Year: 2011

everybody’s fine

Frank Goode, a widower and a retiree, is having his children for dinner. He cleans the house and goes to the store to buy good steak and some bottles of expensive wine. He is excited. He tells everyone the family is having a reunion. That night, however, his children (who are no longer children and are very busy with their lives and careers) call to say that they will have to cancel. Frank is disappointed, but he comes up with a plan: if the children can’t come to him, he’ll come to his children. He packs clothes, a camera, and his lung medication, and goes on a road trip.

This film just got to me. I’ve seen it thrice. The first time, I saw a small part of it on Star Movies, that scene where Frank is on a train and a woman named Alice says he is lucky to have avoided the storm. Frank says, “I am always lucky”, with a smile so content it just breaks your heart.

Robert De Niro is amazing here. Amazing. I’m used to seeing him play tough characters – the (ex) CIA agent, the mob boss, the powerful businessman that you just don’t cross – but he embodies Frank Goode perfectly. Frank, who is no CIA, mob boss, or businessman, who is sad and weary and clueless of his grown children’s lives but proud enough to show their pictures to strangers, who is like most fathers.

 

catching up with friends

Wednesday, met up with my high school friends in Sis restaurant in Dampa before moving to Starbucks in MOA for coffee, ice cream, and stories. In Dampa, you can buy fresh seafood from the wet market and have it cooked in any of the restaurants for a fee. My friends just decided to order in Sis hehe. No pictures because we were so hungry, but I assure you the food was great and affordable.

Photo source.
sugar overload in MOA
macadamia nut from Sasa
The closest name misspelling I've ever experienced was "Elisa". Oh, but then there's also the famous, "Elizabeth Toria".

A friend has moved to a new job in May, another will make the move next week, while two are contemplating working abroad (in Canada, in Singapore). Career changes! Life choices! Upheavals! I wish them all the best.

Thursday, Research sendoff in Chili’s Greenbelt 5. They handed me a copy of the Pretty Little Liars-inspired video. I’ll recap the shit out of that soon HAHA. (Or not, for the sake of my readers’ sanity.)

Camwhoring at Jaykie’s before leaving!

beeeeeeeeeeef
medium rare

Next: Weekend recharging with my parents. BRB.

on the last harry potter film, gifts, and goodbyes

Jaykie and I went to Greenbelt last night for the last full show of Deathly Hallows.

I couldn’t resist the new Mary Grace restaurant!

(Sorry for the low-res, cell phone shots.)

Beautiful, beautiful interior. I want a house filled with pretty trinkets.

Jaykie and his new iPhone.

Dinner!

Spicy lemon scampi and apple cinnamon honey iced tea

Now full, we’re ready for the movie.

The bulk of the story is in the first part, so this is mostly all action sequences. This is the shortest film in the franchise (a little more than two hours), with the least convoluted storyline. It’s a quest. Voldemort, the evil wizard, cut up his soul sevenways, and Harry and Co. has to find the objects containing pieces of his soul (the Horcruxes) and destroy them, so Voldemort himself can be destroyed. I believe this particular installment actually improved on its source material. Rowling’s narrative style makes it impossible for me to picture the fight scenes, and because of this, the character deaths felt gratuitous. In the film version, the deaths are more effective, more moving (a couple who can’t quite reach other during the fighting end up side by side on the floor filled with the bodies of the dead, their hands still not touching) and of course the visual medium is perfect for the chase scenes and wand wars. It’s also nostalgic. I missed seeing Gringotts and the Chamber of Secrets, and I was glad to see them in this movie. The special effects have improved – the detail on the goblins’ faces looked crisp and real onscreen – and the scenes are beautifully shot. It’s a fitting end to a decade of adaptations.

*

Last day at the office. Got lovely messages on Facebook and through text (hi Ate Julie!) and got this card today from Ate Abi. :)

rose quartz and amethyst - para swerte raw sa love life at career!

This is not a going-away gift because he’s not an office mate, haha, but thanks so much for this Charles:

(giddy)

My Research kapatids shot a video inspired by Pretty Little Liars –

but that we’ll keep to ourselves.

*

That’s (almost) four years of laughter and more nervous, stress-driven laughter. I will miss these guys.

Before I worked in advertising, I was a journalist. Newspapers have a lot of pages to fill, and I found that 95 percent of what I wrote ended up in the paper.

But in our business, it’s the opposite – 99 percent or even 99.5 percent of what you write ends up in the bin.

If there’s one thing that characterizes a creative’s daily experience, it’s rejection.

– Simon Veksner, How To Make It As An Advertising Creative (2010)

*

After nearly four years, I’ve tendered my resignation from the paper, effective July 28. Tomorrow, July 19, is my last day at the office. After that, I’ll use my remaining leaves to meet with friends, spend time with my family, fill up forms, take care of requirements, and bum around before I start working again. August I start work as a copywriter at this advertising firm.

Why the shift? I knew, even before I graduated, that I didn’t want to become a beat reporter. I admire the men and women who do this every day. It’s fucking hard. I love interviewing people and writing news and feature stories, but I don’t have the stamina and the drive (above all, the drive) needed to make it as a reporter. (I think the huge uncertainty in my choice of profession, among other uncertainties, resulted in that series of poems – “Reportage” – that eventually won me an award haha.) As a Journalism major, I found this realization embarrassing, and it took me a while to admit this to myself. But when I finally did, I was relieved.

