Favorite TV 2008

Merlin from BBC-1 is my favorite TV series of the year. It's a retelling of the legend of King Arthur (who's still a prince in the series) that focuses on Merlin and his friendship with the once and future king. They are of the same age in this series. Evidences that it's not a big-budget American TV program that looks and feels like a movie  (e.g. Prison Break, 24) show up in sequences that required complex special effects, but the story itself is very engaging and the reason why I was hooked from the first episode. Its Wikipedia page says that it will be shown in the US by NBC for the Spring 2009 TV season. This series, more so than the good but rather inferior of the two, The Legend of the Seeker, could potentially usher in the rebirth of the high fantasy genre to television, which if I remember correctly was last brought about by Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: The Warrior Princess.

The Big Bang Theory from CBS is my favorite comedy series of the year. It's a sitcom about two brilliant physicists room mates (Leonard and Sheldon), their two genius friends (Howard and Rajesh), and their hot neighbor (Penny). The writers kept coming up with very funny, highly rewatchable episodes each week.

Fringe from Fox is my favorite sci-fi TV series of the year. It's about a group of government agents involved in cases that are related to what is collectively called "fringe science". Only the scientists who know real fringe science will not like this new series from J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost. The rest of us who like science fiction but don't really care whether the science in it is realistic or not will love this show. The special effects in this series are rather good and have a movie-quality feel to them. If only Merlin have the same budget.

Of course I still like and still watches Prison Break, The Amazing Race, House, and How I Met Your Mother. 24 took a hiatus this year, a casualty of the 2007 writers strike. I have a feeling that 24 would have been my favorite of the year had their 2008 season not been cancelled. But then again, tomorrow will already be January and it means the new season of 24 from Fox is just around the corner.

AS/400 is all that

System iNEWS magazine recently published the "Top 10 IT Problems We Don't Have with IBM i". I don't want to paste the whole thing here and I don't want to put the link because it needs a subscription and people who don't know IBM i really shouldn't bother subscribing. So I'll just mention two somewhat-related items on the list.

#2 Unplanned Downtime
#7 Rebooting as a "Solution"

For four years, I worked for a company that ran AS/400 (a.k.a. iSeries a.k.a System i) along side another system, which I won't mention. And it got the reputation of the most "non-problematic" system. I mean the box itself was a dwarf compared to the racks and racks of servers needed to run the other system, and yet it's very stable. And it's not stable because it's rarely used. In fact, it's used 24 hours a day, 6 days a week, and up 24/7. The other system had, in total, more users than the AS/400, but in context, the lone AS/400 (with just one CPU) handled more users per CPU compared to the other system. The only time that I could remember it was taken down was because of a problem with the power supply of the data center where it was located and then for system upgrade. In the same span, the other system was taken down unplanned several times because of, among other things, problem with the database (several times), and problem with something that I didn't entirely understand (it refused to let anyone sign in). Of course all these are just based on observation, as a developer for both systems. Just anecdotes and aren't scientific. I didn't really know the root causes of what happened. The AS/400 just appeared stable. It wasn't even part of the yearly planned downtime (during long Holy Week weekend of the year) per se because for some reason it wasn't needed, though it's still affected because the network itself was taken down for maintenance.

Favorite book 2008

My favorite read of the year is a book first published over three years ago. It's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I reread it last month and say what you want about how JK Rowling writes, all I know is that she writes very engaging books that are hard to put down until you read the last page.

My second favorite read of the year is a book first published in 1990. It's Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. His fiction may not have won awards, but I have yet to read a boring Crichton book. Come to think of it, most of the time, those award-winning books are the boring ones. I'm looking forward to reading his final book, which will be published sometime next year.

***

 And yes, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Day before Christmas

Last year, I didn't go home for Christmas. And since all the people that I know went home for Christmas I was left to fend for myself. But it wasn't really as dramatic as "fend for myself" made it sound. I spent the whole day in SM Cebu. And I discovered that perhaps people make their last-minute shopping two days before Christmas. SM Cebu on December 24, 2007 was the emptiest I found the mall that year. There were still many people, of course, but compared to the usual day it was by far "emptier". There wasn't even a line when I took my lunch in Chowking at around 12:00 noon. At the same time any other day and I would have been at least tenth in line with four lines total.

***

Going home that day I bought season 3 of House so that I had something to be busy with in the hours leading to Christmas and on Christmas day itself because the malls were closed for the holiday. Luckily, the 3rd season had a twist in that House fired all his staff and conducted a reality-tv-like contest to search for his new staff. It was an interesting season and kept the series fresh.

Favorite movie 2008

December is drawing to a close and with it the year. I don't think I'll be seeing another movie in the theaters for the rest of the year, so I think it's safe to pick my favorite among the movies that I have seen in theaters this year. I've seen most big movies for free courtesy of The Company's "movie night" before the budget for community activities were cut: I Am Legend, Vantage Point, Iron Man, Indiana Jones IV, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Twilight. It's easy to see how it's been cut, of course. Notice that all of these movies came out in the first half of 2008 with the exception of the last one, which came out in November. In the second half of 2008 the economic crisis in the US began to loom upon us like the heavy dark clouds before a storm. If the budget wasn't cut I would have seen 12 movies (one for each month) for free by now and I would have seen my favorite movie of 2008 for free. As it was, I had to pay for it to see it and seen it with only two co-workers instead of 99.

WALL-E. I have no doubt that this would have been picked had there been a "movie night" for August. I like "nice" sci-fi movies. By nice I mean something that isn't highly stylized (e.g. making the whole thing grayscale, or the opposite making it burst with too bright colors) and something that doesn't strive to be something more than what it can actually deliver. WALL-E was the "nicest" scifi movie that I've seen this year. It's a Pixar animated flick and, like its predecessors, it's worth the ticket price to see it in theaters. If WALL-E wasn't shown this year, The Dark Knight would have been my top favorite movie. And there's also no doubt in my mind that it would have been picked for July if the movie night budget wasn't cut.

***

I have seen only 3 Filipino movies in theaters this year: Ploning, For the First Time, and I.T.A.L.Y.. And among them, only Ploning was worth the ticket price. Even the co-workers that "forced" me to watch FTFT and ITALY with them weren't happy with these movies.

***

Tropic Thunder was the funniest movie that I've seen in theaters this year. It was funny in a silly kind of way. And we paid only 90 pesos for each ticket because we saw this in SM instead of the usual Ayala Center.

The funniest one in the most-fun kind of way had got to be Bolt from Disney. We had plenty of laughter and the story wasn't bad either.

***

Next year, I'm looking forward to watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Break and rebuild

Smooth, smooth, slow, smooth, smooth, slow, slow, smooth.

That's the flow of traffic from our home to downtown Cagayan de Oro. Or at least that's the flow during rush hours. The last time I was here, third week of November, they were not yet there. And yet here they are just weeks later. Roads. Underconstruction. What's interesting is that I didn't notice any problem with the roads they are reconstructing now. But then again I'm just a commuter so what do I know about roads and such? But why December? It's the month when most Kagay-anons working and studying outside the city comes back home for the Christmas break. Perhaps to give us the illusion of progress? Or maybe to treat our eyes to something different than we were last here? So that we may go ahead and nod our heads and think, "Ahh... Something's changed." Whatever the reason, these roads will certainly be smoother after they are done, I hope.

***

It's the fifth day of my long vacation and Christmas is a mere four sleeps away, and I still haven't started reading any of the books that I planned to read for this long vacation. Somehow I found places to go to and things to do besides reading books. I'm still determined to finish them before I go back to Cebu, but even if I won't finish them I'd still be able to read them the next time I return. But hey, it's a long vacation, and really this is just the fifth day. There'll be plenty of idle times ahead and when they do come I'll be ready, book in hand, pillow on my back, and nothing around me but the cool, drowsy silence of our village in idle times.

Aside from books

My former college classmate, let's just call him RonMyks for privacy reasons, reportedly took a day off work so that he could finish his Gossip Girl season one marathon. The series must be that good. Besides, I've read good things about the series before. So last Thursday after checking out what changed and what did not change around the city, I bought the season one DVD. I watched the first three episodes last night and I thought it was written well. Can't wait to watch the rest of the season.

***

I also bought The Unit season one and watched the first two episodes yesterday afternoon. Well, it wasn't bad. But I thought it wanted to be something more than what its budget was capable of and its writers were capable of writing.

***

The acoustic guitar that my parents bought me when I was 14 for my high school music class is still alive. I thought it was given away a long time ago. I never really got the hang of learning guitar back in high school. But maybe in this long vacation, when I don't want to read books or watch DVDs anymore, I could take time to learn how to play the guitar again.

