Patrick Swayze - Farewell

One of the action and romance actors of the 80s and early 90s, Patrick Swayze passed away on Monday 14th September. He was 57, an age where most people are beginning to enjoy the fruits of their labour and retire and hopefully live for another 25 to 30 years. Given modern day healthcare advancement and life expectancy,living till over 80 and even 90 years of age is possible and probable if one takes care of one's health,eating right and exercising regularly. Unfortunately for diseases like pancreatic cancer and leukaemia, the survival rate beyond 5 years upon late stage detection is still quite low.


Point Break

According to newspaper reports,Patrick had discovered that he had late stage pancreatic cancer in January 2008 and sought aggressive treatment to counter in. He once commented that even drinking water had a feeling of 'acid dropping into your gullet' to describe the pain and discomfort.

The one film which defined the genre of action films in my mind was Point Break where he played the bad guy Bodhi. Bodhi and his gang of surfer dudes lived by the beach and enjoyed a debaucherous lifestyle of parties, sex and alcohol. There was no need for drugs because they always got an adrenalin 'high' from surfing and skydiving - and robbing banks during the off season when there were no strong winds, normally in autumn.

To supplement their income, they robbed banks, using masks form the past American Presidents, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Ford. Their motto early in the film was to steal just enough to finance their surfing lifestyle and when the winter came, they would all take a break and work day jobs.So they timed their heists to under 60 seconds, taking only what was at the tellers' booths and not bothering to break into the vault where the big money was as it would compromise their getaway.

In comes Johnny Utah, the top rookie from FBI put on the case to catch these part-time bank robbers and played by Keanu Reeves, it was a case of one-upmanship against each, Johnny the new guy tried to infiltrate the gang and in the process win the heart of Bodhi's girl and then finally join in the gang for their robberies. So their are skydiving antics, surfing competitions, beach football - all Brokeback mountain stuff where male bonding and macho ideals are displayed.

Bodhi found out Johnny was an FBI agent and the kidnapped his girl and forced Johnny to join in on one of their heists, it went horribly wrong from there. They had 2 gang members killed in the heist and during the getaway, Johnny's police mate was killed. Bodhi managed to escape into the desert.

The ending of this film was a classic in my opinion, where, Johnny chased him all the way to Indonesia - 2 years later where Bodhi was waiting for the 'once in 50 years wave'.It was a massive typhoon and everyone was running away from the beach to safety, for their lives. Only 1 guy - Bodhi - was going in the opposite direction. Johnny followed him.



Too Wong Foo

They fought on the beach, and Johnny Utah handcuffed Bodhi. Bodhi finally convinced Utah to let him go to attempt the Ultimate Wave, a 200 foot monster. He told Johnny "thanks" and surfed into the wave. He did not want to die in an enclosed place like the prison where he would get 20 years at least, preferring to kill himself attempting the ultimate challenge and adrenalin rush.

" Get him when he comes back " Another cop told Johnny
"He ain't coming back" - Johnny Utah.

Bodhi swam towards the Big One and killed himself with the wave.

What a way to go.

Thats how I will remember Bodhi aka Patrick Swaze.

My New Ride

My New Ride

As requested by Kannan, here is my new 'ride' (don't really know all these American slangs,I guess it means my car). So tounge-in-cheek, here it is. I bought it 2nd hand from this Michael Shoe something. He claims he was injured during motorcycling and was heartbroken when he couldn't drive it at 300kmh here - the speed limit in Singapore is 90km, well sometimes you can cheat and do 110 km but after than "No panchan". The cops or Uncle Sam will give you and ticket and a greeting "Have a Nice Day !".

The car comes with it the entire crew of Italians from Felari and I cannot leave my house until they change the tyres, and the Lollipop Man raises his er, Lollipop. Apparently he was on vacation last year at Singapore's F1 and Felari had a whole bunch of problems.


As Requested by Kannan

The KERS is a pain in the butt, I don't know about all these gizmos. The steering wheel you must disconnect - I live in a bad neighbourhood so must keep it in the house and fix it in only when I use it. Oh, its a tight squeeze in the driver's compartment and I am still figuring out how to send the wife to work. The Boys love it and you should see the looks I get when I drive it to the supermarket !

