Movie Review: Whiteout

Watched this movie last night and liked it for its ability to constantly keep me up the verge of the seat. It's thrilling and mysterious.

Read the full Synopsis from IMDB here.

Cast wise, in my opinion, Kate Beckinsale looks slightly different from the way she looked in her recent movies of Underworlds. Particularly it might be because she's wearing a bob wig throughout the show. Although it might not be too obvious for some to notice, I reconed it was a wig from the first scene she came into view. There's always something about the wigs that tell you to notice them whenever you see them.

I'm going to give some credits for the crews in making this movie because it would definitely not be easy shooting in such a strong weather although some of the scenes are taken in the studio. Sub zero temperature is not a joke.

ၤFor your reading pleasure, if you have some time, go read this site for an interview with Kate Beckinsale and the lead actor Gabriel Macht.

Fitness Frenzy

Since Feb 2008, I became a member among more than 100,000 others of True Fitness Center (Previously known as Planet Fitness). I wouldn't say I'm proud of becoming one for many reasons.

Frankly speaking, Fitness - to me - is just another term for a weight loss, a pathway to a new prettier, slimmer, Me. I could not care less in cardiovascular fitness, higher endurance, better flexibility, muscular strength and higher bone marrow density. Forget about all these fanciful health talk and gymnastic terms, all I want when I go to the gym is to lose weight, as simple as that! I know I'm not making any sense if you want to argue using an Oxford Dictionary but seriously, that's my point of view.

I was with full of enthusiasm when I first signed on the gym membership application form, didn't even mind paying for it cuz I knew that is going to be a great decision and in my mind I was planning to go to the gym every alternate days after work. It's kinda like a small bubble forming above my head, all pleased with myself, big smile on my face and walked out of the gym after exploring its extent with the fitness center representative who helped me with the application process.

First few months after the registration, I kept my promise to myself to religiously hitting the gym every other day after work, some days joining the different fitness classes by the trainer like Body Pump, Yoga, Steps and many more, and other days doing the simple jogging on the treadmill. It was easier to make it possible when the gym is right below my office - i.e., at the basement of the office I work in. However, from 3-4 times a week to 1-2 times a week, the frequency has since been reducing and now, it's become 'as-and-when-I-feel-like'. Aha! It's party because I've gotten a little lazy and the gym is now slightly further away since we moved to a new location, but mainly because I dread having to avoid the personal trainers in the gym who are always eying on the gym members like their preys to sell the personal training sessions. Personal trainings are not part of the membership, you have to pay to get one and mind you, it doesn't come cheap.

The more you look new and unfamiliar with the machines, or using the machines in the incorrect stance, these supposedly friendly trainers will come approach you to have a little chat with you followed by the selling session. As a polite and civilized person, I hate having to say 'no' all the time. Call me anti-social, I do not like talking to strangers especially when I know what he/she is up to when they come approach me with a friendly and helpful smile on their faces. So, on most of the occasions, I have to avoid having eye contact with these people when I'm working out. They won't even let you off if you're minding your own business and running on the treadmill. They could come to you and told you that your posture of running is incorrect with heavy stamping on the sole, this again leads you to get the personal training session by them. I had encountered it once not long after the membership's started it was negligible since it's the first time, but now, it has become bad to worse. Things have changed after True yoga took over Planet, one could see a lot of more trainers loitering around the gym and at least one of them would come and talk to you as long as you look not-so-busy having your time cycling while reading or doing some cooling-downs after the workout.

Hunting in the gym wasn't enough, they do tele-marketing which I had to repeatedly say no and request to remove my contact number from the call list. Apparently, they don't listen. They use many different numbers so I couldn't actually make my phone remember their numbers, instead I had to take the bet on picking up calls from strange numbers. After many refusals, they finally got the idea that I'm not interested, so they have stopped calling.

Not long after peaceful break of no calls from the gym, I just received another form of selling in the handphone, this time, via SMS. They now use a new tactic of advertising. A trainer using his/her personal cell phone to text the members on the latest promotions and stuffs. They didn't ask me whether I'm okay to receive the promotional communications when I first signed the form. There's no checkbox or whatsoever that I could opt myself out of the promo and newsletters. Even the simple online reg forms have them and the user has the right to opt out. This has really becoming very irritating and I simply am agitated with all these harrasments and this last SMS was the final straw for me. I'm so NOT going to extend the membership when it ends in about 4 mnths time.

