch, and then dinner, and then a movie that I was dying to watch but no one seems interested.

I have no idea why The Straits Times rated the movie “Sugar and Spice” so bad. Then again, I have been consistently disagreeing with them. The acting is solid, especially hands down to Yuya Yagira, the award winner of Cannes in 2004. The scenery shots are beautiful. The presentation with the actors narrate throughout the movie is poetic. “Sugar and Spice” is about the passion of first love, and the passion of love. Being the king of “dumpee”, I can so totally relate to every single moment of the intensity of falling in love and to face the eventuality of … love is a journey, an experience, and feeling the pain at times make us feel alive. “Sugar and Spice” bears it all and it reminded me of what I have been through. Then I thought, perhaps the reviewers at The Straits Times just not having the opportunity to experience love at all. I asked my good buddy who has yet to experience love if the show is enjoyable. The answer is yes. I was surprised. And my good buddy was surprised at The Straits Times’s review too. Too bad, today is the last day “Sugar and Spice” being shown in Singapore.

I wish this blog entry is just another movie review but it is not. All this world needs or what we need is empathy, the ability to love someone or something (such as whales), and the ability to love oneself. And for God’s sake, stop hurting each other with the words we say, the things we do, the words we didn’t say, and the things we didn’t do.

Categories
Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

The Kingdom – More A Thriller Than Politics

The Movie Review Squad met unexpectedly at Orchard over the weekend and while Cynthia and TK were having coffee and cake at The Centrepoint, I was assigned to walk over to Cineleisure and pick a movie in the name of spontaneity. If it was up to me, I would have picked a Japanese movie for a change. For lack of a better choice, we settled on “The Kingdom”.

I knew what “The Kingdom” is about and I also knew that this movie is written by Matthew Michael Carnahan – the same screenwriter who wrote “Lions for Lambs”. While “Lions for Lambs” focuses on the politics with the special US operation at Afghanistan as the background, “The Kingdom” centers at the US counter-terrorism investigators inside Saudi Arabia having politics as the background instead. Majority of the movie was filmed on locations in America while part of it was filmed on UAE. Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner played the characters of the investigators (a team of 4 in total) and part of the movie reminded me of CSI and Alias. What I really enjoy watching was the acting performance of the two Israeli Arab actors Ashraf Barhom and Ali Suliman. Although “The Kingdom” is lacking in character development – which is understandable as it is a thriller, the bonding development between the US investigators and the Arab guards is perhaps the highlight of the movie. Some of the lighter moments arise due to the cultural differences between American and the Arab are nice to watch, amid such an intense thriller type of plot.

When I reflect upon the storyline, I wonder if the result of the investigation was linked to luck or good preparation or a bit of both. Then again, if the plot manages to entertain, who cares (I actually do unfortunately)? Perhaps not a must-watch type of movie but something to entertain when you run out of ideas.

Categories
Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 7 – Numbers

Sometimes I wonder, how many pairs of non-work related user id and password we have to memorize these days? I actually have to keep a record on paper and there are close to 45 pairs. In the order of importance, they are: [1] Essential accounts (14%) like the SingPass, [2] Web mail accounts (7%), [3] Gaming accounts (7%) – oh yes, online gaming ranks high in my life, [4] Shopping accounts (12%) like Amazon.com, [5] Utility accounts (17%) like the anti-virus site that asks for my account info oh so often, [6] Social accounts (38%) like YouTube, my favorite forums etc etc, [7] Misc accounts (5%) like those require you to create an account in order to submit a job application.

Seriously, Microsoft may be the evil one. But imagine the world with just one user id and password … the Microsoft Passport. (And no, my passwords are not all the same.)

For days, I have been wondering why the sign at the car park entrance says: season or hourly parking only. What else can that be? One day I turned to Cynthia as the car entered the car park for an answer. Within seconds, she answered: loading unloading? D’oh! At times I think my brain is hardwired in a certain way.

Talking about hard-wiring, since young I was taught how to subtract numbers in a certain way. For instance, to subtract 300 from 128, I would start from the right and work myself to the left. When I top up my cash card, I always round it up. An obsessive behavior of mine. I would stand in front of the ATM trying to work out what to key in for, say, S$78.53 left in my card. I would work from right to left (7, 4, 1, 2, 2) and then have a hard time reversing the order of the answer (S$221.47).

Then one day, I have decided to work from left to right. It works wonder and it is really not that hard. Now I can even work out how to top up 1,395,296,105.49 to 3 trillion without thinking (answer: 1,604,703,894.51). I wonder why I was not taught that way at school.

And one day, I turned to Cynthia and shared with her my “great discovery”. Her response was: all along that was the way I subtract!

Stupid I felt and in British English, the word “ass” means either a stupid person (informal) or a donkey (old use). I wonder if the words “dumb ass” was inspired by a donkey at all.

