Weekend De-stress & Distress

OK, I've finally watched THE runners' movie of the moment - Running Boy (Marathon). It wasn't too bad. In fact many could've made a hash out of it. As it turned out, the running story is secondary compared to what I felt was its main theme, autism. The version I bought was the original Korean version with Chinese and English (thankfully accurate) subtitles, so I had no trouble following the movie. The storyline is simple enough to follow anyway. I also thought counting of numbers in the Korean language sounded like Hokkien dialect! As I said, the movie is good, moving at a patient pace. Cho Seung-Woo who played the autistic main character Cho-Won did a good job and is likeable. Some of the marathon sequence brought lumps into my throat especially those that showed the crowd cheering the runners on. I'm not writing about the story as I believe it's been covered adequately by Runwitme and Tey. Cho-Won did realise his dream of completing a marathon within the target time of sub-3. At first, I felt that having the character achieve that stupendous goal time belittles the effort required in training for it - he doesn't seem to have trained a lot except for a couple of mega runs, there's no speedwork involved (at least not shown). But then I realised that this movie isn't as much about running as about the triumph against adversity. A triumph about the human heart and spirit and about daring to dream. Cho-Won probably taught me that, as with our actual races, to simply look at our finishing times (challenging and motivating all the same) is to miss the whole picture.

I also caught up with the 2nd season of 24, by digesting 8 solid episodes in 1 sitting! Talk about marathon movie watching. Pretty gripping stuff so far. As usual Elisha Cuthbert looked simply shaggedelic in tight tops, showing her glorious assets. She also managed to get into one trouble after another. I don't know about you but how many 24 hours (now in Season 4 I heard) that Jack Bauer can possibly bear. All the previous seasons (Season 2 was about a possible nuclear threat in LA, Season 3 was about biological terror) showed him being put through crazy 24-hour deadlines and situations that can make a grown man curl into a fetal position and cry shamelessly.

Just when I thought the day couldn't have been better, the water piping to the rooftop tank sprung a major leak. In came the plumbing team and they found that the pipe transporting the water mains into the tank had burst. To compound things, the roofing on which the tank is seated is not allowing the leaked water to flow down the drainpipe, so there's an inch of water on the roof. I later learnt that many houses had problems with the plumbing as well, so this is down to the developer's contractors. My plumbers had to rig a new piping line from the meter up to the tank bypassing the leak. They also need cleanup the water mess and lay a waterproofing material to prevent further seepage to the ceiling. Total damage to correct the piping and roof? RM2,600!

A setback to my savings for the New York Marathon! Double TNS!