Spitfire Grill

Came home all shagged up today and decided to plop right in front of the telly to catch up on some tv time. for the 1st 2 hours all there was were bad movies and sad sitcoms until i flipped to Star movies (i think) and came across this movie which was just starting, i flipped the info button on the remote and it said "Spitfire Grill" as the title.

This is how the story goes... according to the movie description in yahoo movies:

Percy Talbott, a recently released inmate from a Maine prison, relocates to the small, waning, town of Gilead, whose remaining residents seem to have long since grown numb to the commanding countryside that encloses them. Soon the skeptical citizens of Gilead begin to speculate about her background and criminal past and Percy becomes hard pressed to find a room and work. Finally, Percy finds a job with Hannah, the indomitable owner of the Spitfire Grill, and begins to develop a strong connection with she and her niece-in-law, Shelby. Through their deepening friendship, each woman experiences a personal redemption and, through their solidarity, the narrow-minded citizens of the community are reawakened and reunified.

In my humble opinion, no doubt the show comes on as slow paced and somewhat boring, with predictable plots and storylines, I must admit that I somehow got drawn to watching the movie till the end.

The reason? Maybe because this movie touched on a few subjects which I held close to heart and some of my personal values on humanity and the way people should be treated.

When the main character, Percy Talbott finally spoke about the reason why she was in prisoned at the age of 16 (for manslaughter), it actually became clearer that the system they had there, or more like the system we have everywhere actually punishes the victim of a crime after the crime has been committed to that person and no amount of empathy or pity for that person can save them out of it.

Well, what amazed me out of that movie was the the clear good intention of one person's heart no matter how obscure, will prevail even in face of all injustice, queer eyes, bad intentions, deframation and misperception of everybody around you. The movie has taught me, like they sayings of old, if your heart is pure, then fear not, because it will help you shine through, no matter how dark it may be. (This is not a phrase taken out of the bible, trust me because I'm not a christian.)

It also showed of a person who proved herself brave, in coming 1 step closer to the truth and was not afraid to go all out in search of it.

watching a good movie is like reading a good book i guess. I checked out the title of the movie and found out that it was made in 1996, 11 years ago, but the timelessness of the story and how it touched the very core of people's values was what made it stand out even till today.

It also taught me something, which I had actually known about long before I watched this movie. Perhaps you who are reading my blog would like to know about it and get some idea about it.

The person that the main character worked for in the movie had wanted to sell off her diner for a very long time, but since that place which the movie portraying was a small, waning town, nobody had any money to buy it, let alone want to run it.

Then Percy Talbott suggested that they run an essay writing contest, the participant had to write in an essay stating why Hannah should give the diner to him/her, send a $100 note with the essay and post it to them. The winner would get to diner for free.

Percy got to calling her old prison mates who works on the telephone on some Customer Service job at the prison to do some PR work on the essay contest to be published in the papers in the big towns in the states, like Chicago, Detriot, New York to get people to sign up for the contest.

Then a first letter came, then another and another and 1 day the post master (or rather mistress) came in to their diner with 2 gunny sacks full of mail. They spent the whole night reading all the letters, had a good laugh or 2 and counted the money, $200,000 in all. which meant 2000 people participated in the contest all over America.

How's that for an idea? Cool huh?

To Nano or not to Nano

Perhaps the most overused word today is Nano. Every single advertisement you see on the tube, on billboards, in magazines and in the newspaper, every second new product which hits the market has a Nano technology attached to it or begins and ends with it. It’s at the tip of everybody’s lips!

A few years back when Apple launched its very first portable mp3 player, I remembered it being one of the coolest gadgets that ever hit the market. A small portable device no bigger than your average mobile phone and yet you could store a few thousand songs in it. Before it came along, you would need to carry around your trusty old portable cd player or if you were one who resisted change, a portable cassette player!

And just when I was getting comfortable with these cool looking white IPODs with its roundish dials, Apple shocked the world with yet another first in the market, the IPOD Nano.

Then LG came along and introduced a flip phone with some NANO technology that prevents bacteria from sticking to the surface of the mobile phone so that you can pass your mobile around for all your buddies to use without contracting some kind of unexplainable skin disease one of your buds may have passed to you from borrowing your mobile phone to call his mom.

The South Korean appliance manufacturer hit it off pretty well with the term NANO that their closest rival from the same country even started to introduce washing machines that wash better thanks to NANO.

Shortly after that the market was flooded with something NANO that promises to improve your life, make you live healthier, prettier or a combination of both. NANO cleans your air, NANO purifies your water. Now you can even wash your face with NANO to make your skin so white that you can go on photo shoots feeling more confident. The list goes on and on. Can you imagine your life in the world today if it wasn’t for NANO? Now you wouldn’t want to sound outdated or unfashionable to be caught red handed using some product that didn’t scream NANO would you? And when I thought the worst was over, last week a television advertisement screamed out NANO toothpaste!

Back in the day, I remember my first encounter with the word NANO. It was a sour throat drop that came complete with its very own catchy jingle and animated advertisement. Come to think of it, wasn’t NANO a candy? How could a term that started its life as a humble food item catch on to become something so popular?

I’m no nuclear scientist or bio chemist but thanks to Google, I pretty much got a chance to understand a little about what the NANO technology.

With my new found knowledge, I reckon it would be profitable for me to come up with a NANO something that would make me a rich fellow and I would have to work again for the rest of my life. Now, what it would be, I wonder. Looks like I got to get cracking soon. I wouldn’t want to let the big corporations earn all that money with NANO would i?

Let me see, what other words that began their lives oh so humbly and grew up tol become superstars in the marketing. What about BIO? Yeah, that’s classic isn’t it? Others include PLASMA, OLED, ION, Platinum, Titanium.

What an accident it was

About half an hour ago, while returning from the gym at around 11pm, there was an abnormal crawl along the Grand Saga highway right after the Batu 9 toll plaza. I thanked my lucky stars I didn't drive and was on my motorcycle. Whisking past the jam, further up front there it was, drink containers, cups, plates strewn everywhere right in the middle of the highway. Apparently the driver of the van, returning from it's pasar ramadhan stint somewhere in KL was too eager to get home. With a broken windscreen, 2 flat tyres and a smashed front, I guess it must have hit something hard but the best part was, I didn't even see what it hit. A kancil perhaps.

Funny to say that, that was the exact area where an accident occurred just a few hours ago and the vehicle involved in that earlier accident was still there, a motorcycle. Leads me to think that that area is really 'black' for motorist. Maybe it's the landscape or feng shui of that area. I dunno. But it seems like accidents tend to happen there very often. Or the reason why accidents like this happen so often this month is because of the chinese 7th month Hungry Ghost festival.

I dunno why I am musing about this, but I just felt like I should share with someone about it. It might save someone's life.