Last week I went to watch The Taking of Pelhan 123. From the preview it looked like an OK movie, something one could watch at the theater, and of course it had Denzel Washington, so hit has to be a decent movie. An actor of the caliber of Denzel is at the least a guarantee that the movie would be decent, right?

The movie actually turned out better than I thought and kept me entertained from the begining to the end. The movie had a nice mixture of action, a decent and a lot of humour, despite the seriousness of the situation. Both John Travolta and Denzel Washington delivered a good performance and played their characters well. Washington played the role of Walter Garber, a NYC subway dispatcher which was recently demoted do to allegations of corruption. Travolta assumed the character of Ryder, a bad ass, wise cracking, train hijacker with a mission and some serious personality issues. The movie also had a good cast of supporting actors which included James Galdolfini of the Sopranos. The only issue I have with the movie is how it ended, it left me a bit disappointed as I was looking for something more that what it delivered. Of course I won't tell you much about the movie, you need to go watch it!

Overall, The Taking of Pelhan 123 was a great movie, and I would recommend it, I give it a Stunner rating of 4 out of 5.

Michael Jackson Dead!!!

Taken from CNN (cnn.com)

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has died at the age of fifty years of age. The Los Angles Times and CNN have reported that the famous artiste died in the UCLA medical centre after suffering from a cardiac arrest on Thursday June 25, 2009. This has certainly shocked the world and broken the hearts of many Michael Jackson fans as the King of Pop has been scheduled to have several concerts starting in the second week of July.

Michael made his debut on the music scene at the tender age of eleven as a member of the Jackson Five and gained great popularity as a part of the group. He however, launched his very successful solo career in 1971, which saw the release of some of the worlds best-selling albums: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and HIStory (1995). Michael has also been credited with revolutionizing the whole music video scene with his well choreographed and story line music videos. The one that really stands out in my mind and the mind of most people is the video for Thriller, which was the first of its kind. Micheal Jackson has also stamped his personal touch with his own unique dance moves, including the famous Moonwalk, most of which has had a profound impact on the dance moves of more recent times.

But as with most great artistes he has had his fair share of scandals and highly publicized personal life. These events range from sexual abuse of minors allegations, his controversial marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, his financial troubles to his baby dangling incident, and his most dramatic of changing from a black man to white, just to name a few. His escapades has even resulting in him being given the nickname Wacko Jacko. Despite all these negative attention, Michael still manged to maintain high favour in the eyes of his fans.

Do doubt the death of this great, legendary artiste will prove to be a great loss to his fans and the music fraternity. Michael Jackson has certainly made his stamp on the world of music and millions of fans all over the world. Another great icon of our generation has passed.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/25/michael.jackson/index.html, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-michael-jackson-dead26-2009jun26,0,2152435.story, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson,

My Expensive Hobby

For a few years now I have embraced photography as my hobby. It is something I truly enjoy, being behind the camera, framing a shot and capturing the world on the other side of the lens, immortalizing that moment in time. I am still very much an amateur, as a matter of fact I haven't even began to walk yet in the world of photography, just an infant trying to learn how to creep. But I have com a long way, both in my skill level and also in the photography equipment I use to get that shot.

I started out with on of those Olympus point and shoot film cameras a few years ago, I can't quite remember the model, but that was my first camera. I wasn't that snap happy back then though, because as you know, film was very expensive and processing was even more expensive. So I took a few photos, mostly at events such as trips, weddings, etc. Then I entered the digital world with my first digital camera, a KODAK CX7330 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA, which was about a little under US$200. It wasn't much, but at the time it was the best thing since sliced bread. I could take as much pictures as I wanted, I could review the photo, I could discard what I didn't want an shoot again, it was great. And so began my affair with photography.

However, after about a year or so, my camera suffered an untimely accident which rendered it useless. This paved the way for me to purchase my next camera. It was an improvement over the first camera, even though it was still a point and shoot. I bought myself the KODAK Z650 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA, which cost me a little over US$300 at the time. With this new camera, my skills improved and my love for photography grew exponentially. Withing a few years I found that I had outgrew my point and shoot and was ;looking for more flexibility to experiment. And so I discovered the Digital Single Reflex Lens (DSLR) cameras. A DSLR was what I needed to take my photography to another level and so I bought my first DSLR, the NIKON D60.

Since the D60, I have been able to experiment more, learn more, improve my skills, my love for photography has grown and of course so have my photography expenses! Since I have bought that Nikon D60 kit which only came with the camera body and a 18-55mm lens, I have found the need for several other accessories. Hmm, let me see how far back financially I have set myself back:

Lowepro Camera Bag
4G Ultra SDHC memory card
UV lens filter
Lens cleaning pen
55-200mm lens
Nikon Spare battery
Tamrac camera bag
SB-600 Speed light

That's the list of things I have acquired since I bought the D60 kit. Totalling all the accessories plus the D60 Kit, I have gone over US$1000, which works out to be about JM$90000. The worse thing is that I still need quite a few more equipment to grow in this hobby. One thing is for sure this is one expensive hobby to take up. But as they say, love makes you do strange things, and that is so true, because I must love photography to be forking out so much money! But I have enjoyed using my photography equipment and I enjoy photography, so it's worth the money. What's the point of life if you can't at least enjoy even a few things? My acquisition of photography equipment has come to a halt for now as I am now tightening my belt, in light of the recent developments. Nonetheless, I will continue to use what I have so far to improve in my photography skills and to continue capturing the people and the world around me. Hopefully one day I will be able to bring in some money from this hobby, then it would be complete. Yes doing something i love and making money from it. Ahhh, some day...

As usual, you can see my photos at: My World My Lens and http://www.flickr.com/photos/stunnerj/