Movie Review: The Kingdom

Rating: *** 1/2 /5 (Watch it!)

Unlike most people, I never planned to watch this movie, nor was I even remotely interested in it. One of my friends kept showing me trailer after trailer of this movie in the hopes of trying to kindle some sort of interest, but all I saw were tons of explosions, and tons of people dying. I didn't think that would be the sort of thing that I would like to spend 2 hours watching, so I gave him a very big "MEH".

The movie is about a terrorist attack on Americans in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing over a hundred people. The FBI is unable to send agents to investigate due to diplomatic relations. However, Special Agent Fleury (Jamie Foxx) and his team (Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Chris Cooper) decide to take matters into their own hands and find a way to get into Saudi Arabia to investigate, and find the terrorist leader.

Perhaps the greatest part of the whole movie was the opening sequence that details the United States' turbulent history with Saudi Arabia. Not only is it a nice summary, but the montage and the way they were shown is awesome. The rest of the movie is an action movie with bits of politics sprinkled in now and then to make it seem more realistic.

I've never really been a big action fan, although I've seen my fair share, and loved them. This movie pushes it quite a bit, but there is a good reason for it, which I'll mention a little later. The political side of this movie, for the most part, seem like an after-thought. It was as if the writers were trying to figure out how to send only a small team of FBI agents to Saudi Arabia, instead of the whole crew. Then one of them goes, "Aha! Politics! Let's have some guy totally against it, and that's it!" And that's exactly what happened in the movie. The Attorney General didn't want it, so case closed. And they try to sprinkle bits and pieces of political machinations by those people, which didn't have much meaning to the main plot of the movie. To top it off, there didn't seem to be much consequence for the "rogue" FBI agents. Then again, since they're the heroes of the story, I guess the politicians can disregard their actions.

One of the good things about this movie is that it gives us a glimpse of Saudi Arabia, a locale very different from the New York's and LA's of most American movies. The downside is that Americans are still the heroes. They depict the Arabian investigators as harsh, cruel, and unrelenting in their investigations, but in the end, entirely wrong. They didn't even know enough to preserve evidence. Then the Americans come along and suddenly find evidence after evidence that the Arabians supposedly missed. Boy, those Americans sure are the smartest people in the world! What did we expect from a Pro-American movie, right? Although, I guess they didn't really insult the Arabians much, as they still gave them a hero to look up to in al'Ghazi, who only helped in killing.

That aside, this movie did have some memorable lines as Damon Schmidt's, "Can we dial down the boobies?" But the best line of the movie comes at the end, "I said we were going to kill them all." Both sides say the same thing, and it is this line that defines the whole movie, and justifies the past 2 hours. If they had said it at the beginning of the movie, I would tell people to leave after that, because everything else was just filler. This line is the meat of the movie, and for those steering clear of social and moral commentary, you may stop reading now.

It seems that in this day and age, revenge is considered to be the normal social practice. If someone does something to me, I have every right to do something back to them. They killed my loved one, I have to kill them back. And if I do, I'm the hero. We can see it especially in the movies, but also in the news. Everyday, people are doing to others what they do unto them. To me, this is a sign of the moral bankruptcy that most of society toady live in. Their morality is not based on... well, God, but instead it's based on their own opinions. I think it's right, so it is. Because of this, each person has his own morality, which others must conform to. Since we know this isn't possible, then we get into a lot of situations where people get into disagreements.

Kunshan Trip - Day 2

Today started off like yesterday. Wake up early, have breakfast, then go to training. There were more hands on training this time around, and I still learned quite a few things. There were also some special guests from other suppliers over to "teach" us, and by that, I mean, "give us their sales pitch". One of them was someone I liked to call "Blinky McBlinker", cuz he couldn't for the life of him stop blinking! Every word he said, he would blink at least once. Sometimes, he would do a quadruple blink, 4 blinks in quick succession. Sometimes, he would do the slow-mo blink, which is like one of those blinks women do in the movies to flirt with guys. Sometimes, he would do the closed-eye blink, where he blinks, and while his eyes are closed, blinks again. Don't ask me how that's possible. But each type of blink was never more than a second away from the next blink. I wanted to gouge my eyes out! Everytime _I_ blinked, I would get really conscious of it, especially watching him do it. I'd think that I'm blinking like him. It's very irritating! Anyway, aside from that little annoyance, the rest of the training went well. Around 6pm, they took us to dinner at a fancy chinese restaurant, where the food was way better than last night's, but not quite as good as the typical chinese food I'm used to. Their way of cooking is different. There were some good foods though, so it was a satisfactory meal. After the meal, as they promised, they took us to the foot massage place. It was about 10 minutes walk in the cold, but it was nice and refreshing, and good after a hearty meal. When we got there, there were a lot of people waiting, and we had to wait half an hour to get served. It was only 3 in a room, so Paul and I and a Thailand guy were in the room together. Once we were in, they gave us tea and oranges, and had us relax in almost, but not-quite Lazy boys. We waited a while for them to show up and start massaging our feet. One thing I noticed when we got there was that they had the opposite sex serve people. So if you were a guy, they got a girl to serve you, and vice versa. Unfortunately, they gave me a guy. I hope they weren't implying anything. They asked me if it was ok, and I said yes. The other two guys got girls. Anyway, it was almost half an hour after we were in the room before they started. First, they had us put our feet inside these buckets of really hot tea. They were so hot, that when we took our feet off, they were red. They had massaged our backs while our feet were doused. After they took out our red feet, they started shaving off the hard skin, and then massaged our feet and calves for a good 45 minutes. After that, they put lots and lots of ginger on top of our legs and covered them with hot towels. They kept them there for around 15 minutes. Let me tell you they were scalding hot, and I just wanted to reach out and rip them off. But I didn't. They said it was supposed to make your body cooler or something. Something about yin and yang, how chinese believe some foods like ginger raise your body's yin, or is it yang. Anyway, it's supposed to be hugely popular, and this was the only place that did it. So we suffered through it. It wasn't bad, though. After they took them out, it felt so good, but my legs were hot for the entire walk home in the cold. All throughout the massage, they kept trying to talk to us, but they only spoke mandarin, and no english. And Paul and the Thailandese didn't know much mandarin. I tried my best, and at least got to talk to them a bit. Good practice, I guess. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.

Pics can be seen over here. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion, which may not be posted until the day after tomorrow.

Kunshan Trip - Day 1

So, in the last minute, I was invited to join my cousin, Paul, in China for training by one of our suppliers, all expenses paid, except plane tickets. At first, I was very hesitant to go. It was last minute, and the AZCOP Young Pro camp was this week. But my dad encouraged me to go, and after much prodding, I acceded. And now that I'm here, I'm glad I did come.

My flight was with Cebu Pacific since it was cheap, and also, it was the only one with an early flight back on Thursday, so I can come back early to head to the AZCOP camp. Unfortunately, the flight was 8pm Sunday night, and arriving in Shanghai at 12:40. From there, I had to take a 2-hour ride to Kunshan, which is south of Shanghai. Also, Cebu Pacific doesn't serve food or drinks, instead, selling them at a huge markup. I decided to buy Mickey D's, and take it out for the flight when I got hungry. Good thing I did. Anyway, the flight was uneventful, but I didn't get any sleep. Immigration through Shanghai was quick, but it was a long walk from where we got off the plane to the exit. There was a driver waiting for me, and this other guy from one of our rival companies. The driver was driving a Benz, and gave us wet towels and water, then took our luggages to the car. I made some small talk with the driver in Mandarin, and with the other guy in Tagalog, but after a while, I got tired, and just stopped talking, but couldn't fall asleep. After 2 hours, we got to the hotel, which was actually a really nice hotel, and the part of town it was in was like Mississauga, except with more hotels and restaurants, and an industrial park here and there. The roads were clean, and there was no traffic. Anyway, once we got to the hotel and checked-in, I went up to my room, where Paul was already sound asleep. I quietly unpacked, texted my parents, then went to bed. 4 hours later, I woke up to the sound of my alarm, and got ready. Paul and I ate breakfast downstairs, which was a buffet like Shangri-La's. They had tons of food. Then we went to the lobby to wait for the bus. When we got there, the other people were already there. Everyone was so friendly, and started introducing themselves to us and each other, and we all started talking. There were a lot of people from the supplier's different branches who were there to receive training. There were also people from different countries who also had printing businesses. They were also friendly with us, and didn't mind sharing trade secrets. After the introductions, we all got in the bus and left for the training. On the way, we saw a whole slew of police officers loitering around a park. It turns out that there are a lot of police in this town, so it's pretty safe.

