Shut up! Shut up!

The canvassing of votes was suppose to start today. But apparently the opposition is succeeding in delaying the start of the official canvassing of votes for president and vice-president. Here in the Philippines, the two houses of Congress do the canvassing of votes for the president and vice-president.

Yesterday, the session was brought to an abrupt end when a congressman lost his cool when a spectator, who was apparently tired of the congressman's delaying tactics, passed him a note saying, "shut up". The congressman was so mad that he asked the deputy speaker of the house to put whoever wrote the note in contempt. His request wasn't granted so he kept on shouting "shut up, shut up" interrupting whatever the deputy speaker was saying. It was all caught on tape and was shown in last night's newscasts. It was both funny and embarassing that our lawmakers can behave like that. Well, at least it didn't result to chair and microphone stand throwing likethat in Taiwan and South Korea.

Potter kids outgrowing roles

This is one of the buzz accompanying the release of the third Harry Potter movie. And I am thinking, so what. Big deal. Among the three principal kid actors, Rupert Grint is the only one that I will miss. He is a very good actor and he plays the role pretty well. Emma is good at playing Hermione, but Rachel Hurd-Wood (Wendy in Peter Pan 2003) is a better actress and can play Hermione better. As for Dan Radcliffe, well, he may be playing the lead role but I think he is the worst actor among the three. I believe that it is only for convenience that he was kept for the role. Harry Newell, John Darling in Peter Pan 2003, can portray Harry Potter better than Dan. Newell does not only look the part but acts very well too. Those who are in doubt should buy or rent PP 2003 DVD. The kids there act very well.

Note: I used my phone through WAP to post this. So I was limited to 839 characters and can only see three lines at a time while writing it. This is I guess how I write without the benefit of being able to see what I've written so far. Hmm... Not bad.

Opposition delays canvassing

More than two weeks after the elections and the canvassing of the votes for president and vice-president has yet to start. This is already the third presidential election since the fall of Marcos, and yet the Congress tries to convince us, the Filipino people, that what's happening in Congress is normal. It's not normal. The opposition legislators are in frantic hunt for ways to delay the canvassing of votes. And at first glance, their delaying tactics seem to work. Short of changing the election returns I don't see how delaying the official canvassing will help their cause. If indeed, as they claim, Poe won the presidency then why would they delay his proclamation? They can't fool me. But apparently they can fool majority of Filipino voters. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all if majority of Filipino voters were really thinking clear, Fernando Poe, Jr., an actor (a bad actor at that, in my opinion) without a single trace of public service or even mere participation in charitable fund raising events like some other actors do, wouldn't be a treat to a trained economist and former senator for the top public position in the land. If they were thinking clear, the biggest treat to Arroyo would have been former Senator
and former Department of Education secretary Raul Roco. As it is Roco is even having a hard time keeping the fourth spot.

Film Critics

I wrote the following in an online forum and thought I might as well post it here. The topic was about film critics, particularly Ebert and Roeper.

I particularly like Ebert's review of The Passion of the Christ. I felt it was honest. And since then I've been reading his review on the movie that I am about to watch, though not to stop me from seeing it if the review is bad but just to have an overview of what I am about to see.

The Passion of the Christ is a very special movie to me. It greatly minimized my once high regard of the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer. Not to mention that it also changed how I feel about certain reviewers. I feel that reviewers will oppose a movie no matter what if they want it not to succeed. Of course it would be wrong to think that critics will treat all movies the way they treated The Passion, but the reviews that came out are particularly telling of how certain critics are unable to objectively review a movie. I know that a movie is an art form so therefore critics are naturally subjective in their reviews. But I tend to forget this and the reviews for The Passion sort of reminded me about it big time. Maybe I was just naive for relying on the venerable tomatometer too much. But what can I say; there are things in life that are obvious to some and not so obvious to me. We live. We learn. Better late than never.

What's the big deal? Well, say you have been using a gadget thinking you know how it works, and it was very helpful and that it help you decide things, and then after say after several years you realized it wasn't working the way you thought it was working. Bummer! Big waste of time.

Notable: Shrek 2 Shatters Records

Box Office Mojo has this to
report on Shrek 2's performance in the box office this weekend:

A fractured fairy tale broke records as it mended a heretofore soft summer.

The widest release ever yielded the biggest single day gross ever, the
highest bow ever for an animated movie (topping Finding Nemo's $70.3
million), the second best weekend ever (behind only Spider-Man's $114.8
million) and the first uber-opening of the summer.

The $70 million Shrek 2 raked in a whopping $108.0 million over the weekend
at 4,163 theaters, bringing its five-day haul to $129.0 million since
debuting Wednesday -- the third biggest 5-day bow ever. It beat DreamWorks'
$104.3 million estimate by $3.7 million, thanks to a stronger than expected
Sunday.

Read the full article

An even better news is that acccording to Click The City, Shrek 2 is already being shown here in the Philippines. Nice.

Absurdity Check: Pamela Sitt

Seattle Times staff reporter Pamela Sitt has this absurd things to say in a recent article:

After last week's frenzy over La Toya London's untimely exit on Fox's "American Idol," order was restored last night with Jasmine Trias saying aloha.

Further on the article she says:

Fans complain that they can't get through the phone lines to vote — the result of local phone lines not equipped to handle a spike in call volume.

