(268) Catching more of USA

This afternoon I have been fortunate in catching a program: 'The World From Above” on Channel 571, Astro. It showcased parts of North Dakota: beginning with the north-west corner, followed by a few towns then ending on Mount Rushmore.

If there is anything I missed the most these eight months, it is this program. I used to catch it now and then while visiting my mum twice a week. My elder brother subscribes to Astro in Peninsular.

One of my neighbours went back to Peninsular during CNY the past week. During my daily 2-5pm viewing, this is the first time I managed to catch this program. I am most grateful to my neighbours as well as their maid for this privilege.

During my undergraduate years in the US as a scholarship student, I visited fourteen states. Now with NASA's satellite technology, I am slowly viewing more parts of USA remotely via Astro. Of course, I have also viewed South Africa as well as parts of Europe through this program. While it is interesting to see other continents, mainly it is helping me fulfil my desire to visit more states of USA by catching more segments on TV.

(261) Liquid gold

I saw a program on Astro about the Italian economy. In the program they touched on the test marketing of extra virgin olive oil in Beijing.

I had a neighbor in Silver City whose cousin's year end bonus in 2000 was a cool million dollars. Of course the lady concerned lives in a mansion in a gated and guarded area with tight security. Of interest to me, the wealthy lady only uses olive oil in her kitchen. She bought different grade oil for different purposes: extra virgin for salads and ordinary olive oil for light frying.

After listening to that, I actually went to the supermarket and checked on the prices of those bottles. What I found out was that none of the different brands of liquid gold was less than two times the price of the normal cooking oil I use. And I want to point out that I am using mid range vegetable based oil. At the end I did buy one small bottle to find out why folks would pay so much for it. Among the many purposes I used it for, it was quite good as salad oil and in cooking pasta sauce. That was the last time you find olive oil in my kitchen. It is not because I don't like it, I simply feel that in order to pay for that as a daily staple, I am not willing to trim my budget to fit it in.

(244) No hope?

Today I was hopping channels among BBC, CNN, CCTV and Al Jazeera. The image that struck me was an interview with a small family in Spain. The father is jobless, the mother is unemployed and the boy is still young.

According to the man of the family, he and his wife could find no job. His parents ended up helping his family. He can see no hope for his son. What a bind for the present three generations! No wonder a fair amount of people migrate from Spain to South America. What a predicament to be in! For urban folks, there is not even land for the poor to till and grow food.

What went wrong?

I can see little human solution. One country after another went into economic crisis. But surely the Almighty who created us has good plans for each country and each individual. We have to turn to Him and He is just a prayer away.  

(239) Human suffering in Greece

One of my brothers work in a Bank. We were discussing about such countries like Greece, Cyprus, Spain, France ... According to him, the problem in Cyprus is unique because it is part of the European Union. While  it might not work for Cyprus to opt out of EU, it is not feasible for the single common currency to keep bailing out one country after another.

He read somewhere that one Greek Headmaster said that there were children in the city that went to school with no food in the tummy. Parents could have been unemployed for at least two years, have little marketable skills and could no longer subsist on social security that have been cut drastically. People who were formerly civil servants usually do not upgrade themselves thinking they have an iron rice bowl (unbreakable). I find urban children going hungry shocking. On our TV screen we see that refugees in Africa were fed. In fact I just saw ethnic Muslim Myanmarese walked into refugee camps on one of the International news channels. Sure, during WW2, my mother's family(one widow with five children) survived on sweet potatoes and other roots. But at least they had one meal daily. My father was old enough to run errands for the Japanese soldiers, his family had rice to eat throughout the Japanese occupation.

Pulling my view finder from Greece to my country, we also have a huge civil servant population. Similarly our debt to earning ratio is not exactly healthy. I certainly hope that the coming election would change deep seated problems like that so that we would not face in the future what Greece faces now.

(219) The safest place for my money

Ever since I heard about Cyprus' financial crisis, I have been watching international news whenever I have the chance.