My visit to Molineux (20 years ago)

Me outside Wolves home ground Molineux

In June 1987 I went on a tour to Europe, I was considered lucky because at that time, who had any money to spend without having worked a day in his / her life ? Thanks to my supportive parents,they paid the then princely sum of S$ 2,500 for an all expenses paid trip of 28 days in Europe on a Tracks tour group. To cut a long story short, the visit to England was the last leg of it and by that time - 28 days into the tour, I had made many firm friends, who are all lawyers by the way.

My group of 5, 4 guys and a girl, extended our visit for another 1 week in England, and I suggested that we visit Molineux as well as Old Trafford and Everton (yes Kannan, I went to Merseyside too). The visits to the grounds on a typical Saturday were a complete eye-opener and changed my perception of English football forever.

Molineux, the stadium of Wolverhampton Wanderers is located in the city center of Wolverhampton. The city is in my opinion, one of the greyest and ugliest I had seen in my life what with the poverty and poor town planning. The factories and commerce which had been the bedrock of English industry in the Midlands had left maybe in the 70s and what was left was a grey and crumbling city. There were plenty of migrant people of Indian, Sikh, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin and one would not be faulted if he or she thought that they had stepped into an Indian city.

This is in the 80s ; before even more migration from the former colonies set in. I cannot imagine how it is like 22 years later.


Ki Keong says, "come on support Wolves !"

However, Molineux was new then and we went in by the side entrance and managed to get ourselves onto the pitch. We had a great time pretending to be players and running around and kicking and basically having a great time. It was a pity Wolves were playing 'away' that week else I might have had a chance to watch them.


Clockwise top left, Peter Chow, Chong Ki Keong, Simon Tan and Me

A booming voice shouted " Hey ! what the hell are you doing ?" It turned out that we were intruding into private property and no one was allowed on the pitch. The groundsman had a shock when he saw 5 Asian students and he then changed his tune and let us continue taking our pictures and that was the end of my visit to Wolves home ground 20 years ago.

Wolves - My Boyhood Team

Wolverhampton Wanderers

I'll let in on a secret, I used to support Wolverhampton Wanderers during my childhood days in the 70s and up till the 80s. They were then a Division 1 team (before Premiership and the BPL,EPL stuff) and the apart from the nice name and gold coloured shirts which they wore, I had no other reasons for supporting them. They had several illustrious players in their team, notably John Richards (striker in 70s), Willie Carr (Scottish midfielder in 70s),Andy Gray (scored the winner in the 1980 League final against Aston Villa) and Steve Bull (England striker in 80s and 90s).

I had written a post earlier that too many people follow mindlessly sports on TV with out a given purpose in their lives - football is the opiate (opium) of the masses for the English public ; their very lives are so full of drudgery and repetitiveness that the only thing to look forward in their lives to is their Saturday afternoon visit to the pub to get drunk, watch their hometown heroes play, sometimes squabble over the moves and scoring and go home either elated,indifferent or sad.

Furthermore many of these players earn 100 to 1000 times more than the average fan so, the great injustice is that the people who make it happen for the clubs - by watching the games week in and week out - end up with so little to show for it ; in terms of the silverware which 80% of the other clubs win, apart from the Big 4 ; it is once in a blue moon that a Tottenham or Everton win say the FA Cup ; almost never the Championship.

Anyway, now that the Wolves are in the top flight, I check their results every Sunday morning ; its a habit I have been doing since my boyhood days. I am not a crazy fan or even a decent fan but its a romantic notion of keeping to things or practices one has been doing since young.

I will have in another post the days I went to visit Molineux, the home of the Wolves in Wolverhampton, midlands of England.

Tiger Zoo in Sriracha - a Revisit in June 2009

Feeding the baby Tiger Milk - See the Sharp Claws


Me and 2 Cold Blooded Poikilotherms

Roughly 2 years since I last visited the Tiger Zoo in Sriracha Thailand, I decided to drop in to visit the Zoo once again in June, together with my Thailand Sales Manager, Tawatchai.Located approximately 150 km from Bangkok near the city of Sriracha, the Tiger Zoo is an amazing place where animal social experiments are taking place. They have glass enclosures where the female tiger is suckling baby pigs dressed up in tiger coats to camoflouge their true forms.There is also an enclosure where a young tiger is taking a nap with a fully grown dog and the dog is quite irritated by the tiger's playful bites.