Categories
Party

7pm – 5am: Of Dinner And Dance, Butter Factory, And Zouk

Till today, I still think that the best thing I can take away from my nine-to-five is the friendship I make. Some feel that the friends they meet as they get older are not as real or as close to those they met when they were young. The way I see it, as time goes by, we bound to lose touch with some good friends of ours. Actively making new friends and putting time and effort in nurturing friendship – old and new – is likely to be the only way to counter that. Some told me that they prefer to live their lives as hermits. My take is, we all want to be alone at times but none of us want to be lonely.

This year’s Dinner and Dance was different. It was a whole set of new colleagues and amongst them, two were my ex-colleagues. We were like having a mini-reunion during the Dinner and Dance. When the clock struck twelve, we headed to Butter Factory to have a real reunion with friends I met from the previous company. The party was smashing and Butter Factory ranks pretty high in my list of favorite clubbing scenes. After Butter Factory was closed at three, some of us moved to Zouk. Believe it or not, it was my first time stepping into Butter Factory … and into Zouk as well.

Categories
Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

“Beowulf” – Now, What Have They Done To The Epic Poem?

Why do I watch that many movies lately, I do not know. It may be the sign of work starting to get into me and watching movies seems like an easy way out for lack of a more creative way to spend my spare time. Perhaps what Michael Watkins wrote in his book “The First 90 Days” is true: we spend the first 3 months learning and not adding much value to the organization, only thereafter do we start to contribute. No wonder the past one month has been rather busy, even when we officially cut our working hours by 10% (it was more than some of you guys to start with so don’t envy me!).

Actually, I wanted to title this review as “This Year Warrior Has A New Name, NOT!”. Inside the shower, I was pondering who are the great warriors on a movie screen. Perhaps King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans in “300: March To Glory” are good candidates. Somehow, the image of Brad Pitt from “Troy” got stuck in my mind. The character Achilles certainly has my number one vote as the greatest warrior on screen.

Some may praise “Beowulf” because the hero is portrayed as a flawed human being. Some may appreciate the filming technique of motion capture much like the director’s previous work “Polar Express”. I personally am puzzled with characters fading in and out of the animation. One moment I swear I see the real face of Angelina Jolie and another moment, her face looks like a piece of computer generated graphic that doesn’t look like Angelina Jolie at all. I have been thinking hard if there is some kind of significance to all these scenes of fading in and out of reality and I can think of none. (Perhaps the further it is, the more unreal it becomes?)

From what I read in the Internet, the movie deviates from the epic poem written in year 700 for quite a bit. My humble opinion is that after reading the summary, the original story makes more sense while the movie adaptation leaves many question marks in my head.

Having said all that I dislike, some scenes are really worth mentioning. I in particularly like the battle with the dragon. It was intense and thrillingly heroic. There are some emotional moments before Beowulf heading to an epic battle. And there are some rather hilarious moments too. But other than that, I think it is for the fans of English animated films by and large.

Categories
For the Geeks Game Reviews

Hellgate London

“London is in ruins and now Asia must respond”, so it says on the pamphlet. I do not hesitate (especially when Cynthia is out-of-town) and am ready for the challenges ahead. I arrive at Russel Square and the garden square is no longer what it used to be – now a piece of wasteland. From afar, I can vaguely see the British Museum in ruin. Or is it my imagination? The year is 2038 and it has been 18 years since The Invasion. Once again, the survivors of mankind are united and determined to stop the demons from altering and assimilating our world into theirs. We have to close the Hellgate fast.

How I love role playing games. It comes with such a compelling storyline that makes people feel as though they are doing something virtually significant. Before you dismiss computing gaming as a total waste of time, you may wish to know that gaming moderately can enhance one’s analytic skill, problem solving skill, reflects, and etc. It is scientifically proven. Military develops games to train the soldiers. I even read that in one hospital, a group of surgeons are asked to play at least a certain number of hours of a I-forgot-which-one-but-certainly-not-a-medically-related-game a week in order to improve their performance.

Though I have the bad reputation of not being able to finish any game (except Sam & Max!), I think I may actually like “Hellgate London” and have a high chance in completing the game (think moderation!). It has the element of a traditional role playing game whereby you can personalise the ability of your characters. You are rewarded by the demons you vanquish in terms of experience points, currency, and items. But it doesn’t have the tedious battle controls like many role playing games do, which is good. And it also has the element of first person shooter but with a slower pace, lesser surprises, and you can actually dodge a fireball coming your way because it is kind of … slow. That is good as well because you can access the situation and take position accordingly to minimise damage upon you. You can virtually blow up anything lying around you – be it as boxes or gas cylinders. The explosion scenes are modeled well. Oh, did I mention that you will never run out of bullets? The graphic is fascinating even with my rather dated machine (AMD X2 4200+ and 6800GTS in SLi). The game play hardly lags in enclosed areas though in open areas (awesome graphics by the way as I can see buildings in smoke, the red phone booth, and abandoned police cars everywhere), my machine struggles to provide me with a smooth game play. Time to consider a new graphic cards I am sure.

