Hey ho, I was going to write yesterday but my keyboard was on the fritz. Yesterday was a great day – woke up, went to work for my 8:30 meeting, found out it was delayed until 10, then delayed again to 10:30. OK. Did some work, contributed to the 10:30 meeting, then split at 11:30 to meet Naoko. Yay. Off to the Maxwell food court )just round the corner from Maxwell House) to eat lunch (ramen), then off to Plaza Singapura to catch a movie – the Return of the King! We got there at 12:45, turns out there were good tickets to the 12:30 show, so we went to that. Got in just as the movie started which we didn’t mind, since we missed all the dull comemrcial previews and that crap. The next show would have been at 3:00 anyway! Shivered and watched in amazed fascination as the incredible story came to its amazing conclusion – wow!!! Walked out in a happy daze, went off to Dubliners for a pint of Guiness. Then went off to Holland Village for more drinks and some food. Dropped by to see Ailing first, but she wasn’t around – her day off. Went to Wala Wala for some fries and pizza and lots of beer! Yummy. Stayed there until 7:15, then got too lonely for Zen and headed home. Gave our darling a bath, and he went to sleep late – 10:15 or so. The keyboard broke, the fan was strange. Hmmm, what happened. Today was a regular day, I took the bus in to work a little later than usual, extended our visas again, got to work and did some phoning and preparing of articles, talking, hanging around. Went to a cool Malaysian place for lunch, very cheap. In the afternoon more work and leaving at 4. Got home by 5, very fast. Naoko went off to her dinner with her friends, I took Zen to Courts to get a new keyboard. That was OK, got one for 18 bucks and it types fine. On the way back from Courts, I drove past the park and Zen and I got to see the monkeys – about 30 of them. They were hanging out all over the place, it was very funny and Zen loved looking at them, saying “monchee, monchee.” Got home and had dinner (dry noodles again), went for a walk, bathed Zen. He fell asleep at 9:40, good for me!
Movie review: Return Of The King – This is quite an amazing movie, not just because it was so ambitous (filming three at once) and visionary (filming in New Zealand and getting better value for money), but also that it was so good. There are barely any bad reviews for it out there. People who saw it did complain about the very long running time, but if you are a fan of the books (as I am) or not (as Naoko is) can still enjoy it 100%. I liked the first movie better than the second, which I found cheezy in parts and a little dull as a bridging film, but this one I think I like even better than the first. Why? Great story being tied up wonderfully, maybe that’s why. I liked all the actors, I liked all the battle scenes, and there was very little to complain about. I probably would have groaned that Christopher Lee’s scenes were all cut, but luckily I knew that going in. I guess if they had filmed the books as they were and included Tom Bombadil and the razing of the Shire and all that then the films would need another 3 hours or so. I had a laugh at some of the scenes with the oliphants – they seemed rather similar to some of the scenes from the Empire Strikes Back with the attack of the ATAT snow walkers. I guess the CG of this movie was better than the other two – looking less phony I suppose. I found some of the Gollum/Frodo/Sam scenes replicated from the second movie – Gollum talking to his reflection in the water, bickering with the hobbits, stuff like that. Weird, considering that the movies were already somewhat over long, why double up the scenes and make them longer? Still, a great movie. I want to see the extra scenes some day, maybe when the full trilogy version comes out and I win the lotter, or something…
Here is a pic of some of our monkey neighbours that dad took at MacRitchie Reservoir.