I have not achieved my goal for losing weight but instead I gained tele-harassments and a supposedly privileged membership that doesn't feel like a privilege at all. No fitness attained for my physical structure but as a matter of fact, my wallet has gotten some fitness itself. And quite obvious, the small bubble that was formed a year ago has been burst.

Singtel Never Fail...

It's been awhile since I've decided to switch from M1 to Singtel, purely because I wanted an Iphone. Nothing new these days I guess. People switch for the sake of Iphone and what they get back in return was a gorgeous Iphone and dire disappointment with service from Singtel.

I'm definitely not the spokesperson for any service provider but I was a happy customer of M1 for close to 5 years now. It's only 2 months ago that I started to have the itch of getting an iph myself when I see Most of the people around me were using it, looking all cool and satisfied with all the fanciful games and applications. This basically results to subscribing for a new line with a total new number - which was the case because I just couldn't wait till my M1 contract is over to port the number over to Singtel. This was only one of my sacrifices I made to get myself an iph.

When I first contacted the person (let's call her - Ms.One since I'm going to refer to many more person later on) in charge for corp line to inquire for an iph, she told me that iph is not officially launched but will let me know when it's being confirmed. But, I have not heard from her until I heard from someone else that the new iph 3GS has been launched. Promise 1 - broken.

Another thing about Ms.One is that you could never call her. No matter what time of the day you called, she will be perpetually engaged with another customer (at least that's what her voice mail told us). This left us with only 1 way to communicate with her - i.e., Email. She does not reply emails with many lines in it - i.e., any complicated query whatsoever. So, I had to always make sure that I send her a one liner cuz no matter how long I wrote, she'd only reply for the easy one anyway. First Impression - bad.

I started to contact her again once the iph 3GS was out and she's all good sending me an application forms to fill up and fax to her, given me a list of numbers to choose from for the new line and told me that she will let me know when they've confirmed on the delivery date. My happiness level then - 80%, all hopeful to get an iph soon.

2 Weeks later, still no news from Ms.One and it has taken longer than expected, so, other colleague of mine who also ordered the exact same iph with me found out on her own that the contact person has been changed to Mr.Two without any updates to those of us who still attempting to get hold of Ms.One who is no where can be found. Another service delivered badly.

So, we kept in touch with Mr.Two who seems to pick up his call unless he really is on the line with another customer. He again gave us another answer to wait for another 2-4 weeks for the iph because Apple wasn't able to meet the high demand across Asia and that it was actually affecting all other countries as well. My happiness level then - 30%, all the hopes being crushed.

When it's close to 2 months of waiting, Mr.Three called me to say that my iph will arrive on the next day (that was Friday). It indeed arrives on Friday, but, they have mixed up with my payment mode and stupidly enough, the delivery guy couldn't leave the phone with me until the proper changes has been made to the PO and receipt, so, he went off with my iph with the promise from Mr.Three that they have overlooked on my payment method and that they will definitely deliver the iph on the later time of the same day. My happiness level then - 0%, for having to have the shining new toy that I have waited for so long has just slipped through my finger because they have sat on my request to change in payment mode for 11 days.

A few hours later the delivery guy has left, I received an email (not a call) from Mr.Four that I will actually be receiving the phone on Monday instead. I returned his email with a stinking message to say how bad their service was and that Mr.Three has promised me to deliver the phone on the same day, etc. Few minutes after I sent the email, Mr.Three called me to apologize for overlooking the request and that there's nothing else they could do about it. I slammed down the phone without saying 'bye' - I know it's a rude gesture but I don't even care anymore.

I'm naturally quite a tolerant person, but what Singtel has done to me for this whole Iphone application made me fuming mad with anger and frustration. Is that how they treasure their customers? What's with the customer service these days? Whatever happen to keeping the customers always happy? I simply wasn't expecting such a service from a big organization like Singtel.

So, there you go. Singtel never fail to disappoint me.

Book Review: Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger

Firstly, when I got hold of this book, I didn't know who, or rather what is Harry Winston. My first thought was that it's about attempting to marry a rich guy named Harry Winston. Blame it on my lack of knowledge upon Fashion and Jeweleries, I now know that Harry Winston was named after an American Jeweler who donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade, and traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963. [Ref: Wiki]

So, now you know this book is not about marrying this Jeweler. It's about 3 best friends (Notice the 3 diamond rings on the cover?) who has totally different character from one another. The story lies in their lives and their vows to materializing their agreed pact.

I particularly love this book - although it's just another chick lit and there really isn't much of the plot in it - because reading about 3 different girls' life also mean that I get to touch on different types of characters that I'm certain do exist in real life.

