Every time I come to the Philippines, it's like coming home. I don't know what it is, though. This place isn't all that great. The sticky hot weather and the stink from all the pollution in the air should turn me off. Instead I let the sweat run down my face, and I draw in the smog. It's home!
I've been here with the other State-side family members for about four days now. We spent the first three days at Rizal Re-Creation Center, which used to be the well-known to us Faith kids as the Word of Life Camp. It's a lot cooler now, though, with frisbee golf, crochet, along with the swimming pool and waterslide. It even has its own pet monkey! Pictures at timches.com.
So that's it so far. Rock on!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
I'm inspired.
"Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise.
Promise of a better day.
Promise of a greater hope.
Promise of a new tomorrow.
This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are - bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels."
-Paul Kirkwood (Beautiful Girls)
Beautiful Girls is one of the best movies of the later 90's, and this quote alone is proof of that.
Promise of a better day.
Promise of a greater hope.
Promise of a new tomorrow.
This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are - bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels."
-Paul Kirkwood (Beautiful Girls)
Beautiful Girls is one of the best movies of the later 90's, and this quote alone is proof of that.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Sharks and spiders and sand? Oh my!
Aw...poor Sharks. I am truly saddened about their elimination, but I also feel like they deserved to lose against the Red Wings when giving up games two and four with nothing but carelessness. That and the Red Wings solid team and determination. So now we will just have to watch the Western Conference Finals with the Ducks and the Red Wings. All I have to say is...GO RED WINGS!!! (Freakin' Ducks!)
Over the weekend Kuya and I went and saw Spider-man 3. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It definitely is NOT better than Spider-man 2...or even Spider-man 1. However, that does not mean that I find it a terrible movie, but it does mean it was not a great movie. It was...alright.
(Warning: Contains major spoilers!)
There has been a lot of complaints about the movie, though, and all the complaints are understandable. For one thing, the emo characteristics to portray Peter's "evil" personality was totally stupid, which ended in a peak of stupidity at a jazz bar scene. I can see why they had this sequence in its total goofiness with him walking down the street (I did like the close up shots of his hands pointing at everyone). It worked really well in Spider-man 2 when they did the sequence of him enjoying life without his powers and super hero responsibility. Nevertheless, it didn't flow as well in this movie, and the emo style (especially the hair) was so out of place even for an evil Peter.
Like X-men 3, Spider-man 3 suffered from too many plotlines and the introduction of too many characters. Hence not enough screen time for either the Sandman or Venom to develop into characters worth caring about. Even Gwen Stacy's character created a lot of problems for the Peter/MJ/Harry love triangle to make it more like a love square, which was sort of dumb in any sense that's not Dawson's Creek-like. Gwen was really nice to look at, though.
In the end, we got a butler confessing to Harry about his observations of Norman's wounds and the Sandman confessing his unintentional yet tormenting killing. That's two too many confessions I think. It just seemed to wrap up two complex plotlines way too conveniently, not to mention that it doesn't make much sense at all. Why would the butler hold such information from Harry for so long and watch his hatred for Spider-man slowly destroy him from the inside? How come Spider-man let Sandman go, even with his heartfelt confession, when he was 1) a giant hammer-fall away from killing Spider-man, 2) was responsible for several bank robberies, and 3) put a lot of lives in danger in the process? Sandman may have had bad luck in the past, but the choices he made by breaking the law are irresponsible. Spider-man, of all super heroes, would understand that this can't be tolerated.
Harry's death didn't bug me at all. I liked Harry's story in this movie a lot (minus the butler confession), especially the conflict between his hatred for Spider-man and his love for Peter Parker. Him sacrificing his life to save Peter's wasn't extraordinary in any way, and probably more predictable than I think, but overcoming his hatred to redeem himself stayed true to the comics. Of course, his death was not conducted in the same way, but character was not compromised in any way.
The Dawson's Creek-esque drama was totally awesome, and they need more senseless love triangles (or squares) in these types of movies. That girly fight between Peter and Harry over MJ at the mansion made me smile. It was like a soap opera episode in a super hero setting. Brilliant!
With the negatives aside, the action sequences were spectacular. From the Goblin's return to the subway fight to the two-on-two showdown, I thought it was all pretty impressive. Although the repetitiveness of MJ falling from the sky was used twice (I count the one with Gwen Stacy) in this movie, it was still cool to watch the different ways she was saved. Goblin and Spidey working together like that was super cool.
