From the monthly archives: June 2007
I’ve been doing some movie watching this week, much thanks to Triskal who can help me watch while on the road, and I thought I’d do some movie reviews since it’s been a while since I last did one. :)
SCOOP (2006)
Rating: 
A student journalist, for a college paper, visiting friends in contemporary London happens upon the scoop of a lifetime. Along the investigative trail, she finds magic, murder, mystery – and perhaps love, with a British aristocrat.
Now I only watched this movie all because of the hunkiness that is Hugh Jackman. ♥ I also think Scarlett Johansson is a good actress, so this should be interesting. The movie starts with Joe Stromble’s funeral, which later moves to his soul together with the other dead ones on a boat with the Grim Reaper. He talks to one, who apparently is the old secretary of Peter Lyman (Jackman) and she has reason to believe that he is the Tarot Card Killer, who kills brown haired prostitutes with a tarot card sign after. Scarlett plays Sondra Prensky, a journalism student who is in London for some project. She attends one of Sid’s (Woody Allen) show as Splendini the magician and volunteers for the vanishing act. Inside the box, she meets the ghost of Joe Stromble who gives her a tip on Peter Lyman. So off she goes to investigate, dragging Sid with her. She meets Peter with her fake drowning, and they use this closeness to investigate on him. Sondra falls in love with him, while Sid realizes that maybe Peter really is a fake.
Now the movie is nice, if only because of Hugh Jackman’s presence. But somehow I feel like the movie’s lacking something. I feel like Hugh and Scarlett didn’t have much chemistry together, even if I think they played their roles perfectly. Did that make sense? Maybe it just turned me off that from the first moment that Peter and Sondra met, they both want to get into one another’s pants. That particular part did not feel realistic enough; half the time they were kissing and making goo-goo eyes to each other. I also feel that the investigation/mystery part of the movie wasn’t given that much focus. It dragged on the first part and then quickly wrapped up at the last. Woody Allen was stellar, though, and if it weren’t for him (and yes, the hunkiness of Hugh Jackman), the movie would lose all its charms.
Just three stars, and one is for Hugh Jackman. Sorry, maybe on your next movie, I’ll give you more. But you’re still hot. :P
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Rating:
Lewis is a brilliant 12-year-old orphan who has failed a lot of adoption interviews because of his creativity. On his last failed interview, he decides to create an invention that would let him search deep in his memory so he could see his mother when she left her at the orphanage. He brings this invention to the science fair and meets Wilbur, who warns him of a Bowler Hat Guy. Lewis’ invention screws up much thanks to the said person, and he loses belief in himself. Wilbur tries to convince him to go back to the Science Fair but Lewis doesn’t want to and he doesn’t believe that the former is from the future, so Wilbur brings him to 2037, his current time. Unfortunately, the two of them got into an accident, which makes Lewis stay, making him meet Wilbur’s wacky family as well while the Bowler Hat Guy works on destroying the time and space continuum.
Now this is a good movie. :) I am a fan of cartoons, so this interested me, but the story just pulled me in. Its main storyline played on time travel, and unlike other time traveling movies, this one doesn’t make you confused with the continuity. The characters were wacky, especially the Bowler Hat Guy! The revelations were quite surprising, and the ending was nicely done. The movie stresses the importance of family, and of always moving forward despite all failures. :)
This movie is definitely a keeper, something I’d like to watch over and over again. :) Another notable character there is Goob. Who is he? Watch the movie, you’ll know. :D
Last February, I went through some events that made me realize one thing (out of the many): in order for me to do something really worthwhile, to be able to reach my dreams, I have to make hard decisions. As what Ginger Foutley said in The Wedding Frame: Nothing worth having ever comes easy. True, right?
Yesterday (and the past few days), these thoughts hit me again. Hard. And I never thought this would be so hard to do, to think that I’ve been wanting to do it for the past months.
You see, yesterday, I resigned from my job.
This is the moment where I wish I didn’t close down my PBB blog because things are getting hot inside the house. If you’re not watching, I won’t recommend that you watch unless you’re really curious or you want to be stressed all because of Wendy.
Don’t we all just love Wendy?
Yes, I’m being sarcastic there.
Being best friends with a psychologist allowed me to acquire some behavior analyzing stuff from her, and I bet the things happening inside the house entire (Pinoy) Big Brother thing is a psychologist’s dream, you know? And even if I don’t have a degree in the said field, it’s so fun to speculate, to write, to talk and sometimes make fun of the people inside.
