Departure

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

Welcome abroad Jerry Airways

Please fasten your seatbelt because the plane will be taking off shortly.

To where?

I don't know.

To a

Destination Unknown

Departure

Lately found myself listening alot to Ryuichi Sakamoto's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence because it is really a great piece of music.

Beautiful, melancholic and filled with complete sadness.

If you don't know, the music is the theme to the movie of the same name in 1983. A romance war-film set in World War II starring David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto himself, which touches a little on homo-eroticism with regards to the peculiar relationship between Bowie, a prisoner of war and Ryuichi, a Japanese officer.

The theme song really relates well to this relationship of theirs.

Mafia

This week I caught two mafia-related movies in the theatre.

First was Ah-Long Pte Ltd on Wednesday after such A-Long time.

Yes it did took me so long now that Chinese New Year is over and newer flicks are taking over. But while I have already caught Ah Long in action, they still have not caught that Mas Selamat guy who have escaped for more than a week. It really makes me wonder where he could have went.

Back to Ah Long the movie. Amidst those bad reviews and controversies about who-copy-whose-movie, the show was not too bad to watch actually. It was still entertaining with the usual jokes provided although I still can't stand Mark Lee's Malaysian accent-acting and that director Jack Neo seemed to have shifted his focus to the Malaysia audiences.

And just a few days earlier before Ah Long Pte Ltd was Bangkok Love Story, which should be more of Bangkok Mafia Story instead. Basically it's a Thai homoerotic film about a gunman and a rich man and their love story. Oh needn't to explain any further there.

It's something akin to Brokeback Mountain but is more draggy and choppy in here. And the reason I'm saying it's Bangkok Mafia Story because there seemed to be more gangster-violence elements than actual love ones in it. Every second it's either I see people getting shot, getting into fights, being beaten up or something tragic will happen. Or maybe that's just what I saw when I get up from my occasional winks in my seat.

And I'm amazed by how the two characters can openly make out on a roof and on the street without anyone taking shots of them or someone shouting at them, "Oi! Thiam lah!"

L

The letter "L" is practically everywhere these days. Let me tell you why and what is it about.

(1) "L" is for Leap year,

the once-in-every-four-years event, which takes place today on 29 February.

Happy Birthday to those born this day. To make it even special, the birthday fellow should get itself a Youth Olympic Ring-design cake for the occasion. Afterall, it's a hard wait.

(2) "L" is also for Leaping of,

the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist, Mas Selamat bin Kastari from the Whitley Road Detention Centre. By the way, I heard he walks with a limp. Well if that is so, should not be too hard to capture him yeah?

(3) "L" is for Lydia Sum,

who had passed away last week and buried in Vancouver on Wednesday. Farewell to the Hong Kong comedienne who have brought us numerous laughter with her laughter.

(4) "L" is for L,

the eccentric, slouching pale fellow in the latest manga-adapted movie, L: Change The World. Finally he has a movie of his own after sending off his other partner by putting his name on the Death Note.

I don't know why he's called L, but I believed it has something to do with his "Lan lan suck thumb" habit. He suck his thumb or fingers whenever he met up with situations he can't fix.

(5) And finally, L is for Lee Hsien Loong,

our Prime Minister who recently, admist the Budget Debate, have people around speculating about his health condition. Well the fact is, our PM is fine.

Oh lucki-Lee.