Packed and ready to go

I just finished packing the stuff that I will take home to Cagayan de Oro. Majority of them are actually books that I won't be taking back to Cebu. My luggage will be about 60% lighter in my return trip. Once home, I plan to take advantage of the Christmas sales to buy a new pair of sneakers that I'll also leave home in Cagayan de Oro. I'll be taking steps that will help me travel light in my future trips home.

Keeping busy while on vacation for a month

Among other things in this abnormally long Christmas break I plan to read the following books:


Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope by Jenna Bush

I got this one during our batchmates (Rocky's Batch) Christmas party. It's a story about someone infected with HIV at birth. A "wrenching story" according to a review I found in Amazon.com. There's nothing I love more than a wrenching story to read in between fantasy books.


The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

And speaking of fantasy books, this is one of them. It's about a boy raised in a graveyard by ghosts. Holly Black (co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles) promised that I would "love it to death". Ahh, there's no better book to read than the one that I should love till the end.

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

Just as the title says, it's about the history of the CIA. Almost a year ago, I read a review saying that this is a very interesting book about the agency. I found the hardcover edition while in Manila last February, but the book was very thick, and heavy, and expensive that I thought I'd wait for the paperback and hoped that National Bookstore (in Cebu) would carry the title. The paperback edition came. But apparently not in Cebu (NBS and Powerbooks). Thank God for Fully Booked (recently opened in Ayala Center Cebu).

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

This is a story about someone "born with the world's greatest power--- the power to create." This power made him a target. According to Kirkus Reviews, it will leave readers "breathless". Ahh, yes, a book that would take my breath away. This should be a perfect companion to Gaiman's book that, if I were to believe Holly Black, I should love to the death.

Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine

According to the publisher, it's for "ages 8 up", so I'm definitely one of the intended audience. It's written by somebody who actually wrote novels, so I just can't resist buying it. You see, I still have this dream of writing a novel someday, a dream getting tinier each day, but still alive, nonetheless. Gail wrote Ella Enchanted, which according to Orson Scott Card was in many ways superior to the movie version.

The irony

The irony. When I'm in a project, sometimes I get very busy that it's very tiring and I long for the days that I'll be in bench again. But when I'm in bench for a long time, it's boring and I long for the days when I'll be in project again. They say I should enjoy the time I have in bench. Well, I enjoyed it, of course, but I can only enjoy it for so long until it becomes too boring. I feel like rust is starting to form in my brain. On top of that, we were "encouraged" to take a very long leave of absence, effectively about a month's worth of absence starting Monday, December 15. Paid, yeah, but I want to save some VL credits for the Holy Week next year. But hey, the Holy Week will still be a very long weekend no matter what. There, the silver lining in this irony of a life in an outsourcing firm.

***

The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the words of one of my co-workers that watched the movie with me, "Mao ra to?" ("Is that all?")

***

Bolt. We enjoyed this movie a lot. With the merging of Disney and Pixar, Disney's back with producing quality films. The last time I enjoyed a Disney animated movie was when they released Mulan. And that's a long time ago.

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park

It was after my first week in my freshman year in high school. For five days I had gone to the city by myself to attend school. I lived some 16 kilometers away from the city and for the most part I was confined to our barangay (village) since I had been attending a local school. But high school was different. I got a scholarship from a school downtown. A few classmates from elementary school and I decided we should celebrate our first week of going to school in the city by watching a movie. So we went to the city, to Lim Ket Kai center, which was new back then, to see a movie. We went to see Jurassic Park.

We enjoyed it a lot. Residing as I did that far from the city, with parents who were never into movies, I rarely went to the cinemas. Jurassic Park was the first movie with awesome special effects I saw in a theater. I was blown away by the special effects. It was as though dinosaurs, extinct for millions of years, were back and roamed along side humans. Afterward, we agreed to watch it again.

It was only later that I learned it was based on a novel by Michael Crichton. I borrowed a book, "Congo", from a classmate in second year high school, and though published much earlier, the recently released paper back listed "Jurassic Park" as one of Crichton's novels. I've put off reading the book for a while. I went on to read the author's "Airframe", "Timeline", "Andromeda Strain", and most recently "Next". And then weeks ago, came the news that Michael Crichton died. I thought it's time to read "Jurassic Park". And so I looked for my copy, which started to gather dusts, and started reading.

It was good as always. I've yet to read a Crichton novel that bored me. I don't want to say that the book is better than the movie. I'd say that it was as enjoyable as the movie was. The book certainly digged deeper into the characters as only a book could do, but just the same I wouldn't prefer it over the movie that I enjoyed so much, that my friends and I enjoyed so much one Saturday afternoon, after our first five days of going to the city by ourselves.

That other vampire movie

If you want a more compelling love story between a vampire and a human, you'd want to see Let the Right One In. The vampire is the girl and the human is the boy. They're both 12 years old. You get to see the vampire be like a vampire and the human be more like a human. It's a love story within a horror story.

I have to give the writers credit for convincing me to care for the vampire that, unlike in Twilight, actually did vampire stuff (like killing an innocent stranger for blood). Hey, it's not everyday that I sympathize with vampires. When I was eight, there was this certain time when I and my friends wore red arm bands as protection from vampires rumored to be roaming around preying on children. On hindsight, it was very naive of us to believe that a piece of cloth of a particular color would protect us from the bloodsucking creatures of the night, but the most interesting thing was that it was our parents who actually made us do it. It was as if all the parents in our neighborhood unanimously agreed that vampires did exist, infiltrated our peaceful village, and the red arm band would spare us. It was a very rural thing. And it was my childhood. And here I am, actually caring for this bloodsucking vampire in a way that Twilight never made me, however tame the vampires in there were compared to this one in Let the Right One In.

Go see it if you get the chance. It's a Swedish film based on a Swedish novel.

***

Speaking of writers who made me care for characters whom I normally wouldn't, I can say the same thing for the writers of the Prison Break TV series that is now in its fourth season. It takes time for a US series to come here in the Philippines. At first, I mainly only heard about this series in its pilot premier. I heard about it from the Fox News Channel. They were predicting it to be a hit and I thought I'd never watch the series if it ever came here in the Philippines. When I was young and whenever we heard news about a local prison break, our neighborhood would become alert all of a sudden and our parents would barely let us out especially if the escapees included murderers. I'd imagine, if that breakout from the first season of this popular TV series happened in our city, my parents would never let me out the house and play with my friends until all of them are aprehended or killed. And here I am, many years later, actually sympathizing with the escape convicts from the series. The writers should get an award for each season the series is on air.

Twilight

The best thing about this movie is that I got to see it for free because of our company's monthly movie night.

I thought it was boring. I mean not "I'm sleepy" boring, I never felt sleepy while watching it, but that there's not much anything going on for probably the first half of the movie. At the end there was this action sequence that I thought was too tame for a vampire movie. So I guess this is truly a movie about love more than it is a vampire movie. It's a love story. But with vampires. It's okay, but did it really have to be boring?

Now, this is the Philippines so usually when there's a buzz about an upcoming movie based on a book, that book shoots up the Philippine best seller list. It shoots up in popularity. A number of my co-workers devoured book after book in the series. I thought I'd read the book after the movie, in case I liked the movie and want to find out more about it. But the cheezy quotes from the book that were being used by my friends as their "status messages" in their messenger accounts made me think I really shouldn't bother. Well, now, I've seen this movie and I'm not going to bother.

Incidentally, when the first Harry Potter movie made the book popular in the Philippines I didn't rush to buy the novel. I only bought the books after seeing the second movie. I thought there was more to the story than what the movie conveyed. Does this mean that the second movie in this franchise will make me read the books? Potentially, yes, but if the status messages of my IM buddies are any indication, most probably not.

Revisiting the half-blood Prince

I've just finished rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the 6th book of the Harry Potter series. This would just be my 2nd reading of book 6, the first one being back in 2005, when the book was first released. Unlike the first time that I read it, this time around I wasn't in such a hurry to finish, my rereading was spread in three days. And I realized that I'm appreciating the events in the book much more than when I first read it. I guess fictional books are designed to be read recreationally and never in a hurry. I appreciate the characters more, as well as the events. The death of Dumbledore, for example, resonated on me stronger than when I first read it. Now I want to continue with a rereading of book 7, but unfortunately I'm in Cagayan de Oro right now and my copy is in Cebu. I don't want to wait to return to Cebu to reread the book because then I'll be busy with work. I want to reread it now while I'm on vacation. So I downloaded a PDF of book 7. I'd much rather read the ink-on-paper book, but this will have to do for now.

