the last 2 movies i recently saw

my new work environment has been allowing me a lot of free time for myself. i still am at work for 9 hours a day but that's about it nothing extra and it's very rare that i get to do overtime, 1 hour is the most overtime work i do. with that i am able to schedule what i want to do from my laundry, to my dog's grooming, my email time except for my blogging because work is routine that it hardly stimulates me to write. besides with the bank's rules on what could and couldn't be written about work, i don't have time to dissect which stuff that happens at work would place me in a hot spot. so i don't blog about work and i only talk about work in such an abstract manner enough for everyone to know that i am working

i haven't paid for a movie that i have seen in the cinema for about 2 years which also meant i didn't get to choose what i could watch but this past week with free time and no free movies i decided it's about time to start paying for movies again.

the first movie i watched was star trek. i was a bit skeptical about the possibility of liking it. new york times gave a positive review and ben lyons from e news gave it a positive review as well so i thought it could just possibly be something worth watching but i still had my doubts . my sister convinced me to watch it. i have to be honest i was a bit half-hearted when i entered the cinema but i wasn't feeling that way anymore when i went out. i was entertained and not being a trekkie i still had a wonderful time. i am anticipating the next star trek movie. if only they made the tv series the way the movie was made i would have been a fan a long time ago. it also doesn't hurt that chris pine and zachary quinto were so good looking that it made the movie all the more interesting.

i couldn't post this blog without mentioning that i watched "angels and demons", i missed church last sunday because i had to work saturday shift in exchange of one weekday off and after shift of course i spent the whole day sleeping only to be woken up sometime 7:30pm sunday night with the promise that i'll get to eat mcdonald's for dinner if i get out of bed and a movie is in store. so i ended up at the movie in the last run of the movie for that day. my catholic guilt weighing heavily on me that i managed to skip church but was able to watch a somewhat less scandalous dan brown book turned into a hollywood blockbuster. i have to say that i like angels and demons better than the da vinci code. i didn't sleep at all while watching unlike during da vinci code and although i felt like tom hanks was a tourist guide rather than a specialist taken by the swiss guards to assist in a criminal mystery, i was paying attention. ewan mcgregor and stelan skarsgard played their parts so well they stood out but what stood out the most was the setting, vatican and rome itself is the star of this movie. if there's something good about this movie it promoted that part of the world so well they could have replaced lonely planet guides for a little while there.

by thursday i have another movie to watch, hopefully i will exert effort to write about it.

another entry, another contest, still didn't win

i just claimed the consolation prize for the contest on which i entered this article for. at some point after two writing contest that i didn't even get into the top 3, i am starting to think that i may just be average and not exceptional. i used to write for my personal consumption until some encouragement from people who are very close to me that they had the privilege to read a few of what i have written. it took quite a lot for me to start a blog and give my thoughts a very public audience; it took more for me to have certain articles for judgment. after the self doubt though, i thought why not share more, practice does make perfect and maybe someday i might just get to the point that i may become exceptional.



The Unexpected Presentation of an Adventure

My fascination with the English language has led me to my life long love affair with reading. I have always liked hearing people speak the English language that, one very vivid childhood memory of mine was grabbing a random book on a stack in front my mother and asking her to read to me. Interrupting her preparation for a lecture, she indulged me. Even if it didn’t matter at all what she was reading, for me listening to her properly enunciating every word was bliss but happiness came when I learned to read on my own. I read mostly school textbooks aloud when I first started to learn, I left the storybooks for my mother to read to me during bedtime. Reading my school books aloud was pure narcissism on my part, the auditory version at least which was also a sly way of catching my parents’ attention as if I cut short of saying it directly that I was being diligent with my homework presenting an air of precociousness that only a child could muster.