So anyway, for those who don’t know, the latest thing they’re showing on Primetime right now is the big Wendy vs. Gee-Ann and Bea fight. They had a face to face nomination two weeks ago, and Gee-Ann gave Wendy 1 point during the nomination because she had the advantage of being outside already (which is true). Wendy said it was okay, but during this survey Kuya made, Wendy (and her minion, Bruce) voted for Gee-Ann as the one who is being plastic and one who doesn’t deserve to win. Of course, being inside the game, Kuya played the audio of the voting and eventually the video. Gee-Ann, hurt, exploded to Kuya, with the oh-so-memorable line, “She’s playing God!” And then Kuya called for a mock nomination, where they had to vote three people who they think do not deserve to win. Gee-Ann and Bea voted for both Wendy and Bruce, and Wendy got hurt.
After spending four years in DLSU for college, one of the important things I have learned is this: food is not cheap. Yes, even for the stereotyped “rich Lasalistas”, we scrimp on food. The cheapest food we can get around the premises is around P25-P30, I think? But that still isn’t cheap, as compared to say, UP. So whenever there’s some kind of event — be it college week, YFC event, org event or university event — we’re all on the lookout for free food. We’re not patay gutom ((Okay, how do I translate this? Dead hungry?)), mind you, we can just be really stingy on food since everything else around us costs a lot.
And besides, a lot of orgs give out free food during their activities. Even if the food is basically the same, it’s still free lunch. :P
But that’s not the point; I just want to share that so I can segue to the event that Aileen is plugging (and yes, I know it’s not a smooth segue :p). Event details are as follows:
WHO: Pinoy Bloggers
WHAT: SM Hypermart invites Bloggers to get a “Taste of Asia”
WHERE: Taste Asia restaurant (beside SM Hypermart) in SM Mall of Asia
WHEN: July 3, 2007 (Tuesday), 7:30PM
Friends, this is free food! Not only that, you’ll get to meet fellow bloggers as well! Come one, come all!…
…wait, it’s only for the first 100 active bloggers who sign up pala. To sign up, post a comment on Aileen’s entry or on any of the coordinator’s blogs that can be found in the same entry (each coordinator leads a category, I think, like Yuga‘s looking for 10 Tech bloggers and Jomar‘s looking for 10 “Religious” Bloggers).
And to those bloggers who I owe something, like Pierre (the CDs) and Jun (some baked goodies, am I right?), please remind me about it the weekend before the event — I’m bound to forget it. ^^;
See you there!
I am back after a one day Error 509 Bandwidth Exceeded day. I never knew that I could eat up my bandwidth (4GB) within ten days? I never expected that, since I never really ran out of bandwidth before. Is my blog finally reaching some sort of “popular” status, or is it only because I have too many graphics in this layout and I like refreshing my screen (I bet on the latter :p). I know my site isn’t as popular as treatmentacne.net, though. :P Anyway, I upgraded my hosting plan just to accomodate my space and bandwidth needs for the rest of the year. I stopped blogging because I know I’d probably eat up my bandwidth before I get to post, so I waited until I can finally pay for my upgrade. Kudos to my host, Protagonist Webhosting. :)
I have some serious things to talk about, which I won’t just yet because…well, I can’t really write about it for now. But it’s definitely stirring up some emotions that I wish were gone but won’t be until I finish the task.
But I’ll cross the bridge when I get there. :)
Anyway, everyone’s been doing the Lakbayan thing since Independence Day. I finally took it and here’s my result:
My Lakbayan grade is C-!
How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out atLakbayan!
Created by Eugene Villar.
Well that’s understandable. I’ve only been to some places in the Visayas region and one in Mindanao (I ♥ Davao!) while other places in Luzon are places I pass through. Not much of a traveler, except maybe for the different YFC International Leaders Conferences I’ve been in.
It’s no secret I want to travel around the Philippines, so this is a good start. I’m going to set myself a goal: raise my Lakbayan grade to at least a B- within the year. How about that? This means I really have to get up and organize outings and whatnot, just to be able to go to the places I want to go to that I haven’t been in before. Anyone want to come with me? :)
[From Bo Sanchez's Blog]
“At The Exact Time I Was Complaining, God Was At Work…”
Let me tell you a fascinating story.
Lizette shared this beautiful story to me this morning and I just knew in my heart that I had to share it to you.
Nick and Lizette are my great friends. Lizette is helping me in Catholic Filipino Academy, where we help parents teach their kids at home. (In case you’re interested in our work, visit http://www.catholicfilipinoacademy.com/) Her husband Nick got a job offer in Canada and has applied for a work permit. (Yes, in a few months, I’ll be losing Lizette from my team as she’ll be joining her husband in Toronto.)
