G. I. Joe

G. I. Joe has some very bad reviews, some critics are saying it is a dump and stupid movie. Then we I watched it at JB City Square. Wow, it is action-packed, with all the nice elements of a thriller. Action, betrayal, loyalty, love, conspiracy, funny and entertaining. If you want to have 2 hours of fantasy, this is the movie for you.

Ok, I must admit I have never read the original comics, I don't what the original story is. Maybe just like Angels & Demons, the movie adaptation deviates drastically from its comic original, but I must say the movie adaptation itself is nice, a nice story on its own, regardless what the original story is.

G. I. Joe is also Korean actor Lee Byung-Hun's first foray into Hollywood. He has better luck than his fellow countryman Rain. Rain's role in his foray into Hollywood was quite small, but Lee plays an important role in G. I. Joe. However, there is a pity that he still can't get out of Hollywood's stereo type of Asians. Lee plays the role of a bad ninja (what a shame, Lee is a Korean, yet he has to play the role of Korea's arch-rival, a Japanese).

Then the girls shall be happy to see his nice body on screen. For a 39-year old man, he has a really nice body. If you have the asset, flash it, before it disappears :)

My rating: 3.5/5

This is a movie worth watching for entertainment. Trash those arty-farty movie critics. They only give good critics to movies that I can't understand, or fall asleep completely. :P

Sailor

Found this MTV in YouTube. The song is very very old, at least 20 years old I think. And I don't even know who the singer is. Never heard of him!

Yet this very old song tells exactly my feelings. Grown up, now I have to say things that I don't want to say, do things that I don't want to do, behaving like a hypocrite who I despise of.

Anyway, as the song says, at least I still have my own dreams. My dreams may never come true, but at least I am still true to myself, I don't sell my soul for material benefits. Ok, I am not that noble. I am just an ordinary guy, sometimes a coward too :P

How Gold Chains Are Made

Found this video in YouTube.com showing how gold chains are made. It is so different from my past impression that a goldsmith working hard at his workshop, hammering out a nice gold chain. Everything is automatic and with great precision.

It is definitely worth a look.

CNG - A Pain? A Joy?

This is a daily scene outside of my office. Long queues of taxis and occasionally some private sedans. No, there is no taxi stand here, neither is there any super hot store having fire sales. They are only here to top-up their 'gas'.

Ever since the CNG station started operation some time ago, the long queues of taxis almost becomes a norm, a permanent fixture.

I wonder how much time is wasted waiting in the queue just to top up. For some casual drivers, it is not too bad, just take it as a leisure stop and enjoy a cup of coffee, read your newspaper. For the taxi drivers, this means the precious time they should be fetching their customers, making some money is wasted in queuing. I can't imagine how bad the queue was when there was only one CNG station in Tuas!

ETFs - The Hidden Danger

I have been an advocate for ETFs for a while, just as I was an advocate of the now infamous Mini Bonds.

People always have the opinion that in the stock world, an index is the only 'stock' that is almost 100% sure to go UP. That is absolutely true! An index will have no mercy on those lousy, money-losing stocks. If an index component stock does not perform, sorry, it will be kicked out of the index. A recent example is Yangzijiang being removed from the Straits Times Index (FTSTI).

An ETF is said to track the underlying stock index closely (usually with an error of less than 5%?). In the case, an ETF will always go UP in the long term.

Is this true? True to a certain extent. But then I just found out recently that both STI ETF and DBS STI ETF have clauses in their perspectus to allow 100% derivatives. What does it mean? This means the ETF can choose to hold derivatives of the index component stocks, instead of holding the REAL stocks.

What is the consequence? If one of the issuer/market maker of the derivatives goes burst, like Lehman Brothers, then the ETF may suffer significant loss.

So if you consider investing in an ETF, please do do your homework. A look into their latest financial report may be a worthwhile endeavour.

Leadership.Woes

Once in a newspaper article, the writers says that if you don't have the necessary quality, capability, & intelligence, please don't take up that leadership position even if you are being promoted to by your management.

The consequences of a low quality leader will result in low team morale, loss of fighting spirit, and evetually, the demise of the team.

It is frustrating to see a company, a team to be led by someone who is not really up to mark. Being an engineer, we are supposed to make complex things simple, but then now instead of making things simple, we make simple things complicated, and dig a big hole to trap ourselves.

It is even more frustrating to realise you have nowhere to go :(

Banana - A Silent Killer?

Banana is one of my favourite fruits. There are many reports stating the benefits of this wonderful tropical fruit.

Then last night, I read in quite a horror a book mentioning banana as a silent killer. The book is on Chinese medicine. The author says that banana has a 'cold' property in Chinese medicine. If people eat a lot of banana, it may lead to some bad effects, including leading to mild depression.

For a period of time, banana is the only type of fruit that I ate, persuaded by a friend saying that banana is good for the brain, it provides lots of energy to the body. And then during that period of time, I did feel mildy depressed, under a lot of stress. Luckily I stopped eating banana after that, although I didn't not the link yet at that time.

So today, I am writing this blog entry to caution people who like to eat a lot of bananas. This seemingly harmless fruit may cause depression!

Of course, the effect will still vary a lot from individual to individual. As a general rule, people who are weak, prone to flu/cold, should minimize their banana intake.

Will I eat banana in the future? Yes, I will still eat banana, but only small quantities, and only from time to time.

The Weekend Reviewers

I have this constant fear of my photos being reviewed on weekends. It seems that there are many part-time reviewers who work on mainly on weekends. They are a lot more strict, or more peculiar about rules.

For example, I have many photos of the same model from the same shoot accepted. Then there are two occasions that photos from that same shoot was rejected simply because the model release was not to their liking. One insisted that I must use the model release from that particular microstock site, although my general purpose model release had been accepted by the same microstock site time and again.

This weekend reviewers phenomenon does not apply to one single microstock site, it applies to almost all the stock sites. Every site has this problem.

The best solution? Don't get your photos reviewed on weekends :)