Oh, gladness

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Everywhere. Almost everywhere. Christmas songs are playing. Decorations are up and they're no more prominent than when I go home at night. Christmas is here and there's nothing you can do about it.

Last year, I had to spend Christmas away from home. It was my first year to work in a city far from my home. It's an island away in fact. And it became my first time to spend Christmas away from home. December 26th wasn't declared a special holiday and I didn't want to travel Christmas night to go to work the next day. And so I decided not to go home for Christmas, opting to go home for the New Year Holiday instead. But Christmas isn't really just one day, so if I think about it I did go home for Christmas, it's just not on the 25th.

This year will be different. I have a timely rolloff from a project and I'm now entitled to paid vacation. And I will be taking it in the last two weeks of December. This year, I will truly be going home for Christmas. And I'm so happy.

210th

This would be my 210th post and I can't come up with a real title so I'll just call this 210th. I should have been way over 300 posts already. I don't know why I'm not blogging as regularly as before. Kind of ironic, considering that I now have a personal Internet subscription.

Cine Europa 2008

Last month, I, along with friends from the office, went to see Cine Europa 2008 at the Ayala Center. We were mostly interested with the French movie, Les Chansons d'Amour (Love Songs), because most of us took up French 101 a year ago. Unfortunately for us, instead of the original schedule of 7:00PM, it was shown at the very beginning of the festival, 10:00 AM, which made it impossible for us to see it with us needing to work and all. And in its original timeslot was Beauty in Trouble, which we didn't really like. The next day, Saturday, I played badminton first, so I got to join my movie-watching friends only for Mozart in China, which was okay but not great.

6th Australian Film Festival

This weekend, we went to see the 6th Australian Film Festival also at the Ayala Center. On Thursday we saw the opening movie, Romulus, My Father, which was kind of boring to watch. We stuck around for the second movie, Ten Canoes, which was not as boring as Romulus, My Father, but boring still. On Friday we went to Razzle Dazzle, a mockumentary, which was fun. We had to go back work so we didn't stick around for a second movie. On Saturday, the last day of the festival, I played badminton first so I just joined my friends from the office for their second movie, Home Song Stories, which was frustrating because half of the movie's dialogue was in Chinese or whatever is the right name for their language, but there was no English subtitles. So half the time, we didn't know what the heck the characters were saying and sometimes shouting at each other. Overall, the three-day film fest was a disaster, I thought. Except for the opening movie with invited guests, each time we went to see one there were probably no more than 50 other people in the theater.

City of Ember

The company's Movie Night pick for October was City of Ember. But since the movie won't open in Cebu until November, the movie night was altogether cancelled for October. The alternative pick was High School Musical 3, but for some reason it was supposedly unpopular to the majority in the office. Well, if they've only seen HSM 2, then I can't blame them. That really was just a sorry excuse for a sequel and was just a way to keep the buzz while HSM 3 was being produced. But I thought the first HSM was superbly written with the songs quite inventive for a made-for-tv movie. I have seen a fair share of made-for-tv movies in Disney Channel, and often times I don't finish them because, well, they're just not that watchable. But the original HSM was a cut above the rest, as far as made-for-tv movie is concerned. Having said that, I have doubts about HSM 3 myself. After all, when's the last good Disney sequel (often times straight-to-video)? You have to go back to 1999 when Toy Story 2 came out and it wasn't even truly Disney's, it was Pixar's.

ThinkPad T60p

Can't wait. :-)

Buy a vowel

In Wheel of Fortune, contestants would buy vowels with the money they earned guessing correct consonants. How great would it be if, with the hours I spent at work, I could buy time to finish the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. So far I'm on page 29, and I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this book till the end.

I didn't even plan to buy this book though I've seen it displayed in National Bookstore for quite some time now. But the thing is, a friend from the office borrowed and lost my copy of Shannon Hale's The Princess Academy all on the same day. She had a fight with a close friend, stormed out of the office, and promptly lost my book. So in exchange, she bought me this. Well, technically I bought this myself because I was with her when she bought it and it's a replacement of the book she lost. There was no longer a copy of Hale's book, so we tried to find something else. So I picked this instead based solely on what was written on the back cover (I couldn't read the first few pages of the book because it was, like almost every other fiction books in the store, tightly covered in plastic acetate).

The back cover says:

This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare's struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

We went like, "It has hints of science fiction and love story. We're buying this."

About the lost book

I like the Harry Potter series so much that when Orson Scott Card described Hale's book as something that could make JK Rowling's Hogwarts looked like a caricature of a school I just have to find out for myself what he was talking about. I've read three books of Shannon Hale since reading Card's review and I have to say he's right.

Hale has a talent for bringing real, breathing communities on the pages of her books. In Academy she brought a school to life. But it was in her other book, her first one, The Goose Girl, that one can truly see how good she is in creating real, believable communities. I think that's her niche. In Book of a Thousand Days, she experimented with working almost exclusively with two characters. It's okay, but I didn't like it as much as her books that involved a lot of characters in a community. Her books aren't for everybody, of course. She mainly writes fantasy books and they don't categorized it that way for no reason. Bookstores usually lump this category with "sci-fi", thus making a "sci-fi and fantasy" section and they're probably right. Replace the technology elements in a sci-fi book with magic and you have yourself a fantasy book. But those rebellious few who could read sci-fi but not fantasy probably would not like her books, or at least her fantasy books (I've read she also writes general fiction and graphic novels, with her husband illustrating, though I can't find any of her other works in any bookstores around where I live).

Chromed

I'm using Google Chrome right now to write this entry. It's a nice web browser and kinda fast. I've not yet used it intensively, of course, so as of the moment I can't say whether I really like it or not. I guess the thing that would stop me from switching completely from Firefox are the fact that there's no portable version yet (I tried to install it earlier at my workstation at the office, but the online installer had issues with the fact that I'm sitting behind a proxy) and no equivalent AdBlock Plus extension that I really like. I have been so used to seeing no ads on web pages that I took for granted that it was the AdBlock Plus FF extension that is making it happen. Ads appearing again in Chrome are a bit off putting.

Google Chrome

Earl sends an email containing a link to a comic book about Google Chrome.

Carl reads the email, clicks the link, read the whole comic book. Carl is hyped. He goes to www.google.com/chrome.

Not found. Error 404.

Carl wants to be hyped some more. He goes to news.google.com and types "google chrome" in the search field. He reads a few articles and finds out nothing new that wasn't covered by the comic book. He checks the Google Chrome website again.

Not found. Error 404.

Carl goes to draft.blogger.com. Clicks "new post". Blogs about the whole thing. Before posting, checks the Chrome website again.

Not found. Error 404.

Carl goes back to Blogger. Sleepy. Post.

Eraserheads

I was eating dinner with two friends from the office at a local fastfood (hehe... "karenderya"). TV Patrol World was on and we caught news regarding the abrupt, almost tragic end to the Eraserheads reunion concert last Saturday, August 30. Ely Buendia, vocalist, reportedly collapsed backstage as the band was preparing for their second set. No details whether Ely lost consciousness. He was rushed to a nearby hospital.

If I were in Manila at that time, I'd be in the concert. I remember there was no bigger Filipino band around 1994, 1995. There will probably those who'd disagree, but seriously, song for song, hit for hit, there is yet to be a bigger local band than the Eraserheads. Their only album that I own was "Cutterpillow" (1995). It was a cassette tape. I was a scholar in high school and what little allowance I had at the time I saved for stuffs other than cassettes that were, quite frankly, luxuries for me. But I still saved money and I bought the tape. I was happy I did. I'd play it over and over at home. And I even brought it with me to school. The jeepney ride from school to home was around 30 minutes (from home to school I'd ride the DM bus for free) depending on the number of stops it had to make along the way. I'd ask the drivers if they could play the tape. They would. More than one time, I'd be in a jeep and my fellow passengers (mostly students) would sing along or at least mouth the words to the Cutterpillow hits.

While eating and upon hearing the news.
Me: Remember how popular they were back then?
Friend 1: Hmm... don't know.
Friend 2: Believe him. It was during his time. He's that old.
Me: (Shrugs) There's nothing more popular than them. I'm glad I was old enough to enjoy their heyday.

According to Jessica Zafra, these were the fourteen songs they played before the reunion was cut short: 1. Alapaap 2. Ligaya 3. Sembreak 4. Hey Jay 5. Harana 6. Fruitcake 7. Toyang 8. Kama Supra 9. Kailan 10. Wag Kang Matakot 11. Kaliwete 12. With A Smile 13. Shake Yer Head 14. Huwag Mo Nang Itanong Sa Akin.