Once we got to the training grounds, they gave us a tour, and started with the training. Most of today were classroom lessons, but I knew most of the stuff. I did learn some new things, though, which was good. Lunch was at their cafeteria, and it was weird. They gave us pork stew and shrimp with vegetables and rice. They were pretty salty. But it was free, so whatever. Oh, I got to drink their Coke here, and it tasted like Coke with lychee flavour. Kinda interesting. Oh, and the lid is opened much like you would open those chinese juices in cans. Yeah, weird. Anyway, the training was from 9:30am to 5pm. A long day, but we learned a lot. After that, they took us back to the hotel to rest for a bit, and then they would take us out for dinner. They took us to this place about half an hour away from where we were. It was near the ocean, I think, or some large body of water anyway. There were a lot of restaurants around there, except they all look like modern houses with glass walls in front so you can see inside. Each of them had 2 floors, with tons of rooms. To our surprise, at the back of all those houses were rivers or lakes or some large body of water, and they had boards there for them to walk through, and tons of nets to catch crabs, which was what they were popular for. We went in one of the restaurants and they ordered for us. They ordered a lot of food, from shrimp, snail, eel, steamed fish, steamed chicken, spinach, soup, etc. And they served those first before the crab. It was a good hour before they got to the crabs. We were all saving our appetites for them. When they finally came, it was interesting. We each got 2 crabs, one male and one female. They weren't that big. I'd say the size of a hand. But they had a lot of roe, and they were not bad. Everyone was using their hands, and enjoying the crabs quite a bit. I'd say the crabs were the highlight of the dinner. The other foods were... different. They had a different taste to it. Oh, and they also ordered rice wine for us, cuz they said it balances the crabs, something to do with the Chinese yin/yang thing of foods. The rice wine was ok. Kind of strong, but I was never really into wine. At the end, we were more interested in the labels of the wine bottle than the wine itself, with each of us trying to guess what method and materials were used.

After dinner, we headed back home, and it was 9pm when we got back. One of the people invited us all for free foot massages, but everyone was tired, and took a raincheck for tomorrow instead. I went back up to my room to relax, and use the internet, which was normally 60 yen, but free of charge for me. It's great!

Well, that's it for my first day. Stay tuned for the second day. In the meantime, check out my pics of the restaurant. I apologize for the "I didn't think I'd need my camera so I didn't bring it, and had to use my iPhone instead" shots.

The Name of the Game

So, during my high school/university days, I was pretty big into gaming, especially collectible card gaming. And I especially played and donated an exhorbitantly generous amount of time and currency to this Game that Shall Not Be Named. And unfortunately, it took a rather rude awakening to make me give it up. It was painful, and it took a lot of time before I completely got it out of my system. It's not entirely out, as I still browse the website once in a while to see what's up. But I'd say I have no inclination to play that game anymore. Which brings me to another card game that I like to play. This one is different. You don't spend money like water trying to find that rare card you desperately need for that deck you're only gonna play once to upstage your friend. All the cards in that set come together. In one box! Wow! Anyway, this game was introduced to me by one of my Canadian friends, Nathan, when we were bored of Heroclix and Magic, and needed some new thing to play. And I actually enjoyed it. The game is fun, and it's also fun-NY. The game I'm talking about, of course, is Munchkin.

Munchkin is a game unlike any other. First of all, because it doesn't take itself seriously. It makes fun of itself and its subject matter. Basically, the main game is a humorous take on role-playing games (rpg) based on the concept of munchkins (immature role-players, playing "to win"). Everyone who plays the game, Munchkin, essentially plays as a munchkin, doing anything they can to win, even cheat, or backstab their friends. And that's why Munchkin is so fun. You don't have to hide your duplicitous nature any longer. It's all out in the open, and it's more fun that way. For example, I once played this game where one of my friends (Let's call him "J") was about to defeat a monster in battle. Another friend (Let's call him "W") decided he didn't want J to win the battle, so he played a card against J that made the monster stronger, and J couldn't beat it. After J resigned himself to retreat, W offered to help him in exchange for all his loot. I laughed like crazy when I heard that. That is the sort of deliciously evil things you could do in this game. And the game applauds and rewards you for it. Of course, all this is in good fun. No one should ever take a game of Munchkin seriously.

And for those who think Fantasy/Lord of the Rings-style games are not for them, well, Munchkin has other variants that might tickle their fancy. There's Super Munchkin for superheroes, Star Munchkin for sci-fi, Munchkin Bites for horror, Munchkin Fu for martial arts, Munchkin Impossible for spies, Munchkin Cthulu for Lovecraft fans, and the soon-to-be-released The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin for cowboys, and Munchkin Booty for pirates. Each of these games use the material from their respective genres, and makes fun of them. There's also a Munchkin Blender that will let you play all of them together!

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, recently, I was able to acquire the rights to distribute these games in the Philippines. And my stock has just arrived!





If you're in the Philippines and would like to buy this game, you can txt or call me at 0917-899-1701, or email me at "a r c d e l u x e @ r o g e r s . c o m" without the spaces. Or you can visit one of the retailers carrying the games. So far, Druid's Keep at Magallanes will carry it, and I'm in talks with Hobbes & Landes, and Neutral Grounds to carry it. Hopefully, more card/hobby stores will come onboard as well.

Pure Awesomeness!

Kids, let me tell you about "How I Met Your Mother". This is seriously the BEST. SITCOM. EVER. And I never say that lightly. It surpasses all the other so-called sitcoms. Seinfeld. Friends. Everybody Loves Raymond. Frasier. None of them hold a candle to this show. This show is what every other sitcom should aspire to. Never have I ever laughed throughout the duration of a sitcom's whole episode, but I have consistently done it for "How I Met Your Mother". With choice lines like, "It's gonna be Legen... wait for it. And I hope you're not lactose-intolerant, cuz the second half of that words is... dary!" and "When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead! True story!"