It's not easy to set forth many different characters in the book cuz if it's not written properly, the readers could get lost between the chapters. This book is my first read from the author - Lauren Weisberger but she totally got me interested in the book. She manage to pour in the right amount of story for each character.

Here's a little teaser (word to word from the book itself.) for you:

1. Emmy Solomon (Just broke up with her boyfriend of 5 years named Duncan)
Emmy knew her sister and friends hated Duncan for putting her through the wringer; their disapproval was palpable and, after the first year, very vocal. But what they didn't understand, couldn't possibly understand, was the feeling she got when his eyes found hers at a crowded party. or when he invited her into the shower and scrubbed her with cucumber-scented sea salt, or got into the cab first so she wouldn't have to slide across the backseat, or knew to order her tuna rolls with spicy sauce but without crunch.

2. Leigh Eisner (Has the best boyfriend on earth)
Naturally, she was honored by the attention; Who wouldn't want Russell Perrin pursuing her? He fulfilled every single little box on every single checklist she'd drafted in the last ten years. He was, by all accounts, exactly the kind of man she hoped to find but never actually thought she would. Now, there she was, almost a year into a relationship with a gorgeous guy who also just happened to be sensitive, kind, caring, and madly in love with her, and all she felt was smothered. It was abundantly obvious to everyone else in Leigh's life that she had finally met The One; why wasn't it clearer to her?

3. Andriana De Souza (A Hot Brazilian girl who has a killer body, a daughter of famous Model)
"Friendly, outgoing, engaging, charming, whatever you want to call it, it still translates into 'available and desperate' when you're the one who initiates contact.'"
It was boring, it was so obvious. Why didn't American women understand this? Why weren't they taught it? The Rules had helped a little but hadn't done nearly enough; it instructed women how to deny men, but not how to seduce them. If she hadn't actually witnessed it herself over the last ten years, she never would have believed there existed grown women who thought the way to get a man was to chase him.

I think that's about enough to tell you who the 3 friends are and their current state of life. Happy reading!

Movie Review: Funny People

Firstly, I didn't spend a single penny on this one because it was the company event, the tickets come free. Secondly, If I did, I'd be the most regretful person in the world for paying 7 bucks for such a movie.

I am a fan of Adam Sandler and have enjoyed watching many of his great movies such as 50 First Dates, I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry, The Longest Yard, Mr. Deeds, Big Daddy and many more. But this one? It was such a disappointment. I don't know if any other fans of Adam's would agree with me but I definitely did NOT like this movie of his.

It was one comedy movie just because it was being labeled as such. It wasn't funny because of the over using of jokes on human's private parts. And they aren't really THAT funny. It was supposed to be a tad touching since it's about a dying stand-up comedian (Adam as George Simmons) and how he spent 'supposedly' last few days or months of his life after he found out that he has a type of Leukemia disease called AML. But it didn't manage to obtain audiences sympathy as much as it should, except for a few scenes that capture Adam's sorrowful act every now and then.

You might learn things like, how you should be spending this precious time of yours in this life with people who care for you and not neglect them. Other than that, it's pretty shallow. Just rent a DVD to watch it a month later. Don't bother wasting your $ on the movie tickets.

Read more about this movie here.

Movie Review: Gamer

Another movie acted by Gerard Butler (His other recent movies: The Ugly Truth, Nim's Island, 300). Can you tell from the title of the movie and the poster above that, it's about gaming and that there's a small boy's face underneath the rough man's face? It's basically all about science and high technology beyond imagination. People are being controlled by their 'gamer' and they had no self-control, therefore the actions they take are purely based on the person who is controlling them a.k.a playing them. It can be very much heart wrenching because you'll see many innocent people being killed and being forced to do what they don't enjoy doing.

I'm giving this movie a bad rating of 2 stars because it failed to explain the audience on how this whole thing has come about and the ways in which the big organization that invented this gaming software, abducted those people and replace their brain cells with the nanochips that makes them logged into the game. The process of these are not shown and were replaced by a 'slide-show' like explanations. The whole movie is very fast paced and most of the scenes are guns, shootings and more shootings.

Find out more about Gamer here. You may go watch it if you must and prepared to be quite disappointed cuz to me, it's just another 'okay~' movie. Don't say I didn't warn you! =) I'd rather save that dime for another better one.

