i managed to finish the above book by sidney sheldon today at kinokuniya while waiting for K to arrive.ive found a great way to kill time in the future when anyone arrives late haha.just pop by a bookshop and peruse through those books that are on the bestsellers' list and pray hard they are not shrink-wrapped.the reading was done in 3 sessions, the 1st and 2nd being extremely long ones that allowed me to cover 70% of the book. so the final coup de grace was delivered today and im so happy haha! this is the second book i completed in a bookshop sans buying it. thankfully my deeds were done in major bookstores so that wldnt 'injure' their sales much.the first time i did such a thing was way back in JC1 in VJ. went to parkway MPH and read 'the sky is falling' by sidney sheldon too. i love his books. good plot and easy reading. felt satisfied when i finished haha.now i know what to do when waiting for ppl next time.

anyway, wat arrested my attention was the afterword at the end of the book. the plot outlined how this megalomaniac, Tanner, who created havoc using this machine called Prima that can control the weather all over the world. Thus blizzards can hit Singapore at any whim of his, that kind of thing. I thought it was a whole load of bullshit of Sidney until I read the afterword.

In that, he mentioned that the notion of controling the weather was conceived in the early 1800s. and that the US and Russia, two of the world's superpowers ( for russia too? now? in the past maybe but now??) have already managed to manipulate the elements by the mid 20th century.other countries are rushing feverishly catch up. on a sidenote, i was pretty amazed to read all these, coz i've never read/heard anything about it before. he then went on to say that the principle involves the transmission of electrical energy through space. im typing from memory so i may get some facts wrong though the figures are correct; but somehow its pretty mind-boggling to visualise how we can toy around with artificial precipitation which can then have a tremendous impact on the global economies. eg if i were tanner, I'd play around with the weather in china to delay it from becoming a superpower since its now on the cusp of becoming one. i digressed.in 1977 US and Russia signed a UN treaty to prevent the 'misuse' of weather control for hostile purposes. however in 1978, the US went on a experiment that saw torrential downpours in northern wisconsin for 6 months. damages amount up to US$50 million.of course there were consequences to bear, with the TIME magazine reporting a few months later that 'there has been unusual temperature readings due to the blocking of winds over pacific ocean'( smth like that lah,e last part.)

a world leader once said that 'everyone's talking about the weather but no one's doing anything about it'. how true yet false. looks like the usual pleasantry exchange of 'hows the weather' may take on a whole new meaning in the near future. interesting...