The Complete Substitute for All Forms of Sociability

I'm going home to my province for the holidays. I go there today specifically because I want to complete the nine Misa de Gallo for the Christmas novena, which begins tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. That said, this will be my last post for 2009. This year I've had some real highs and real lows but all in all 2009 has been good to me. I don't really have any new resolutions for 2010. I'm recycling...for shame. -_- I've discovered that I can't really change everything I don't like about myself. I'm afraid I have to live with many of them. But next year, I begin to live the dividing line between what I want to do and what I think I should do. I clip my wings myself and look out. Probably, I will be miserable for the most part but there will be (I hope) genuine intense moments of joy, too -- and that's something I'd rather have than this...aimless freedom.

"I'll try to be as vague as possible," said Takya apropos to nothing. This declaration was made over a cup of mocha frapp grande and pretzels. Ran didn't even look up from the cellphone message she was perusing. "Hm-hm." "So I don't hurt his feelings...you know?" Takya continued. "He's really sensitive. And... emotional ." The last word was said with a little bit of emphasis. Ran finally closed her phone, took a sip of her coffee (black, hot, no sugar), sighed, because this wasn't the first time she's had this conversation with the same person. "You mean the usual 'it's not you, it's me' speech?" "I have to tread my ground carefully, choose my words -- " "He's not an idiot," Ran interrupted. "-- I wish he wasn't!" Takya whined.

I'll use it for anything from now on.

First things first, I think Quentin Tarantino makes weird movies. Granted I haven't seen many of his movies (I've only really seen three: Pulp Fiction , Kill Bill , and Grindhouse ), but the ones I've seen all have this common elements of being very strange and just a little bit insane. They have their charms though, which is why I couldn't resist this newest addition to the Tarantino brand of (genius?) madness. That, and Brad Pitt. Inglourious Basterds is -- as described by the man himself -- a "spaghetti Western movie with World War II iconography." But since I don't really have trivia knowledge about movies, that doesn't make sense. To me, Inglourious Basterds is a vengeance movie against the backdrop of World War II with Nazi-occupied France as the setting. The movie basically tells two stories. On one side, we have a group of degenerate Irish-American soldiers organized under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt) whose sole mission is ...

Bonfires and the Sound of Drums It is a moonless night when a young man dressed in the noble clothes of a maharlika arrives on a vinta on the shores of the Island of Zubu. He is accompanied by a foreigner, a slight man whose age is impossible to fathom and who wears a long white robe that blows in the breeze. As the vinta draws closer, flame torches, numbering up to fifty, line the beach in welcome while further ahead, bonfires are lit and the furious sound of drumbeats echo in the darkness. “Is it to celebrate your return, my friend, after having been away for many years?” The foreigner asks in fluent, albeit grammatically incorrect, bisaya . “No. The celebration won’t be until tomorrow. This is a different matter.” “I’m curious.” The young noble explains, “The moon has not been sighted in the island for more than ten years. The elders of the village believe that it has been eaten by the Bakunawa so they order the people to light bonfires and make this noise every fourteen days in...

I picked this up on a whim. I was attracted by the title and the poster. What's the number all about? I wondered. And I also wondered about the ragdoll dude holding up a lightbulb on a rod against a backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world. Wait a minute. Did somebody say "post-apocalyptic?" 9 is a CGI-animated film directed by Shane Ackner and produced by Tim Burton. The story is that some time ago, a war between humans and machines (hmm, sounds familiar) erupts, resulting in all sentient life -- machines and humans alike -- being almost entirely wiped out, leaving only nine little mechanical ragdolls and one cat beast (an A.I. wearing a cat skull for a head). 9 is the last ragdoll to be made and is also the main protagonist in the movie. He wakes up to find the body of his scientist-maker dead on the floor and a terrifying post-apocalyptic world waiting just outside the window. Later, he meets 2 and the rest of the numbered ragdolls and through a series of adventures and...

I was cleaning up my room yesterday and found some really old stuff of mine from high school and college. Among them includes this little hand-drawn comics I made I think during college days. It's old. The art obviously needed improvement. And I was still using the traditional watercolor and brush without aid of Photoshop or GIMP. The text is even handwritten. :) But the story is complete, and it's got me thinking about it again. CLICK ON THE THUMBNAILS TO VIEW LARGER IMAGES

Sometimes you just have no choice but to give in. I watched New Moon because my cousin, who is apparently a fan of the saga (she has all the books), forced me to borrow her pirated DVD copy of the movie. I accepted because I was worried that if I didn't, she would instead insist on letting me read all the books. Uhm, no. New Moon is the sequel to the 2008 film Twilight and is based on the second book of the Twilight series of novels by Stephenie Meyer. The movie follows Bella, now eighteen, as she battles teenage angst, sexual tension, and age woes to boot with her sparkly vampire lover, Edward, and the mostly half-naked werewolf bestfriend, Jacob. The cast is composed of actors and actresses I don't really care about: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner. WHY I LIKE IT The first half of the movie is nicely paced and action-packed enough to make me forget how much I'm not really enjoying Kristen Stewart's sad, mopey face and her equally sad, mop...

I watched this film with my parents after winning a bet against my Dad over the Pacquiao vs. Cotto match. :) It was this or New Moon (which I ended up watching anyway *sweatdrop*). 2012 is a 2009 film directed by Roland Emmerich ( Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 10000 B.C. ) It tells the story of how in 2012 the world as we know it is going to end, initially due to solar flares which cause the earth's core to rapidly change temperature, which in turn causes earthquakes and tsunamis. The governments of the world race against time to construct arcs which would serve as shelter for the survivors of the flood that would engulf the planet. The film features a star-studded cast: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton and Woody Harrelson. WHY I LIKE IT The movie operates on the big disaster movie formula, of which Emmerich is apparently an expert, and it works. 2012 has a little of everything: roma...

With New Moon , the new movie from the crazy-popular Twilight saga, out, I was in the mood for some vampire stories. But I wasn't interested in Twilight , let alone its sequel (although I must say that Taylor Lutner looks positively delicious in that promo poster ) so I turned to TV where the new HBO series, True Blood , is making raves. True Blood is based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris. It chronicles the life of Sookie Stackhouse, a human telepath/waitress who falls in love with local vampire, Bill Compton, and gets into all sorts of tangles with him over vampire politics, murder mysteries, supernatural happenings and religious fanaticism. The series stars Anna Paquin as the main character, Sookie, and Stephen Moyer as Bill. Michelle Forbes, who played the lunatic Admiral Cain in Battlestar Galactica , also guest starred as a hedonistic social worker but actually a murderous maenad, Maryann Forrester. WHY I LIKE IT It's a vam...

The answer is, of course, found in the Bible. Job 9: 1 Then Job replied: 2 "Indeed, I know that this is true. But how can a mortal be righteous before God? 3 Though one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand. 4 His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? 5 He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. 6 He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. 7 He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. 8 He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. 9 He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. 10 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. 11 When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him. 12 If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to ...

A darker, more sophisticated version of Sherlock Holmes and his trusted number two, Dr. Watson. I am all kinds of excited about this movie.