This is the third book I have read authored by Steve Berry, the first being “The Third Secret” and the second being “The Templar Legacy”. This time, this book is about a fictitious organization called The Venetian League.

Like the previous two books, they have a bit of history in them. The Third Secret is about visions of the Virgin Mary and the Vatican and The Templar Legacy, is as it’s names suggests, something to do with the Knight Templars. This book though, has something to do with Alexander The Great, who conquered many countries, a bulk of it is under Asia.

Basically, it’s about a conspiracy between the current leader of the Venetian League, and the Supreme Minister of the Central Asia Federation (fictitious too). The Supreme Minister is this power obsessed lady who has been inventing biological weapons, and intends to follow in Alexander The Great’s footsteps in conquering certain countries near her Central Asia Federation. The leader of the Venetian League however, is more obsessed with making money and discovered a natural source of water filled with bacteria that instantly kills the HIV virus.

The book takes you through the same characters as The Templar’s Legacy, and you follow the exciting quest of going through many mysteries and getting near to Alexander’s grave and the place where the mystical water, also known as the draught, exists.

People get killed, people go missing and people are found. Elements like Greek fire are also inside and it’s a pretty interesting read. Like the previous two books, there are factual elements regarding the history behind the book and it’s all very interesting to me.

You can borrow it from the library!

The movie is actually Batman: The Dark Knight, but I thought it would be a great title to give it an alternative name, Joker: The White Knight, as a tribute to the actor Heath Ledger who died after the movie was done. The tribute is not something that I give out without merit. Seriously, the character Joker was portrayed so well that I feel Joker IS the main character, rather than Batman.

Why The White Knight then? White as in versus black. Similar for Joker’s white face and Batman’s Dark mask. Perhaps it should be called bright vs dark, but I thought The Bright Knight sounds weird. Anyway in the movie Joker tells Batman “you complete me”. In a way, Joker is the opposite of Batman. The balance of good and evil. The yin and the yang. The white and the black, whatever you call it. I find it alright to say Knight since in a way the Joker is fighting for himself, and is quite good at showing how corruptible the human beings are.

It’s a first, but I must write this here instead of writing this after I end off. I rate this 9 out of 10. It’s very good. Kept me captivated for the whole 2 and the half hours. If any movie deserves to be called action packed, this is it. It’s really packed with action from the first hour. I saw the Joker get caught, I thought it’s going to end soon, but it’s wrong. More action comes, more plot, more sinister Joker moves, plenty of chances for the Joker to show his power. It’s really captivating and great.

Jiahao reviewed this long ago and Waikit did too. Read their reviews for more information.

I fully understand why people have called for Heath Ledger to be given a posthumous Oscar. This movie allows him much room to play and display his brilliant acting skills. His portrayal of Joker is so good and so evil that I feel Joker is such a more interesting character than Batman in the movie.

By the way, Batman Begins is supposedly the prequel, but you don’t have to watch it to watch The Dark Knight. I haven’t watched Batman Begins before, but perhaps I should watch it. Time for some Batman maniac time.

Before anybody thinks that the word Strip is something suggesting and not safe for work, let me clarify that this book has nothing to do with Stripping. Strip just refers to a general area in the book, or where the plot is located in.

I borrowed this book from the library and this is the first William Bernhardt’s book that I have read. I must say that he is a good author and I will definitely be finding books that he has authored.

Strip Search is actually of the “Thriller” genre. Basically it’s a detective book, where you have detectives running around trying to solve this mass murder that is happening all over town. The main protagonists are the criminal psychologist (in charge of getting the criminal profiling done), as well as the Chief of Police’s son, who isn’t nomal. If I remember correctly, he is autistic and is super brilliant at mathematics.

The criminal or criminals have been going around killing one person at a time, and every time one part of the body is left at the murder location, like an arm or the head or the skin of the skull or the heart. Everytime when the body is found, it is discovered that the body is branded. Which means the victim was forced to endure hot iron on their bodies which gave them a scar in the form of a letter in the alphabets.

The weird thing is, at every location, there is a particular mathematical formulae written down, which makes the detectives even more puzzled. In the end, the psychologist and the autistic son finds out many things that allow them to know when will a person be murdered, and who will get murdered. A spoiler, the victims are murdered on days where the date is a prime number. Everything is linked to mathematics, and it is a good book to read.

If you have time, just go down to your local library and borrow it.

I watched this movie with Jia Hao on Monday, as part of the celebrations for his 22nd birthday. We wanted to watch either Wanted or Hancock, but I heard from my friends that Wanted is super lame, hence Hancock is was, and I think it’s pretty much worth it, considering we only spent 6 bucks.

Basically Hancock is a superhero gone bad. The intention to save people is there, but he does many things that make people resent him. Everytime he saves someone, he creates a huge mess that loads of money has to be spent. For example, knocking into the directional signs, jamming his legs into the highway, bringing the bad guy’s car onto the roof of a tall building blabla.

And when he saves the PR guy, he destroys the front of the train in the process and all the goods behind the train gets messed up pretty badly. Imaging stopping a moving train there and then with no displacement. The impulse will be so great when the train segments collide right? Ok enough of physics.

Eventually he underwent an image change and a mentality change and emerges as the perfect hero, saving people, not getting wounded at all, but he is lonely. And (spoilers) it turns out that the PR guy’s wife was the “wife” of Hancock. They are like angels, blabla, and when they get together their powers degrade with time.

Hence Hancock got shot, and his enemies come back to take revenge. What happens? Well, I guess you should just watch the movie to find out. If you ask me about ratings, I guess a 6.5 upon 10? It isn’t that great a movie, and I guess Get Smart is a better investment.

I watched this movie called “Get Smart” with Jia Hao on the 2nd of July, and I must say that I enjoyed the movie a lot. It’s a comedy, and a rather lame one at that, so if you cannot appreciate some laughter and lameness in a movie, don’t watch it. Else, feel free to pump your 6 dollars in (student price @ cathay. haha). For a nicer review, read Jia Hao’s entry.

In essence, it’s about this really lousy agent who in the end saved the day, and of course, through out his entire stint he create plenty of stupid problems that made everyone laugh like crazy. He’s a good analyst though, but a lousy field agent. The beauty is that he made us of his past analyst work to save the day, and it does tell us, brains is useful. An agent with brains can be better than an agent with the brawn but no brains.

I don’t really know what to review, but I really had a fun time laughing in the cinema and I think everyone did too because I can hear their laughter. I haven’t had such a wonderful comedy in quite a long time, and I am happy that I chose to watch it. I guess that is testament enough?

7.5 stars of 10.