A Trafficker in Climaxes

Oh what a month March has been! Days have blurred together as they often do when you’re terribly busy with deadlines and it’s slightly surreal how today’s the last day before April already. All deadlines met and what a relief! I still fascinate myself with how much I am capable of feats – juggling two jobs, finishing my thesis and getting a life is an accomplishment in itself. Also, I am fascinated with how much I worry myself to an almost agonizing point.

This month has been a gruelingly irritating blend of good and bad and it’s leaving me feeling depressed/glad/scared in a way that is familiar but I’m pretty certain it’s something I haven’ t felt before. If you know me well enough, you would have expected me to bid farewell to school around this time last year, but I didn’t. I humor myself by telling everyone that it was a choice (and it is!) but it’s something I had to do while mostly inebriated, and you very well know how inebriation-powered decisions are.

Regardless, I think a valediction of school this year feels more right. I was having too much fun being a college girl last year and today, I am just sick of everything that reminds me of this academic shithole and I want to get out of here as soon as I can, preferably while pleasantly wagging my middle finger to everything that I hate about it.

Not my hand but it might just as well be.

That time has come. And while I feel smug and evil-happy about it, I can’t help but feel a rush of blue devils, dejection and regret whenever I think about the years in school that I have spent, and wasted. Regrets are beastly and they have this foul way of creeping into your soul and eating your positivity but they’re here and they might be here for a few months at least. I feel dejected every time I think about how much potential I have and how I wasted  them all. Now that finding a job is everyone’s priority, I’m competing with people who may not have had as much fun as I had during their college years but have really decent grades.

But fucking MEH to that, really. My cynicism comes in waves and sometimes it comes just close enough to wash up stupid things like regret and envy. (It came mid-sentence which allowed me enough chance to steer this article to a non-depressing direction hrhr) Really though, I might not have spanking grades but I have potential (eherm), I write fair enough and have worked for three years doing something I love. I am also proud to have financed my education for the last two years even if I didn’t need to and shelled out for my Starbucks orders, tons of food from fancy restaurants, innumerable back massages and many, many liters of beer. I am proud to say that I have never asked money from my family just so I could indulge in my vanities and mundane affairs.

If that isn’t worth something, then I don’t know what is. Also, I CAN WRITE MEAN PROGRAMS AND MY ENGLISH IS MOSTLY SUPERB AND IF THAT ISN’T AN EDGE THEN F.U., CORPORATE WORLD. Also you guys, I am a sucker for formatting and if you want a budding developer who enjoys PHP and MYSQL, knows Java and C#, writes elegant codes and who can document like a PRO (because really, I am a pro if you mean pro like earning money off documentation), then I’m your man, or woman.

P.S. lol. Do I make it sound like I’m scurrying to be suckered into an office cubicle again and be made to work like a zombie monkey? NO, btw. It will come sooner or later though coz I gotta do what I gotta do but for now, I will indulge in pointless blogging.

A new year means a new set of movies shown for free by different film festivals. I’ve been a sucker for these film fests since high school because they were free and I was always broke, I was enthralled with foreign languages and they were always a good reason to hang out with friends on a weekend. Anyway, first Russian Film Festival on Friday and Saturday! See you guys there.

The Russian Film Festival is a major cultural event that brings to the Philippine audience the best of Russian Cinema today as well as real masterpieces from its glorious past.

Presented by Mosfilm Studios in cooperation with the Embassy of the Russian Federation, Film Development Council of the Philippines, Arts Council of Cebu Foundation, Ayala Center Cebu and the Philippines-Russia Friendship Society, Inc., the Festival will feature five (5) classical and contemporary films produced by the biggest Russian filmmaker, Mosfilm Studios.

SCHEDULE:
March 26
7:30 pm Screening “The Star”
9:15 pm Film Discussion

March 27
12:00 pm Mirror
2:30 pm Vanished Empire
5:00 pm Ward No. 6
7:30 pm Agony

The Festival is offered FREE to the public on March 26 & 27 at Ayala Onstage on a first-come, first-seated basis up to maximum theater capacity. The Films will have English subtitles.

Source: Arts Council of Cebu Foundation, Inc

The past few days have been a weird mix of kind and terrible. Kind because it was my birthday weekend – three days of guiltless spending on pizza, toys and well, pizza and terrible because I am being attacked on all sides with a strange cough.

