Sunday, August 27, 2006
I've watched Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane stars Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent who is escorting an eye witness on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles when a crimelord sets in motion the release of hundreds of deadly snakes on the commercial airplane in order to eliminate the witness before he can testify against him. The FBI agent must protect his witness while banding together with the pilot, frightened crew and passengers in a desperate attempt to survive.
It’s quite stupid, though the effects are quite well-done, the plot with thin and absurd. I don't profess to be an expert on snakes (an ophiologist), but as far as I know about these reptiles, here are some scientific reasons that I've come up with why SNAKES ON A PLANE cannot occur on a modern jet airliner. 3.5/5
1. To smuggle that enormous amount of snakes onto the plane would take a gargantuan task involving dozens of corrupt airport officials, cargo handlers, security guards, vehicles, preparation, transportation without arousing any suspicion. All cargo are scanned and logistics accounted for in a modern airport.
Let's assume they did manage to smuggle that many on a plane. (highly implausible)
2. The snakes on the plane are all completely different species, coral snakes, cobras, black mambas, spitting cobras, vipers, rattlesnakes, sidewinders and copperheads were some of the snakes that I recognized in the movie. (Those green vine snakes are not poisonous at all). Out of the approximately 2,700 species of snakes on the planet, less than 600 are poisonous. The majority of snakes are either non-venomous or possess venom that is not harmful to humans. Snakes are a reclusive species of reptiles and cannot co-habit. Almost all snakes are solitary and putting so many snakes together in one crate will get the snakes aggressive and they will start attacking each other instead. Snakes maybe immune to their own venom. But not the venom from other snakes.
Let's assume the snakes don't attack each other. (Impossible)
3. Most poisonous snakes are generally from tropical countries, however, the cargo hold in the plane is very cold, and snakes are cold-blooded reptiles and require heat for metabolism. The cold cargo hold will make the snakes sluggish and lethargic, not agitated and aggressive like the way they were portrayed in the movie.
4. Being cold-blooded, snakes would prefer to curl up in a dark secluded place, preferably warm area, and not roam about the whole plane attacking everyone and everything.
5. In the movie, it is explained that the aggressiveness of the snakes are heightened by use of pheromones. Pheromones enhances sexual activity, not make them aggressive. Each snake is receptive to a specific pheromone from that particular species, there is no "universal" pheromone that excites all the snakes altogether. A Viper pheromone scent will have no effect on a cobra at all and vice-versa. The crate had all sorts of snakes, the perceived pheromones will only work on a few snakes or not work at all, not all of them.
6. Snakes do not normally prey on people, but there are instances of small children being eaten by large constrictors in the jungle. While some particularly aggressive species exist, most will not attack humans unless startled or injured, preferring instead to avoid contact. However in the movie, they attacked everyone and everything without provocation at all.
7. One of the most absurd things in the movie is that a Boa Constrictor was introduced and it swallowed a Chihuahua and a grown man, Boas can never co-habit with the other poisonous snakes! It’s weight would have crushed the other snakes to death or it would have been bitten to death as well.
8. The cargo hold is UNDER the passenger cabin, how did they get into the upper decks and into the ventilation shaft? They'd had to climb up vertically and an aircraft fuselage is sealed compartmentally, okay lets assume they managed to do that, then why didn't they get into the top-most deck? The Business class section. The pilot cockpit is at the top deck, how did the snake get in there without going past the business section where the witness was? That would mean the snakes have had to travel the entire length of the aircraft from the cargo hold all the way to the front and top just to attack the pilot.
9. There were no snakes in the business section, even though there were snakes everywhere and in the cockpit. Did the snakes magically teleport from the cargo hold into the cockpit, by passing that section?
10. There was one scene where the snakes attacked the honey-mooning couple in a group! (Extremely impossible), snakes never attack in packs or collaborate. They are solitary creatures, and will only attack when preying or feeling threatened, and don't attack like hyenas.
I am sure there are more reasons why you won't find snakes on a plane.=) For all those with ophidiophobia (a fear of snakes), have no fear. All airport items are screened. Reptiles, weapons, pyrotechnics and animals will be detected.
Documented deaths resulting from snake bites are uncommon in most areas of the world. Only about 450 species of snakes are venomous (with only about 250 that are able to kill a human), and among the 7,000 Americans bitten by venomous snakes every year, fewer than fifteen die (lightning kills more).
Later I caught THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA at Bugis.