Other interesting exhibits are the Scorpion enclosure where the famous Scorpion Lady is wearing a blouse with over 100 scorpions all over !


Crocodile Show

There is the ubiquitous Crocodile Show where the artiste kisses the crocodiles plus put his head into the open snout of the crocodile. There are also Tiger and Elephant shows and the piglet races.


Entrance to Tiger Zoo in Sriracha Thailand

Possibly the highlght of the zoo is the feeding by bottle of baby tigers and one can get up close and personal with the baby carnivores and see the sharp claws they have even at barely 6 months old !

Thanks to Tawatchai for arranging this trip. Its 2nd time but twice as good.

Farewell my Lovely

SDT 298 E you will be missed and not forgotten

Today, 4th September, I sold my car off and got a newer car to replace it. My Harrier is already 7 years and 2 months old and I decided it was time to upgrade to a newer car. Not wanting to spend too much on cars as they are depreciating items, I did my sums and spent about a week checking newspapers and also websites. I chanced upon what appeared to be a reasonable deal in one of the websites for Singapore resale cars called sgcartmart.com on a Saturday and indicated my interest. The owner had put up the ad just 2 days before and we made contact to meet the following day,Sunday. The appointed time was in the morning and I was just browsing. As luck would have it, it was raining cats and dogs and I postponed the viewing to the Sunday evening and everything just 'clicked in place'. The new car was in excellent condition and the owner had only driven 22,000 km which was very little for 2 years of ownership. He admitted that this was his second car (his first is a BMW 3 series) and used this only for his commute to the office in Shenton Way.

He was very sincere in his dealings with me and showed me every single service he put in for the car, even where every small scratch made (at the back where he used to put his golf bags). I was taken by his car's excellent condition and although it was the first car I viewed, I wanted it as I was very comfortable with the Harrier having been driving mine (SDT 298E) for over 4 and a 1/2 years without incident and only 1 major servicing in June to replace the fan belt and spark plugs.

After some negotiation, we settled on the price and it was then up to me to settle the sale of my car and the subsequent transfer. I went back to my old car dealer who sold me the Harrier and the General Manager, a Mr. Kenneth Tan, handled the deal himself. Doing due diligence, getting my income statements, loan application, settlement of outstanding loan with my bank (Maybank thank you) as well as making me a decent offer for my car was all part and parcel of his commissions.

In the end it all boiled down to numbers, so in essence, I will be paying no cash upfront, and stretching my loan to 8 years, will be paying 10% lesser than what I am paying now for my SDT 298 E. So the kicker is that I will need to pay for another 8 years for a newer car. That means I will be 54 when I finish paying for it UNLESS I sell it away before then.

However given the major depreciation absorbed by the first owner (almost S$ 30,000), it worked out than this new car will depreciate only S$ 8,500 per year for the next 7 and 1/2 years as I would stand to get about S$ 20,000 in scrap value then.
So in essence, it is depreciating very little per year and I can get a decent price when I decide to sell it, say less than the 8
years left on the COE paper.


Toyota Harrier converted to Lexus RX 300

My Harrier is one car which is big on space and although not that fuel economical, it is powerful (2.4L enginer V6) and could transport my elder Boy Noel and his friends to school (as a car pool) without any problems. It is a workhorse and required very little servicing. It has a very spacious boot area for storing of bulky items and best of all, it is not too long in length whereby it can fit into my car porch area without any major problems. I recall sending it for service once every 4 months and nothing major as far as repairs or parts failure were required. Kudos to the Toyota Marque !

I am a Harrier fan and that is why I got a newer car as proof of my enjoyment in driving it. The car which I call my Lovely, will be remebered with fondness.

SAFRA Half Marathon 16 August 2009

Please see the Link List (if interested) on the analysis of my recent 21km run.