new kid on the blog

I watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and it was fantastic! I highly recommend this movie to anyone who grew up with them as your heroes - in a half shell no less. They have finally put back the "ninja" in the ninja turtles, and having gone through the cuddly cute versions of the TV cartoons and life action movies, trust me, this movie is what the ninja turtles are really about. With kickass camera work, and one of the best fight choreography I had ever seen in an animated film,reminiscent of the Hong Kong action films of the 1990s, which makes it perfect. Particularly love the scene with Michelangelo skateboarding through the pipes and tunnels of the sewers.

What’s not too nice is the voice of Zhang Ziyi as "Karai"  which actually sounds quite bad. And that Michelangelo can’t be seen using his nunchakus due to censorship while Leonardo and Raphael got more "fighting screen time" with their actually deadlier weapons, the Katanas and the Sai. It would have been fun seeing Michelangelo spinning the nunchakus like Bruce Lee, then goof up in a true Michelangelo fashion. Oh well, we can only hope for the sequel, which I’m rather sure they are making.

The characteristics of the 4 turtles we are so familiar with stays the same, Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael’s cool but rude and Michelangelo’s the party dude. The dynamics of their relationship has very much matured from their heydays and it’s rather nice to watch.

Do catch it if you can.

Cowabunga!

Was a men’s night out with Sirfan, Nanda, Me and a bunch of Bruce Lee DVDs over the weekend. Great food, good company, good entertainment, what more can a man ask for?

A blooper of course!

Now this is a screenshot of a an extra in Enter The Dragon, one of Bruce Lee’s movie. This is, well, one of those blink or you’ll miss moments. The scene was typical, a major fight scene involving loads of people. As the camera pans, this extra was spotted lying quite comfortably.

Picture was take by Sirfan off the TV set.

It’s great to see the Colex company placing recycling bins in neighbourhoods, and even greater to see that on most days I pass by, the bins filled to the brim.

I think people closer to my age remember those HUGE recycling bins in MRT stations that were flops because they either filled with rainwater, vandalised or the wrong types of waste in the wrong bins, and they were just too far from most people’s houses for them to lug their waste all the way. Then they took it away (of course, "they" being those who do such stuff like upgrading lifts and renovating side walks). And we were left with no where to recycle except the karang guni man who only collected the stuff that can earn him money, which means thousands of glass and plastic bottles going down the drain, or, well, chute.

Then there was one time some smart alec from NUS who, sponsored by some smart alec rich company, made one of those jackpot machines where you pop in a drink can and the machine randomly gives you a price that most of the time said "Sorry please try again". Nice idea, until people started picking up drink cans for that sole purpose of hitting the jackpot and of course, like all fun gadgets like that, the novelty wears off  and these machines joined the Tamgochis in "Novelty Products of Yore Heaven". That, and the public went away still not the least bit educated about the virtues of recycling.

All these while The Body Shop offered a $1 discount for bottles that you return to be refilled, and also being only place in town that actually collect back used bottles, but only their own.

So now that Colex had given neighbourhoods nice recycling bins in the vicinity, there is now absolutely no excuses for anyone not to separate their rubbish into paper/plastic and glass/aluminium cans or to sell those you can to the karang guni man. Also be conscious of the amount of plastic bags and packaging used, so as to reduce the amount of wastage as far as possible.

Thank you.