This seems to be the first case of having depositors being penalized for saving when the nation require bailing out. Even though Cyprus is a small nation, depositors of other nations would be affected. I wonder if those who are affected are from Cyprus or are they mainly from Russia as reported? Today I heard from a middle eastern TV news that badly affected depositors are given Cyprus citizenship.

When I mentioned the last bit to my husband, he doubted any foreign depositors would want to live in Cyprus with the current financial climate. Now I see why Asians prefer to convert liquid wealth of a certain strata to real estate. A piece of land or a building could not be taken away by any financial institution as easily. Real estate in prime sites would appreciate over a period of years too.

I have long ago given up my career to bring up my children. Since my husband had a business failure, I have learnt to live a simple life. Whatever little surplus I have, I give away to God's work. In that sense, I don't have to worry about any authority taking away my wealth in any local or foreign bank. God is no man's debtor, the bread I have cast over the water did come back in ways I earlier could not imagine.

(216) Popularity

I had a chat with my first cousin who works in advertising and is really into psychology. According to her, when we want to relate to the masses, it is really easier to be a little of an underdog so that many people would feel like they would give us helping hands. On the other hand, it is not really wise for a public figure to portray a perfect image.

For example, she asked me if I like Nicole Kidman. Well! I am not really big on super stars. I think she looks more than beautiful in some of her shows. Can't say I am a follower of hers but then again I have nothing against her. My first cousin said that while there are lots of people who adore her yet there is a group of people who dislike her and think she is stuck up. Apart from the media portrayal and the many movies, these people don't have anything else to judge her on. Therefore, it is all a matter of perception. My first cousin has this theory that because Nicole is near perfect, mortals cannot accept perfection. It may not be envy either, some very ordinary women may not even want to trade places with her.

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting,  but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30

(123) Vietnamese Brides in Korea

The other day I watched TV with my niece and caught one documentary. My niece loves all programs Korean. She went to Korea on a package tour with her family and the following year went to another part of the country with her own savings.

In that program, we followed the lives of 8 Vietnamese young ladies who went to Korea to marry their husbands. Among the 8, I remember one supermarket cashier, 2 restaurant workers, one farm assistant and one or two homemakers. It was quoted that for the past few years, an average of 7,000 over Vietnamese single ladies went to be married to Korean men.

I can't help but wonder, if so many women left Vietnam to get married to foreigners, would that mean that Vietnamese men have to seek wives from Laos or Cambodia? Well, perhaps in a stable society in my country, I see more unmarried women than men, especially from age 35 to 50. Let us say that mutual friends match make, a few of them get married to farmers in outback Australia or some lonely bachelors in Calgary, Canada. Such social "tampering" would not change the demographics much here.

But imagine that in a Vietnamese village of 5000 population, we have 80 girls who chose to marry some far off Koreans; suddenly there is a shortage of marriageable age women. Would that mean that some men remain single longer? Or widows get good marriage offers? Or maybe some men might end up marrying women a few years older than them? Would it simply mean that single men have to court women a few villages away?

(86) Krippendorf's Tribe

This is a comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss and Jenna Elfman.

It is a rather silly but entertaining show! With the help of a lady colleague and his three children, Professor Krippendorf run rings around the academic machinery. It goes to show that push comes to shaft, people are very creative in staying a few steps out of prison.

The meek and mild Krippendorf seemed to attract high dynamic and brilliant woman. I suppose it is natural that opposites attract. The first Mrs K was obviously quite a brain made quite a name for herself and her husband. It does look like the next partner is quite talented in attracting recognition and money. It is just as well that the show ended at the success pulled off by some grand standing acting in Papua New Guinea as a favor requested by Krippendorf's eldest daughter.

(80) How to Lose a Guy in 10 days

Believe it or not, I have watched this movie twice. The first time my husband was watching it and I was attracted to the clothes those women employees were wearing in the magazine office. A few months later, I could not even remember how the show ended.

