My Beijinoy Weekend

This weekend I decided to hang out with my friends. True, I've made such decisions before w/ little success due to the unavailability of said friends (most of us have lives to live, I know), but thankfully that wasn't the case this time.

SATURDAY. I cut short my trip to SM North EDSA (mall-wide sale, comics, ridiculous traffic, etc.) to meet up with TinTin Ngo back at my house. Afterwards we drove to Diana's to pick her up before our final destination of the Promenade in Greenhills where we watched The Ant Bully (I'd do my usual 10 Thoughts On blog but the film just wasn't that interesting). Dinner at a new chicken resto (also not interesting enough for me to recall its name) followed, where I saw my cousin Osing, also having dinner w/ lady friends.

SUNDAY. Four days since my workout w/ Lyndon, and my upper body still hurts. This is what skipping weight-training for a week and a half does to you.

Even if I had lots of PC TV and comics to catch up on I opted to invite Diane (Ngo, no relation to TinTin) --who was feeling a bit down that day-- out to Greenhills (yeah, yeah, I'm shot for original ideas). My fears of a long drive time from my house to hers (and back) turned out to be unfounded as Congressional Road wasn't as traffic-ridden as I thought it would be, at least not at 2:30 in the afternoon. Picked her up, drove out to the Promenade where she had seafood crepe while I had a strawberry-banana fruit shake at Victor's crepe cafe (w/c I noticed had gotten smaller).

PC TV Pilot Previews

One advantage of getting more harddrive space is I can now download entire seasons of shows I never had the space to do so before. This time it's the entire runs of The Larry Sanders Show (finally!) and Sports Night. The former's a quick watch while the latter's jarring w/ the canned laugh track (any fan of Aaron Sorkin's shows know that his type of humor and laugh tracks don't mix).

Also (through no effort of my own) got to watch a couple of plilot shows that are supposed to debut (assuming they don't suck) this fall in the US. Now for some lazy descriptions and snap critiques, which are the reason why I'd make a crappy show pitcher.

• Angela's Eyes: Female FBI agent who's a human lie detector. Looks promising.
• Blade: The Series: this is after the movie trilogy. Pretty dark, literally. For a Daywalker you don't get to see Blade out in the afternoon sun much.
• Class: from the maker of Friends, w/c might explain the all-white cast. Funnier than Friends.
• Eureka: Northern Exposure meets Dexter's Lab. Promising.
• Our Thirties: Not funny.
• Psyche: Guy with keen eye for detail tells people he's psychic. Imagine Monk, only younger and w/o the OCD.
• Secrets of a Small Town: Big-time reporter returns to her hometown chasing a story. Secrets not enough to keep me interested. Pass (unless you're a real big fan of Angie Harmon).
• Runaway: The Fugitive with family members along for the run, only the wife's not dead and there's no One-Armed Man.
  
• Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip: Behind-the-scenes of a Saturday Night Live type show, brought to you by the guys who made The West Wing. Watch it for Amanda Peet, if nothing else. (hottie...)
• The Angriest Man in Suburbia: Comedy. Promising.
• The Shark: James Woods as loudmouthed defense lawyer turned prosecutor, complete with young legal team. Think House with lawyers, only more over-the-top, particularly the high-tech mock courtroom Wood's character had built underneath his house.
• The Singles Table: Comedy starring Harold of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Funny.

Brokeback Batman?

When I read that Heath Ledger is set to play the Joker in the next Batman movie, I happened upon a picture of his online that I just had to tweak. It just seemed perfect.

Well, just to give you an idea for what to expect in a year or so.

Slightly Deaf Standup Comedian at 2

My niece Jade was holding a plastic bottle of glue.

Me: Do you know what that is?
Jade: No?
Me: That's glue.
Jade: Huh?
Me: Glue.
Jade: Gloo?
Me: Glue!
Jade: Glew?
Me: Yes, glue.
Jade: No, it's white.

Tele-Haiku

She said on the phone:
Don't you ever stop talking?
Annoyed but smiling.

Is This On?

I'm at the computer when my niece Jade (3 years old) sees the headset next to the speakers. She grabs it and tries putting it on my head, to no avail. (I have a big head, see...) So I put it on her head. Since it wasn't plugged in obviously I expected her not to hear anything. But I ask anyway.

ME: "Ano naririnig mo?"
JADE: "Ikaw."

Get it? 'Cause she heard me asking if she heard... nevermind.

Sunday w/ Jadis

Today I accompanied my friend Lola to The Fourth Philippine Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention at the Rockwell Tent. She joined the costume pageant as Queen Jadis (w/ matching Turkish Delight costume and staff) from The Chronicles of Narnia. I think the last time I saw this convention they just had booths and costumed people stationed outside the mall. Now they get their own building. Mostly the booths were for boardplay and exhibiting of wares. But worse (for me), no comics! The closest thing to a a comics-related booth was someone taking pages out of Previews magazines and sticking them on man-made stones (ala wallpaper) to sell as paperweights. So ridiculously simple I wish I'da thought of it.

Click here to read the rest of Sunday w/ Jadis.