With cool action sequences and the key characters not straying from their personalities or roles from the comics, I feel like the movie was fine. The biggest problem I had with X-men 3 was that most of the characters strayed from their personalities found in comics. Wolverine as the main leader? Ha! Magneto feeling guilty once he lost his powers? Ridiculous! Storm being way annoying? Well, I guess that's pretty accurate, but didn't help the other stuff. Even using the serum to disable Magneto was against the X-mens' beliefs they strongly established earlier in the movie.
(End spoilers.)
But I digress. Spider-man 3 was fun and enjoyable and still had a heart for the comics. Most of the problems that were created in the making of this film were from the producers, as I found in this website's comments. It's a shame, really. The movie would have probably been a lot better with just the Goblin and one other villain - either Venom or the Sandman, but not both.
Anyways, I probably won't go seeing it a second time in the theatres. It just wasn't THAT good. I will just go on to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which shows promise. And The Dark Knight looks more and more cool as the months go by. If anyone had doubts about Heath Ledger as The Joker, take a look at this! I got so giddy when I first saw this yesterday. Looks like the Batman franchise has potential to be better than the Spider-man series. Very cool.
Over the weekend Kuya and I went and saw Spider-man 3. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It definitely is NOT better than Spider-man 2...or even Spider-man 1. However, that does not mean that I find it a terrible movie, but it does mean it was not a great movie. It was...alright.
(Warning: Contains major spoilers!)
There has been a lot of complaints about the movie, though, and all the complaints are understandable. For one thing, the emo characteristics to portray Peter's "evil" personality was totally stupid, which ended in a peak of stupidity at a jazz bar scene. I can see why they had this sequence in its total goofiness with him walking down the street (I did like the close up shots of his hands pointing at everyone). It worked really well in Spider-man 2 when they did the sequence of him enjoying life without his powers and super hero responsibility. Nevertheless, it didn't flow as well in this movie, and the emo style (especially the hair) was so out of place even for an evil Peter.
Like X-men 3, Spider-man 3 suffered from too many plotlines and the introduction of too many characters. Hence not enough screen time for either the Sandman or Venom to develop into characters worth caring about. Even Gwen Stacy's character created a lot of problems for the Peter/MJ/Harry love triangle to make it more like a love square, which was sort of dumb in any sense that's not Dawson's Creek-like. Gwen was really nice to look at, though.
In the end, we got a butler confessing to Harry about his observations of Norman's wounds and the Sandman confessing his unintentional yet tormenting killing. That's two too many confessions I think. It just seemed to wrap up two complex plotlines way too conveniently, not to mention that it doesn't make much sense at all. Why would the butler hold such information from Harry for so long and watch his hatred for Spider-man slowly destroy him from the inside? How come Spider-man let Sandman go, even with his heartfelt confession, when he was 1) a giant hammer-fall away from killing Spider-man, 2) was responsible for several bank robberies, and 3) put a lot of lives in danger in the process? Sandman may have had bad luck in the past, but the choices he made by breaking the law are irresponsible. Spider-man, of all super heroes, would understand that this can't be tolerated.
Harry's death didn't bug me at all. I liked Harry's story in this movie a lot (minus the butler confession), especially the conflict between his hatred for Spider-man and his love for Peter Parker. Him sacrificing his life to save Peter's wasn't extraordinary in any way, and probably more predictable than I think, but overcoming his hatred to redeem himself stayed true to the comics. Of course, his death was not conducted in the same way, but character was not compromised in any way.
The Dawson's Creek-esque drama was totally awesome, and they need more senseless love triangles (or squares) in these types of movies. That girly fight between Peter and Harry over MJ at the mansion made me smile. It was like a soap opera episode in a super hero setting. Brilliant!
With the negatives aside, the action sequences were spectacular. From the Goblin's return to the subway fight to the two-on-two showdown, I thought it was all pretty impressive. Although the repetitiveness of MJ falling from the sky was used twice (I count the one with Gwen Stacy) in this movie, it was still cool to watch the different ways she was saved. Goblin and Spidey working together like that was super cool.