A drastic improvement on Lauren Weisberger's bestselling novel, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA showcases Meryl Streep's knack for combining humor and sadness. While likely inspired by notorious VOGUE editor Anna Wintour, Streep's Miranda Priestly (head of Runway magazine) is entirely her own creation. Sporting silvery hair, a vast collection of fur coats, an encyclopedic knowledge of all things fashionable, and a killer smile, Miranda is full of wicked charm. With her mature beauty and commanding presence, Miranda is as fascinating to watch as she is intimidating to the constant rotation of assistants thrown her way.
When bookish Northwestern grad Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) interviews to become Miranda's newest lackey, Miranda hires her not for her lackluster wardrobe but for her intellect. Inside the pristine Runway offices, Andy suffers through a never-ending list of impossible tasks, and is the subject of constant harassment by Miranda's jealous first assistant (Emily Blunt). But to the dismay of her boyfriend (Adrian Grenier) and close friends, Andy slowly finds herself seduced by the glamorous world of fashion, and by Miranda herself. While Andy's transformation comes largely in the form of new designer clothing, the makeover is mental as well.
Great show! 3.5/5 I particularly enjoyed the movie because of the upper echelon of society that the movie portrayed, the super-rich and famous. I remember once reading a book about such societies, how they partied, spent their money and time, did shopping in all the luxurious and exotic locations around the world, frolicking in expensive jets and buying 6-digit clothing.
8:51 PM
Monday, August 21, 2006
"Successful men are those who earn more money than what their wife can spend, and successful women are those who find such men."
If you are nice, there are people who are selfish and illogical, be nice anyway
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives,
Be kind anyway
If you are successful, you will make false friends, and some true enemies,
Succeed anyway
If you are honest and frank, some people may cheat you,
Be honest and frank anyway
What you spend years to build, someone could destroy overnight,
Build anyway
If you find serenity and happiness, they could be jealous,
Be happy anyway
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow,
Do good anyway
Build the world the best you have, as it may never be enough
Give the world the best you got anyway
You see, the final analysis is between you and god
It's never between you and them anyway.
8:42 PM
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Caught
"my super ex-girlfriend" at Cathay today. Breaking up is hard to do, but sometimes it can be downright dangerous. In the Ivan Reitman comedy MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND, written by Don Payne, Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) thinks he's finally found the perfect girlfriend, the beautiful Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) -- who just happens to be the superhero, G-Girl. When Jenny/G-Girl becomes overly possessive, Matt wants to call it quits... but how do you break up with a woman who can fly, lift, cars, and burn holes through steel with her thermal vision? A scorned woman, Jenny/G-Girl unleashes the full fury of her super-powered wrath as she tries to bust up Matt's new romance with his co-worker Hannah Lewis (Anna Faris).
2.5/5 Funny, but so-so. Watch if you have nothing else to watch.
3:04 AM
Friday, August 11, 2006
FIELD CAMP Day 1
Today is the first day of our 7-day field camp, one of the most dreaded activities in BMT. We started with a 8km route march to the field camp site, when we reached there all tired and sweaty, we had to immediately build our own busha. (A small tent) and had to quickly dig a drainage around the busha to prevent flooding of the interior in the event of a heavy rain. Just as we were in the middle of doing our drainage, it suddenly rained! It was a real test of drainage and I was never so interested in water flowing in a purpose-built improvised drain, hoping the water wouldn't overflow into the busha. And the drain worked perfectly fine! We had our first combat rations for lunch. It was surprisingly tasty and can be eaten right out of the pack, and it's just amazing, that it doesn't need to be heated or stored chilled and can be so roughly handled and each ration can last for over 2 years!
After that, the rain subsided and we had lectures and at night we had a stupid powder bath, everyone had to strip totally without light at night in a jungle and powder bath completely and let them check that we've completely powdered ourselves. I found it extremely stupid, because of the way things were done, we had to stumble back to our busha in complete darkness and the journey itself made us perspire already, then in the darkness we had to feel our way in the busha and sleep amidst all our stuff and junk all over the place, hugging our rifle to sleep in the busha. It was an uncomfortable night
Day 2
Today we did a very disgusting thing, we had to change into the wet and dirty Admin shirt that we used for yesterday's road march and it was kept in a ziplock. Omg, it was disgusting, the smell, the sticky feeling, the wetness. Urgh. We did 5 BX on sand and dirt, had a short run then had to camo on for the rest of the day, had breakfast with our rations. Whilst doing so, the commanders ran around tearing down Bushas that were flimsy and those who didn't bundle up their items with the ground sheet had all their items in the field pack thrown and strewn all over the place and we got some punishment for the sloppiness. Then it was lunch and lectures, and we practiced tactical movement, Farid snapped at night because of the busha issue and dirty clothes. It's going to be another long night...
