Night and Day

Isn't it weird how two siblings can be brought up in the same family, the same home and yet emerge from them totally different? My brother and I are totally different characters. With a third person in the room, we are gregarious and as talkative as ever but place us both alone together and there's an interminable silenceas we both clam up. We just don't have anything in common to talk about. Sure, we do share the same values, the same ideals, the same stands on most issues but character and personality wise, we couldn't be more different. He's serious, methodical and has a hair-trigger temper while I'm a lil more impulsive and my temper's the slow to simmer type. He's an obsessive financial analyst while I'm more.. well, I'm actually quite the spendthrift with an obsession for shopping. He takes months to plan for a trip, scheduling every event into the intinerary with a general's precision while I'm usually ready for Timbuktu in seconds.

One of the things we do share is a love for movies. And since our father, the history teacher managed to inculcate in the both of us a love for history, watching National Treasure seemed like a logical choice for the both of us. Like a modern day cross between Indiana Jones and the recent hit novel the Da Vinci code, the National Treasure tells the story of a treasure hunter who finds mysterious clues in the most innocuous places leading to untold riches. Just like the Da Vinci Code, the clues lie in plain sight, horrifyingly enough in the most public of places just waiting for the right person to piece it all together. Although I had my doubts about Nicolas Cage playing the role of the treasure hunter, Benjamin Gates, I guess he did it as well as he could - although with none of the aplomb of a younger and hunkier Harrison Ford.



But while my brother was talking about the technical aspects of a heist planned by Benjamin Gates, I was thinking of slurping up his sidekick Riley Poole ( played by Justin Bartha ) with a spoon. Now, that's a man I certainly wouldn't mind digging up some clues to find. Perhaps the old Santiago Fort in Malacca hides the clues to Portuguese gold?