Ah a lot has happened over the past week.

Firstly, my family decided to put Sandy down. My mum and dad brought him to the vet and he passed away quite peacefully. Both my parents were quite sad. I don't know if the other two dogs noticed his absence... they seemed pretty indifferent actually :/

And last Saturday my Ama had a big bash at a restaurant for her 98th birthday. Damn she's old! As the ancient matriarch of the family she has tons of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and when they all come forward to greet her and kiss her she loves the attention . All was good..or so we thought. The day after my mum noticed she was running a fever and wasn't moving so well so we brought her to A & E. Turns out she had a few ongoing infections. I'd say there was too much hot blood in those frail veins. But anyways she's fine now.

Ah and just this week was my branch cohesion. It was pretty fun and interesting. Definitely more than your average outing. We're something like the organizers of this years tiger trail so thats prettty sick. It owns to be the bitch of the division -_-.

Anyway I've been checking out lots of movies over the last 2 weeks. I watched

1) Kung Fu Panda - One of the better animated movies I've seen. Not on the level of Pixar or Shrek 1 and 2 but still very entertaining.

2) Ironman (again) - Love the slick coolness of the show though I maintain that the villain is a little weak.

3) Gran Torino - I really enjoyed this one. Clint Eastwood's chemistry with the Vietnamese boy is really good and the former's portrayal of a jaded, unhappy war vet who unexpectedly gets drawn to the path of redemption is top-notch. The supporting cast could have put in better performances but Clint Eastwood is enough for me. Clearly the ending took some reference from Unforgiven.

4) Cinema Paradiso - I liked this movie a lot. The story of a boy's relationship with his mentor and their collective love of film. A lot of movies are idealized and are not a reflection of life but still these ideals are beautiful.

5) Crimson Tide - I have never actually watched this movie in its entirety but boy it's one of the best action thrillers I've ever seen. Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington play off each other so well and this is the most suspense I've ever felt in a movie. The ending is slightly predictable but Damn the movie is still good.

6) Donnie Brasco - Some of the mafia jargon here really left me bewildered but I really liked it because it shows the less glamorous, gung-ho side of the mafia. It's nice to see Al Pacino not shout and rant.

7) Apocalypse Now: Redux - This was pretty good until the French plantation scene. At that point it became awfully teduous and plain fucked-up boring. My mum and I fell asleep when they actually reached the Colonel's self-made "civilization". We tried to see ending again the next day, we fell asleep again lol. Well up to the plantation part it really showed the damage and craziness of war. Robert Duvall owns as the surfer commander.