My First Tiffany

Tiffany & Co., I've heard about it, I've read about it, today, I received my first Tiffany. You might be wondering 'what' from Tiffany. Well, it's not a ring of course, not a bracelet or rather, not even diamond related. It's a little something from Tiffany & Co. that I received today from the big boss of the company I work in.

On 17th May 2009, I've reached my 5th career year with the bank. And it's just felt like a little more than a couple of years. Time passed by so fast that I didn't realize I'm getting older along with the years that has just passed swiftly. The first day I walked in for a 4 months internship, I simply didn't know I'd be working here for this long, neither did I imagine that this is going to be the first job I'd land into because it's just too great of a job that I didn't think I could make it.

Today, everyone in the office was lighthearted. While some receive flowers and a note to thank them, others receive their little sweet treats from their bosses. It's an official 'Appreciation Day' which is the day the bosses take a step forward to show their appreciation towards their staffs, as well as the staffs to their peers. It really is a beautiful Friday and I had my fair share of happiness in receiving a personal appreciation note from the big boss written on an elegant white flowery card, a lovely balloon and a star curved crystal bowl in a white ribbon-wrapped giftbox from Tiffany.

Franky, I am not sure of ways to putting this crystal bowl into a good use but what I'm most certainly sure is that I'd treasure it and it will take a most important space in my living room to remind me of the wonderful 5 years of my career life.

Movie Review: G-Force

Another movie by Walt Disney consisting of the human and animated animals - 3 cute Guinea pigs and various others taking on a mission for US Government. Read more about G-force story here. It's Disney's movie, so it can't be bad since they always have their movies standard up to their name.

The guinea pigs are definitely cute but I hate to say this, as compared to the movie 'Up', this movie has to be rated lower than that.

The 3 stars here goes to the cute guinea pigs, touching and some funny moments in the show.

Movie Review: Year One

The trailer pretty much tells you everything about this movie. This movie is too shallow that I can't make myself giving it even a 2 stars. It IS funny, definitely it HAS to cuz it's starred by Jack Black, but the thing is, it's hardly made me laugh my heart out. No such moment in there. Regretted going for this movie. Should have just waited till the DVDs out.

If you have not done so, watch your trailer here on YouTube.

The whole story is so blend that you can't make out what the movie is trying to portray and where it is going. At some moments, you will be expecting something big or something exciting or something that might surprise you, but none of that came. So, my high hope of being able to enjoy the show was being crushed by the silliness of the movie. Overall, it's a disappointment for me. I didn't like it, should have wasted my movie money on this.

Remarkable Event

Although I feel too old for this, I'm still gonna express my happiness here.

It's been awhile since I have done my final exams (total of 4 papers) back in May'09 and tried forgetting about receiving the results 3 mnths later. I even went Bangkok with a group of friend with no worries in mind about this. But the rush came back in when it's nearer to the end of Aug'09 because the school has informed us that the results for the final students will be out early Sep'09. The usual fever that I used to have when the time of results, came back to life and I couldn't help but kept checking the school portal for any sort of news for it although I knew that by doing it, I'm not making the results to be out any sooner.

For my 1st year and the 2nd year results, the announcement dates were made known to student like a week earlier and we had to anticipate and be the first few people to log in to the school portal to avoid the online traffic on the announcement day since few thousand other students will be checking their results at the same time. And in most cases, the site will be down because of the congestion and therefore will have difficulties logging in, so usually what we have to do is to keep ourselves logged in to the system since morning and kept refreshing it every other minutes so that we won't get kicked out by the server and won't have to go through the hassle of logging back in. So we went through checking our results with all such dramas.

But this year (my final year), UOL has decided to release the results on their own website instead and that they are going to allow UOL students to log in directly to their website to view their results. But the thing is we are supposed to log in using our UOL Candidate number and UOL Student Reg Number (which I don't even know what number I belonged). So then, THE day came for the announcement and cuz I didn't have my reg number I was calling SIM up to get it. The person on the phone couldn't find my name due to the inane the surname and first name problem. After she found my number, I was trying to just log in and there I saw my results listed according to the subjects I had taken. There was no anticipation, no frustration of being unable to login, no drama of logging in and refreshing of the page every few minutes. I stared at my computer screen for a few seconds without blinking with the fast beating heart, the news just came too harsh on me that I wasn't mentally prepared to view my scores together with the Award title with the Honours Classification. I'm astounded, awed, happy and shocked all at the same time.

Finally, school days are over and now I could use this new title of being a Bachelor holder in days to come. I'm happy for myself, my family and whoever has put faith in me to achieve this milestone in life.