Read the full absurd article

Absurdity Check

This is not the first and I expect not the last absurd article about American Idol voting. Her claims are not only absurd, they are outrageous. Here's why:

• Phone lines, unlike Sitt, are not biased. They're jammed as much when the "right vote" (another absurd term being spread by journalists like her)is cast as when the "wrong" one is.
  
• Fans complain. Really? She should qualify that as fans that cannot accept that majority of other fans don't agree with their choices. Because after all, those who voted for the other contestants are also fans of the show.
  
• She would like us to believe that when La Toya was voted off there was chaos and when Jasmine was sent home there was order. Wow. She might as well stamp a "sour and loyal La Toya fan" on her forehead.
  

I don't have a problem with the fans of other contestants expressing their support for their favorite. But for them to spread lies and presenting them as facts in that support is way over the top. And for articles like that of Pitt's to ever see the light of day in respectable papers is a bit dispiriting.

Blogging On The Run

I am writing this blog thru email using my cellphone's
WAP browser. It's nice that I can blog whenever and
where ever my phone can catch a signal. It's limited to
839 characters though, so I have to be extra concise.
Either that or I'll have to resort to txt splng. :-)
This is a really cool blogger feature, very useful and
convenient. It is kind of tiring on my thumb but I like it just the same. Thank you Blogger. Thank you Yahoo! Thank you Globe, my
network operator. Well see if I'll be able to put this feature to good use.

Edit: The apostrophes were removed when my blog from my cellphone was published. I guess the character encoding on my phone is not 100% compatible with what is used in Blogger. So I guess I'll just have to remember not to use apostrophes when blogging from my phone.

Couch Potato’s Worst Nightmare

What else but a television set that tells him when he can and can’t watch his favorite television program. Our six-year old Sony Trinitron TV is having a fit. It just turns black and mute in the middle of my favorite programs like the Survivor: Finale. Sometimes it goes on and on until I get tired of waiting for it to feel good. Sometimes the fit lasts only for a few minutes. I think this is the same problem that our even older Sony TV had. Although in that one, it turned to white and mute instead of black. Like any other couch potato, I of course consulted with Google first. And of course Google found me the right answers. Not only did I find the answer that I was looking for, I also found out that this is a very common with Sony Televisions. The next television I will buy will definitely not have a Sony logo in the front or anywhere else for that matter.

And my PC that has always been there for me when there’s nothing good to watch on TV is having a fit of its own. It takes forever to boot. I found out later that my hard drive is failing although not completely, not yet anyway. It’s just my luck. Tsk tsk tsk.

Related Link:

Sony TV Tuner and IF Solder Connection Problems

Jasmine Trias Moves On To Final Three

I love big upsets in competition. They are the most satisfying games or contests to watch. And last night’s American Idol result show is no exception. Jasmine Trias, condemned by almost everybody (except me, of course) to be the one packing up her bags actually ended up among the top two vote getters along with Diana Degarmo. Fantasia Barrino and La Toya London ended up in the bottom two, a night after where even judge Paula Abdul had trouble finding good words for Trias’s performance.

And like what happened after Jennifer Hudson was voted off the competition, the three judges who obviously tried everything the previous night to let America know whom they want America to vote-off once again rattled off condemnations. Travesty, America got it wrong, holy sh*t. Ha ha ha. I say the judges don’t get it. How can you possibly say to somebody that he or she got it wrong by voting for his or her favorite? Now that is travesty.

Good luck Jasmine. Never forget to pray. Always believe in God and in yourself. That’s all that matters. Don’t ever give up.

What Others Have To Say:

[Jennifer King of RuggedElegantLiving.com]

The ultimate success of these artists will not be determined by phone calls and text messages. Rather success will be defined in the marketplace as people start spending their hard-earned cash to buy these artists' albums. It will be very interesting to watch who sells more CDs: La Toya London or Jasmine Trias?

Yeah, we know that. But the ultimate success in American Idol is to garner the most votes. The judges did say that La Toya has not really improved. That she is still the same La Toya from the start of the competition. I assume of course that they don’t think La Toya is perfect already and needs no further improvement. Interesting indeed.

[Anika Van Wyk of Calgary Sun]

Even more puzzling, LaToya was joined in the bottom two by Fantasia Barrino.

What is most puzzling of course is that why are most columnists or journalists do not know that there is no such thing as “wrong favorite”.

Last Dance for Jasmine Trias

According to USA
Today's recap of the May 11 performances all is set for the ousting of the long-time underdog Jasmine Trias of Hawaii.  Ken Barne of USA Today has never been a fan of Jasmine and neither has "Jaded" of the recap
from Idol official website.  If you read their reviews of past performances they have been harsh to her even when most other reviewers praise Jasmine.  I think they'll finally have their wish coming true tomorrow night.  I have never been a fan of Jasmine's performances myself.  She is sometimes noticeably out of tune.  But I actually love her style better than the "Idol divas".  A little more vocal training and I think she'll easily outshine them.



Good luck, Jasmine.  I'm not a big fan, but since you have
Filipino blood running inside you I hope that God will bless you wherever your experience in American Idol takes you.

Hello World

This is my first post on my first first blog. And this is just a simple test to see how my blog looks. Hopefully this is not my last post. We'll see...

If my test is successful then I won't see this text in the Main Page of my blog.