10 Thoughts on Superman Returns (Spoilers)

Caught it tonight at GB3 w/ Goldy and DJ (after dinner at Fish & Co.) Even ran into Boit, Dionne and her cousins (while solving my SM Mall of Asia Identity Crisis at the same time.*)

• Pointless scene: Clark as a kid running and leaping through the fields. Didn't exactly push the story foward. This scene I would've cut instead of the Superman-returning-to-Krypton scene (so does that mean Krypton is at least 2.5 light years away from Earth?), w/c director Bryan Singer did because, at 2.5 hours, this movie was long enough. Didn't feel like 2.5 hours, though.
  
• Christ-like symbolisms were so "subtle" they might as well have entitled it The Passion of the Clark.
• Smarter dialogue than most superhero flicks (i.e. no lines made me want to cringe like the some of the dialouge in Spider-Man 2). Not-so-smart script, but it's almost expected that the "blockbusteryness" of a film is inversely proportional to the cleverness of the script.
• As a comic reader, it's nice to see a somewhat more "real world physics" depiction of trying to rescue a commerical plane falling at really fast speeds. Y'see, in comics all Supes woulda done is fly underneath the plane, guide it under his own flying powers then gently lower it wherever (see Man of Steel #1), all neat and tidy.
• Brandon Routh's Clark Kent/ Superman is Brandon Routh's. Any similarites to Christopher Reeves' depiction is probably Singer's doing, as he was trying to build continuity w/ the first 2 Superman films. As an aside, that meant the Daily Planet office had to update from typewriters to computers in a span of 5 years.
• Cast was okay, even the kid who played Superasthmatic Jason, who didn't deliver his lines w/ the annoying shrilly voice of the brat who played Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. They didn't explain Lex Luthor's Captain Kirk-style boots, though.
  
• Unintentionally funny scene: creepy string music played while we see fast cuts of Luthor's many wigs resting on their headbusts.
• Mebbe I missed something, but: Lois was assigned the Superman story, while her story on the blackouts was given to Clark. Yet later Lois is seen doing all the work on the blackouts! Clark, ya lazy bastard. Also: Lex wanted to make his own land while destroying most of North America (why he couldn't do this in the Atlantic Ocean where there's PLENTY of space, I dunno), and he said he's protected from global retaliation by Kryptonian technology. Uh, what protection? Okay, the place was loaded w/ Kryptonite, w/c (at first) protected him from Supes, but then what? No anti aircraft missles, no force fields, no giant robots. NOTHING to protect Lex from being nuked. Hell, all he had was bumpy real estate, a helicopter and HENCHMEN PLAYING CARDS.
• At least the scene of Superman separating the "Dark Fortress of Solitude" from the Earth and lifting it to outer space made more sense as a "Superman Moment" than having him fly really fast in the opposite direction of Earth's rotation and turning back time.
• Better than X3, happier ending than X2, and would probably make for better DVD viewing than Batman Returns.

*As it turns out the girl managing the G-Wrap booth is Dionne's cousin Jennilyn(?), from batch '99 of SJCS.

The Fast and The Furious: Mandaluyong Drift

This is a tale of B.F. Idiot.

After a night of dinner and chat w/ friends, B.F. headed out to the parking lot. Once he drove the car to the exit gate, he realized that-- once again -- he misplaced the parking stub. He asked the attendant what color the ticket was (blue, she said). He then asked permission to park at the corner near the lot's entrance while he searched for the ticket.

B.F. turned every pouch in both shoulder and camera bags inside out. He looked in every compartment near the driver's seat. He groped the floor of the car (not in a dirty way). He even stepped out of the car to double check.

Nothing.

Several thoughts raced in his head, like you did it again, you #$@ing absentmined idiot, and yeah, the sign said: Lost ticket P200. Bad enough the steak and garlic rice dinner wasn't that good, now you have to pay for a lost ticket?

Or do you?

No traffic. No cop cars nearby. Hell, the staff attendants look indifferent. Can I back up without looking suspicious..?

After 10 minutes of ticket searching and comtemplating breaking the law (w/c now that he thinks about it, is more along the levels of jaywalking or not paying bus fare), B.F. backed up the car, had it face the right way on the road... and floored it. Without the lights on, at first. Yeah, real subtle. Headlights on, you idiot, he thought. No point in attempting to get away with it if you end up in an accident.

After crossing a red light, and a strange enounter where a big pedestrian walked slowly in front of him for about half a minute before finally letting the car pass, B. F. made it home.

And in a cruel twist of fate, guess what he found stuck at the side of the driver's seat when he got out of the car...?

Saturday w/ Mike

Spent the whole afternoon doing voiceover work for my friend Mike Lim, who's currently doing his thesis. The project: a series of short stories (to be rendered in Flash animation) focusing on homo/transsexual protagonists, or as I called it, "Gaynimation TM." ("Queertoons?")

Joining me in this pro bono project were Mike's other friends, composed of former students and fellow teachers (like Stephanie and Len, both seen in the pic). Though the subject and tone of the stories were supposed to be serious, the talents involved were anything but (in a good way). Injecting a humorous atmosphere was easy w/ all the double meanings in the script (probably unintentional) . Also we made the best of the situation of having only one microphone and a cramped recording booth. (Geez, where are those tuition fees going?) And for some reason the we were making some of the secondary characters (depicted as a bunch of a-holes, frankly) sound wasted/stoned.

Got home a little 'round after six. Spent the rest of the evening (after dinner) posting comments on comic-themed blogs. Yup, I live a semi-nerdy lifestyle.