Love stories: For the First Time vs. WALL-E

For the First Time

The last time I went to see a Tagalog movie in a theater was to see Ploning. I was disappointed with that movie mainly because I expected so much more than what it delivered. But after watching For the First Time (FTFT) last night with two friends from the office I began to appreciate the effort that the Ploning filmmakers exerted to upgrade the level of Philippine cinema. FTFT was nothing but an excuse to bring together KC Concepcion and Richard Gutierrez to the big screen and with them their fans (which I don't have any idea as to how many because even in my home city of Cagayan de Oro where we have a TV set, I don't follow Philippine showbiz). The story was unbelievable. Their love story was improbable. The dialog, especially when delivered by Richard, was both unbelievable and hideous. Worse is the admission was actually 10 pesos higher than the one I paid to see WALL-E, and 20 pesos more than to see Ploning. Even worse was that the 9:25 PM screening that we attended was just a few souls away from selling out at the time we arrived to buy our tickets. What's happening with the world?

WALL-E

I went to see WALL-E on August 18 along with two friends from the office. Pixar delivered yet again in both the quality story and quality animation arenas. Could Pixar be the perfect studio that can't deliver any bad movie? Even the short film that traditionally precedes each Pixar feature was great just like the past.

Earth is so full of trash that the people had to leave the planet in a cruise spaceship Axiom while the planet was being cleaned up by the WALL-E (Waste Allocator Load Lifter - Earth Class) robots. 700 years later, Earth is still laden with garbage and there is only one WALL-E left. It leads a lonely life until a robot probe (EVE) is deployed to check the planet for any sign of life. This is co-written and directed by Andrew Stanton who made Finding Nemo (which is my favorite Pixar film). The theme song performed by Peter Gabriel is a bit strange on its own, but it fitted very well with the movie's beautiful end credit sequence.

FTFT vs. WALL-E

Ironic, but it is more believable that two robots could actually fall in love in WALL-E than for Seth and Sophia in FTFT. The love story in WALL-E was more developed and felt real. The one in FTFT was contrived and improbable. Granted the two films differed in budget (although I don't think that the budget was the reason why FTFT sucked, it's more because its script was terrible), comparing FTFT to the last Tagalog movie I saw before it, Ploning was in many ways a hundred times better than FTFT. Compared to it, FTFT looked like a made-for-TV movie and even then it would still stink.

On the seas

It's over an hour since our ship left the port of Cagayan de Oro bound for Cebu. Out of curiosity I powered up my laptop and tried to see if I could get a Weroam signal in (somewhat) the middle of the sea. There is a signal, but only a GPRS one which is the slowest (dialup) among the possible signal available on Weroam. Nice. Not great, but nice.

I feel a little sad of leaving Cagayan de Oro again. This is what I don't like in going home. I have to leave it again. And I feel sad every time. It's not a cliche. There's no place like home.

Looking forward to the planned white water rafting activity this November and the Camiguin trip this December with college friends. I hope both plans push through.

Lions and cakes

To the lady with the most playful of names,
Whose name's the most beautiful sound
Jake has ever heard.

ROQUITA.

To the woman with the most infectious of laughters,
Whose smile's the most sincere one
Jake has ever glimpsed.

EKIT.

To the señorita who eats lions for breakfast,
Whose toughness is the only thing
Jake will ever fear.

DOÑA RUTH.

To the girl who craves cakes for desserts,
Whose sweetness the most ironic anomaly
Jake has ever encountered.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Lions and Cakes

This is a birthday poem in lieu of a message I wrote for an office mate's birthday. Every time somebody celebrates a birthday, one of my office mates would collect messages and create a powerpoint presentation to be sent to the celebrant a day or so before his or her birthday.

August 7 - Happy birthday, Ekit.

That first lullaby

carefully they whispered your name
happily sung in morning hymns
immeasurable smiles on their faces
beautifully written in tears
beaming with joy and gladness
your cry vanished into peace

and on your cheek they plant a kiss
happy to know you cared

and in your dreams you blow a kiss
happy to know they're scared

that first lullaby

This is a birthday poem in lieu of a message I wrote for an office mate's birthday. Every time somebody celebrates a birthday, one of my office mates would collect messages and create a powerpoint presentation to be sent to the celebrant a day or so before his or her birthday.

August 5 - Happy birthday, Chenara.

The Mummy 3

I together with five officemates went to see The Mummy 3 last Wednesday. I half like it. I like the first two movies better. I don't find the jokes and comic scenes in this movie funny. And I thought the story lacked something to make it deserved a theatrical release. It felt like a straight-to-video story. But it was a bit fun, so I guess that's what made me half liked it. I wouldn't recommend it to those who expected something like the 2nd movie. Perhaps Rachel Weisz made the right decision not to reprise her role in this third installment.

Four movies

It's Sunday afternoon and I don't feel that well so I might as well blog about four movies that I saw in theaters, but didn't have enough time to write a full theater report for each. Ahh... not enough time, the constant excuse of a lazy blogger.

Kung Fu Panda

It seems that Pixar is the only animation studio that consistently comes up with great stories. But Kung Fu Panda has a good and funny story. It's nice to see Dreamworks come up with something good aside from the Shrek franchise (where storywise, #1 is the only one that I really liked) . And I found it really funny, though not as funny as I thought it was based on the what I've heard prior to seeing it.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The company's movie night pick for June. Visually-stunning just like (and more so than) the first one. The story is much darker this time, and I was literally on the edge of my seat during the battle scenes (and not because the seat was damaged). I was bored at some parts in the first movie, but not in this one. Didn't like the song that got played during the credits, though, not because it was bad, but more because it didn't feel right and didn't fit the movie as a whole.

Maid of Honor

If you've seen My Best Friend's Wedding, you'll most likely not like this one at all. Aside from the premise there's no other similarity between the two films. There are no laugh out loud moments and there are no dramatic-romantic moments. All six of us who went to see this movie, agreed, it was just silly.


Get Smart

I love it. I'm not familiar with the TV series that this movie was based on, but I thought it was going to be another Johnny English (which isn't that bad because I love Rowan Atkinson type of comedy). But this turned out to be something more. I mean Maxwell Smart was, well, smart unlike Johnny English. He's just not adept at field agent work that he always wanted. And Anne Hathaway was very good as Agent 99. We saw this a few days after seeing Maid of Honor, which we hated, and it sort of made up for that bad movie.

Theater Report: The Dark Knight

July 20, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
8:00 PM
Attendance: 98% of capacity

Previews:

Just in time, so didn't catch any trailer.

Story:

If Batman Begins explored the origins of the caped crusader, this one explored, through dialogues, the story of The Joker. As The Joker's character is unfolded before us, the deeper story of Bruce Wayne and Batman was also exposed. And together with this exposition, and with the help of Harvey Dent's and Rachel Dawes's stories, the deeper story of Gotham City as a community is being exposed before our eyes.

Thoughts:

I'm not a fan of the Batman comics, or any other comic superheroes for that matter, though I watched the cartoon series. But in terms of comicbook superhero movies, this is without a doubt a cut above the rest. Of course, the fact that Batman has no superpowers naturally lent itself to this kind of deeper and more human exploration, but so does Iron Man and yet I have to say that this movie more than the Iron Man, just like its predecessor (Batman Begins), made the characters as human as they could possibly be without ignoring the medium from which the movie was adapted from. The high tech gadgets are still there, the tank of a bat mobile is still there, and yet if at the end of the movie you looked back at what you've just seen you'd realized that all those things were secondary to the story of Batman, of The Joker, of Harvey Dent, of James Gordon, and of Gotham City itself. Even if you're not a fan of the comic books, you'd still care for Bruce/Batman because underneath the armor of a bat suit, this guy, the Batman, is shown to be not unlike the non-costumed good guys like Harvey Dent and James Gordon, or even the villain The Joker, just another human being with weaknesses, unable to shake his past from how he behaves at the present, and not totally in control of the things that are happening around him. I believed Spider-Man 2 started this trend of making superheroes more human. And it's refreshing to see these movies raking in lots of money in the box office. It meant we can expect more superhero movies like this get made with in-depth exploration of characters.

Would I see it again? No, but only because the twists and turns in the movie wouldn't have the same effect having already seen how the story went. But if I have companion, I would go see this again in a heartbeat. Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes. It's definitely worth the ticket price that I didn't pay to see it. On a side note, I'm not proud that a girl treated me to a Batman movie, but she insisted.