The weather has been generally indecisive. Outside, the sky feigns the promise of rain, yet remains a sullen gray all throughout the day. The clouds move over to let the sun occasionally peek  but only to make way for even more clouds and hide the mean sun again. The air is heavy and thick with the promise of cooler, more tolerable nights but when night itself comes, it presents us with a less nasty version of day. I hate this kind of weather.  It always makes me sick which shouldn’t really amount to much since I always get sick but laryngitis had to join the mix and I can’t lose my voice when I have a thesis to present this week.

Putting all weather-related drab aside, it’s been a great weekend. Perpetual pizza party started on Friday and we topped the night by playing Left4Dead which is a great game made greater when played with loud and noisy friends. Saturday signaled the start of this terrible cough but the last lecture of my last class, Analysis of Algorithms, was really fun and I finally (and almost fully) understand what NP-completeness is after having read so many references of it on xkcd.

Dinner with friends continued the perpetual pizza party and we had ice cream and movies at my house. My boss sent me a Saturday workload  though which is sad but he didn’t know it was my birthday but  oh well, I gotta do what I gotta do, even when it’s supposed to be my day.

Sunday was slow but aren’t all family-related days are? It’s not the sluggish, dull slow that makes you want to kill yourself but more like a comfortable hum that resonates all throughout the day. It’s the kind of delightfully complacent slowness that you associate with Sundays and something you will miss when you’re away from your family for a long time, or when you have deadlines to meet on a Monday. Sunday dinner with boyfriend was gratifying and fun (most dates with him are) and if there’s any better way to end the day, it was with a back massage.

The weekend was significantly better than most but I guess the best thing that happened to me on this year’s birthday was getting my bunny. I’ve always wanted a critter and I finally have one! She’s adorable and sweet and looking at her always makes my day. She’s easily the star of this house for the last three days that she’s been here. Her name’s Potchi and this is her with her siblings. I honestly don’t know which one in these pictures is Potchi but oh well.

I’ll post a spammage of pictures when I get my camera back! My boyfriend’s gift is awesome but for now, I’m out. Bye!

I got this from a friend (Hi, Joy!) in one of her Facebook notes and that’s basically the only source I have for these movie schedules. heh.

P15 FILM FEST PROMO IS BACK!
WATCH IT IN SM CINEMA 6
(schedules subject to change without prior notice)

MARCH 12-18 : BLIND DATE
MARCH 19-25: HIGHLANDER 5
MARCH 26-31: HURT LOCKER
APRIL 3-8: ACE VENTURA
APRIL 9-15: SEVENTEEN AGAIN
APRIL 16-22: FINAL DESTINATION
APRIL 23-29: HAPPILY NÉVER AFTER
APRIL30-MAY6: LAST LEGION
MAY7-13: HAIRSPRAY
MAY14-20: ARTHUR & THE INVISIBLES
MAY 21-27: EL CANTANTE
MAY28-JUNE3: PRIDE & GLORY

For more info. please call SM Cinema Office:
Tel Nos. 231-4852, 231-3876, 231-3446 loc. 140/143

I don’t know which movie to watch but I’ll probably drop by if my summer becomes too boring.

Also, there’s a note written on how the schedules may change and the note is not kidding. It’s best to call the numbers provided before you drag your girlfran/boyfran/friends for a cheap date to the mall. I suggest you invite them on weekdays too.

Popular Science made their previous publications available on the net recently. From their website:

We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It’s an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology’s incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

It’s a gem! You can browse thousands of pages and find all sorts of interesting articles and information about anything and everything. Naturally though, some of the first things I searched for were old articles on robots, time travel and flying cars. The relevant results were articles published from 2000 onwards but I wasn’t interested in any of them. I wanted more ‘vintage’ information and the prototypes that scientists have invented at least 30 years ago.

Unfortunately, the search feature was limited and an advanced option that will let you filter results that were published earlier than..say, 1970′s would be very helpful. Results could be so much more interesting (not that they aren’t interesting already) heh.

Anyway, here are pages I snipped out of the February 1934 edition. It’s the oldest publication I saw when I was searching for flying cars. Notice the fancy (and stiff) typography, the ads (encyclopedia! weight gain products!), and the then-revolutionary technological advancements (bulb used as camera flash and f6.3 is a fast lens!, paper tape voice recorder!).

To find articles of your topics of interest, click here. If you’re a sucker for these things, prepare for a day or two of unproductivity.

I found out about Clumsy from a few guys I follow on tumblr who were flooding my dashboard with pages from the novel around two to three weeks ago. I finally finished reading it just now and though it wasn’t anything life-changing or amazingly spectacular, it was a pleasant read from start to finish.