One day I could think of nothing to blog, and my husband suggested this movie. The second time round, I noticed more things in the movie. Here I confess that I am late bloomer in AV communication. I suppose not many people my age grew up in homes with no television. My eldest brother used his year end bonus to buy us a tiny TV--our very first idiot box. I was 19 when I finally could watch my first TV show in the comfort of my own sitting room.

Most of the time I would prefer a book than a movie. Interestingly, watching this romantic comedy second time round, I actually enjoyed it more than the first time. It is not that fantastic a movie, certainly not any block buster. It is funny that I thought of quite a few of my dorm mates whom I have not thought about for at least twenty five years. My husband said it is the nostalgic factor. Lately I hardly met anyone American, at least not any frivolous and fluffy ones or the sharp and bitchy type. I have to ask my husband what exactly happened at the end, he explained the bit about calling her bluff. She was trying to run away from her own mistake, not exactly because of the interview in Washington. You see, I have worked for decades on vocab, grammar, comprehension,writing and even public speaking, my listening ability is still below average. By the time my movie buff son was 9 years old, he was the one who could tell me what was just said on screen when I froze the screen. That comes from learning English as the 5th language/dialect at the age of 9(that is me). I still prefer to watch any English movie in a public cinema because of the availability of subtitle in the national language.

(60) I'll be Home for Christmas

This version is a hilarious comedy from Walt Disney starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

From the few Christmases I spent in USA, I know this is the type of show a clan of 20-30 would be watching when they were snowed in around the Christmas-New Year holidays. It is a show that the old, the young, the mothers, the grandfathers, the romantic as well as the cynics could find something to relate to.

From a tropical paradise, such a movie evokes the nostalgia in me. I will probably never be in a temperate country again in the Christmas season, not that I do not want to. It is simply prohibitively expensive to fly during such super peak season. So it is just as well I could relive the best of Christmas through the TV screen.

I love the different geographical regions Thomas traveled through. A lot of the mountain scenery, I have not had the chance to see in person. Whatever parts of America I have been to, I am most grateful that as a student people have driven me through hundreds of miles to take me to their homes. It is a privilege that I live in the digital TV signal age that I get to see Sky TV showing me panoramic views of Colorado and the New England. I am well content with armchair traveling.

I like the theme of this movie: that Christmas is about what we can give others, whether it is a present, time, a helping hand , attention, company, love, or money. Being a taker pales in comparison.

(58) My Beautiful Brain

By chance I watched part of this TV program: scientists examined the MRI brain images of two women. One was a woman chess grand master and the other is a color blind woman.

Interestingly, both women made use of the same parts of the brain for different purposes: for the chess prodigy - pattern recognition to decide how to make the next move and for the color blind woman - to recognize faces of people without the help of hair and eye color.

This chess prodigy was trained by her father since she was very young. By the time she was six years old, she spent up to six hours a day memorizing chess moves. Apart from the unique ability to be able to focus at such a young age, she was disciplined and happened to have a father willing to spend years training her and her two sisters. All three women excelled at chess as adults.

Elizabeth and I laugh at ourselves, we are both not very good at facial recognition. No wonder we are neither any good in chess.

(45) Desire Under the Elms

This is a black and white classic based on the play by Eugene O'Neill. Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, and Burl Ives starred in it.

I don't know much about the rules of inheritance in New England in the eighteen hundreds. Could it be that a woman in those days were not allowed to own land legally? Why was it that Eben did not inherit the farm outright from his mother? After all, it was said that the farm originally belonged to the mother. The right to the farm led to much unhappiness of mother and son. After the mother passed on, Eben waited anxiously for his step-father's death. Much to his consternation, his step-father remarried.