One year hence

I just came from our project's first year anniversary party. It also officially marked my first year working here in Cebu. I'm happy with what I have learned and will learn in the future. I don't regret working here. But I missed home a lot. It's been four months since my last trip home and I missed my parents very much. But I can't go home because I don't want to have to plan to go home on a weekend only to fail because there are urgent things that need to get done at work. It's tiring, but I honestly love what I'm doing. Thankfully, two airlines now operate daily flights from Cebu to Cagayan de Oro. They're a bit more expensive than going by ferry, but an hour an a half's flight is certainly less stressful. Flying home also means not having to hurry on Fridays just to catch the eight o'clock voyage. There's a morning and an afternoon Saturday flight to choose from. This doesn't mean that I'll never go home by ferry again, but it's just nice to have an option to fly home Saturday instead of just the ferry ride Friday night.

Some of my DM barkadas had left my former company also. One is now working in another IT company here in Cebu. Two have flown to Dubai. And another one is joining my present company, but was assigned to another location.

I remember my last full day in my previous company. I was really really sad. I truly had a dream of retiring from that company. My parents had both worked there more than half of their lives. I was prepared to do the same. But sadly, I had to face reality. I saw no future there and was compelled to look for opportunities elsewhere.

I'm happy with where I am now. Yeah, it's tiring at times, but there have been wonderful events as well. All the team building events as well as our mini-tours and night outs with my start mates had been fun and I'm looking forward to our future trips. I have also made a lot of new wonderful, smart, energetic, fun, and caring friends. I know God has a reason for me to be here. There have been countless events in my life where I didn't understand why I was in some difficult situation only to have the answer weeks or months after they happen. My resignation from my previous job last year was in itself nothing short of a perfect timing. From what I had gathered from my previous colleagues, my former department isn't headed towards anything. Had I not resigned, it would have been another year of doing pretty much the same thing. Instead, I'm learning new stuffs everyday.

God truly has His mysterious ways. It's sometimes difficult at first, but looking back they're perfect.

Just smile

May smile finds its way back
And sadness be lifted off
Remember the happy past
Imagine them back and
Everything shall fall in place

Love continuously
Offer a smile spontaneously
Understand frequently

Measure success by love given
And not how much was returned
You have already won

Smile the biggest smile
Make the sadness shy
Imagine what went before return
Love like that rose without torn, and
Everything shall fall in place

Marie Lou May Smile
- a cheesy birthday poem I wrote for Rocky's birthday (July 8).

In behalf of Rocky

Rocky May Cry

Religiously I sought that smile and
Over the hill we met.
Careless and free and
Kind and happy.
You vanished abruptly.

May I find you again someday,
As I walked through this darkness.
You beacon me towards the light.

Careless and free and
Renewed and blessed.
You and I shall meet again.

(Rocky May Cry)

Written in the voice of Rocky (an office mate), this is a birthday poem in lieu of a message I wrote for an office mate's birthday. Every time somebody celebrates a birthday, one of my office mates would collect messages and create a powerpoint presentation to be sent to the celebrant a day or so before his or her birthday.

June 1 - Happy birthday, Lou.

For Irene

Remember that being a Kagay-anon
You are beautiful,
You are smart,
You are friendly,
You are sincere.

Remember that you are.
Because we do.

Believe that you have
The most beautiful of eyes,
The most charming of smiles,
The most contagious of laughs,
The most loyal of friendships.

Believe that you have.
Because we do.

Know that on this day
You are remembered,
You are cherished,
You are blessed,
You are loved.

Know that you are.
Because we do.

(For Irene)

This is a birthday poem in lieu of a message I wrote for an office mate's birthday. Every time somebody celebrates a birthday, one of my office mates would collect messages and create a powerpoint presentation to be sent to the celebrant a day or so before his or her birthday.

May 23 - Happy birthday, Irene.

Ayon kay Ploning

Si Ploning na ang maysabi,
O minsa'y nagtanong,
"Hindi ba mas masarap isipin,
Na kaya ikaw ang mas nasasaktan
Dahil ikaw ang mas nagmamahal?"
Huwag kang matakot Mae,
Huwag mangamba,
Hayaan mong dumaan ang nakaraan.
Hayaang saktan ka ng karanasan.
Hayaang mga sugat ay humilom.
Hayaan mong ngumiti muli
Ang iyong isipan,
Iyong puso,
Iyong damdamin.

'Kaw ang mas nasaktan.
Dahil ikaw ang mas nagmahal.

(Ayon kay Ploning)

This is a birthday poem in lieu of a message I wrote for an office mate's birthday. Every time somebody celebrates a birthday, one of my office mates would collect messages and create a powerpoint presentation to be sent to the celebrant a day or so before his or her birthday.

May 17 - Happy birthday, Ruvy Mae.

Theater Report: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

May 27, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
7:10 PM
Attendance: 90% of capacity

Previews:

Narnia 2: Prince Caspian - this is the only trailer attached it. Looks great and it has been chosen as the movie night pick for June so I'll probably see this for free (just like this movie).

Story:

By nature, Indiana Jones movies aren't enjoyable when you already know how the story went and how it ended. So let me just quote some spoiler-free plot posted in IMDB:

Famed archaeologist/adventurer Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. is called back into action when he becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.

Thoughts:

This is a fun summer flick, just like the first three movies in the series. Some people will probably not like the ending, and I had to admit I had to pause to decide whether I like what I was seeing or not. But by then I've enjoyed the journey going to that ending that I thought it was pointless to search my feelings whether I like the ending or not. This is an Indiana Jones movie after all. An over-the-top ending should be expected.

I love the music of John Williams. There's a certain Star Wars feel to it that I half-expected old Indy to wield a lightsaber when in peril. The theme (March from the Raiders of the Lost Ark) is arguably one of the most recognizable movie themes and it made me feel nostalgic listening to it inside the theater.

Harrison Ford looked clearly a bit too old to play the Indiana Jones character. You have to suspend disbelief that a character that old can kick butt. If ever there's going to be an Indiana Jones 5, somebody else would probably take over the role. Somebody in this movie (and you'd understand who when you see this one), or at least the character will be it, the next Indy.

Will I see it again? I don't know. Perhaps I'd see it again just to check out the newly-renovated SM Cinemas 7 & 8, but it's not really among my priorities right now. Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes. It's worth the ticket price that I didn't have to pay to see this movie (thanks to the movie nights).

Theater Report: Ploning

May 4, 2008
SM Cebu Cinema 6
7:00 PM
Attendance: a pitiful 3% of capacity

Previews: Just in time in coming in. Missed all of them.

Story:

More than a story about a woman who waits for the return of her lover whom she had not seen for over a decade, this is a story of a town in Cuyo, Palawan. This is a story of a small towns, traditions, beliefs, culture, and day-to-day life.

Thoughts:

Some brave reviewers called this the rebirth of Philippine cinema. If it's true, I'd say it came out of the womb gasping for breath. First, it opened along side Iron Man, this year's Hollywood curtain call for the Summer Blockbuster Season. People who are skeptical of or hate Tagalog movies will flock to Iron Man. Second, people who dig Tagalog movies and all the negative thoughts they connote will flock to "When Love Begins". The rest will skip the movies altogether and buy any of Shannon Hale's books (Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Princess Academy, A Book of a Thousand Days) that have recently been carried by National Bookstore. Only people who still believed that the Philippine cinema could produce good movies from time to time will go see this. And there were only 10 of us when I went to see it.

And it was confusing. For a simple enough premise, it managed to confuse the audience and probably itself. It tried to be a drama, comedy, romance, and suspense all at the same time, all the while (or perhaps because of it) becoming nothing more than a sketch of a small coastal town in the Philippines. From the first minute down to about five minutes before it ended, the movie beg me to ask questions, the biggest of which is what's the deal with Ploning? And at the very last minute we got the answer, in a monologue, with tears under the rain scene. The answer was wholly unsatisfying because there was no clue whatsoever that it was the reason why Ploning acted the way she did. And so it felt contrived. The writer or writers withheld information so that in the end they can surprise us with the answer.

I saw this movie as nothing more than the writer/director's vehicle for his love of his homeland in Palawan. Yeah, Cuyo is beautiful. Its beach breathtaking (in an undeveloped, natural kind of way). But mixing it with the unfocused and underdeveloped story of a girl named Ploning was an unfortunate decision. Add to this the decision to release it during the kickoff of the summer blockbuster season in the US (and the now common worldwide simultaneous release of big Hollywood movies) and this will inevitably be lost in the crowd. This is different from the usual Tagalog movie fare (not the least of which is the language used in the dialogues), but it shared the same weakness as the other Tagalog movies.

Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it to my friends? No.

Theater Report: Iron Man

May 6, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
6:10PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity

Previews:
(Missed some on the account of my companions having to buy food from a very slow-moving-line in KFC one level below the theater.)