This is what happened. Nick went through the required medical exams for his work permit. After a few days, the doctor called up to tell him that he discovered a mass in Nick’s x-rays. Very much alarmed, he asked Nick to go through a CT scan. “It could be a possible aortic aneurysm which would require immediate surgery,” the doctor told him.
Nick however wasn’t disturbed. “Doc, that mass that you saw may just be my 3rd kidney.” It was a harmless condition his doctor in Manila discovered many years ago. He learned that it occurs to one in two million people.
Still, the doctor asked him to go through a CT scan.
But here was Nick’s problem: The CT scan costs $1,100. Being in Canada without a work permit yet, he was basically broke.
This is interesting! Riz tagged me to do this meme, who tagged others who tagged others and now I don’t know who I will tag. :) Now I’m not sure who to tag since everyone else seems to be tagged.
Anyway, Juned found this weird, funny and a bit morbid looking postcard and scanned it:
If you’re not familiar with this, this postcard is an execution scene in the old days, back in the Spanish era. Now look at the people at the back, who seem to be posing for the picture! Haha, yes, it may be morbid, but it’s actually a very typical Filipin trait — finding the funny side in everything, good AND bad. :) It’s the way we can laugh at how bad corruption is, or make jokes at something as serious as the elections. It’s not that we don’t take things seriously; we just know how to look at the brighter side of things.
Here’s the backside of the postcard, edited by yours truly:
Here are the instructions for this meme:
1. Download the scanned front and back of this postcard and resize to fit your blog. (Riz, panakaw ng bandwidth. :P)
2. Enter your independence day message on the back and post both images on your blog.
3. Title of post should be Only in the Philippines!
4. Tag five fellow countrymen
Tags go to: (Haha, this is hard! Almost everyone I know is already tagged!)
- Jeric, Lai, Sasha (Says), Gean and Jeff.
Mabuhay ka, Pinoy! :)
I’ve been so post happy last week, with PayPerPost and BlogToProfit demanding me to blog (okay, PPP didn’t demand me to blog, but I chose to blog because I wanted to get the big paying ones) more than one entry everyday. To be honest, I feel quite guilty filling this blog with ad posts; it’s like I’m violating some code that I don’t know. Even if I do choose which ads to blog about, sometimes I decide to take up something that I don’t really know (like hair replacement, for example) just because of their price. Then again, at least I get some writing exercise — the more ads I post, the more creative I try to be. No wonder I feel kind of drained from blogging.
But I’m still blogging. Obviously the drained part doesn’t faze me.
To be completely honest, the reason I’m blogging right now is because I feel unsettled. I just received some news through email (on an autoreply email, of all things) that got me feeling kind of worried and wondering if I did the right thing at the right time. I seemed like the right thing yesterday, but after reading that email, I was like, should I have waited? However, if I waited, then the opportunity willt pass me up, and I might forever regret that I didn’t take it. ((This is supposed to be for another entry)) But from the email, the technicalities seem to be against me. I find myself saying, “Well, that’s less than ideal.” Ala HRG/Noah Bennett on Heroes.
Less than ideal for me, that is.
So what do I do now?
I was never tagged to do this survey (and I was waiting for a tag, hmph!), but since the holiday’s fitting, I’ll have it up now, regardless of the nontag. Today is the 109th year of Philippine Independence, and yes, that is disregarding the fact that the Americans and the Japanese took over our country afterwards. This is a day that we all celebrate, for we are finally free of the 300+ years of Spanish rule.
And because of this holiday, I’ll be stealing the survey that some people has done for the past weeks, 3 reasons why I’m proud to be Pinoy. I don’t know if I can stick to three reasons only, because being a Filipino is something I am really proud of. :)
- Strong family values. I love how Filipinos have strong family values, about how one entire clan can live inside a single compound. It’s not only in the own family, but also in the way other people are treated — everyone of my parent’s friends are my Tito/Tita (Uncle/Aunt), and deep friendships are often compared to brotherhood/sisterhood. Filipino family values run deep, which is a really amazing trait that we have.
- Our ability to find laughter in any situation, even at ourselves. It’s not about making fun of people or the situation, but finding the brighter side of each circumstance. I love how even in the most dire situation, Filipinos can still crack a joke to lighten everyone’s moods. :)
- The Food. I know I’m an Italian food lover, but seriously, nothing beats Filipino food! Filipino meals are a different combination — the appetizer (soup) and main course are put together in one viand, and one can have as many servings as is permitted to him! The colors, the tastes — one cannot visit a Pinoy home without being full. And then dessert comes. :P Yum!