Day 3
Sigh, 4 more days to go, but so far it's bearable. Punishments and all the tough activities I can take, I can even take the sweat, the grime, the dirt and all the training, it's just the dirty clothes that we have to re-wear in the morning that really urks me off. What hygiene nonsense! It's the most disgusting thing ever I've done in my life, at least in NPCC ATC and OBS we had clean clothes to wear after a day's tough training!
But still it's so far a lousy field camp, morale is low amongst the platoon, later we had a OPP test on what we've learnt on Observation and Listening Post test. We were also re-tested on our concealment and listening and observing what the commanders were doing, Lieutenant tested us on this, and later we learnt how to go about doing the range card as well.
At lunch we had a re-supply and I had no choice but to visit the disgusting shitting area, flies were buzzing all about the exposed shit, the smell was ok, but the size of the flies was a real put-off. Then we had a light rain + rest.
Then we had navigation by Day and night walks, it was relatively slack today because of the slight drizzle. We ended the day with a night walk through some bushes, and the Commanders were all very high, they were going around scaring the recruits throughout the night walk and pretending to be a vampire. Haha, practically every sergeant was trying to scare their own recruits, even the fierce ones.
At night we gathered, telling jokes, laugh and teasing each other, and we slept early.
Day 4
Today is our Technical break! Or FO - field Routine where we could shower and have a short rest OTOT. The camp could be quite fun actually if the people in the platoon were more cooperative and helpful towards each other, but so far it's relatively okay. Today we practiced our fire movement when contacted with the enemy and we fired many blanks! It was quite fun and the commanders were throwing thunderflashes, something similar to a loud firecracker simulating arti, grenades or snipers.
So we practiced our Jungle fighting, Arti-drill, Sniper drill, Contact drill, during the arti-drill we had to carry "injured soldier's", and later I had to dig my own shit-hole and shit. Then it rain quite heavily and we were forced to wear our goretex raincoats. But it was useless because our pants and underwear will get wet anyway.. We had our first hot meal in days, and then we go to bathe!! It was only 3 minutes, but that 3 minutes was heaven after 4 days of sweat and grime. We slept early and at 4.30am, I had a short guard duty, everyone was sleeping though.
Day 5
Today we are going to the new campsite, and we did more fire order practice, firing more rounds, and the fun thing was when everyone knew what to do, we did the fire order at section level with sergeant Rohaizad, he was really fun to be with and possibly the most slack sergeant ever, never punishing us, and always telling us stories and spicing our training up.
Then we had Lunch and had to quickly break our busha, suddenly it rained very heavily and we all had to take cover in the FIBUA village, like we were running from artillery rounds, but the rain was very heavy. We were all wet, muddy and our equipment and field pack were all wet, Sergeant Ghany fucked us because we couldn’t listen to instructions and it wasn’t passed down clearly, as a result he kept hammering us. Farid made us do crunches and pushups in the mud.
After the rain subsided, we went for the group battle course, having to do the fire-order in 3-man group level, we waited a long time, but never went for it, it was cancelled after many hours of waiting! The reason wasn’t very clear, but it was because night was falling and there wasn’t enough safety in place.
We wasted a lot of time idling around like stranded idling soldiers in a war fighting in the rain! I had that fantasy though, we only need to go through 2 more days and this field camp is over! Anyway, whilst we were waiting the fucking yihao was really irritating giving his fucking attitude again, finally at 7 plus, the tonner finally arrived and we headed off to the reclaimed land. It was already very dark, and we slept cowboy-style in the open land with stars above our heads, it was a very romantic setting and could have been perfect if not for the wet groundsheet and the frigid temperatures. It was so cold I woke up several times.
Day 6
I woke up early because of the chill, folded my goretex, and lit a small fire to warm ourselves. Then we gathered for morning parade, only to get punishment double-whammy from both Farid and Terence because the company left clothes lying all around, losing items, and what really pissed them off was the shit hole at the last campsite was so disgusting and smelly they had to get sergeants to clean it up and we got fucked for it.
Today is going to be relatively short, the day's plan just allotted for digging, we have to dig our own shell scrape and fire trench and will be spending the whole day digging.
I was quite happy with my shell scrape, it's the size of a coffin just to fit your body inside for artillery drills, but the fact is that, if there’s artillery, you're as good as dead. Mine was nicely shaped and then we rested for lunch, and started on the section level Fire-trench, a far bigger hole to fit 2 men, as deep as a foxhole for the tallest man in the section.