Reading for my own pleasure, away from the necessity of learning took a turn one summer; I was 9 years old at that time. Summer breaks are always agonizingly boring and dragging for a child like me who preferred to stay indoors and not get dirty and sweaty under the summer sun playing “patintero or tumbang preso”. Getting holed inside the house for two straight months isn’t that much fun even if for a week or two of those two months parents in their frustration of having the kids around all day, everyday would propose a getaway or two. Getaways can only satiate a bored child for as long as it could. I could always remember that exact moment when I stood up from my bed after staring at the bookcase for most of the afternoon, walked towards the opposite end of my room where a modestly filled bookcase stood, did a lot more staring at the books by then and finally deciding on a particular book. I grabbed the Companion Library double book edition which contained “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum and “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling. While I could remember the moment I can’t remember the reason why I chose “The Wizard of Oz” over “The Jungle Book”. I read “The Wizard of Oz” with a sense of urgency and tenaciousness that only boredom could have brought about. I was so enthralled by L. Frank Baum’s classic story of young Dorothy blown away to Oz from Kansas with her dog Toto inside the tiny house she shared with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Oh, how much have I wished for everything in the book to be true and what I‘d give at that time to walk in the yellow brick road. I cried when Tin Woodman got his heart, Cowardly Lion got courage, and Scarecrow received his brain. I cried all the more when the wizard flew away in the balloon leaving Dorothy behind. I wiped my tears away when I knew that Dorothy with the help of Glinda the Good Witch found a way back to Kansas with the help of the magical ruby shoes. The mention of the ruby shoes started another fascination for me apart from reading, the shoe addiction but that is entirely another story. Reading “The Wizard of Oz” presented an adventure that I could never experience in my life and transported me to another place and time. It is perhaps happenstance that when my sister 10 years younger than I, asked me one summer break when she was about 8 years old if I could recommend a book she could read and help her pass time, I immediately suggested what else but “ The Wizard of Oz”. This book single handedly started my passion for reading and experiencing adventures in print.

Reading since then has become something constant in my life. Reading is my solace, my stress reliever, my past time, and the source of what I want to achieve in life. Reading has become such a great part in my life that my bookcase is no longer modestly filled. It has tripled its size, but then I am not good with my estimates so it could be more than that, because the sheer number of books I have purchased to read and plan to read is the answer to my mother’s question of where my salary goes. I still hope for more books to come even if looking for space at home for my books has escalated into a certified emergency. All these is simply because L. Frank Baum presented me with one great adventure that one summer in my childhood, I was taken forever and I never wanted it to end at all.

krispy kreme karnival

this blog post will be completely inadequate of photographs and vocabulary to describe my delight on having a reason to eat and eat something as sinful as krispy kreme's chocolate glazed donuts. my sister and i attended the launch of krispy kreme's chocolate karnival and the event was a sensory overload. the bonifacio high street store of krispy kreme was jam packed with people that somehow it distracted me from taking photographs during the event. i was a willing participant in the featured games and well i was busy tasting what's behind the glass display cases that after the event these photographs are what we managed to take from my netbook. the only other reminder that we attended the event are the two empty boxes of krispy kreme donuts in the trash and the yet to be read and opened press kit that was handed to us.

the donuts was the main focus of the event so i will talk about it a bit. the chocolate glazed donuts were a sure winner, i can't seem to get enough of it especially when fresh, hot and dripping of chocolate, it was sinfully delightful that it didn't matter if chocolate smeared on my face. i love the original glazed donuts and i didn't have trouble liking the chocolate version. attending the event made me feel that i should treasure my current job because it is giving me enough time for things like this. it makes me think what next........pizza maybe.

book wish list again

looking space for my books has been escalated into a real emergency in our household. my books have spilled onto the floor due to lack of space in the bookcase that my mom gave me. the lack of space though hasn't stopped me from wanting to buy more. this two books are on my current wish list.

step brothers, the movie

Step brothers, the movie is one of my latest DVD watch. While I laughed at its gross-out, slapstick comedy, I also in part felt insulted by the fact that the plot just seems impossible. The main characters Brennan(Will Ferrell) and Dale(John C. Reilly) are two 40-year old men who for some reason their respective single parents missed on the diagnosis of being mentally incapacitated after the fact that Dale's father is a medical doctor. Everything in the movie just is preposterous and I can't for a lot of reasons find a reason why this was even made into a movie. Yes, I laughed at most of the grossly inappropriate jokes but I was very insulted intellectually at the same time. I'm not Nobel prize smart but I have a brain and it's fairly functioning that's why I know that this movie is plain trash.