For the uninitiated, the show is about a guy named Ted Mosby (played by Josh Radnor), who, in the year 2030, is telling his two kids, a guy and a girl, the story of how he met their mother. He first tells them about how he met a girl named Robin and instantly fell in love with her. He spends the whole first season courting her. He's helped by his friend Marshall, and his fiancee, Lily (Alyson Hannigan of Buffy fame), who have been together since college, and are planning their wedding. And finally, his "best friend", Barney (played by Doogie Howser, Neil Patrick Harris), who teaches him the art of picking up women, and living the bachelor life. The show has tons of twists to it that you're not quite sure what's gonna happen in the end. But one thing we do know is that Ted does eventually get married and have kids. If you're still on the fence about this show, I suggest you give it a try. You're welcome. :)

Moral Dilemma

So yesterday, I was on my way to meet some friends at the Mall of Asia when I made a mistake. I wanted to turn left, and there were plenty of people doing u-turns to where I was going, so I thought it was alright. Turns out, it wasn't. I didn't notice the cop signaling me not to cross until it was too late and he was in front of me, stopping me. He told me what I did wrong, and asked for my license. My mind was racing furiously, trying to decide whether I would do the right thing, admit my mistake, and accept my fate, or whether I should... do "something else". (Btw, that something else being the B-word, followed by "rib", and ending in "e".) I decided that I will accept the consequences of my mistake. I tried to explain to the cop that I didn't know I wasn't allowed to turn left there. He told me that he had been signaling me trying to stop me from crossing, but I didn't see. He then showed me the list of fines, and pointed to the P2,000 that I had to pay city hall. I nodded acceptance and gave him my license, saying that I was wrong, and I have no choice. He paused, then looked around, then handed me back my license. To my utter relief, he told me that he'll let me off with a warning. I was shocked, but my mind was racing again. My wallet was out, because I was putting my license back in. But do I give him some money as a gesture of gratitude, or do I just thank him and leave. In the end, I decided to thank him and leave. I felt a little guilty for not giving him something for letting me go, but if I did, then wouldn't I have been, in a sense, doing what I was trying not to do in the first place? Then again, by allowing him to let me go, am I similarly guilty of "getting away with it"? Hmmm...

My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!

A “no-prize” for whoever can tell me where the title comes from. ☺
Another “no-prize” for whoever can tell me where the “no-prize” comes from. ☺

For about four years now, I’ve been debating whether or not to have laser eye surgery, so I wouldn’t need to wear glasses anymore. My prescription was quite high, and my glasses were weighing down heavily on my nose, leaving scars. I had a check up four years earlier at the Asian Eye Institute (AEI) here in the Philippines to see whether or not I’m qualified for laser surgery. Unfortunately, the doctor (Dr. Robert Ang) told me that my cornea is too thin, and it was not possible for me to do LASIK. LASIK is the process where they slice a flap from your cornea and insert a lens underneath. The process is painless, and the next day, you’re back to normal with no pain or after-effects. I know several people who have gone through it, and none have ever had problems with it. The other procedure is PRK, where they shave off your cornea until your vision is clear. The down side to this procedure would be that your cornea would be even thinner, and it’s easier for your eyes to get infected. Also, the pain will last a week, and it will take about 1 to 3 months to heal. The advantage to this would be that your eye is stronger, and you don’t have to fear the flap being loose and the lens being pushed out of place. So there are good and bad sides to both. The doctor said I was able to do PRK, but my cornea would be even thinner, and he can’t account for all of the astigmatism, as they’d have to shave off more than is possible. So, I decided to hold off on the operation, hoping that in the future, they would have better technology that I could take advantage off.

The future is now, and unfortunately, still no better technology for laser surgery. Just more precise calculations. Well, after talking it over with my parents, I decide to do it. My mom wanted to have it done as well, but wanted to see my results first. Anyway, last Thursday, we went to the AEI again for the check up. And they told us to go back on Saturday for the 3-hour check up, where they will see if I’m qualified. So, Saturday, we go back, and it does take three hours. They put a lot of eye drops on me, and checked my eyes with the machines, and had me rest for half an hour. At the end of the exam, Dr. Ang tells me the situation is still the same as before, but their laser is more precise now, so there’s less risk for me to do PRK. I still can’t do LASIK. And we told him that we will go ahead and schedule the PRK for Monday. He gave me a short list of things not to do on that day, and sent us off.

So, Monday morning, we head to the gym for a light exercise, and a bath. My appointment was for 12pm, so we had a small snack before we went to the doctor’s office. Once we got there, they made us wait a few minutes, which gave us time to pray. After that, I was called in. They gave me a locker key, then asked me to go inside their changing room. A male nurse there helped me take off my shoes and put on the hospital gown and head cap. Then, he took me to the waiting area outside the operation room, and had me sit in a Lazy Boy to await my impending operation. It was quite a wait, and after a while, I had to pee. I tried to hold it in, but realized I couldn’t, and asked to be shown to the washroom. When I got back, it was more waiting, but there were two others waiting beside me, also in lazy boys. Finally, they called me in, and with a deep breath, I walked into the operation room, where Dr. Ang and a few nurses were waiting. There was a big bed at the far end of the room, and a machine hooked up to it. They told me to lie on the bed. There was a slot where my head would rest. They assured me that the operation would not hurt, then dropped some anesthesia onto my left eye. They covered my right eye with a bandage, as they would be doing the operation one eye at a time. Then they put this device, which was attached to an arm attached to the machine, on top of my eye. The doctor kept assuring me the whole time that it wouldn’t hurt, then began brushing my eye, and poking at it. Good thing the anesthesia worked, and I felt nothing. Finally, it was time for the laser. The device on top of my eye, emitted a red light and a green light, both blinking. That was it. The doctor said I would smell burning, and I did. They did it four times, a few percent at a time. The first time was 24%, then 48%, then 73%, then 100%. I’d say it took about a minute or two. Not that long. I did smell burning, which was probably from my eye. The doctor did some further poking and stuff, then put a contact lens with no prescription on my eye to protect it from infection. Then, they bandaged my left eye and opened my right eye and did the same thing. After the operation, they had me walk out of the room and wait in my lazy boy again. The next patient was shown in. I had to wait until the next patient was done, and the doctor came out to check us both, then said we were ok. The nurse gave us some drops, and instructions as to what to do and what not to do. We were scheduled to see the doctor the next day for another check up. Surprisingly, there were no pain, and I could see relatively better, even with the goggles they gave us to wear for protection.

After the operation, we went out for lunch, and had a walk around. I didn’t feel any pain, just my eyes being tired, so I took a nap. I felt so confident that I was ok, that I decided to go to a meeting we had that night. At first, it started out ok. People looked at me weirdly because of the goggles, but no pain so far. Then an hour into the meeting, excruciating pain! I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and they kept watering. I had to step out of the room into the dark several times to recover. But I couldn’t take it anymore, and my good friend, Justine, offered to drive me home, which I agreed to. Once we got home, I immediately went to bed, and tried to fall asleep despite the pain. Sometime in the night, I finally did. The next day, there was still pain, a little subdued, but it was still there. We went to the doctor’s, and he dropped some anesthesia and loosed the lenses a bit, after which, I was fine. But once the anesthesia wore off, everything was so bright, it was blinding, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. We once again went back home where I tried to sleep it off again. The third day, it was a little better, and I could open my eyes a bit, and use the computer for about a minute or two before it would hurt. But close to night time, I was able to see in bright areas without glare or pain, but after watching some tv, it was back, so I went to sleep. This morning, I’m able to see in bright areas, and use the computer long enough to surf the web, and type this post up. Hopefully, it will improve as the day goes on. We’ll see what happens tomorrow when I go to the doctor’s to have the contact lens removed.

Spin City

Take a look at this picture:


Is she spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise?

At first, I could only see her spinning counter-clockwise. Then I scrolled down to see her legs only, and they started spinning clockwise. Now, the only way she's spinning is clockwise. I can't get her to spin the other way again. Some people suggested that what you see depends on whether you're left brain or right brain, or something like that.

2-in-1 Review: Stardust

Movie rating: * * * 1/2 (You may watch it in the movie or rent it, but you should watch it at least once)
Book rating: * * * (Buy it or borrow it, and read it only when you have time)

Synopsis: Stardust is the story of a young man named Tristran Thorne (or Tristan in the movie) who lived in an English town called Wall, where there is a huge wall that leads to a magical world called Faerie. One night, Tristran (or Tristan) makes a promise to the prettiest woman in Wall (Victoria Forrester) to get a fallen star for her in return for her hand in marriage. He sets off on an adventure beyond Wall, and finds out that the star is a human-looking woman (named Yvaine), but is still determined to bring her to Victoria. Meanwhile, the King of Stormhold dies, and two of his sons are looking for a topaz (or ruby in the movie) that will make its bearer the next ruler. However, the jewel is in the possession of the star, who must give it to its rightful owner. Also, three witches are looking for the star whose heart will make them young again.