And “Hellgate London” plays like some of the Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games as well. Kind of reminds me of the World of Warcraft with regards to the quest system. There are also fraction points to gain (each tube station is like a mini-community and you have to gain their trust). The pace of “Hellgate London” is in between tradition role playing games and first person shooter. Most monsters I have seen so far can be easily killed with one shot or two. Except bosses of course. The boss fight can be entertaining especially when you see it charging after you and you have to keep firing at it while retreating (i.e. clear the area before the boss fight). The game is played in real time. Hence no saving and reloading it like many others. I love that because it feels so much more real.

Okay. I shall stop writing such a long blog and go back and save London … sleep. Think moderation!

Categories
Action & Thriller Foreign Movie Reviews

Lust, Caution – Nearly Met Expectation If Only The Story Made Sense

If only I had my way to tweak the story slightly – very slightly perhaps towards the end – it would have been more satisfying to watch. Having said that, I think Ang Lee has done the Chinese proud. I was brought up watching countless Hong Kong movie productions and since young, I have always been wondering when would be the day when Chinese makes a mark in the International movie scene. And now, we have the Academy Award-winning Taiwanese director bringing us an erotic espionage thriller, a movie that I have highly anticipated since I got the wind that it was in production. I was angry that it was released in Singapore with a NC16 rating. Cutting the sex scenes is just illegal. I will tell you why. “Lust, Caution” is centered upon the seduction of a high-ranking Kuomintang official by a young female agent. And in the context of espionage, having drinks and movies unfortunately is not the way to seduce someone. Sex is. Censoring the sex scenes strips away the magic within.

I am glad that the uncensored version releases in Singapore with a R21 rating thereafter. I am also shocked that those scenes passed the Singapore censorship board. It breathes hope to a more open Singapore. It’s about time you bet.

Let me be upfront about what is so wonderful about “Lust, Caution”. The setting is convincingly beautiful. The costume is beautiful. All of which gave me the feel of the old days in China and there it is in the movie, a tram! I can understand why those who have little background of the Chinese history in the World War II era may not be able to fully appreciate the movie as an understanding of the background is somewhat assumed. That may explain the less than enthusiastic feedback from the Western world. The pace of the movie is really slow – 158 minutes in total – but I am a patience man. I can accept the pace – though I feel that some parts can be fasten a bit – but I cannot understand why Ang Lee did not attempt to alter the story written by Eileen Chang just a little bit. After all, I believe that director has the artistic freedom to adopt the novel in the way he or she deems fit. Look at what Mel Gibson did to “The Passion”.

The storyline is the weakest link. The acting, however, is top notch. I have always been a fan of Tony Leung. He can act with just his pairs of eyes. It is true. What amazes me is that the less well known leading actress Tang Wei is able match up to Tony Leung’s performance. I am not surprised though. After all, she was selected from 10,000 candidates and Ang Lee has spent 8 solid months (3 of which prior to the actual filming) in training her. I enjoy every single moment of their acting. The sex scenes between the two of them are intense, artistically filmed, and look so real that … no wonder some of the reporters asked Ang Lee if it was real. I think I can relate to Ang Lee’s frustration. “Lust, Caution” is not about sex. Really not. It is the intense emotion between two people – one who lives a dreadful life of not trusting anyone around him executing agents in a daily basis and one who lives an acting life of toggling between completing the mission of assassination and not falling in love with that one man she needs to kill.

“Lust, Caution” – as far as speculation and the certain confirmation from the official as well as the surviving sister of the agent goes – is loosely based on true events. If only the story followed a bit closer with the true story, it would have been more satisfying. SPOILER WARNING: Click here to read the version from the official and the version from the sister in the context of the movie’s ending.

Ironically, “Lust, Caution” may not even make it to Oscar because the Taiwan authority does not think that the movie has sufficient representatives from Taiwan (only the director and the story-writer). Neither does Hong Kong accept “Lust, Caution” for the upcoming Film Awards due to similar reason. The movie is a collaboration between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. How ironic that because “Lust, Caution” doesn’t represent one single sovereign, it cannot compete to be the best movie or foreign movie of the year. Very disappointing it is.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

The Witch Of Portobello – It’s Still A Paulo Coelho Fiction

If you are new to Paulo Coelho – a Brazilian writer who has sold more than 85 millions books worldwide in 63 languages – I would certainly recommend “The Alchemist” and the trilogy “By the River Piedra I sat Down and Wept”, “Veronika Decides to Die”, and “The Devil and Miss Prym”. I think those are classic especially “The Alchemist”. The trilogy has a similar theme and is the most emotional piece of work involving the love of two people. There after, I would recommend “The Valkyries” – yet another classic that reminds me of “The Alchemist” – and “Eleven Minutes”, one of his best selling novels. If you are a Christian or you are open to an old story from the Bible, “The Fifth Mountain” is a great read. In there, Paulo Coelho has brought the story of Elijah alive. There are other works by Paulo Coelho that I have also read but I am not going to list them here for now.