We worked at a relatively good pace and the commanders were happy with the progress of our digging, Sergeant Rohaizad, Ghany and even Terence came in to help, and when we finished with the trench we were all very shagged and tired but we were very happy with our work because we worked fast and effectively. We did everything together and it was very fun and everyone was "high".
After we were done, we took a few photos, all the commanders came to our trench too and everyone was all very high.
At night we did a stand to alert before sleeping. The scrape was like a grave, ironically we are digging our own grave, but I managed to get some rest, it wasn't the most comfortable, but it was okay.
Day 7
I slept fitfully, had quite a few dreams during this field camp, some of them still quite vivid. This morning I suddenly woke up at about 5am, I was uncomfortable but bearable; imagine sleeping in a grave with sand all around you.
Today is our last day of the field camp! So far I feel that our platoon sergeants have been protecting us from the other platoon sergeants.
Anyway, today we did our BIC - Battle Inoculation course. It was like a simulation of war. Live GPMG rounds were fired above our heads, but I found the BIC disappointing, there was no thunderflashes, no sprouts of sand bursting from the ground, no live-return fire, just leopard and back-crawling all the way under the barbed wire. Sigh. But I could hear the bullets whizzing by, which will definitely make you press your body closer to the ground!
We took the tonner back to coy line and spent several hours cleaning our stores and our rifles before we could shower and clean up. I was happy with the way I cleaned my rifle and finished it relatively fast, cleaning it good and clean and all the parts where the sergeants were sure to check, and sure enough I passed fast and went up to clean up.
Oh well, that sums up our 7-day field camp. All in all, I don't think it was very physically demanding. The only put off were the disgusting things that we were forced to do like, doing crunches in the mud and wearing our sweaty, smelly and wet dirty admin shirt the day before every morning for morning PT.
That was really ee-yucky! Never in my sane life would I ever wear a piece of dirty clothing soiled the day before locked in a ziplock bag overnight the next morning. It was the dirtiest, muddiest, wettest week of my life. But relatively okay. Punishments and push-ups I can take... sleeping in wet underwear and re-wearing of dirty uniform the next morning is another thing, and of course we saw wild boars, large centipedes, rats etc. Still what I can really say that it wasn't very tough, several times it was fun, I like such mentally and physically challenging stuff actually, but I like to keep clean at the same time.
OBS and ATC was tougher, but at least everyone loved it, everyone went through it together with the same goals and everyone spurred each other on, that wasn't really the case in NS, and when you get screwed because of someone else's mistake, it really feels like shit.
Johnny and I in full-camo
Yup that's me.
2:53 AM
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Training is getting tougher and tougher. Within the week we had subsequent ST and BCCT lessons consecutively on the same days! Then after that we had 60-120, it's similar to the 30-60 sprint-run activity, just double it. 4 physical activities on the same day! Really shagged, but one thing that I've noticed during this recent week, that there are less vulgarities from the commanders, maybe it's because of the hectic and physically exhausting schedule that we are subjected to. The morale of our platoon is quite high, self-motivated by peer pressure to perform physically at every exercise. Lieutenant Farid has a very unique way of motivation by doing reverse-psychology.
Anyway, almost a month has passed by, time sure flies fast and during this month in BMT, I've met many different people from all walks of life, I've met one of the most nonchalant guy in my life, even when in pain, he would casually mention that "ouch this is painful" in the most monotone and placid verbal tone you've ever heard. I've met whimps and seriously mommie-boys, guys who complain at practically everything. I met overly-enthusiastic guys who seem to have an unlimited amount of energy, I've met guys who are just plain weird, guys who have the childish mindset of a 10-year old and even speak like a 10-year old. I've met guys who don't give a damn about anything at all, selfish assholes, I've met people who are so nice you can't hate them at all, I've met guys who are so helpful, you feel ashamed when they offer their help to you. I've met really quiet guys who hardly say anything, and noisy rowdy guys who say everything.
It's really a "rojak", all guys from all walks of life in Singapore coming together under one roof to undergo the same training. Anyway, our neighboring company is Ulysses, currently a PES-C batch and their training is so lax that you'd think they are in a holiday chalet instead of the Army. Our training is highly compressed, from a 14-week training regime, into a 9-week schedule. As a result, everything is very rushed and our bodies do not have the time to heal from the strenuous training. They only have a 7-week training schedule, with almost no physical activity involved at all.
5:51 PM
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
| How You Life Your Life |
You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside.
You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think.
You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly.
Some of your past dreams have disappointed you, but you don't let it get you down. |
5:34 PM