I'm not a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and haven't read a single thing by him, except for two comics (Marvel's 1602, and one of the Sandman trades). Not that I have anything against him, but I just feel his stories are a little darker than I like. Anyway, I watched the movie before reading the book, at the behest of one of my friends (Jeff), and I quite liked it enough to read the book. I will review first the movie, then the book.

I have to admit I came into this movie not knowing anything about it, and that might have been to my benefit. I expected a drama/horror movie. Instead, I got a fantasy/romantic comedy-type movie, which is fine. The story is pretty typical: boy goes on adventure, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl get married. Then in between, there's some other stuff going on. What's different about this story is there's more than one plot. There's actually 3 storylines to follow: Tristan and Yvaine, the Princes trying to find Yvaine, and the three witches. The good news is that the movie divides its time equally among the three stories such that none of the three is gimped. The bad news is that most casual movie watchers may not be able to follow all the storylines, and may get confused by them. For me, however, the movie works just fine. And it seems to me that it aspires to be the next "Princess Bride", which many others have aspired to, but none have been able to live up to. I would say this movie is close, but not quite. The movie tries to be light-hearted, just like "Princess Bride" and I found myself laughing through a bit of the movie, but at one scene especially (Captain Shakespeare), the humour was too much. The acting, for the most part, was pretty good. The actors don't take themselves too seriously, and play along with the silliness of the movie. One fast that my friends brought up was that the actors they got were mostly American, rather than English, which is funny, because it's set in England, and the actors were trying so hard to imitate the English accent, that it would've been much easier to get English actors. There are tons of good ones out there. All in all, though, I'd say that if you're looking for a nice, fun movie to pass the time, this is the exact movie you're looking for.

As for the book, having seen the movie, I was biased going in, and noticed all the differences right away. I can say that I appreciate the movie cutting out certain scenes from the book, as they would've muddled the story even more for casual viewers. However, the scenes in the book are well-written as to make sense of everything that happens in the story (a feat that's missing in the movie. Not to say that things don't make sense in the movie, just that you just have to take for granted that certain things in the movie happens). And while the movie was tailored to be funny, the book, though light-hearted, was meant to be a fairy tale rather than a comedy. And as a fairy tale, it works. I can see parents reading this book to their children, sparking their imagination.

Eurotrip, Part IV

In was raining hard on the sixth day, and we were planning to walk through the attractions of Brussels. We slept in, and had a late breakfast, then planned where to go. First, we went to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Garden), but it was raining, so we couldn’t go out and take a look. We decided to head to the Centre Belges de la Bandes Desinees (Comic Museum). We didn’t know exactly where it was, and when we asked for directions, people were very vague. So we walked around aimlessly until we hit upon a shopping mall. It was a pretty big one with tons of shops and a huge department store. The top level was fully loaded with gadgets, CD’s, DVD’s, and any other electronic equipment you’d need. They even had an Apple store. Of course, the prices were just as huge. J Beside the mall, there was this long street full of high-class shops. We walked through it, just window-shopping, then decided to continue our search for the Comic Museum. The street signs in Brussels are so vague and misleading. They’ll tell you something is one way, but they don’t tell you that you have to turn on the next street, so you follow the sign, and just keep going until you’ve gone too far. That’s what happened to us. Fortunately for us, we ran into this big square that’s been deserted. It used to be a plaza, and we could see remnants of the Marks & Spencer sign, and other stores on it, but all the stores were empty and closed down. We took shelter there from the rain, and ate our packed lunch (the roti from the night before). After we were fully rested, we spent another hour walking around aimlessly looking for the Comic Museum until we came upon this Media Library (where they had tons of CD’s and DVD’s for rent for free!), and asked for directions. The lady there didn’t speak English, but good thing I understood the French she used, and within 5 minutes, we were at the Comic Museum. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Not the comics that I read, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman. Not Marvel or DC. But the ones that I grew up with, like Smurf, Asterix, and Tin Tin. These were the European comics. They had some statues that I took some pictures of, but we didn’t bother paying the entrance fee to go in and look at their other stuff, which mainly consisted of original artworks of those characters. After the museum, we headed to a place called Grand Place, which had a lot of those old, Victorian-style buildings. We took some pictures, and walked around a bit, then finally turned into this street where they had tons of fancy restaurants that served seafood. We walked through all the restaurants, comparing prices, and looking for one that we liked. We finally settled on one that was relatively cheap, but had very few people. We ordered the seafood platter (which consisted of oysters, shrimp, clams, crayfish, all served cold), and a bucket of cooked mussels. The food was pretty good. Once we finished eating, we walked around some more, and browsed through the many chocolate stores there, and finally buying some to take home. When we got home, we packed up our stuff, then rested, watched tv, then went to bed.

On our last day there, we slept in, had a late breakfast, and just bummed around the hotel. Our flight was at 3:30pm, and we didn’t have plans for the morning, except to go back to the Egyptian place for lunch, which my dad really loved. We left at around 10am to go to the Egyptian place to get take out and eat at our hotel. Unfortunately, the place was closed. We thought it would open around 12pm, so we walked around some more, and decided to visit the Jardin Botanique, since it was such a nice, sunny day out. We got a chance to take tons of pictures there, and finally, around 11:30am, headed back to where the Egyptian place was. Around 12pm, it was still closed, and dejectedly, we went back to the hotel. We got our stuff, checked out, and took the train to the airport. It was another 15 hour trip with 2 stops, one at London, and another at Hong Kong. By the time we got back to Manila, it was already 4pm. My uncle Val and aunt Naty picked us up, and dropped us home.

All in all, it was a nice trip. Too bad it rained a lot. But we got to explore most of the place, and saw everything at the Expo. Now, it’s back to work.

Eurotrip, Part 33 1/3

On the fifth day, we were walking from our hotel to Verboekhoven to take tram 55, when we noticed tram 23 going past our hotel. We were aware that the trams passed through our hotel, and we heard them passing by every morning and night, but we didn't realize that the trams that went through there also stopped at the Expo. So we decided to hop on to the tram 23 that passed through our hotel, and it only took us 10 minutes to get to the Expo! All this time, and we didn't even realize it! We were kicking ourselves for not realizing earlier. Anyway, we finished walking through the rest of the Expo, and did another once-through of the whole Expo. We didn't bother stopping by Benjamin's booth, as we didn't want to intrude. There were a lot more people this time around, with people who just came in that day. We stopped by a supplier's booth, where they were showing off some new machines, one of which we especially liked. One of the salesmen there started talking to us, and explaining all the features of the machine. He was especially chatty, and it was hard to get a word in edge-wise, but he was friendly, and even offered spaghetti and pop to us. He also told us that we could stop by his booth to rest whenever we wanted. We declined and thanked him, although I was really tempted to have some of the spaghetti they were serving their customers, cuz they looked really good. Anyway, we went back to our hotel pretty early at around 3pm, and decided to walk around the area. The hotel concierge told us there was a shopping mall nearby, and we followed his directions there, but we didn’t find one. We walked a long way, and passed through a long street that was like a tiangge area. There, we picked up a whole roasted chicken, some freshly-baked roti, and shawarma in pita bread that we took home to eat for dinner. The shawarma in pita was from this Egyptian place, and they gave us 2 pita breads with shawarma and tons of fries for only 4 euros, which is really cheap. My dad loved it so much he wanted to eat there again. We saved the roti for the next day. The rest of the night was spent just relaxing and watching tv.

