Wednesday, May 25, 2011

it's not always rainbows and butterflies

here's a rundown of stuff that happened recently. why? because i own this blog and i could put pictures of booger sculptures if i wanted to. also, any incoherence will be deliberate. anyways, grab a sandwich. this might take a while. (the reading of the post, not the booger sculptures)

burn baby burn
i realized that the creation story regarding a god making humans out of clay and cooking them in an oven is probably true because the only explanation for this ridiculously hot summer is that we are being reheated. last monday, i woke up with itchy arms. i had rashes near my elbows. as far as i know, i have no allergies. what's weirder was that the rashes suddenly disappeared and migrated to my buttcheeks, then to my thighs. as a believer of mind over body, i endure the itch til the next day, which i did not know was scheduled as worst heartburn day. ive had mild gerd attacks for years that went away upon burps. this last one proved strong for not only did it repel my eructative abilities but rendered different pills useless. when eating became painful, i gave up. i took time off work and spent three days in a hospital, nursed by my wife and roused from sleep by nurses. on my last day there, they knocked me out with anesthesia and alien probed my insides. (looked like i swallowed a tiny wolverine on berserker barage) before that, my wife kept asking me if i was afraid. actually i was looking forward to it. i wanted to know what i would see during loss of consciousness. so when i was in the operating room and they were about to press a chlorofor-filled hanky on my face, i was like, this is it, im going to find out what coma patients dream of. which was nothing. something that tasted like piss was sprayed into my mouth and my eyes closed to blink, and then i opened them again and i was somewhere else. i had teleported to a garage. diagnosis: gastritis, esophagitis, hiatal hernia and urticaria. chocolates, spicy food, juices, softdrinks, beer and a bunch of others are categorized as should be consumed. went home almost immediately after the procedure and awaited the excuse for the botched rapture that some moron predicted and so many morons believed. there should be a rule that anyone who makes a prediction that doesn't happen gets pooped on by all skeptics. and anyone who believed the bullshit licks the poop off.

sweet child o' ours
there's so much to be said about our daughter, and yet none of it wont be enough. iaine is such a beautiful little girl. she's always smiling, always happy and it's infectious. she makes us all laugh with her tricks and random quirks. like when we were on the bed and i saw her clamp her lips shut as if she had eaten something. i grabbed her and tried to fish it out with my index finger but couldnt because iaine wouldnt open her mouth. so i told her to say "aah" and she just gave me the funniest half-opened mouth face. i just lost my wits there and found out that there really wasn't anything in there. i got pwned by my own daughter. the only time she starts a hissy fit is when her slumber's cut short. but even that doesnt last long. she'll be clingy and frowny for a while but then revert to good mood real quick. as with all kids, she'll blow a fuse when you take away from her something she wants but it won't last long or develop into an all-out hellspawned tantrum. i want to teach her early on that you can't always have everything you want. but what iaine is really, really good at is being sweet. this is the greatest reward of parenthood, of having a job, of giving love. i work my arse off to take the pig meat home. i try to get as much sleep as i can on weekeneds but can't because sometimes iaine would half-wake up in the middle of night and id have to give her milk to keep her calm. that and all of the many, many ordeals a new parent had to go through, reduced to microscopic size when compared to the overpowering warmth of iaine's sweetness, which i don't even know if she understands or not. the other day, she woke me up with a kiss on the cheek and then proceeded to do the same to her mother. and yesterday, my wife and i had a small argument downstairs and weren't in speaking terms when we lied on the bed upstairs. iaine was trying to get some sleep and probably noticed the silence so she took my hand then took her mother's hand and put them on top of each other. cue minitears. chibihime patched things up for us. on a totally unrelated note, how did abs-cbn get a way with titling their new series after the famous rock band? (answer: by using the same power of unoriginality that allowed gma7 to rip off yo gabba gabba)