a busted gaydar and getting help from my sister to fix it

last weekend while at booksale, a used bookstore, my sister decided to buy this book for me. god knows and she knows i need this book and more to help me fix my busted gaydar. i have a hard time distinguishing gay men from straight men and even if i know they're gay at times i still get attracted to them. biggest primary example are nate berkus and the queer eye for the straight guy gays, the list goes a bit longer but out of shame i'll end the name dropping of my gay crushes. gay crushes which at times i seem to refuse to believe they are gay as if when they are straight i'd ever get a chance to be with them. silly but true.

i know a guy is gay only and when i am closely interacting with him but i can't spot a gay guy from say a party, some people have that talent that they can spot a gay guy from one encounter. also of course i would know if a guy is gay when he's done a bebe gandanghari (transvestite) in public. being gay isn't bad at all and in my eyes just fabulous but when my sister bought the book for me, i know she has had enough of my social faux pas, dreaming too much on gay men.

i still haven't read the book, i have scanned through it and had quite a laugh. i know one book wouldn't fix everything but i hope it's a start. the weird thing is i am related to a number gay men and i grew up knowing them. maybe to me being gay was just so natural that it didn't feel out of the usual heterosexual attraction that for me getting attracted to gay men is normal. i've never been attracted to another girl and i know i like men on which the truth is i either get attracted to loser guys or right gays and that needs remedy or else i'll forever be floundering in love and relationship limbo.

Australia

Australia the movie has been described as an epic romantic adventure which impresses upon the viewer that it is more than that three word description. It has a bit of everything from a Western, a World War II epic, a Romantic movie, and even Historical-Social Awareness of Australia's past. It even felt like a travelogue with the dramatic landscapes of the country being featured in the movie.

I was curious about this movie because it created so much backlash on Nicole Kidman on her acting and I can't seem to grasp why an Oscar award winner would garner so much harsh criticism from the blogosphere. Being blessed again with an invitation to the press premier of Australia here in Manila, I didn't let the chance pass by to check out the reason why, because from what I read in Newsweek in their December 8, 2008 issue, it seemed to praise the movie and Nicole Kidman in a good and a moderate way.

The movie runs for almost 3 hours and I know how most of the time a movie that runs that long could become tedious, I never felt that with Australia. Visually it was captivating. What it showed the world was a part of Australia that would make anyone want to take on an adventure to experience and see those parts of the country. Add to fact that Hugh Jackman was simply pleasing to look at, proving that he really is the sexiest man alive. There's something about the movie no matter how grand and how visually stunning it was made me felt that there's something lacking. Believe it or not I still felt it needed something which I cannot fully express after almost 3 hours in the cinema. The movie didn't disappoint though I was entertained, it served its purpose to entertain me and transport me into another place and time.

One other aspect of the movie that has grabbed my attention right from the very start were the costume and props. Nicole Kidman's character Lady Sarah Ashley was exquisite right from the very opening scene and that luggage set she used was just divine. From what I have read in the Media Kit that was handed to me during the movie premier the luggage set was custom made by Prada and the footwear is from Salvatore Ferregamo. The costume alone felt like it was a part of the cast rather than pieces of clothing worn by the actors.

Australia is a departure from the hyper energized movies that Baz Lurhmann is known for. In Australia he focused on emotions, from the romance of Lara Sarah Ashley with the Drover, Hugh Jackman's character and the bond that formed with Lady Sarah and the half caste boy named Nullah, played by the newcomer Brandon Walters. Mr. Lurhmann succeeded in conveying the emotions across the viewers, I swooned when the Drover made his entrance to the ball, I cried when Lady Sarah and Nullah were forcibly separated at the pier and I was happy that Lady Sarah, the Drover, and Nullah had a happy ending while the bad guys meet their proper fate and demise.

a very good 2009

this year i chose not to write the about the best christmas gift that i received; truth is i didn't receive much last christmas which was perfectly okay with me because i got more than what i wanted for, before christmas day and after christmas day. last december 18, 2008 i received an email from marie claire philippines that i won gift certificates from l'oreal from a contest that i joined featured in the magazine last november; a lovely surprise indeed. i haven't claimed the gift certificates as of this time as there were changes needed to be done on the gift certificates but hopefully sometime next week i'll be able to. it was for me something to look forward to since i would be claiming it by january 2009 when offices resume business after the long holiday.