The entire story runs around the farm. The deceased woman was adamant that the farm should go back to her natural son. But I suppose she had no way to enforce it. Eben lived and worked on the farm waiting to regain its ownership, which he saw as his birthright. The step-father gloried on being able to control his two biological sons and one step-son. The young and attractive step-mother married the old man because she wanted to eventually own the farm. After the two good-for-nothing sons left for California, the remaining three were thrown to their own devises in one house.

The end result was a tragic ending for all three. The old man was left all alone to live out the rest of his life. The step-son and the step-mother were to be jailed for the baby's murder. Instead of being a blessing, that farm turned out to be a curse to this patch-work family.

This was the Hollywood film debut for Sophia Loren. She was striking, sensual and extremely shapely.

(43) A Murder of Crows

Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Tom Berenger acted in the above movie.

Among the older Chinese, they would try to prevent any of their descendants from becoming criminal lawyers. The main reason given is that a good criminal lawyer would find ways to acquit accused who are actually guilty, thus perverting justice.

In this movie, a New Orleans attorney Lawson Russel found it difficult to defend a remorseless man and recluse himself from a heated case. As a result of that, interested parties managed to disbar him. He went to his father's beach house and planned to write his first novel. Alas, it was not everyone's cup of tea to become the next John Grisham! In a clear cut case, he was set up with a story which he was greedy enough to publish as his own. As fame and wealth came his way, he became embroiled as a serial murder suspect.

Russel did have integrity as a person who said "Enough is enough!" to defending the guilty rich for a comfortable living. But he did not have the honesty not to take a dead man's manuscript as his own.  

(42) Bubble Boy

This show was directed by Austin Powers starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Marley Shelton.

It is a usual comedy with some hilarious moments. I particularly like the scene where the bubble boy flown in an arc across the air and ended up in a railway carriage. What are the chances that that very carriage was filled with a number of very odd looking people who starred in shows in a circus?

Then there was a bunch of clean cut youth dressed in white who were on the way to the desert to find enlightenment. Imagine these supposed nice people dropped him out of their bus in the desert while a mean looking biker went out of his way to help the hapless young love sick man to travel to Niagara Falls to stop his beloved in marrying the wrong man. Interestingly life is often like that, help may come from the most unlikely places or people when all hope seemed to be gone!

(40) Roman Holiday

This is a 1953 black and white film that was nominated for ten Academy Awards. Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn starred in the light and fun show. The latter captured an Oscar for portraying a modern day errant Princess.

There have been lots of other beautiful movie stars since Hepburn. Yet there is a refreshing innocence about her that I seldom see on silver screen these days. My husband commented on her impossibly tiny waist accentuated by the blue and white outfit she ran away in. I suppose she was really slender, as well as that calf-length skirt made of meters of material made her look thinner.

Millions of young girls dream of becoming a princess through marriage. A girl from Australia was married into a European court. Kate Middleton wed Prince William in a widely watched ceremony of  the decade. Yet I suppose the dream of a well brought up Her Royal Highness is to be free for 36 hours. In this show, she grabbed it. After the much dreamed about freedom, she could return to her royal routine. It is like she had the cake and ate it.

(20) Nikita

This is a French film by Luc Besson.

Nikita killed a cop in a failed robbery. After her trial, the authorities faked her suicide and took her to a special school for operatives. After three years of training, she was set free to be an agent. She found love and did well for quite a while. Then an assignment involving getting espionage info from a foreigner went awry, she had to run to save herself.

That led me to think, not every person could live a double life. One could pretend to be someone else successfully for a little while. But how do you keep the one nearest to you from knowing anything long term? Perhaps a male who is few with words and usually behaves like a loner might be able to pull it off with a good and discreet woman as his wife. Nikita certainly could not do it. Her fiancee found out about her secret life before the botched attempt at the embassy.

(995) A View to a Kill

This is the last movie made by Roger Moore. As in all Bond movies, action is aplenty and we have at least one very beautiful woman.

