Beyond eating to live or living to eat, eat to live to practise the Dharma. - stonepeace

5 Meal Reflections (of Mahayana tradition)

1. May we treasure every little bit of food, made possible by the efforts of many.
2. May we have done much good to truly deserve this precious food.
3. May there be no attachment to the good or bad taste of the food.
4. May food and drink only be medicine for the illness of hunger and thirst.
5. May energy from the food be for the practice of the Buddha’s teachings.

6 Reasons to Go Vege

1. Because a balanced vegetarian diet leads to a healthier and longer life.
2. Because trapped animals lead short fearful lives before painful slaughter.
3. Because 1/3 of all grain breed farm animals while the poor starve.
4. Because meat production causes 18% of greenhouse gases and wastes resources.
5. Because wars are karmically linked to hatred from much killing of animals.
6. Because all animals have been reborn as our kin in previous lives. - Shen Shi’an

Reached home today to find that the corridor is unusually clean and un-cluttered. Had to look closer to find that my neighbour from hell has moved.

Now i cannot be very sure because she does not make much noise at night. She always picked weekend mornings, when sleep is most precious, to blast her gospel songs and engage in extremely heated debates over the phone.

I can only confirm this coming weekend. May the peace comes to my neighborhood.

I am going to meet my Suzuki SE later this afternoon to pay the rest of the downpayment plus the insurance plus the first installment for my loan.

I look at the figures and feel sad for myself even though i told myself to get over it and move on. My purpose of buying a car then was to get the COE at the pricing then before it rockets. On hindsight, i did not achieve this purpose.

Perhaps my mentality was wrong in the first place. After i signed on the papers, i hoped that the prices of COE will rise as per my prediction. But, the prices of COE after i signed should not matter to me. Afterall, how am i to know?

Dunnoe what i am actually grumbling here. I am just feeling that i am not someone who can be comfortable doing investing and trading. I get upset when i get into the market or exit out of a position at the wrong timing. This COE lesson for me is very costly, about $3.5k which cannot enroll me into those costly Options Trading seminar nowadays.

Lesson learnt? Morale of the story, em, i don’t really know. All i know is, i need to move on to achieve the inner peace.

I find it hard to use words to describe what i am feeling now. Maybe a picture will better illustrate the point, afterall, a picture tells a thousand words.

I wrote a piece of crap yesterday for this review. Felt kinda bad to post rubbish so i decide to amend the review. Afterall, this show doesn’t deserve something bad.

Ironman is another superhero to spawn from the creative mind of Stan Lee from Marvel. You will most likely to remember their other works like Spiderman, Daredevil and X-men. So what is the story behind the suit?

Tony Stark is a wealthy industrialist who build on the company his father left behind. A playboy who is extremely clever and ingenious, he was captured by terrorists after a weapon demonstration somewhere in Afghans. He woke up inside a cave to find shrapnels inside his body and to keep himself alive, he had to build a small magnetic device to attach onto his chest. Together with another captive, he build a metal suit and managed to escape.

Back home, he was rather upset that his weapons are in the hands of the terrorists and destroying what he meant to protect. He is still a typical american. Vowed to protect the people, he improved on his suit design, built an arc reactor and came out with the Ironman suit known as Mark II.

A final hot-rod red version is Mark III and this is the most familiar colors of the Ironman.

Which version do you prefer? Me personally like the Mark II. In the all silver colors, i find this the most intimidating and fiercest.

What is the technology behind Ironman’s suit?

Gwyneth Paltrow is Tony Stark’s personal assistant Ms Pepper Potts. Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard) is an army colonel who acts as a liaison between the army and Tony Starks for weapon deals. Obadian Stane is Tony Starks company partner who also once worked with Tony’s father. They are the only three person to know about Tony Stark’s secret identity.

A fourth person will know. To know who this person is, you have to stay after the ending credits to find out. This part will also be the prelude to the second sequel.

Anyway, back to the story. Tony’s decision to end the weapon manufacturing division did not take too well for Obadian. Starks’ decision was eventually blocked by Obadian, who was afraid that the company will go bust should the most profitable division shuts down. Afterall, he was the one who secretly sold Starks’ weapons to the terrorists while on the front having dealings with the US army.

I think i reveal too much of the storyline here so lets see how Ironman fares.

Storyline - 25/30%

The story didn’t stray too far from the original while in the attempt to modernize the feeling to it. I feel that for a superhero film, the story take second seat to the visual effects.

Entertainment value - 24/25%

Very entertaining I must say, if you are a fan of superheros stuff. Robert Downey Jr portrayed the character well be it seducing a reporter or ticking off his robots for spraying the fire extinguisher. Its not all the gungho stuff, there are plenty of laughs as well from his one liners.

Cast - 20/25%

Now i am not too familiar with Robert Downey Jr before this show, all i know he acted as Charlie Chaplin before and was pretty well known for that role. Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrance Howard also helped to liven up the show, not that they need to though.

Pace/Flow - 12 /20%

Now this is perhaps the weak point of this show. I watched the online trailer a couple of times prior to the release and i realised that many scenes in the trailer are censored in the singapore screening. Not that those scenes contained sexuality, so i cannot really understand the need to cut short the show. Something is also missing at the end too which is a clue to what the second sequel will be about. Yes, two sequels are being planned before the release of the first.

Overall: 81%

Comparable to Spiderman in terms of the visual effects. Worth buying the DVD after watching the show because it really feel so shiok when one see the suit in action. I am having high hopes for the sequel.