With cool action sequences and the key characters not straying from their personalities or roles from the comics, I feel like the movie was fine. The biggest problem I had with X-men 3 was that most of the characters strayed from their personalities found in comics. Wolverine as the main leader? Ha! Magneto feeling guilty once he lost his powers? Ridiculous! Storm being way annoying? Well, I guess that's pretty accurate, but didn't help the other stuff. Even using the serum to disable Magneto was against the X-mens' beliefs they strongly established earlier in the movie.
(End spoilers.)
But I digress. Spider-man 3 was fun and enjoyable and still had a heart for the comics. Most of the problems that were created in the making of this film were from the producers, as I found in this website's comments. It's a shame, really. The movie would have probably been a lot better with just the Goblin and one other villain - either Venom or the Sandman, but not both.
Anyways, I probably won't go seeing it a second time in the theatres. It just wasn't THAT good. I will just go on to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which shows promise. And The Dark Knight looks more and more cool as the months go by. If anyone had doubts about Heath Ledger as The Joker, take a look at this! I got so giddy when I first saw this yesterday. Looks like the Batman franchise has potential to be better than the Spider-man series. Very cool.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Like a mass e-mail.
Wow...has it really been that long? And to think that my last post was when I was over in the East! You guys probably thought I never made it back and died in a plane crash or something. Heh...Alright, maybe not.
The past month has been full of ongoing projects that even now I need to attend to. Deadlines are coming up in about a week and a half, so I really got to get on those videos. However, since I neglected this blog much longer than I ever intended, I should write something on here. The job has been busy, but it's okay. I welcome busy-ness.
When I'm not occupied with work, I probably get onto Warcraft or play the new Nintendo Wii that was recently purchased. Hurrah! It took a long while to finally find one at retail price. That thing is ridiculous in how much demand it has developed. The ironic thing is that not very many (good) games have been made for it yet, so I'm still waiting for games like the new Super Smash Bros., or Mario Galaxy comes out. But anywho, it was a HUGE hit at Kuya and Chesney's BBQ last week. Their reasons were because they wanted to celebrate my birthday since Dad was in town, but I think they just wanted some excuse to have a BBQ at their place. I'm not complaining because I got presents, and it was a jolly good time.
I've been going to a Friday night young adults Bible study at a church not too far from here. It's one of those huge mega churches, but the Bible study is not unreasonably large. It's been pretty good to get connected with a Christian community again and discuss the Bible and pray together. I did visit the actual church service today to see how it goes, and it's definitely not for me. Any church where you have to spend 20 minutes just trying to find a place to park in a three block radius is not for me. I'll go look elsewhere next week, but I thought I'd give it a chance. There are other reasons why I wouldn't go to the church, but do you really want me to go into that? I thought so.
That's it. I hate giving updates like this on my blog. It's like one of those e-mails you send out to all your friends as an update or newsletter. Just so impersonal, I think. It won't be so next time.
The past month has been full of ongoing projects that even now I need to attend to. Deadlines are coming up in about a week and a half, so I really got to get on those videos. However, since I neglected this blog much longer than I ever intended, I should write something on here. The job has been busy, but it's okay. I welcome busy-ness.
When I'm not occupied with work, I probably get onto Warcraft or play the new Nintendo Wii that was recently purchased. Hurrah! It took a long while to finally find one at retail price. That thing is ridiculous in how much demand it has developed. The ironic thing is that not very many (good) games have been made for it yet, so I'm still waiting for games like the new Super Smash Bros., or Mario Galaxy comes out. But anywho, it was a HUGE hit at Kuya and Chesney's BBQ last week. Their reasons were because they wanted to celebrate my birthday since Dad was in town, but I think they just wanted some excuse to have a BBQ at their place. I'm not complaining because I got presents, and it was a jolly good time.
I've been going to a Friday night young adults Bible study at a church not too far from here. It's one of those huge mega churches, but the Bible study is not unreasonably large. It's been pretty good to get connected with a Christian community again and discuss the Bible and pray together. I did visit the actual church service today to see how it goes, and it's definitely not for me. Any church where you have to spend 20 minutes just trying to find a place to park in a three block radius is not for me. I'll go look elsewhere next week, but I thought I'd give it a chance. There are other reasons why I wouldn't go to the church, but do you really want me to go into that? I thought so.
That's it. I hate giving updates like this on my blog. It's like one of those e-mails you send out to all your friends as an update or newsletter. Just so impersonal, I think. It won't be so next time.
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