To think that one person could envision using sea water at pressure to worsen a fault line, adding lots of explosive to cause a huge explosion which would lead to a devastating earth quake, that is truly evil. This is done to level Silicon Valley so that the villain and his cohorts could have a monopoly of the IC market. Enter James Bond to tail him from Paris to San Francisco.

We see palatial buildings supposedly in France. The actual action happened in an underground mine. As in the ultimate villain, all his hired hands were either drown or machined gunned to death. He thought whoever remaining would die in the detonation, but James and his chief assistant moved the detonator far away from the explosives. The aerial combat over the Golden Gate Bridge was very realistic.

I suppose it is difficult to fight against age, in some scenes we can see the lines deeply etched on Moore's face. Not only female has limited shelf  life in the movie industry, men can  only look good for so many years to play the role of 007.

(740) Into the night

I am not really a movie fan. The only name I could recognize on the cast was Michelle Pfeiffer. My husband picked up a bunch of legal VCD on sale. This movie reminded me of Date Night: a married couple that went on a date took someone's reservation and ended up being hounded by a bunch of killers.

The only difference is that Ed was not married to Diana. He went to the airport one night when he could not sleep and saved Diana's life by being at the exact place at the exact time. The story became more and more bizarre as it rolled along. I enjoyed looking at the expensive and decorative places Diana went to seek help or Ed went to negotiate. Those places even beat the hotels shown on TV where the rich and famous frequent.

From a few crown jewels, it exploded to real estate. From four Iranian gangsters, some French men became involved. The body counts mounted as the chase gotten  more exciting. Guns were shot, knives were stabbed. Then miraculously Ed and Diana were rescued by a team of people they did not know. A whole lot of clean money was given for them to start anew. Ed chose to go with Diana. After all, that beats a dead end job and a cheating wife.

(738) The Manchurian Candidate

It is a plausible story. We all know that most of the wealth of our world is concentrated in the hands of less than twenty families. With wealth, folks acquired power. Elections take a lot of money to run. Air time on TV are particularly expensive.

An entire platoon of army were kidnapped in Kuwait and things happened in the empty dessert. Two privates died and the son of a well known senator was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Later he was well placed to become the Vice President candidate. Strange things happened to every member of the platoon. One died naturally(disease). Another in an accident. Yet a third killed himself... One common after effect was that they all have dreams, dreams that seemed more real than what they consciously remembered.

As I watched, it was insidious to have mind altering implants in men's brains against their will. Good men were programmed to kill and to lie with no remorse. Then they no longer remember what they did. Some how, the two member most involved were able to foil the evil plan to put a sleeper or robot in the white house. The show ended with the charismatic young Vice President elect and his power hungry mother assassinated. The crime was pinned on a former assassin, thus freeing the other member to be rehabilitated. The moneyed group was known as the Manchuria Global, hence we have this rather unrelated name.

(725) Surviving a Fiancee

My daughter  chose to buy this video, Catch and Release, because of Jennifer Garner. I chose to see it because of the story line.

When Garner's fiancee on screen died before the wedding, she was devastated. Her guardian angels came in the form of three of her deceased fiancee's best friends. Sam and Dennis were sweet to her. Fritz seemed to be a cad. However, Garner gradually fell for the latter.

As Garner delved into her deceased fiancee's finances, irregularities turned up. He had regular income which came from investments as high as a million. He sent monthly maintenance to unknown persons. Garner found that she did not know her fiancee of six years courtship at all. The death was sudden, the unexpected disclosure was more shocking! She weathered through it and made a new life for herself.

Elizabeth and I enjoyed looking at the many moods of Jennifer Garner and her wardrobe. We agreed that she could act well enough to endear herself to hard core audience like us. I normally prefer to read than to watch movies. I would expect more from actresses than pretty faces and stunning figures

After discussing with Elizabeth about the different stages Garner went through, I have to admit that though it looked realistic to me; I actually had  not first hand experience grieving over a boy friend. Would it be easier burying a fiancee than a husband? What say you?