Zootopia

I finally watched Zootopia this afternoon and boy, do I love it! 

At the beginning of the movie, I decided to record my thoughts while watching it: 

Gasping when Gideon Grey swing his claw and left 3 lines on Judy's cheek while wondering: wow, that scar looks real!

Smiling like fools when Judy graduated Police Academy

Smiling excitedly as Judy does as the train going into Zootopia

Look at the amazing details!!!

Love how the ears perk up whenever a parking machine beeps

Little Rodentia is so cute! Love the miniature filter!

Omg, scene with sloths are damn hilarious! *still laughing*

Love love love the tiny Godfather and his giant polar bears Button-men! 

*i'm glad i already watched the movie/read the book otherwise i would have missed the whole reference! 

As usual, Disney's movies rarely disappoint, and this one surely does not!

Books I Read ~ The Godfather - Mario Puzo

I was wandering around Orchard Central after my Saturday morning yoga class and I decided to drop by at the library.

I love love love the new library@orchard!

The design was beautiful, most of the books are new, there are plenty places to sit around and just read. I once was sitting at a corner armchair with floor lamp right beside me and it was one of the best reading session I ever had in any library.

I had no particular books I was looking for so I was just walking between aisles with my eyes wandering try to read the titles each book on the shelves (it's impossible, I know!).

My eyes stopped at The Godfather and I thought, the movie IS a classic, I suppose the book must be good, right?

So I grabbed it off the shelf, and went home with it.

Today is Wednesday (18/5), and I'm on page 58 of total 553 pages in the book, and so far I'm liking it!

There are plenty of characters and names, at first I was worried that I may not remember all of them, but as the story goes on, I found myself able to keep up with all the Italian names. It must be a good sign, don't you think?

I spent few minutes to check if there's The Godfather movie in Netflix Singapore, and I'm happy to say there is! I'll watch it once I finish the book, la la la~

Greatest quotes from the book:

 

"Never get angry

Never make a threat

Reason with people"

21/5

I've finished the book last night and I must say, I love this book! 

I love how it gives backstories of any newly introduced characters so that the readers are able to understand the reasoning of their actions. 

The last 100 pages of the book are just awesome! The climax was beautifully written and kept me on the edge of my seat until end of the book. 

My favorite characters are Vito Corleone, Michael Corleone, and of course, Tom Hagen! 

Just now I finished watching The Godfather movie. 

I would say that Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola did a wonderful job transforming 500+ page book to 3-hour movie. 

As usual, there are some parts of the book being left out (which I think would be revealed in the second movie, such as the story about young Vito Corleone), and it focused heavily on the war of Five Families and establishing Michael as the new Don. Don't expect to see plenty of Johnny Fontane nor other side characters (Lucy Mancini, Jules Segal, etc).

Although I do wonder if anyone who never read the book could follow the movie plot well since I felt that the story pace is fast and I did worry that the viewers wouldn't get the reasoning of why someone did something. I also felt that the story somewhat missed the depth of the characters... 

However as an adaptation, the movie is great in itself and I can understand why it is one of the greatest movies of all time. 

PS1: I saw in wikipedia that the budget of The Godfather movie was 6-7 millions, and its box office was 254.1-286 millions! WOW! Its ROI is 36 times over!!!! 

PS2: I couldn't help comparing it with Captain America: Civil War (since I just watched it this morning in the cinema - and it was awesome!), Civil War's budget is 250 millions, and so far its box office is 991 millions and it will still add up until its final run which can be months from now. Let's say I'm being generous and Civil War's box office is 2T dollars, still its ROI is only 8 times over its budget. 

On The Phone? or Is There Someone I Can't See?

This morning, as usual, I walked from my home to train station, and since long, I no longer plug on earphones because I want to immerse myself into my surroundings (read: overheard quarrels, gossips, etc -> much more interesting than listening to music). There was this lady, maybe in her 40s, walking next to me and holding a pack of cigarettes and what looked like a wallet in her left hand - I was on her left. Then I heard this lady saying something like: "#$%*)(@#)$% Singapore (*)*$)(#@*" - I only caught the word "Singapore" and I was like: "is she talking to me?", but her gaze was forward and she kept mumbling words in Mandarin.

So then here how my train of thoughts worked:

"Oh she's not talking to me..."

"Maybe she's on the phone?"

"But there's no earphone plugged to her left ear... so maybe it is in her right ear!"

Walked slower, then went round to walk past from her right side.

Glanced quickly to her right ear.

"Nothing?"

Turned my head to stare right at her right ear.

"There's really nothing...! But she's still talking... to whom?"

Head turned back. Eyes darting left and right.

"Is there someone I can't see???"

Walked faster.

Could hear she was still talking.

Walked even faster.

"I can't hear her anymore!"

Phew...

K-Pop or Not K-Pop

"Are you listening to k-pop? Oh, alright, don't worry, I won't judge."

A colleague of mine said that exact words to the other day when she overheard music coming out of my earphones. 

I can't help raising my eyebrows in respond of her words. 

Hmm, what is wrong with k-pop exactly? 

I enjoy its catchy tune, bubblegum pop that always makes me want to stand up and dance (or just bob my head and shoulder should the situation not permit...). And on top of that, I think that k-pop is a perfect company while working for reasons that I can't really sing along (since my Korean is limited), and I can just enjoy the tune while bobbing my head and yet my eyes and hands are still doing what they're supposed to be doing - eyes on the monitor, fingers typing.