Clumsy is a story of two people in a long distance relationship and the book shows highlights of their relationship – from their first meeting to their breakup over the phone and through e-mail.

Anyone who has ever been in a romantic relationship that eventually fell apart (as relationships often do) will identify with Clumsy. Brown tells the story of his long distance relationship with Theresa  through a series of black and white, roughly-drawn sketches of their moments together. Every page captures days that may seem trivial at that moment but are the kind that you look back on in retrospect.

I really don’t have anything negative to say about this book other than how some texts were quite hard to read. I understand that Brown’s sketches were clumsy (no pun intended) but he could’ve at least spared the readers from getting headaches caused by reading sketchy and almost-incomprehensible fonts.

Below are some of my favorite pages from the book. They’re cute, funny and bittersweet. Enjoy!

Lol CSI meme! ILU 4evar. You get me by the balls every time.

I am pretty pleased with the Oscars this year. Most of my bets won and I am so glad that Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director and The Hurt Locker won Best Picture. I lot of people have expressed disappointment over Avatar’s failure to bag the big prizes but I have been rooting for the underdog all the way. It is also very heart-warming to see an excellent, low-budget film that failed to achieve commercial success triumph over one of the highest-grossing movies ever. Heh.

I also didn’t like Avatar. Come’on, unobtainium?! Seriously?! HAH, Na’vi fans. If my schadenfreude was sex, it just had a round-robin of orgasms.

A lot of people doubt The Hurt Locker’s resilience to the test of time. Will it become a classic? Yes, it probably will. With its representation of the war in Iraq and Bigelow being the first female Best Director winner, that’s not something you can shake off easily. It’s a deserved win in both categories too and if my vote would’ve mattered and I needed to be objective, I would have picked it still.

But Avatar aint and will never be a loser. That movie is going to have a lasting impact in its own right and quite possibly even a larger one at that. Even though it’s lacking on story (hello, Pocahontas), it’s an achievement in what movies can do and it was a pleasant film to watch from start to finish. Also, all those box office records! Awards or not, it sure has earned its place in cinematic history.

Alice in Wonderland is the first film I’ve seen on the big screen this year. It made me realize how much of a pirate I’ve become. I was genuinely amazed at the Dolby Digital Surround sound which I have forgotten after watching too many pirated movies at home and on my PC. Regardless of how excellent I claim my speakers to be, it still doesn’t amount to much compared to the movie experience a 140pesos ticket can give you.

Moving on, Alice in Wonderland is a movie by the often excellent Tim Burton. It is a loosely-based adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass which also happen to be two of my favorite children’s books. Having heard of this film in its pre-production state two years ago has made me into a giddy fangirl, something that often happens when two of my most favorite things are combined (banana and nutella, Scott Pilgrim and Edgar Wright, tea and cake, etc etc).

Lewis Carroll’s books are first-rate works of fiction that have captivated my imagination when I was young and something that I have found to be amazing with every read. Every rereading is always a different (and better) experience. As a young girl, I was fascinated with Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter and the whole fantastical world of Wonderland. When I was older, I was impressed with all the strangeness, the subtle mathematical references and Carroll’s general ability to weave something logical out of something psychedelic and crazy. The books are fun for kids and filled with philosophies and truisms for adults. It has produced a number of cinematic and television adaptations, several comic books and has planted itself as a staple in popular culture.

It is therefore not surprising how the movie was hyped from the very beginning. Burton signing up to be the director is one thing, casting Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp, as the Red Queen and Mad Hatter respectively, is another. People expected the movie to be the greatest evarrr and for good reason. However, the first few days of its screening have generated a number of undesirable comments and responses from the books’ fans. They say that the movie lacked the edge of Carroll’s works, it was too centered on the hatter and blah blah blah.

As for me, I enjoyed the film so much more that I wanted and expected myself to be. I am glad to have watched it on the big screen because the visuals were stunning. The colors, design and concept were excellent and if CGI was candy, I need a root canal. The story was, unfortunately, not to die for but I never really thought of Tim Burton as a solid storyteller (hello, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) so I wasn’t expecting much. The movie lacked the edge and the crazy logic of the book and at the last hour, everything felt like a mash-up of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter Pan and Zelda. It was like a children’s movie on crack.

Although not the best storyteller, you have to admit that Burton is a visionary and a good actor’s director. I honestly can’t think of a better director to have delivered the world of Wonderland as well as he did. The actors all did a wonderful job of portraying the roles too. Depp was excellent (and looked like Madonna), Hathaway was okay, Wasikowska was fine and well-casted for the role (her wardrobe was to die for!) but  Helena Bonham Carter stole the show, as she often does.