When the paper’s Research department announced an opening in 2007, I grabbed the opportunity, because it meant working in print media (and the country’s best daily broadsheet! I said it!) without the daily mental pain of doing something I don’t want to do (i.e. beat reporting).

I became complacent. Then I started thinking of career mobility. Where will I be five years from now, in this company? I saw myself in the same job, the same position, the same daily drill. I became restless. I found myself looking at job postings and asking friends for leads to other jobs, and that’s never a good sign.

I’ve been restless for almost a year. I think it’s just time to make the move.

*

This is either the best decision of my life, or the worst decision of my life. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime –

wish me luck?

  • My mother’s been having health problems. Fatty liver, kidney stones (one with a diameter of one centimeter), and she’s also pre-diabetic. I’m flabbergasted. My mother doesn’t even eat fast food. I said, I eat all sorts of things, and I’m fine. She said, “Bata ka pa.” (You’re still young.) I won’t be, for long. I really need to start eating right. Meanwhile, we can’t bring home any more sweets and salty things. (I brought home ice cream on Friday; my sister brought cake.) I wonder what I can bring home. A salad?
  • I’d appreciate any health-related advice from you guys. :)
  • On a happier note, Jaykie’s family are back from the States! I got tons of pasalubong. Tops, chocolate, a new wallet. Thank you. :)
  • My father found a chicken wandering around on our roof. It laid an egg but it broke. So now we have a pet chicken. Ang rural!
  • Pray for my mother. And for Jaykie, who is set to take an important exam on the 28th.
  • I have yet to see the last Harry Potter movie. My siblings say the epilogue is laughable.
  • I have a story idea. Working on it. Sayeth the Muse, “Write this down, bitch!”

weekend movies

Iron Man 2


Ah, sequels. We all hate them. The first film is simple and fun, and Hollywood, wanting to milk the cash cow dry, comes up with a follow-up and just goes overboard and ruins your memories of the first film. For example: If the Transformers franchise ended with the first film, I would have had fond memories of Megan Fox. I have become desensitized to explosions and fight scenes. I don’t go “Wow!” anymore. It’s sad. I loved the first Iron Man movie. It surprised me. I didn’t expect to like it. This sequel, however, is much too much. “I have successfully privatized world peace!” Is Tony Stark supposed to be this big of an asshole? Whatever happened to his character development in the first film? Stark creates weapons, drinks champagne in the dessert, and basically just goes around showing what a huge dick he has. Then he becomes a prisoner of war, gets rescued, and after searching his soul, shuts down Stark Industries’ weapon production. Enter the second film, and it’s like we’re starting all over again. And how is he able to rescue Pepper and fly away so fast without causing her injury? No matter. I only question the science of movies I don’t enjoy much. I’m pretty sure Inception is riddled with plot holes, but I don’t question it.

The Avengers film better be spectacular.

Limitless

I had to tweak my brain while watching the film, because I had expected it to be a comedy. (Bradley Cooper is in it, and I have a Hangover hangover.) I thought it would be more Paycheck than Minority Report. (Note that I have the film adaptations in mind, not the original stories. I’ve read Philip K. Dick’s Paycheck short story and it’s…different.) The level of violence, especially toward the climax, surprised me. It’s entertaining. I didn’t expect the ending. Normally you watch a character pop a pill and just wait for the crash, the downward spiral, the final few pages of Flowers for Algernon, if you will.

Hangover II

Oh look, another sequel! The only reason you won’t consider Hangover II anything special is because Hangover I exists. They’re from the same mold. The filmmakers used the exact, same plot structure, and they’re not even shy about it. They even ended the movie the same way – with a character discovering incriminating pictures saved in his gadget, observing out loud that the pictures are fucked up, another character saying “Okay, we’ll look at the pictures once and then we’ll delete them forever”, and everyone exclaiming a disgusted “Oh!” before the pictures are shown onscreen and the credits rolled. If I were any of these characters, I’d be seriously disturbed. I’d think of Groundhog Day. I’d think of all the sins I’ve done.

Accepted

A young man fails to get an acceptance letter from the colleges he’s applied to – even from his “safe school”, Ohio State – and in a moment of desperation, drafts an acceptance letter from the make-believe South Harmon Institute of Technology (or S.H.I.T.) and mails it to himself. What’s next? Create the website, find a building, find a fake dean. And maintain the lie.

The film came out in 2006, starring Justin Long, Jonah Hill, and Blake Lively. It’s a fun watch.

Failed to stop at Quezon City to do another test, but this speed test was recorded in Bulacan:

The numbers are lower here but I have no complaints. Everything’s working, even YM. Tweetdeck’s acting erratic with this connection speed, but there’s web-based Twitter so no biggie.

Next: Makati.

*

My brother says the Speedtest is not a very reliable gauge of connection speed because it all depends on your location from the server. The connection speed recorded in Paranaque is higher than the speed recorded in Bulacan because the former is closer to the server, which is located in Greenhills.  That doesn’t mean it’s actually faster.

I guess that makes sense?