Kung Fu Panda - looks fun, but Wall-E is the must watch animated feature for me

Indiana Jones 4 - I'm definitely watching this. As a kid I used to confused the theme song of the Raiders of the Lost Ark with the one from Star Wars. ROTLA theme is very catchy. It'd be good to hear it again now in Dolby Surround glory as Indy kicks enemy butts and gets the treasure. But I hope the company picks Narnia 2 as the Movie Night pick of May.

Story:

Tony Stark, billionaire-genius, owner of a big weapons manufacturing company gets kidnapped in Afghanistan and made a horrible discovery that the weapons his company manufactures are being used by enemy combatants to kill, among other, the very people he thought his weapons protect. Ha! I live in the Philippines. This is non-news. Anyway, Ugly Big Villain (UBV) #1 orders him to build a weapon (Jericho Missile System). Instead he, with the help of Token Assistant in A Wrong Place and Time #1, conjured an armor that would lead him to become Iron Man and escape captivity. As he tried to escape it was Ugly Big Villain #2 who tried to stop him with UBV#1 no where in sight. A somewhat confusing switch, if you really think about it. But you don't have much time to think because he escaped, perfected his armor, fell in love, betrayed, and went on to kill both UBVs (with #1 as the first token Enemy Kill), all the while spectacular explosions go off all around. Ok maybe not really all around, but that's how I saw the movie, a one heck of a spectacular fireworks display with deep enough characterizations and a way to start the Summer Blockbuster Season.

Thoughts:

The last sentence of the previous paragraph pretty much summed up what I thought about the movie. It's well worth the 140 pesos I didn't pay for the ticket on the account that it got picked by The Firm as the Movie Night pick for April and was able to get 1 of the 100 slots available. I'd say that it's like the Spider-man and the recent Batman movies. It's character-centric as opposed to just mindless-spectacle.

(Spoilers ahead. Stop reading if you plan to see the movie and don't want to have any idea what happens, though I try to be very vague as possible.)

Just don't think about it that much. Or else you'd realize that later in the movie it's revealed that UBVs and minions were actually supplied by Betrayer #1 with the very weapon that they tried to force Tony Stark to build for them. In fact, in the middle of the movie where UBV #1 gets killed you'd actually see the weapon in action being used by UBV #1 on innocent civilians. Then if you think even harder you'd realized that in what Pepper saw later about the supposedly ransom video for Mr. Stark the bad guys were paid to kill Stark, not kidnap him. Confusion to the Nth power. You'd see the kidnappers trying to up the price of killing Stark all the while asking him to build The Weapon (that Betrayer #1 already supplies them with). So I suggest that you just sit back and enjoy the ride and not to think too much. Or else you'd further realized that the UBVs already have brilliant minds that can read Iron Man armor design. What's stopping them from reverse engineering The Weapon they already had access to? Why do they need Stark? I know. They didn't need Stark. On the contrary, the screenwriters need that "premise" to have a reason for don't-care-much-for-the-world Stark to turn around and become Iron Man the superhero. Just accept it and enjoy. You definitely will.

Would I see it again? No, I'm saving up for Narnia 2 and Indiana Jones 4. Would I recommend it to my friends? Definitely, yes. It's fun. Unless you're saving your money to see "Ploning" starring Judy Ann Santos, an even more confusing movie than Iron Man for those who think too much. I'll post my theater report on Ploning next time.

Theater Report: Forbidden Kingdom

April 23, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
7:30 PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity

Story:

Jason is a kung fu obsessed teenager. He frequented what looked like a very weird video shop ran by an odd old man. He found a staff that turned out to be magical and was once owned by the Monkey King. Jason turned out to be "the one" who'll free the Monkey King from a Jade lord curse. To do that, though, he apparently had to travel back in time or to use the movie's term, "go through the gate of no gate" (what the heck?) to when Jackie Chan wore a hideous wig (I hope it's not his real hair) playing the "drunken master" (which I have to say he couldn't do as well as he once did years ago) and Jet Li was, well, Jet Li. Trained by these two masters, the evil Jade simply had no chance. There's this girl they threw into the story at a fight scene in a tea house who obviously was just thrown there so that the movie will have a female character (which otherwise doesn't add to the story). Jason fell in love with this girl later, or at least the writer tried to fool us that he did. This subplot has got to be the most underdeveloped love subplot in the history of impossible movie love affairs. This female character was simply just the token love-interest-of-the-hero role. The writer tried to flesh her character out by having her tell the story of how the evil Jade lord killed her father and burned down their village. But the way she told it and the way the "flashback" was presented on screen, I just didn't care. In the end her character was insignificant. Negligible. And sure enough she was killed later in the movie. And I shed not a single drop of tear. Even the circumstances upon which she died was a token kill-the-love-interest-of-the-hero act. In the end Jet Li trainor of Jason turned out to be a strand of hair of the Monkey King (which he used to clone himself) and drunken master Jackie Chan turned out to be odd old man from the odd old videoshop. The token love-interest girl reappeared in her 21st century hot girl glory seconds away from when the end credits scrolled up. And Jason smiled a knowing smile.

Thoughts:

The way I described the story above should be enough for anyone to gauage how I feel about this movie. What an utter waste of 140 pesos. Several of us from the office decided we should watch a movie. A mini poll was conducted. This movie won. It might look like I spoiled the movie by telling what happened in the end, but in reality I'm saving you (all four of you who read my blog) from accidentally spending your hard-earned cash on this movie.

Would I see it again? Would I recommend it to my friends? If you have to ask, you'll never know.

***

Actually, if I forget about the 140 pesos I paid for the ticket for a moment, I believe the very simplistic love connection presented in the movie between Jason and the token heroe's-love-interest can happen in real life. When both of you are eight. At that age, there's a big chance that your crush also has a crush on you. And you go on having a crush at each other, spending a lot of time together, writing each other notes, until such time that the two of you graduates from elementary school and had to go each other's separate ways because you are going to an all-boys high school and she an all-girls one.

I don't know. Just my opinion.

New banner

I thought it would be nice to have a banner for my blog, so I created one. The picture in the banner was that of the lake at Del Monte Golf Course. It's probably the tee #11 or #12 for senior golfers. I don't know. I forgot. But I love this part of the course. The tee was in a little island in the lake. I like that it had a bench at the end of the bridge that connected the little island to the rest of the golf course. Spread around the golf course were the company houses provided for Bugo and Plantation-assigned DM executives. How nice it would be at the end of each day to sit in that bench, relax, think, and blog.

***

And of course, whenever I think of the DM Golf Course, I remember her. And yeah, I wouldn't admit it before, but they were right, I went there just to see her, at least at first. But if I really think about if, if I can be objective about it, more than half the time (probably even two-thirds) I went there, I never saw her. So in the end I'd like to think that this proved that I went there because of the golf course more than anything else. One time I went there with just two hours of sleep (went home at 2:00 AM from a Saturday night out with friends, slept, and then woke up at 4:00 AM to get ready). I remember I was very sleepy in the ride going to the course, and sleepy while eating breakfast at the clubhouse. But as we started and I got to see the view of the course, breathed the fresh air, smelled the freshly-cut grass and the pleasant smell of pine trees, I was energized. The whole course was more than 6 km of walk, but I forgot that just minutes before I was tired and lacked sleep. There's something about walking that golf course that I love. It's the reflections about my life that I got while walking the scenic route. It's the reason why I now call this blog "Walk With Carl". This blog, like the walk, gives me a venue to think about my life and where it's headed. Now it's not literal where I write my goals in life here in this blog, rather this blog has been a tool for me to reflect on where I came from (my history, at least that which I chose to write about) and gives me an insight or hint at where I am headed.

***

And yes, the Moalboal trip last weekend. And the customary birthday post (which I conveniently forgot to write). More on these later.

Moalboal

I have been talking to an officemate through instant messenger about our plans to go to Moalboal (which I assume is a scenic beach/dive resort to the south of Cebu City) tomorrow. The original plan was for an overnight stay, but due to the resort being fully booked, it was decided that it will just be a whole day affair instead. It's fine by me, considering that the alternative was to stay overnight, sleeping on the beach using a sleeping mat. It would have been cool actually if I think about it but only so long as it wouldn't rain. If it rains, it'd be uncool and very cold night of non-sleep. So it'll just be a whole-day affair.

Now this Monday will be a public holiday so I guess I have an extra free day to buy a Rubik's cube and learn how to solve it.

***

I've just upgraded to Vista SP1. The total download was just around 67 MB (I guess because I've installed all updates from Windows Update just last month so my PC needed only a few updates to be officially called "SP1") and overall the whole activity probably took around an hour and a half to finish. I'm happy that I didn't experience any of those horror stories regarding installing SP1, though I guess it's still too early to tell if the installation went well.