Over-all, I’d give it a four out of five. I am generous like that.

P.S. Avril Lavigne was WAILING during the credits. Awful OST is awful. I take back my four and give it a 3.5 instead. hmph.

I’ve become such a dorkus lately. Staying up until 3AM, waking up at 9-ish, watching TV shows, reading comics, taking a bath late afternoon (or never), more TV shows or movies, and squeezing freelance work and schoolwork in between all those madness. It feels like high school all over again (but with pay). I love it.

I also went back to interacting with strangers over the internet. Chatroulette is a great place and it’s like teh mad and rad IRC of the 00′s. I’ve talked to a couple of fascinating people there today – one Spanish and a guy from France.

The Frenchie was fun. We talked about French films, French music and why he wasn’t wearing pants (he wasn’t naked either. he had a towel wrapped around him). He was a bit surprised with my familiarity with French cinema and even apologized for not knowing anything about the movie scene in the Philippines. I shrugged his apologies off and told him that I don’t know much about Philippine cinema either. heh.

Except One More Chance. I am in love with that movie.

The Spanish guy was funny. I started the conversation with how our countries have a long and interesting history together. I also mentioned that his people killed our national hero and I grew up with angst against Spaniards (those colonizers! rapist priests! etc!). Anyhoo, we hit it off pretty well and are exchanging e-mails atm.

I’ve also signed up for this online game that my friend has been blabbering about for the longest time. I haven’t really read about or started playing the game yet (no time!) but it’s oGame.org and I’m on Universe 28 under the name Arathuine (the LOTR elven name that I’ve been using since high school for online games).

Anyhoo, I got classes in 7 hours and work to be submitted tomorrow. If there’s anything I hate about the 21st century, it’s the fact that no one has invented a cure for needing to sleep yet. I hate sleeping. It takes up too much time.

Ciao!

P.S. I’m downloading Doctor Who. I’ve been hearing a lot about it lately and the comics was A++. I can’t wait!

EDIT: I just found out that this article is not by Winnie Monsod. Monsod’s statement re: this article:

“To whom it may concern: I am not the author of an e-mail going around titled “Why I will vote for Noynoy—Winnie Monsod.” To the real author/s: Hiding behind others is cowardly. Stand up and be counted. To everybody else: Any statement attributed to me can be very simply checked by referring to this column, or my column in BusinessWorld [Calling A Spade], or a blog under my name in GMA News.TV.”

Anyway, still read on. It’s an interesting piece.

Villar still refuses to attend the Senate to face questions, and it only reminds me of how GMA used the privilege of her office to avoid questioning. What will happen if Villar wins and more corruption scandals surface?

With Villar catching up to Noynoy in the polls, I am honestly quite terrified of the prospect of him winning. There is a clear case of graft in this instance, and instead of delving into the issues, his allies in the legislative are simply brushing off the allegations as “politically motivated”. As a citizen, we should not accept this. If there is smoke, we must see if there is a fire that needs to be put out. Yes, the timing of the allegations seem a bit off. ( Joker Arroyo was pushing these issues as early as 1998). A known crook and political opportunist, Juan Ponce Enrile, is the person leading the censure. However, when the facts are presented, it is clear as day that something is amiss. It just further builds on my strong suspicions that Villar is a businessman simply looking to control the political arena to make a boat load of money.

I have never trusted Villar since day one. I never trust businessmen who enter politics, because in the end, their core value is and always will be profit maximization. It is well documented that Villar’s real estate empire ran into some serious financial problems when his overexposure to the real estate market and the Asian Financial Crisis made him unable to pay debts he took out to expand his real estate business in the early 1990s. After the Asian Crisis hit, Capitol Bank, owned by Villar and heavily exposed to his real estate investments was essentially ran to the ground and needed to be bailed out. In 2005, Villar tried to solve his debt problems by hiring a group of investment banks to advise him on how he can consolidate all his assets into one company (Vista Land). With the local and foreign investment bankers, Villar came up with a growth story for investors: “Invest in my company because we need it to fund all these wonderful project!” However, what was downplayed during the IPO roadshow was that instead of financing growth, resources from the offering would be used to finance his debt. To appease creditors, Villar even had his investment bankers pitch some form of a debt-to-equity conversion that raised skeptical eyebrows of many. In 2007, the IPO of Vista Land did not do as well as planned, in part because many investors and brokers were the same people who were burned by Villar’s inability to pay back his loans.

Read more »