marooned (and how was the sandwich btw?)
first foreign artist's concert i ever watched was vanilla ice in araneta coliseum when i was in grade school. second was bon jovi in rizal memorial sports complex in high school. and third was linkin park in ccp open grounds a few years ago. capping off my very long weekend is the much-anticipated maroon 5 concert, which i had filed a leave and bought tickets for about one month prior. this was primarily for my beloved love because even though im working 5 days a week and we have a child to take care of, i still wanted us to be able to spend time together like before we got married. of course, with the aforementioned factors and time constraints, we dont get to do it as much. a movie here, a dinner there. so i thought the maroon 5 show was a great rare moment date for us. plus it's actually her first concert experience. so we put off watching house episodes on bed and queued up with the marooners (i dont know if they're actually called that), bronze tickets in hand. we found a nice spot and camped there. when the lights went out and the drums pounded out, the awesome soundtrip began. the band sounds exactly the same live, which is always nice. jeean spent the whole hour and a half of pop rock music perched on the rails. inside the smx convention center, i noted three types of maroon 5 fans. the chill ones who went there for the music (where we belong); the uptights, who were there because they can afford a handful of vip tickets but dont really know the band so they just sit in their chairs waiting for freebies to be thrown their way; and the fantards who know every single word of every song and who'd sacrifice their vocal chords just to scream the name of the vocalist who cant even hear them. i admit, i merely downloaded the maroon 5 tracks but i really believe that the best way to support a band you like is to watch their concerts. and to jeean: "back and forth we sway like branches in a storm, change the weather still together when it ends." i love you very much. looking forward to more adventures our copycats will try to imitate but fail at miserably.

usually i'd type out a couple of sentences to signal the end of the blog post and wrap things up but


p.s. on the bus ride to manila, there was a family of four in front of me and when the bus conductor handed them their tickets, two of which were discounted, the father asked the conductor how much all of it was. the conductor said later because he had other people to attend to. to the model father of two, use your brain, asswipe.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

THOR by jaiskizzy


gist: on the day of his kinging, thor is instead punished by his father, odin, for his arrogance by stripping him of his god mojo and banishing him to midgard, as surreptitiously orchestrated by his envious stepbro, loki. with the black swan on his side, the asgardian douchebag must endure an earthbound lesson on humility to regain his powers by proving he is worthy to stand once again as thor, the god of thunder! (violently shakes a piece of sheet metal)

reaction: ever since marvel meddled in the filmifying of their comic book properties, output quality has considerably increased. a big slice of this improvement is the fact that the movies had been made-to-measure to please both comic book fans and non-fans alike. a great example is iron man, a relatively second-tier character in the marvel universe. after the two box office hits, his cosplay presence was cemented. hot on his jetboot heels, aiming for the same is thor, an even more obscure marvel character, virtually unknown to non-readers, especially when compared to the superhero triumvirate of superman, batman and spider-man. and pun intended, thor hit the nail on the head. (loki facepalm)

i thought kenneth branagh was an odd choice to direct but i stand corrected because loveless delivered the goose, especially in the non-earth scenes where the language is in shakespearean. when the first set and costume photos came out, they gave a campy vibe and the geek consesus was this would be the tensies flash gordon. but by odin's beard, we were proven wrong when it all hit the silverscreen in ethereal 3d. kenny has done a wonderful job of turning a mythical realm into a beautiful place in space and making its existence believable. plus, i absolutely must praise his theater-ish framing and blocking, and how thor arrived god-sized and gradually turned to human height as the story progressed. it is also worth pointing out that jokes were sparse and that thor's terrestrial descent did not call for a learning-the-earthly-ways comedic montage. 

i genuflect in thought at the mortal named chris hemsworth. this guy came from nowhere and just ninja smokebombed his way into popularity. he embodied thor pretty well, perfecting that smug smile and asgardese. i also have high praise for the guy who played loki, who amazingly looked so much like loki. that was some great schemer/faux innocence/unhinged outburst acting. the portman as jane foster was kind of meh but better her than some bimbo actress who wouldnt have been convincing in a high iq role. it was also great to see kakihara as hogun but i dont think he fit the role. i think oh-dae su would have made a better hogun. and then there's kat dennings whose comic relief role was immaterial. darcy who? there wasnt even a darcy in the comics. i wonder who she  to have herself squeezed into this movie. seriously, her addition was a subtraction.

so yeah, marvel has proven once again that you can make a damn good comic book film. you just have to have the right people, a compelling story and respect for the source material. sure, ticket sales dont necessarily mean great movie, but comic adaptations are always on a hit or miss case. and considering that the vast majority of moviegoers arent fans of the inked pencils and the onomatopoeia, thor is a thunderous triumph. can't wait for the avengers movie! joss whedon make it awesome! 

good: hemsworth, hiddleston, branagh
bad: throwaway characters, single location
ugly: them frost giants
verdict: 8 broken mugs


assguardian.