I'm sticking with Vista for now because it came pre-installed with my PC. All other OS that I'd like to try will have to be installed in VMWare Server that I've already downloaded but have not yet installed. Interesting because in my previous PC, it took just about 5 days after buying it before I made it into a dual boot (the other OS being Mandrake Linux). Of course I was still in college then and I had plenty of free time to install and reinstall different operating systems. And it came with just Windows 98. And I wasn't "online" then so a downtime due to OS mishaps doesn't mean much. Now, I just want to check my Gmail everyday.

People say that Vista is slower than XP. And I get them. My previous PC, at the time that my parents bought it for me, just barely met the minimum requirements to run Windows XP. But when I finally installed XP (a release candidate, not the final release) I immediately notice the improved performance. It was noticeably faster than Windows 98.

This time around, my PC is not top-of-the-line, but I'm certain that with this specs, XP will fly like the wind if it was the one preinstalled. But I'm sticking with Vista for now. It came preinstalled with my PC and I'm sure a significant portion of the price I paid for it was for the OS. So I'm enjoying the privilege of "Genuine" Windows, whatever that means.

***

Update: The trip to Moalboal will be an overnight stay after all. I just hope it wouldn't rain.

Just dreams

Last year, I attended the World Youth Day Cross vigil here in Cagayan de Oro. The cross was en route to Sydney, Australia for the World Youth Day 2008. I dream of attending the event.

Last year, I wanted to attend a solitary retreat for my birthday.

This year, I would have loved to attend the three-day stay-in holy week retreat sponsored by Xavier University.

In kindergarten, I wrote "Doctor" as my ambition in our yearbook. In elementary, I wrote "Physical Therapist". In senior year high school, I wrote "Accountancy" as my first choice on what course to take. In college, I finished "Computer Science".

From when I was seven until I was nine, I used to draw stick drawings that to me passed as "movie posters" on a cardboards. Now I have this secret ambition of writing a novel. Could I ever achieve this?

In college, I told myself that I would write computer games for a living. Now I write business applications.

We were close. And then far. We connected. And then lost touch.

I dreamt. And then hoped. Changed my mind. And then hoped.

Life is more than a journey. It's a chase. May I gain speed as I grow. And so may you.

God speed.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“For you, a thousand times over,” Hassan answered when his best friend Amir asked him if he would eat dirt if Amir asked him to.

This is a story of two generations of two boys, best friends, who got separated from each other at the time of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Two boys. And their two fathers. Amir and his father ended up living in America, while Ali and Hassan were left in war-torn Afghanistan. The circumstance upon which they were separated from each other is difficult to describe without spoiling the story. Just know that there’s going to be a search to reunite. And with it, the search for atonement, and salvation.

This is one of the best novels I’ve read in years. Afghanistan, the country I only heard about or seen in TV’s when the US retaliated from the 9/11/2001 attacks on the twin towers of NY’s World Trade Center and several other locations in the US, was vividly described. I could almost see the streets, hear its noise and chatters, and smell the fragrance and the stench as Amir described his life and his country then and now. I could see Amir and Hassan run up the hill and watch over their village (it reminded me of those times when my friends and I would climb up a hill and watch our village below, fascinated at how organized the houses are in the subdivisions, and the vastness of the ocean beside it). But more than their country, the two boys themselves, along with their friendship and their fathers’ friendship, were expertly characterized by Hosseini. Ten to twenty pages on and I found myself caring for the book’s main characters. From the back cover of the book I gathered that an invasion was going to do something to the lives of the characters and I found myself anxious to read on the circumstance of the two best friends’ separation, and the eventual search to reunite.

I’d definitely recommend this book to my friends. Last week a colleague told me that she wanted to read a book over the long weekend (3-day weekend due to public holiday) and asked me for a recommendation. I bought several books since moving to Cebu, but I had a hard time recommending one because I liked them all equally and none of them really stood out from the rest (all of what I would readily recommend I left in my home city, Cagayan de Oro). She wouldn’t admit it, but she leans towards fantasy so I ended up lending her my copy of “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman. I had a backup fantasy recommendation, “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, but she wanted to borrow just one book. Anyway, had I already read “The Kite Runner” when she asked for a recommendation, I definitely would have recommended it. A thousand times over, even though it isn’t fantasy.

Theater Report: Vantage Point

February 21, 2008
Ayala Center Cinema 1
7:30 PM
Attendance: 95% of capacity

Previews:

10,000 BC (looks enjoyable to watch, but the story is hard to deduce from the preview)
Horton Hears a Who (definitely for children)
WALL-E (from the creators of Finding Nemo, I’m definitely watching this one)
Meet The Spartans (a parody of “300”, looks funny and dumb at the same time)
I don’t remember the other previews.

Story:

The president of the United States attends a summit on anti-terrorism and got assassinated. Secret service agent Barnes, who took a bullet for the president in a previous assassination attempt, tried to catch the unknown shooter right there and then. The story is told from several points of view (thus, the title “Vantage Point”).

Thoughts:

This is a storytelling that I haven’t seen before, or I don’t remember seeing before. So its storytelling was fresh to me. You’d think that watching a film constantly being rewound several times, each time presenting a different vantage point of the same central situation is boring, but it wasn’t. Okay, maybe you wouldn’t think that, but I certainly did. I expected it to be boring. I even thought it was going to be a political drama (but then that’s my fault because I haven’t seen or read an ad for this film). I probably wouldn’t have gone to this movie had it not been for free (the company I worked for have what we call “Movie Nights” where every month they chose a movie that we have the opportunity to watch for free). When the email for this month’s Movie Night came and I learned it was going to be “Vantage Point”, I commented to my colleagues that I wish they chose “Jumper”. But I saw “Jumper” a week ago and now that I saw both movies I thought the company got it right in choosing “Vantage Point”. It was great, edge-of-your-seat thriller from beginning to end. Later in the movie the story just went improbable, but it’s okay. The premise itself, I think, called for improbability in order for the film to be made. I’m not a fan of its plot, but I’m definitely a fan of how it was told and the pace that it was told. It’s the kind of storytelling that you only get to see in good television these days (“24”, “Lost”, “Prison Break”). I thought “Vantage Point” showed me, if anything, how TV’s “24” would look like in the big screen and how it would sound like in a Dolby Digital theater. I heard rumors of a “24” movie and I think it would be great.

Would I see it again? Maybe I’ll see it again in DVD, there’s not much reason to watch it again once you knew who did what. Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes.

2007

I wanted to have the usual end of year list. Every blog should have it at the end of each year. List of books that I liked and not liked, movies, tv shows, and events. It's too late to do that now (obviously) so I'll just write some of my thoughts of the year that was 2007.

“I went to take memories. And to talk more than to see. Never got the chance on talking.”

In 2006, I took every opportunity to have my picture taken in my cubicle, in the cubicle of my colleagues, in the canteen, and in the small landmark places outside our office building. I took the opportunities to take pictures of my colleagues. I joined a colleague in his golf games, not to play golf, but to take pictures of the golf course that my previous employer owned. Somehow I knew, I would be leaving the company.

And in the second half of 2007, I did leave the company to work for another one in another city. It was an opportunity to try to fend for myself and train rigorously in the field that I now loved, an opportunity that was too good to miss and couldn’t have come at a better time. There were rumors that our department will be dissolved, replaced by the IT department of the new owner’s company. There were talks that it won’t happen. I did not wait to see which is true. I left.

“How are you?”

“The decision was the right one, given the circumstance.”

The thing about leaving your comfort zone is that you grow uncomfortable. For the first time I was away from home, from my family, from my friends that I have known since I was four, and the colleagues that I had worked with, laughed with, talked with, and sang with for over four years. It’s like being under the sun all of a sudden when your whole life you only knew rain. It’s a good thing that work is similar to the previous one. If it hadn’t, it would have been like sucked in a whirlwind instead of just being thrown in a world where the familiar rain is absent, replaced by the warm sunlight.

After over six months in the uncomfort zone number one, life is getting better. I can see the heavy clouds looming ahead. Soon enough, the drizzle will come. And then the familiar rain. The heat will give way to the relaxing coolness.

“Do you think your 2008 will be better than last year?”

“Don’t know. Does the wind always come before the rain?”

I don’t want to predict my 2008, not that anyone can predict what will happen in the future. But one always prays that the new year would be better than the last. Each year contains its set of setbacks and its set of advances. How can I chose one over the other?

“Any new year resolution?”

“I don’t know what it means anymore.”