- Our color. I used to dislike my brown skin color, but I realized that this color is something that I should be proud of. For one thing, I am not that susceptible to skin cancer, plus when I go swimming or get exposed to the sun, my color goes darker, but then gradually lightens up. No redness, no peeling skin.
- The flexibility of the language. My friends and I were talking about this before, about how alive Filipino language is. It’s already amazing how many dialects there are in the country, and the other thing is that how the language can adapt to other languages. Like how most of our words are influenced by Spanish words — we got their words and made them our own. Or how we can mix Tagalog and English now without sounding really bad (I’m not talking about those who make tusok-tusok the fishball, that’s different :P). Another thing is how our language is not sexist, by having a gender-neutral pronoun to talk about something (i.e. kapatid = brother/sister, asawa = husband/wife).
- Flexibility of the people. Put a Filipino in any country and pretty soon, he’ll fit right in. I find it funny how some people I thought were locals or Fil-Ams in Saipan and Guam turn out to be Filipinos who can still speak the language. :) Filipinos are hardworking people who can do everything for the family, which is probably why a lot of people sacrifice for their families in other countries just to help. Mabuhay kayo!
- Beautiful, beautiful country. Despite all the traffic, pollution and whatnot, the Philippines is still a beautiful and colorful country.
- Bayanihan. It is only in the Philippines that we have this, bayanihan. The picture of people carrying a house to move it to another place is priceless — only Filipinos do this. :)
Gawad Kalinga. And since we’re talking about Bayanihan, I could not fail to mention Gawad Kalinga. GK is started by a Filipino to rid of poverty in the country and also in the world, as GK is already present in Papua New Guinea. Being in a GK community is a really different experience. Even if the houses aren’t as grand as the ones in San Diego Real Estate, GK houses are still beautiful (and no doubt, colorful!) in their own way. :) GK is also not about building houses but also building homes. GK works, and I’m not saying that because I’m a volunteer, but because it is true. :) Don’t believe me? I’ll bring you to a GK site one time. ((Which reminds me, I told Pierre I’d plan a Blogger GK visit. Will get to that soon :P))
Well, I went three times the suggestion, but that’s because there is just so many things to be proud of in being a Pinoy. :) That’s why no matter how old and overplayed that Pinoy Big Brother song is, I still feel a kick of Filipino pride every time I hear it. :)
MABUHAY ANG PINOY! Happy Independence Day! :)
I took a Dive today. Ironically, I have not gone swimming this (already ending) summer yet. So what kind of dive is it?
Well, if you know me in real life you probably know. If you don’t, I can’t divulge it yet. :) But it’s part of the much talked about Great Adventure. Which reminds me…I should always read that entry to remind me of what my 21st year is.
Anyway, like I said, I took a Dive. And right now I’m waiting for the SPLASH! I don’t know what would happen to me, if I will be able to rise up from this dive that I took, or if I will be engulfed by the “waters”. I don’t know if I will be disappointed with that will happen or if I will scream with happiness after. I don’t know if I will continue to stay at where I am in my life right now or be given an opportunity that will somehow make me be like George Lindemann…who knows? Only God knows. But the splash hasn’t come yet, so I can’t say anything. Right now, I will just have to wait. You got that right, wait.
I can do that. I can wait. I’ve been waiting a lot all my life.
But Lord, please let this be it.
In the meantime…as I wait and pray, here’s a really nice devotional from Elisabeth Elliot (on a sidenote, it just occured to me that I have been receiving her devotional for three years already. Yes, her devotionals repeat every year, but I have to admit that I don’t always read it, so sometimes some of the entries hit me like that). Emphasis mine, by the way.
Responsible to Praise
by Elisabeth Elliot
A Lamp Unto My Feet, Luke 23:47We cannot always or even often control events, but we can control how we respond to them. When things happen which dismay or appall, we ought to look to God for his meaning, remembering that He is not taken by surprise nor can his purposes be thwarted in the end. What God looks for is those who will worship Him. Our look of inquiring trust glorifies Him.
One of the witnesses to the crucifixion was a military officer to whom the scene was surely not a novelty. He had seen plenty of criminals nailed up. But the response of this Man who hung there was of such an utterly different nature than that of the others that the centurion knew at once that He was innocent. His own response then, rather than one of despair that such a terrible injustice should take place, or of anger at God who might have prevented it, was praise (Lk 23:47 NEB).
This is our first responsibility: to glorify God. In the face of life’s worst reversals and tragedies, the response of a faithful Christian is praise–not for the wrong itself certainly, but for who God is and for the ultimate assurance that there is a pattern being worked out for those who love Him.
This is the Great Adventure. Have a restful night, everyone. :)