In was raining hard on the sixth day, and we were planning to walk through the attractions of Brussels. We slept in, and had a late breakfast, then planned where to go. First, we went to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Garden), but it was raining, so we couldn’t go out and take a look. We decided to head to the Centre Belges de la Bandes Desinees (Comic Museum). We didn’t know exactly where it was, and when we asked for directions, people were very vague. So we walked around aimlessly until we hit upon a shopping mall. It was a pretty big one with tons of shops and a huge department store. The top level was fully loaded with gadgets, CD’s, DVD’s, and any other electronic equipment you’d need. They even had an Apple store. Of course, the prices were just as huge. J Beside the mall, there was this long street full of high-class shops. We walked through it, just window-shopping, then decided to continue our search for the Comic Museum. The street signs in Brussels are so vague and misleading. They’ll tell you something is one way, but they don’t tell you that you have to turn on the next street, so you follow the sign, and just keep going until you’ve gone too far. That’s what happened to us. Fortunately for us, we ran into this big square that’s been deserted. It used to be a plaza, and we could see remnants of the Marks & Spencer sign, and other stores on it, but all the stores were empty and closed down. We took shelter there from the rain, and ate our packed lunch (the roti from the night before). After we were fully rested, we spent another hour walking around aimlessly looking for the Comic Museum until we came upon this Media Library (where they had tons of CD’s and DVD’s for rent for free!), and asked for directions. The lady there didn’t speak English, but good thing I understood the French she used, and within 5 minutes, we were at the Comic Museum. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Not the comics that I read, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman. Not Marvel or DC. But the ones that I grew up with, like Smurf, Asterix, and Tin Tin. These were the European comics. They had some statues that I took some pictures of, but we didn’t bother paying the entrance fee to go in and look at their other stuff, which mainly consisted of original artworks of those characters. After the museum, we headed to a place called Grand Place, which had a lot of those old, Victorian-style buildings. We took some pictures, and walked around a bit, then finally turned into this street where they had tons of fancy restaurants that served seafood. We walked through all the restaurants, comparing prices, and looking for one that we liked. We finally settled on one that was relatively cheap, but had very few people. We ordered the seafood platter (which consisted of oysters, shrimp, clams, crayfish, all served cold), and a bucket of cooked mussels. The food was pretty good. Once we finished eating, we walked around some more, and browsed through the many chocolate stores there, and finally buying some to take home. When we got home, we packed up our stuff, then rested, watched tv, then went to bed.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!

Eurotrip, Part Deux

On the third day, we woke up early and readied ourselves to go to the convention. We had asked the concierge at our hotel how to get to the expo, and he told us to take the tram 23 to Heizel. We assumed that we had to go through Gare du Midi to get there. So we took tram 55 to Gare du Midi, where we switched trams to 23 to Heizel. It took us a little over an hour to get to the Expo. By that time it was raining hard, and since we didn't have an umbrella, we had to run all the way to the Expo building, which was pretty far from the stop. The first day of the Expo saw very few people, and we were able to finish two of the five buildings. There was quite a lot to see there, but we hadn't met anyone we knew yet. At around 5pm, a lot of exhibitors started closing up, and we finished up going through the second building. We took the tram 23 at around 6pm back to Gare du Midi, where we had dinner at Quick, which is similar to McDonald's. They had a lot of branches everywhere. The food was pretty good, and the fries were a lot better than McDonald's. After dinner, we took the 55 back to Verboekhoven and our hotel. We were pretty tired by then, and went to sleep soon after.

On the fourth day, we found out that there might be a faster way to get to the Expo, so we took the tram 81 from Gare du Midi instead of tram 23, and managed to get to the Expo in only half an hour. Much better time than the day before. We were proud of ourselves. That day, we managed to go through two more buildings, and half of the last one. Around lunch time, we met Anthony, one of our ink suppliers, with whom we were very well-acquainted. He was heading over to another supplier's booth, who invited him for lunch, and he invited us to go along. Since we also knew that supplier, and recently bought a lot from them, we agreed. We met Benjamin, from that supplier, there, and he invited us to the top of their booth (their booth was pretty big, and had two floors, the second of which was filled with tables and sofas for chatting and eating) for lunch. We were happy for the respite, as our feet were hurting, and we were hungry. We had packed our own lunch using the bread we had for breakfast, but we were content with their food. He offered us soft drinks and sausages, which were really good. And he even told us to leave our stuff with him so we didn't have to carry so much weight with us while we walked (I was carrying my camera bag, and a tote bag to carry all the brochures, while my dad had a backpack with our important documents and a large bottle of water). After we had finished walking through the Expo, we went back to get our stuff, and had a chat with Benjamin. He gave us more pop, and more sausages, but he himself was pretty sick of them, as that was all he had everyday. He offered us lunch everyday if we wanted to drop by his booth, and we could rest there too, if we wanted. We thanked him and left for home, using tram 81 to get back to Gare du Midi, where we had dinner at Sbarro, then took tram 55 back to Verboekhoven.

I'm Baaaack!!!

Last week, my dad and I went to Brussels to attend the Label Expo, which was from Sept. 26 to Sept. 29. Unfortunately, the only tickets available for us were from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30, so we spent a few more days there. Over the next few days, I’ll post about our trip. If you’d like to see photos from our trip, check out my Flickr collection here. For now, here’s part one:

The first day, we woke up at 3:30am to catch our flight for 6:30am. The airline's system was down, and we had to wait an hour just to get our boarding passes. After that, everything went smoothly. We had two short stopovers, one at Hong Kong, and another at London, before we reached Brussels. The trip took us around 15 hours, and it was late night when we arrived. We decided to take the train there, and got a bit lost. The tram system in Brussels is a maze of 50 trams going through all parts of Brussels, with several big stations getting most of the trams. The ingeniuity of the system is that the trams go through the regular roads, and then become the subways too. But there are so many of them, and the schedules contain a bunch of stops in French and German that most tourists would be confused, especially not knowing which stops are where. This was our problem, and we had to ask for help to get the right tram to our hotel. Luckily, the people were friendly and helpful, and spoke English.