To lose X number of pounds. To lose X number of enemies and gain X number of friends. Never commit the same mistakes again, would that be a resolution? If so, then that’s probably it. I’d love to achieve that. I probably won’t.

“Were you happy with how your new year started?”

“Outside the comfort zone, the start of the year went unnoticed.”

It’s almost March and I’m just writing this now. I am happy.

Theater Report: Spiderwick Chronicles

February 16, 2008
SM City Cebu Cinema 4
7:45 PM
Attendance: 40% of capacity

Previews: Just on time coming in so I wasn’t able to see any trailers.

Story: A family moves in to an estate of an old ancestor (or somewhat like that), a mother, twin boys, and a girl. One of the twins finds a book that’s sort of a guide to the “other” world. It contains all the secrets of this “other” world and now the other world’s super villain wants to read it and conquer all the worlds. The siblings (twin boys, one girl) are thrown to protect the book and thus the worlds.

My thoughts: It’s a very simple story with very few characters. Action is limited to the estate, its surrounding forest, a sanatorium, and somewhere where nobody ages (but is not Never Never Land). The book, where this movie was based, is probably a good read. But there’s nothing much in the movie in terms of a fantasy story that I haven't seen before.

The special effects are good. Freddie Highmore (acting the dual role of the twin boys) was excellent. I’d say he’s the best child actor around today. The way he acts is very real, very believable. There were instances of the twin’s interaction where you’d notice that they are not really in the same room (being acted by a single actor), but there are also instances where you’d forget that this two characters are acted by a single actor. The music reminds me of the first two Harry Potter movies. And the end credit sequences were great.

Would I see it again? Once is enough. Would I recommend it to my friends? Only those that are fans of fantasy.

Theater Report: Jumper

February 17, 2008
SM City Cebu Cinema 3
5:30 PM
Attendance: 90% of capacity

Previews: Teaser trailer of “Star Trek” (directed by JJ Abrams). I first heard about this new Star Trek movie a year or two ago in Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX). Mix reaction in the forum when it was announced. Some said it’s going to be a disaster. Some are more optimistic because it was going to be directed by JJ Abrams who created TV’s “Lost” and “Alias”. Funny because when I watched “Cloverfield” two weeks ago I thought it was the movie tied to JJ Abrams that I heard in HSX. And I thought it wasn’t very impressive for somebody who created “Alias” and “Lost”. Now I realized it was “Star Trek”. Impressive.

Story: This report is about “Jumper”, but I just spent a relatively long paragraph about “Star Trek”, which will not be shown until 2009, probably Memorial Day weekend 2009. Anyhow, “Jumper” is a story of at first one and then later on two “jumpers”. They are people with the ability to teleport to any place they can vividly see in their mind (places they’d been to before, seen in postcards, etc.). It wasn’t long since finding out about his ability that the first jumper used it to steal money from a bank. He said he had no choice. He was 12 and alone. “What would you do?” Oh, I don’t know. There are many decent jobs that I could think of if I’m a jumper. Delivery boy, messenger, spy, to name a few. Now those are just “jumping” related jobs. There are other regular odd jobs minus the hours spent traveling to and from work. But then again all of them combined wouldn’t earn half as much as a minute stroll to the friendly neighborhood bank’s vault. Anyhow, all is well, until somebody who kills jumpers for a living showed up.

My thoughts: The first 30 minutes where the film’s premise was fleshed out were great. From there up to the ending wasn’t so great, or good for that matter. It became nonsense. Carrying around a backpack full of money is so 70’s. How about buying himself tons of debit cards? With few spare bills for those where debit cards aren’t accepted. And what is that secret society that hunts down and kill “jumpers” because “only God should have that power to be everywhere at the same time”? What’s that society all about? “Only God should decide when somebody should die,” I’d say to them if I were the jumper. It’s probably just anti-religion symbolism nonsense. It could just have been a love story between a jumper and an ordinary girl. Or a superhero story. As it was, it was nothing but about a pursuit of a jumper. Once the pursuer was defeated, the movie ended. It had to. It had nowhere else to go. Hayden Christinsen doesn’t show much emotion on screen. The actor who played his character as a “young jumper” would probably had done better at the job had he been years older.

Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it to my friends? No. I wanted to buy the book where this movie was based on, but it wasn’t available in Powerbooks SM Cebu and I didn’t have time to go to National Bookstore. The book’s probably better than the movie.

Next by Michael Crichton

I talked about this book earlier in a previous post. Now I’ve finished reading it and the book went nowhere from the first 150 pages or so that I talked about in that earlier blog post. I was still surprised with the twists in the end, but I just felt that the story went nowhere since the first 150 pages. Probably because he wanted it to be as close to what’s really happening in “genetics” as possible. But I still love the way Crichton makes each of his novel a page-turner. Everything that I’ve read from him had been page-turners. And I’d just love to have that ability.

Valentines 08

Happy Valentine's Day to all. One of those "Hallmark" holidays as they say. Created for a commercial purpose. I'm very sleepy now.

***

Here's a song that I like right now. It's "Nessun dorma", in English "No one shall sleep." Popularized by the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti from the opera "Turandot". Search for it on the net. Once you'll listen to it you'll say, "Ahh, I've heard that before..."

The Prince
Nessun dorma, nessun dorma ... Tu pure, o Principessa, Nella tua fredda stanza, Guardi le stelle Che tremano d'amore E di speranza.	No one sleeps, no one sleeps... Even you, o Princess, In your cold room, Watch the stars, That tremble with love And with hope.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me, Il nome mio nessun saprà, no, no, Sulla tua bocca lo dirò Quando la luce splenderà, Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio Che ti fa mia.	But my secret is hidden within me; My name no one shall know, no, no, On your mouth I will speak it* When the light shines, And my kiss will dissolve the silence That makes you mine.
Chorus
Il nome suo nessun saprà E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir.	No one will know his name And we must, alas, die.
The Prince
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!	Vanish, o night! Set**, stars! At daybreak, I shall conquer!

Those good old dreams

When I sent my application to DM five years ago it was not business, it was personal. My mother worked for the company for 37 years and my father for around 20 years (I can't pull the exact figure off the top of my head right now). Discounting the scholarship I got over the years of my life as a student, the money that my parents got from DM pretty much paid for my education, not to mention the food on our table, and come to think of it, the table itself where eat the food. In my application five years ago, I said in my cover letter that I hope to serve the company for the same number of years like my parents did. I wanted to nurture a career in IT within the company and was prepared to retire with the company. Not being able to realize this now is the saddest part of leaving DM because when I wrote it in my application letter I meant it.

Some of our dreams come true. Some don't. This is one of mine that won't.

Next

The Harry Potter series has ended, so I don't really have a book in mind that I'm sure to buy when it comes out. I have bought a lot of books since Harry Potter 7, but the thoughts I had about them never made it to this blog. I moved to a new company. Moved to a new city. I seem to have something else to do besides blogging. But here's something about the book that I'm reading now, Next, by Michael Crichton.

It's about genetics and biotechnology, and the drama that could probably happen around the subject. Congo, Timeline, Airframe, Andromeda Strain. I've yet to read a Crichton book that I didn't like. (Or with characters that I could actually remember.)

I hope it's a good read. I'm not yet finished, but here's the thing. I'm more than a hundred pages on, met a lot of characters and not one I could really care for. That's bad. But then again I'm hundred pages on, no character to care for, and yet I'm not tired of it so far. I'm still intrigued at what will happen next. I guess when you read a Crichton you don't expect memorable characters, but the thrill of a lot of twists and a lot of turns. Interesting subject. Interesting events. They're keeping me on this book.

Unsent

I've just deleted a draft mail that's been sitting in my Drafts folder since July 16, 2006. What was I thinking in writing it? Things looked clearer then, before they got murky. Some emails are just not meant to be sent, the same way that some things are better left unsaid.

Pursuit of happiness

Lie about your dreams and who will help you achieve them?

Here's my favorite realization of 2007. This never made it in my blog the day it came hopping to my mind like a frog who was convinced it was more than a frog. I never got around to write it, until I was asked the question just hours ago, which was really not directly related to this one realization, which in turn makes me wonder a bit why write this down now.

In between the lines and in between everything that was said, facial expressions and all, I saw a girl who wanted to live her dreams after years of putting them aside. Those dreams were apparently not here in the Philippines. And I long since put it as the reason why she pushed away any guy that came too close, unless that guy also had dreams that are far from this country.

***

But did she have to lie?

Dr. Gregory House would say, "everybody lies." Lie about your dreams and who will help you achieve them? Those few whom you told the truth, of course. When people don't tell you about their ambitions, or lie about it when asked, it just means that the dreamer decided that you have no role in achieving it.