But anyway, all in all, I think we should learn to understand this phrase: to each his/her own - and live by it.

Being judgmental about others' preferences or life choices can only bring separation, and should someone have different opinions, can we all just agree to disagree?

PS1: I heard Emma Stone is not shy about admitting to being into k-pop. 

PS2: PSY's Gangnam Style is the most watched Youtube video so far. 

To Hair with You~ (and First time @ Hom Yoga Orchard)

Today marks my come back to yoga studio, yay! (after almost one year being studio-less due to being conned by the Russian owners of my previous studio - I suppose when it is too good to be true, it mostly is and we should ALWAYS beware and trust our deepest instinct)

This time my yoga journey began at Hom Yoga Singapore, I signed for their $49.90 30-day trial and I intend to make use of it well. I booked their Hot Hatha class which basically is a compact version of Bikram yoga - same sequence, only 60 mins instead of the usual 90 mins.

I arrived 30 mins early since I want to have ample time to get to know the place. The staff is polite and nice enough, though I can't say they are very helpful. They don't really pay attention on who goes into the locker room - I walked right past them and went straight to the locker room.
The locker room size is just nice and there are 9 shower stalls. Each locker comes with combination lock which I had to figure out myself how to do it, luckily there's a guide at the back of the locker door.

The studio room space itself is just nice, the mats are of high quality and there are yoga blocks provided for those who might need them. However I find that there's a little space between mats (which is actually understandable since space is a luxury in Singapore).

Anyway, I chose a mat near floor to ceiling window and there was a lady on the mat next to me. I smiled at her (really!), but it seemed that she was not in friendly mood. Then few minutes before the session started, there was this big tall dark skinned guy with a little bulging tummy took the mat next to her. And the guy is hairy, like the whole legs are full of hair, not very thick but I would consider quite thick.
For the record i have nothing against any body hair on anyone. I even find it a little strange if a guy is without any hair or maybe only very fine hair on their legs.
But for this special occasion - yoga session, where the mats are quite close to each other, and the guy is quite big, I have to admit that I'm glad he wasn't on the mat next to me.

As*holes vs Idiots

In my dictionary, the word "as*holes" and "idiots" - when used to describe someone - are 2 different kind of people. Although there's a pretty thin line between them.

For example, when someone lied to me and got caught, the first thing coming to my mind was that he/she was an as*hole for doing that. But you see, there's a probability that they aren't actually as*holes, some of them are just simply idiots.

Why so?

Let me tell you my story:

I was living with 2 flatmates and at that time our lease was ending. Since we were not planning to renew our lease,the usual practice would be for owner's agent to look for new tenants, and as mentioned in our lease, we - the current tenant - to allow prospective tenants to come to view the house, but of course the agent must give us an advance notice. 

So the agent called us few days earlier to let us know there are people coming to view the house and all of us agreed on the timing. On the day itself, the agent arrived to our building and texted us. Since I was already at the house, I let him (and the prospective tenants) in. 

One of the flatmates texted back saying that he was in a meeting and would only be home in an hour or so. But then we noticed that that the light in his room was on, we could see it under the door. And I could hear that someone was moving about in the room. Hmm, hmm, could it be that he is home after all? 

The agent and I decided to ignore it for now and let the prospective tenants to look at other bedrooms, kitchen, etc. After few minutes the door of my flatmate room was opened and he was shocked to see so many people in the living room. He then started blubbering some words and let people in to view his room, and in less than a minute, he made some noise and told us he had to leave soon, a.k.a. "get out of my room already!"

That's my story, folks...

In my opinion, my ex flatmate was (and is) an IDIOT. He lied but he did not have the intelligence nor sight to cover his lie. He would have been an AS*HOLE if he were smart enough to observe and/or notice that there were already people in the house, killed the damn lights, stayed quietly in the room, and maybe came up with clever excuse to explain why he suddenly bailed - hey, if you wanted to tell people you weren't home, the least you could do was to make sure that NO ONE in the house notices you there. And the thing about kicking us out of his room in less than a minute, it made him a spiteful and childish idiot. 

All in all, I'm grateful I no longer share a flat with him. In almost 2 years living with him (and his oh-so-lovely wife *sarcasm*), it was damn tiring to have him acting like he was the boss of us when in fact, he is just an IDIOT.

Shower Thoughts

Ok, so I was in the shower, washing my hair, enjoying every trickle of water on my body, and you see, it is at times like this, random thoughts often come unexpectedly.
This time, the thought was embarrassing memories, and there are few that I remember clearly. But certainly, if I have to pick one, this is the winner:

It was Sunday at church with my boyfriend (now ex), it was a Catholic mass and as usual, it was quiet and solemn. After a while I got thirsty and took out my water bottle. I was going to drink it quickly and put it back into my bag. Unfortunately, I choked, and for you who ever choked, the only way is to get whatever choking you out of your system. And so I did... please believe me that I tried my best to hold it in, but you all know it's impossible...
Since I was trying too hard to hold my lips tight, the water just spurted out of my mouth and it got people stared at me. Luckily, we were seating right at the first row of a tier, so there was an open space in front of me and nobody got sprayed. Oh God, even after all these years, I can still feel how embarrassed I was when those people staring at me......