On the second day, the expo hadn't started yet, so we thought it would be nice to take a trip to Paris to see the sights. It so happens that there was a train that headed straight to Paris, and only took an hour. We had to go to a station called Gare du Midi (Midlle Station), where most trams stopped, and they had a train station for trains going to other cities, like London, France, Amsterdam, etc. We boarded the train for Paris around 10:13am, and we arrived at around 11am. Once there, we bought all-day passes for the bus/subway, and headed out. Our first stop was the Notre Dame cathedral that was located in a small island in the middle of Paris. There were a lot of tourists there, and we were even allowed inside to take pictures and look around. After that, we had lunch at a Brasserie nearby. The food there were pretty expensive. After lunch, we walked to our next stop, which was the Louvre. Unfortunately, they were charging people to go inside, so we only took some pictures outside, then headed down towards the Jardin des Tuileries. It was a long walk from the Louvre. From there, we walked down towards the Champs D'Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe. There were so many shops and restaurants on the road heading down towards the Arc de Triomphe. It reminded me of Downtown Toronto. In fact, most of Paris was different from what I imagined. Whereas Brussels was lined with old-looking houses all over, Paris had a lot of modern-looking houses and buildings, and seemed more like Toronto or New York. Anyway, after the Arc de Triomphe, we were extremely tired from walking for three hours, and took the bus to the Eiffel Tower. Since my dad had already visited Paris before, and climbed the Eiffel Tower already, he suggested I go up by myself, and I did. They actually allowed people to climb the staircase from one of the bases of the Tower. It was a long, hard climb, and I realized how out of shape I was. By the time I got to the first level, my knees were buckling, and I was panting heavily. But the sight was spectacular, and I started taking pictures. Unfortunately, shortly after getting there, it started raining. Despite that, I continued on to the second level, which was another hard climb. I didn't have an umbrella, so the rain was pouring hard on me while I climbed. Thankfully, I didn't get sick. I got to the second floor, and the view was even nicer, except for the rain. After a while, the rain subsided, and I got to take some more pictures. Finally, when I had enough, I went down. Since they closed the staircase due to slippery steps, I took the elevator down, and met up with my dad. We took some more pictures with the Tower and headed back to the bus station. We decided to have dinner first, and strolled outside the train station where there were a lot of restaurants there. We were deciding where to eat when one of the servers from a restaurant came out and greeted us, showing us their menu and their deals of the day. Convinced, we went in and ordered our meals. We both got steaks, but the meat was too tough. They did, however, give us a lot of french fries. And I mean, a lot! By the time I finished eating them all, I was extremely full. The fries were really good, though. By this time, the guy who convinced us to go in had already invited a lot of others in, and the restaurant was packed. We paid for our meal and left to board our train back to Brussels. It was around 11pm when we got back to Gare du Midi. By now, we were more familiar with the tram system that we knew to take tram number 55 back to Verboekhoven, which is the stop where we get off, then walk a few blocks back to our hotel. All in all, it was a great experience visiting Paris. I got to practice my french, and I got to visit places that I've studied about in high school.

gO wIth thE flOw

This game is supposed to be the thesis research for the creator, but it ended up being such a big hit with gamers everywhere. I don't really understand what the thesis is about, or how the game relates to it. But I would assume that he succeeded, and prolly got an A+ for it too.

When I first happened upon this game (completely by accident), I didn't know what the heck it was. I controlled this plankton-like creature and it just swam around. When I ate something, the screen would change colour, getting darker. Or sometimes, it would get lighter. Then I realized there were two different kinds of creatures you could eat. One would make it darker, while the other would make it lighter. After more playing, I realized it was like an ocean, and when it got darker, it means I went deeper by a level, and when it went lighter, I went shallower by a level. And then I noticed as I ate some of the small things floating around, I would get longer and have more features. At that time, I thought what a quaint game it was. When I checked the time, I've been playing for 3 hours straight already. That's when I realized I was hooked. It is a great game, and very innovative. It lets you play at your own pace. For more experienced gamers, you can go hardcore and try to eat everything and evolve as far as you can. For those casual gamers or non-gamers, you can just let your creature swim around until you feel it's time to move on.

But that's not all! They released a PS3 version of this game where you use your controller to move your creature, but not in the conventional way. You tilt your controller to tell the creature where to move. For instance, if you tilt it to the left, it will go to the left. If you tilt it forward, it will go forward. And so on. I got the chance to try this at a friend's house. The best part about it is that you can play with 2 players! And it's possible to eat the other player! That was the most fun part when I played with my friends. We tried to eat each other.

The game actually has many different levels. The first one, you start off as a snake-like creature. Then after you fully evolve, you start a new level where you're one of those jellyfish-like things that you were eating. And so on. I don't know how many levels there are, since I haven't played it to the end. But it's pretty cool. So go and play it now! Or download it for later.

I Sense a Disturbance in the Force

For the uninitiated, that's George Lucas on the left, the creator of Star Wars. And on the right is J. J. Abrams, the creator of Felicity and Lost, and the director of the upcoming Star Trek movie. Early reports of Abrams' script did not give me a good feeling about the "future" of Trek, although I love the casting. It remains to be seen whether or not this movie will be a hit or a miss. But if the above picture is any indication, I have a bad feeling about this.

Oh, and no Jar Jar, please!

A Memory of Light

"James Oliver Rigney Jr, author of the long-running fantasy series The Wheel of Time and better known to millions of fans by the pen name Robert Jordan, died on 16 Sept 2007 from cardiac amyloidosis. Jordan announced he had been diagnosed with the disease in March 2006 and vowed to beat the odds, but determination and gumption sometimes just aren't enough in the face of a disease with a median survival time of just over two years. Jordan was in the process of writing the twelfth and final book in the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, but the book was not slated for release until 2009 and is still incomplete. While there is hope that the book will still be finished from Jordan's notes, this is devastating news to all of us who have been reading the series since 1990."

For those of you who don't know Robert Jordan, he is the author of one of my favorite fantasy series, "The Wheel of Time". The series was introduced to me in high school by my friend Jeff, who had also introduced it to a lot of our other friends. It took me a while to get into the book, but once I got started, I couldn't put it down. And I continued to follow the series up until the latest book. Most of my friends had quit by now, mostly because Jordan had started writing too many plotlines with too many characters that have yet to be resolved. Add to that the last few books had stories that happened in ONE day, with nothing of significance happening. It was at this point that people realized that Jordan was simply milking the series for all its got. Despite this, a lot of people (myself included) still follow the book to know what happens next. The world that Jordan had created is quite rich, with its own lush history that he even wrote an encyclopedia for it. The initial stories were quite good too. Nowadays, it's hard to remember what happened to who. Not to say that Robert Jordan isn't still a good writer. He's a great writer, and a lot of fantasy series authors point to his work as the one that brought modern fantasy series novels to where it is today.

Anyway, a few years back, Jordan found out that he had cardiac amyloidosis, and it was gradually getting worse. He had started a blog where he communicated with his fans, and most realized that he may not be able to finish the series. He vowed that the next book, "A Memory of Light" would be his last, even if it had to be 1500 pages long. He tried to work on it during the free times he had, and unfortunately, he wasn't able to finish it.

I'm quite sad at his passing, and although my thoughts and condolences are with his family, I'm more upset that I'm not able to read his last book. I know it's very selfish of me, but I think if he hadn't wasted his time writing those past few books where nothing significant happened, and simply concentrated on finishing the book, he would've have left more people at peace with him. But such is life. Hindsight is always 20/20. But I am happy for him because he's no longer suffering, and I know he's a Christian. He's admitted it himself on his blog, and has been seeing his pastor often during his last days. Therefore, I know I'll be seeing him in Heaven, and I'll have a few choice words for him. :) RIP Robert Jordan.

Bad business

Yesterday, we had a guest speaker in our church, and he spoke on the topic of Worship (my favourite topic). Despite my having a lot of last-minute things to do concerning the LCD, I was still able to listen to much of the message, which I'm glad I did. One of the illustrations that the speaker told us was a true story about this businessman who was making a contract with a new customer. While signing the contract, he didn't even bother to read through most of the details, and missed the incorrect price quoted in the contract. The price was misprinted by someone in his company, and not influenced by the customer. When the customer saw the contract with the significantly lowered price, he was ecstatic, and was happy to do business with the man. But when the man received the first payment from the customer, he noticed the amount was far less than what he quoted, and called up the customer to confirm. The customer told him that that was the price in the contract that he signed. Upon re-checking the contract, he found the incorrent price written on it. Feeling sorry for the man, the customer offered to pay him a little extra, and the man said he would get back to them. That night, he went home and prayed, asking God for wisdom. The next day, the customer called and offered again to pay him a little more than the contract's price. But the man stopped him and said that it wasn't the customer's fault. He had failed to read the contract carefully, and that was the price that he signed, and he would abide by it. He then explained to the customer that he is a Christian, and as a Christian, whatever promise he made, he would keep. He refused to take the additional money, and accepted the original payment with the low price. The customer was so touched by what the man did that they decided to order all their materials from that man. I was taken aback by the man's reaction. I thought for sure he would have a plan to get his money, but he didn't. And in the end, he got the money and the respect of his customers. This made me think about my own self, and how I would've reacted in that situation. I think I would've done my best to blame the customer for the mistake, and fought with everyone for the extra money. In the end, I would just end up with the same amount, and bad feelings all around. And I would not have been a good example to other Christians, or show Christians in a good light. More on this tomorrow...

iPhone Again

Ok, I hope this will be the last time I speak about the iPhone in a while. But Steve Jobs is finally offering the $100 rebate for those who bought it early. Unfortunately, you have to have an activated AT&T number. Way to screw the rest of us, Steve. Hopefully, there'll be a way around this soon. But I'm sure Apple knows that more than half of the people who bought the phone aren't subscribed to AT&T, which is why they allowed this. Only half of the people will get the rebate, and Steve gets to keep his money. What a load of applesauce!