i got a bigger surprise when i saw this while updating my resume for a renewed effort to job hunt in jobmarketonline.com. this made me blink and stare at the page for a minute or two. i was so delighted and overly ecstatic, it may not be my dream laptop but i won it and now it's part of my collection of lucky charms. for the past week that i have it i can't seem to contain my joy. i would use my new laptop and a smile would be plastered on my face. i also can't seem to stop saying how cute it is. its features does have its shortcomings but i can live with it. i still need a laptop bag and a router here at home but i am bliss still from winning something significant.



for years now, one of my biggest pastime is to join contests, whether online or raffles from department stores or magazine promos. i have won quite a number of them. i even won the lotto once for about P2,000. i can't say i am very lucky but i do have my lucky moments. these prizes were a wonderful way to welcome 2009 which makes we want to say "keep 'em rolling".

Yes Man

The best things in life are free and I have to say that's true. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to say "yes" to the invitational press premiere of the movie "Yes Man" because to be honest I'm not a very big fan of Jim Carrey. I'm glad I said yes, after all a free movie is a free movie, besides I'll be in the area where the premiere will be held anyway.

The movie is about the life of a man named Carl Allen who's stuck in a dead end job and a very boring existence out of choice after what seemed to be a presumably very sad episode of divorce. Out of choice he cut himself off from his friends and his idea of fun was watching dvd after dvd of just about any movie he could find in the local friendly neighborhood video store. Carl's life changed when he attended a seminar recommended by an old colleague, the "Yes Seminar". Somehow in the process after attending that seminar he said yes to life and life happened for him. The movie in my opinion comes out of typical romantic comedy cookie cutter type in Hollywood. Sad guy finds a reason to start life again, finds a girl, trouble brews along the way, girl leaves guy and then guy finds a way to get the girl and they live happily ever after. The usual Jim Carrey antics were present but entertaining this time and not at all distasteful. The one redeeming quality of the movie that makes it a must see is the fact the from the moment it starts it guarantees a laugh fest. After the credits rolls everyone in the cinema clapped their hands because truly it was funny and it was fun. The idea of saying yes to every thing that life presents seems promising because of that movie.

Now, I am ready to say "Yes" to the next movie premiere.

additional chritsmas message

while i skipped on e-cards this year. i wrote this email to everyone on my yahoo contacts unfortunately i forgot i have 4 other email addresses but i think that yahoo email address after owning it for so long covers almost everyone i know and have known in my life. what inspired me to write this email is the homily of fr. gerry batad, sdb on christmas eve. i was jolted by his message and how he describe chritsmas of today the commercial and the religious one. i came to realize that although i loved christmas for as long as i could remember, i have been celebrating christmas the commercial way and even the joy of shopping for gifts and carefully wrapping each gift myself, slowly each year, it was becoming a daunting task and the joy of giving is slowly dissipating. i sat in front of the computer for a while and i decided to re-examine my thoughts on christmas and before i left for a dinner invitation on christmas day of 2008. i decided it wasn't too late to write this:

this christmas while i was able to do my snail mails, i kind of decided to skip my almost yearly e-cards. i thought i'd get a better on time response on yahoo messenger and sms. so i skipped sending out e-cards for christmas, went on texting everyone on my phone book and left offline messages on my ym list. i got a better response in terms of those who replied but i still felt a bit underwhelmed on myself, it is as if there's something missing. one big reason i skipped e-cards this year is that i can't seem to think of what to write and what i really would like to relay across. the holidays seemed to blur through me because i was so wrapped up in my last week before i resigned at work i never really had any moment to soak up the holiday feeling. as usual it is work that made me into almost "scrooge like" mode. i get so immersed in work i always end up not living my life. by the time i had time in my hands, i am just scraped bare and i really can't seem to share christmas cheer. today christmas day, i somehow realized what i want to say, a very simple and heartfelt "merry christmas to everyone". no politically correct "happy holidays" but good old merry christmas. christmas isn't about me and whatever is wrong in my life, it's the celebration of the nativity of christ. i seemed to have forgotten how i use to love christmas no matter what. i hope that everyone just like me will realize that christmas isn't just about us, it's about christ and it's a day we should celebrate no matter what.

merry christmas everyone!

i found joy and i felt christmas while writing and sending it to my friends. somehow the spirit of christmas was with me. i went to that dinner invitation feeling that christmas truly has came.