“The Witch Of Portobello” is an interesting piece of work. Right from the beginning of the story, the protagonist Athena who was adopted by the wealthy Lebanese Christians and later migrated to the Western world was dead. And the remaining story attempts to reconstruct Athena’s life through the stories told by the people around her. This includes Athena’s mother, her teacher, her student, a journalist who was obsessed with Athena and researching on the topic of Vampirism (as an afterthought, I think this journalist is Paulo Coelho himself as he did write a less famous book called “Practical Manual of Vampirism”), and more. It is interesting because when you stitch up the versions of the story from different people, you see different facets of that subject. However, if you trim away all the emotional elements, the core of the story remains unchanged: it is an account of Athena’s journey into learning the various aspects of life, finally saw her special ability manifest, and how she surrendered herself to the Goddess and became a controversial spiritual leader in London. And of course, from the storytelling point of view, the question remains: how did Athena die?

The entire journey of Athena, in my opinion, is loosely based upon Jung’s four stages of individual progression: Persona, Shadow, Soul, and Wise Old Man or Great Mother (note: this is mentioned in the book from the perspective of a historian). Persona is the mask we use everyday, a self-centered view of the world around us. There comes the Shadow stage when we attempt to free ourselves from our Persona and start to look inwards. We may realize our weaknesses, our dark side, and some of us may regress back to the Persona stage. After realizing what we are lack of, we are open to the knowledge around us – the Soul stage. We improve ourselves despite the fact that we may not be unaccustomed to what we learn. Some of us may be able to channel all these knowledge into a solid center and become the Wise Old Men or Great Mothers – saints, tamers of spirit, or prophets. This four stages of individual progression is what Athena’s journey about.

I do enjoy reading “The Witch Of Portobello” and I read from his blog sites that many readers find the book inspiring and life-changing. As shown in the quote below, Paulo Coelho does not teach us directly via his books and he learns from his students (by the way, one of the popular theme of his books is to explore the feminine side of divinity). You can check out his “The Experiment Witch” project. I still recommend you all to read “The Witch Of Portobello”, perhaps after you have read some of his greater books if you have not already done so.

The witch of portobello knows all. But the best way of knowing the meaning of life is by learning from one’s student. A teacher can only make us aware of our capabilities but finding the right path is up to the student. There are many ways to achieve happiness by being close to the Mother.

Related Site: Paulo Coelho’s Blog Site

Categories
Drama Movie Reviews

Lions For Lambs – Quite Possibly Leaving You With More Questions Than Answers

I like watching split reviewed movies. You either get it or you don’t and I love to read how the two sides debate. “Lions For Lambs” is definitely not about another American war initiative (though that’s what the main storyline hinders upon) nor how three different stories gel perfectly together (it would have been had it meant to be some sort of thriller or drama). It is a 90 minutes of intense and rather intellectual dialogues between different characters – a senator (Tom Cruise) and a reporter (Meryl Streep) he invited for a 1 hour exclusive interview on a topic the reporter has yet to find out, a college professor (Robert Redford) and his most promising student who has lost faith on political science, and a pair of good friends heading to Afghanistan for a battle because someone in the White House has created a new strategy that would change the world.

“Lions For Lambs” attempts to expose certain inconvenient truth that unfortunately is nothing new to many people. The politicians who defend their ideals with plastic faces, the media companies that work with the government on the war of propaganda, the soldiers (lions) who fight for the country that does not even take care of them in the first place, and the officers (lambs) who sit inside the command center having no idea what it is like at the actual battlefield. Of course, there are the academics who look into the history of mankind and wonder why we keep making the same mistakes again and again.

The acting of Meryl Streep is superb, what a contrast to “The Devil Wears Prada” – a movie that I coincidentally watched on cable just days ago. And I do enjoy watching Robert Redford and Tom Cruise’s acting performance. It is rather unfortunately (again) that even with such heavy weight stars, I suspect a good portion of the audience may find the movie rather boring. I personally had a hard time trying to follow the movie. Not because the script is badly written, but rather there are so many at times fascinating conversations and to absorb them and internalize them at the same time is hard. Many may not have that patience I can imagine. What you may take away from “Lions For Lambs” is not the storyline, but rather the questions raised.