On a happier note, it seems the iPod Touch, despite its 16gb of memory and similar price to the iPhone, does not come with Bluetooth at all. And on top of that, the screen sucks compared to the iPhone! Also, all the third party applications that are available for the iPhone, are useless on the Touch! Makes me happy I didn't wait for the Touch. For those who are gonna get the Touch. Good luck to those who are gonna get the Touch. I'll be watching my videos happily without having to tilt it away, and playing all my games, and using my apps. :)

And in other news, it seems that Apple has been signing deals left and right with telecoms from different countries, and announcing the exclusive iPhone deals there. Yet there hasn't been anything announced in the Philippines. Hmm... makes you wonder whether they'll release it here or not. Certainly, it won't be this year. It might be next year. But how many people are actually patient enough to wait for it when there's a free unlock available now? Plus, it's a lot cheaper to buy now too. Cheaper than a Treo, cheaper than an N-series Nokia, cheaper than the P1, or the P990. Why would you wait a year for it? 3G? Who uses that in the Phils? I mean, really. Most people don't even know the difference between 3G and GSM, but say they'll wait for the 3G. Why? Faster data rates? Why would you need it when you have Wi-fi? And if you want to make calls, the other person has to have 3G too. Hmmm... this is prolly why no one has really been using 3G in the Phils. So, huh. I think I'll skip the 3G.

i-M-Patient

So as I said two days ago, I would wait for the user-friendly version of the iPhone unlocker to come out before I did it. So, I've read that a few people on a certain website have reported no problems with it. And best of all, it won't void the warranty! Excellent! Anyway, after much taunting from the Man with the Same Name, I decided, to heck with it. I'm gonna unlock it! Good thing I stumbled upon (No, not the Firefox extension) a great site that gives you step by step instructions on how exactly to do it. And within 15 minutes, my iPhone was unlocked, and working perfectly! The first thing I did was, of course, call the Man with the Same Name, to brag a bit, of course. But we both noticed that the quality of the call was pretty good. And we found no glitches yet. It's now been 10 minutes since I called him, and I tried getting my dad to call me, and testing it. It works great. The only bad thing is that the ringtones are a bit soft. I mean, really soft. I wouldn't be able to hear the phone ringing in a crowded, noisy room. But I'm sure I can make my own ringtone now in iTunes and transfer them over. And of course, I have to transfer all my contacts from my N80 over to my iPhone. And finally, I will sell my N80 for a Samsung U600, which I will use for my Globe (My iPhone will have my Sun, since I text more with my Globe and call more with my Sun, and I'd rather not text with my iPhone while I'm driving). Excellent!

The Man in the Iron Mask

Ok, despite my complete and utter hatred for Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) in the comics, I am so psyched for the Iron Man movie. I just watched the trailer last night, and it was so awesome! If you haven't seen the trailer yet, I suggest you go now! Surprisingly, Robert Downey Jr. makes a pretty good Tony Stark. I don't know how Tom Cruise would've been, as he's said before that he wanted to play Tony. Well, lucky us, we don't get to find out. :) I like how cool and funny Tony is in the movie, with lines like, "Is it cool if I take a picture with you?" And his reply, "Yes. It's very cool." Oh, and who could forget "I better not see this on your Myspace." And then, "Please, no gang signs. No, throw it up. I'm just kidding." And also the interview where he's asked, "You've been known as the modern Da Vinci, what do you say to that?" To which he replies, "That's preposterous! I don't even paint!" Hilarious! I might actually enjoy this movie. I hope Marvel changes Tony's personality in the comics to match this, cuz his comic persona is such a... well, you know. Oh, here are some other nice pics from the movie. Check it out!

The Heart of Worship

As I'm preparing to lead worship for the Greenhills Bible Study, I stumbled upon a couple of pages. They talk about worship, and how many people can take it for granted. In church, it's usually at the beginning of the service, and people use it as an excuse to come late, thinking it's only singing. But I think worship (or rather, worship in song, or praise) should be one of the highlights of the service. It's where we offer praises to our God for all that He's done for us. And it's also the time where we can truly quiet down our hearts, and prepare ourselves to receive His Word.

Now, most people who know me know that "Worship" is a hot topic with me. I love to know all about it, and I love to talk about all its aspects. But this time, I'll just talk about one: experience. One of my favourite quotes which I heard from a pastor in Toronto (Tim Tang) goes something like this: "If your worship life during the week is excellent, then on Sunday morning, it will spill into your worship. If, however, your worship life during the week was horrible or non-existent, then on Sunday morning, your worship will be subpar." Those aren't the exact words, cuz I don't remember them, but that's the gist of it. Our experiences during the week will shape how we worship on Sunday. If I had a terrible week, getting into fights with people, doing shady things, etc., then on Sunday, I won't have the right heart to worship God. But if during the week, I take some time to think about how God has blessed me, or take time to listen to God, then on Sunday morning, my worship will be an extension of my week's worship. That is why we need to spend some time in quiet meditation and prayer. Think about what God has done for us during the week, how God has blessed us. Sometimes, we don't even realize it until we take the time to think about it. Do you realize that everything you have was given to you by God? Have you thanked Him for it? Where you are now in life is a measure of God's providence and guidance. We don't have to wait for Sunday to praise Him. In our daily devotions and prayer, we can give Him thanks. And on Sunday morning, we'll be so full of joy that we'll just explode in praise. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about outward appearances. That's just a side-effect of what's happening inside. It's like when you're excited about something, you'll be screaming, or shouting, or shaking outwardly.

The song, "The Heart of Worship" is one of my all-time favourite songs, because it describes worship in such a beautiful way. When you take away all the supporting aspects of worship (the music, the instruments, the building, the comfort), would your worship of God still be the same? Would you still want to praise God? Or do you need the songs, the music, the church before you can worship God? God doesn't want the songs. He wants what's it your heart. He wants true worship. John 4:24, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

"The Heart of Worship"

When the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come.
Longing just to bring something that's of worth, that will bless Your heart.
I'll bring You more than a song, for a song in itself, is not what You have required.
You search much deeper within, through the way things appear.
You're looking into my heart.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship.
And it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus.
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it.
When it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus.

King of endless worth, no one could express how much You deserve.
Though I'm rich and poor, all I have is Yours, every single breath.
I'll bring You more than a song, for a song in itself, is not what You have required.
You search much deeper within, through the way things appear.
You're looking into my heart.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship.
And it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus.
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it.
When it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus.

iPhone unlocked!

That's right! You can see it right here. And as soon as a user-friendly version is released (pretty soon, I'm sure), I'll be doing it to my iPhone. Woo hoo!

AZCOP Young Professionals Camp

For all those Young Professionals that are part of an AZCOP (Association of Zhonghua Churches of the Philippines) church (UECM, UECG, UECP, UECPasay, UECA, Jubilee, etc), you are cordially invited to join THE Young Pro event of the year!

