A Bit Slow but Still Great

I revisited Where Eagles Dare three days ago.

At once, it brought me back to my days of youth when everything was exciting with war-time movies. Where Eagles Dare was one of them.

Based on a great book by Alister Maclean, this movie continues to excite as the movie's plot twist and turn as it uncovers one surprise to another in counter espionage. Schmidt,a counter agent himself, led a team of elite soldiers to scale the Castle of the Eagle on the Austrian Alps where a so-called American General was held by the Germans, that were trying to extract war secrets from him.

Schmidt's mission, seemingly to save the general, however, turned out more of one trying to flush out who are the top counter spies in MI5.

An almost three hour movie, Where Eagels Dare is a wee bit slow compared to today's movies but it continues to have its share of thrills.

Great acting particularly from Richard Burton (never was Academy awarded), a young Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure.

Reading Tuesdays with Morrie

Yes, I have heard about the book,saw it on the Best Sellers list and all that. But I never did feast my eyes on the book until now,compliments of the PJ Community Library.

It is such a simple book and backgrounds a one-on-one lecture between a Sociology professor, Morrie Swartz and a sports journalist, Mitch Albom. Easy reading, deep thoughts.

The lessons in this book encompasses acceptance, emotion, communication, love, values, family, openness, and happiness. Morrie tells Albom the importance to forging a private culture to withstand the more popular culture of the times which dictates our behaviour and cause us unimagined sufferings as we try to live up with it. Morrie oftentimes quoted his favorite poet, W. H. Auden, with "love each other or perish". As Morrie reaches the advanced stage of Lou Gherig's disease, he described "detaching himself from experience" as the way out of all our sufferings.
Morrie, in his dying moments, analogises death to be akin to a wave crashing into the shore and matter-of-factly says "When you're in bed, you're dead"- his final surrender.

Great book. I will write the important values in greater detail in another posting.

A Runaway Performance

Adapted from a short story by Akira Kurosawa, Runaway Train is an excellent movie, played to the hilt by the protagonist, John Voight as the escaped prisoner Oscar Manny. Pity he failed to get the Academy Award and had to be contented with the Golden Globe for Best Acting.

Through out the movie, one can feel the chilly Alaskan winds,the freezing snow and the madness of Manny as he braved the elements of nature as well as the constant fears he habours as he balances his options between living and dying.

You can practically feel the adrenalin rush watching this movie as Manny met with the ultimate choice of death bringing his nemesis Warden Rankin along with him.

A great movie by Voight besides Deliverance and Midnight Cowboy!

Return to Sender

It has been a long time coming.The payments finally ended!

I started investing in the Australian Scholarship Fund when my daughter was 2 years old in 1992. The guy who introduced the scheme to me was one smooth operator. He promised me the sun and the moon just to get his commission. Being oblivious of downsides, I agreed to subscribe to the fund.

It started innocently with paying a mere initial AUD40 which silly me thought is well within my means. Never did I know that it will move up from year to year. My last payment was AUD150. Then there was the foreign exchange losses and the drop in Australian interest rates that made the fund too small to eke out a reasonable scholarship quantum to support even 18 months of tertiary education (which has inflated crazily upwards)

If I had put the money into a property, it could have given me much more in returns by now. Too bad, poor choice of investment. Gotta live with it.

So next time, if you should be approached by such smooth-talking snake oil sales people, keep away from them. Investing in Bursa shares now is much less risky!

The Invasion of the Greedy Ghouls

'Tis surely must be the season of the hungry ghosts!

I have attended three AGMs of public listed companies thus far and this time I really came into close encounter with a new breed of beasts-the greedy kind.

Who are these people?

Mostly senior citizens. They looked very kind and gentle at first sight. Sitting around and chatting convivially just like ordinary folks. But....when the food came in after the AGM was over,what do you know?

Like Transformers, they mutated into monsters and in a bout of pre-feeding frenzy, grabbed at whatever food that was laid on the tables. With steady and ready platters and well trained hands and fingers, they scooped away curry puffs and cookies, leaving almost nothing for the other less fortunate shareholders and proxies. Really shameless as the scooted away with the loot!

The aftermath? Half eaten puffs and cookies-testimony of greed and inconsideration for others.

Sadly, some of these folks who smuggled out the cookies from the Sime Darby Convention Centre were caught red handed and had to return them to the empty platters on the table.

Alas, what a woeful end for them at the SCOMI Marine and SCOMI Engineering AGMs!