When: Thursday, November 30, 2007 - Saturday, December 1, 2007
Where: Oxford Hotel, Pampanga
What: "Please My Ultimate Boss"
Why: This is your chance to meet with other young professionals from other churches, and share experiences and knowledge with each other. In addition, there will be workshops on public speaking, investment, finding the right career, and handling the family business.
Who: Theme Speaker is Rev. Danny Reyes, and Revival Speaker is Ptr. Adrin Munoz.
How: Contact your Young Pro officers.
How much: Registration fee is P500, Early bird is P2200, Late bird is P2700.

The Lostness of Man

Last night, I attended a meeting at United Evangelical Church of Greenhills (UECG) concerning the upcoming joint AZCOP Young Professionals camp. But it's not the camp I'm going to talk about, it's what happened after. It was pretty late when we ended, around 11-ish pm. And on the way back, I unknowingly turned into a one-way street. At first, there were no cars, and then suddenly, a black car went in front of me, and stopped right there. Now, I didn't know this way a one-way street (No, really, I didn't), so I left tons of space to my left for people passing through going the other way. But this guy refused to do it, and decided to block the whole road. Then he stepped out of his car and came towards me. On his face was already an expression of anger. He lashed out at me, telling me that it was a one-way street and that I had to go back the other way. I told him to just go around me and allow me to go through since I was so close to the intersection, and he was blocking tons of cars. The argument went back and forth, and in the end, neither of us were willing to budge. He went back to his car, and waited, while I did the same. Tons of cars were piling up behind him and honking at him. He went down and told them all it was my fault, and I had tons of people glaring angrily at me through my windshield. Still, I wouldn't budge. Then he came back to me and told me that he called the police to report that I stole the car I was driving in. I replied by bringing my window back up again. He then incited all the street people to tell me to move my car. I still wouldn't listen. After a while, I realized that I had let my pride get the better of me, and agreed to back out, to which he taunted me more by driving his car head-to-head with mine, as though pushing it back. On the way home, I entertained ugly thoughts about what I should've done to him. Today, as my mind is clear and thinking straight, I realize the error of my ways. I shouldn't have tried to butt heads with him. Even though he could have shown a little more kindness to me, I was, in fact, wrong. And it is a measure of my pride that caused me to heat up like that. My pride has been one of my big weaknesses, and something that I continue to pray to the Lord to help me with.

This incident reminded me of a sermon by my favorite speaker/author, Dr. Ravi Zacharias (You can visit his site and download his sermons from the link on the right), which was entitled "The Lostness of Man". In it he said these words, "God has told us for centuries now that the fundamental problem with man is his very heart. There is something twisted, almost demonic within the very heart of man. The Bible uses the word, sin. It makes it explicit that this is the heart of man, and implicit of that statement, that the bent of man is towards evil and imagination." He expounds upon the fact that man is by nature sinful. And it's until we realize that we are sinners can we be saved.

iThoughts on the iPhone

As most of you know, the iPhone's price has been lowered by $200 by the "great and all-knowing" Steve Jobs, only 2 months after it was released (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/). And then the day after, he offers $100 credit to those who bought it early. And most of you know that I have an iPhone, so, many people have texted/emailed/accosted me regarding this. And my response is, "It's still worth it!"

Yes, I was shocked and a little frustrated that there was a huge price drop so soon, especially since I bought it at full price. But considering how much I've enjoyed using it, I don't mind it at all. First off, with technology, you should expect prices to drop constantly, as newer and better technology is being invented everyday. If you keep waiting for the "next one" to come out, you'll never stop waiting. You have to say at one point that the specs meet your needs, and will meet your needs for a few years to come, and just buy. That's what I did with my Macbook Pro. I knew the Core 2 Duo one was coming, and decided to get it when it was released. Yes, Apple has released a new version since then, but can it do anything that my current one can't do? It's only a little faster, which translates to about 0.00001 nanoseconds, which isn't really worth it. But back to the iPhone, everyone's saying to wait for the 2nd Generation. But if I wait for the 2nd Generation, why not wait for the 3rd, or the 4th, etc? When will it stop? Right now, I have the iPhone, which has cured my boredom on several different occasions, and which I have used for productivity purposes when I was in Canada. And of course, you can't disregard the Wow factor, where everytime I take it out, people always wanna see and touch. And I think one person in particular in our church with the same name as me has been eyeing it jealously (Yeah, you know who you are :P).

I think most of you will be saying, "You can't even use the phone", or something more insulting. :) But it's only a matter of time till I get it unlocked anyway. I already have 2 other cellphones anyway. Once I get this unlocked, I'm selling them both off. I noticed that I have no interest whatsoever in new cellphones anymore. I used to go to gsmarena a lot to check out what new phones have come out, and drool over them. But since my iPhone came out, I've been thinking of trading down my N80 to something small and simple. And yes, I do believe Apple has done a great job with the iPhone, despite the lack of certain features and locking the phone to AT&T. And no, I'm not an Apple Fanboy like the aforementioned person with the same name as me. :) As for the features, I found that those were easily remedied by downloading a hack (yes, a hack, and no, it doesn't void my warranty) which lets me install tons of 3rd party applications to my phone. I can now read ebooks, play NES games, other games, doodle, view MS Office files, etc. Not bad, eh?

So, if I could go back in time and stop myself from buying the iPhone, and just wait, would I? The answer is a big, resounding, "NO!" Would I advise people to get it? It depends. Well, first, if your significant other will let you. :P Second, I don't think everyone would necessarily want or need it. If you have a Treo or Blackberry, you pretty much have the same functions, probably more. If you don't have one, do you have a need for the functions that they offer? (And when I say "need", I mean a real need for something like a job or whatever, not a perceived need.) If so, then the iPhone is for you. If not, save your money, and wait for something else to come along.

Press "Start" to Begin...

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here, thanks to some persistent people at church, United Evangelical Church of Malabon (UECM). I've tried to do blogs before, but work, church, friends and family got in the way. Oh, and also laziness. :) Anyway, here's hoping this one will work out better.

Ever since I moved back to the Philippines two-and-a-half years ago, I would say I have certainly grown and matured as a person. But lately, I realized that I had become stagnant. I've been too comfortable with my surroundings. When I first got here, everything and everyone was new to me, and it took a lot of hard work for me to get to know people (and for those of you who know me, you know that I am a very quiet, introverted person. Yeah, yeah, stop giggling). And so two years later, here I am, part of the Young Pro fellowship, and watching movies with friends almost every week. Now, I realize that I've stopped trying to meet new people, and am talking to the same old friends. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't want to limit myself. Also, I know there are still a lot of people in church around my age who are friendless and unnoticed, with no one to talk to but their parents. I used to be like that, and I don't want anyone else to have to go through that. Plus, it would reflect badly on our church. I remember when Mark (my cousin) and I visited a church in South Carolina. Even though we were the only non-African people there, everyone was so friendly to us, and kept inviting us to come back. And we obliged. That's the friendliness I'd like to convey to people in our church. But I digress. Another thing I noticed about myself, which Achi Hensie (our Young Pro Fellowship Advisor) shared with us in Bible Study last Friday, is that I tend to be satisfied wallowing in my relative spiritual mediocrity. And the big problem is that sometimes I don't notice it. (For those of you not in our Young Pro Fellowship, you can read up on Judges 13:1.) This reminds me of one of my favorite books, "Your God is Too Safe", but that's for another time. And finally, I noticed that I have become less linguistically-inclined, or in layman's terms, I'm losing my vocabulary. So I hope this blog will help me to improve myself, and those reading can be accountable to me. (Disclaimer: By having read that, you're immediately accountable to me. Sorry... j/k. :P)