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Last Sunday

We don’t get snow here in the Bay Area - frost is all we get when it becomes cold - like last Sunday morning.

Later in the day, we had a little Christmas get-together with our friends from our sons’ school.

  
The dads……………………………….. the moms.

And the kids.

New Comment Spam

All throughout the week, I’ve been getting a new kind of comment spam. It’s not the kind that advertises the latest online casinos, or pushes pills or anything like that. Rather, it links to legitimate sites that are quite popular - but nothing else. The aim seems to get bloggers to blacklist these legit sites in some sort of retaliatory gesture. Weird.

Surfing at Night

This simple trick to conserve an iBook or PowerBook’s battery power turns out to be good for other purposes, like making things more readable in direct sunlight. By applying this hint, the screen’s colors get “inverted,” not unlike a negative. I found this to be quite useful when surfing in bed at night. Since the large white areas on my screen become black and the type becomes white, there is less luminous glow. It makes for easier reading in the dark and it becomes less of a bother to my wife, who is a light sleeper.

Narnia

We saw “The Chronicles of Narnia” on opening day. I liked it. The Emmy Award-winning animated adaptation from the ’70s had more of an emotional impact on me, however. The book, even more so. This review sums up what I feel about the movie. Prior to watching “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” I selectively read negative reviews only, perhaps to allow the movie to prove them wrong. But their criticisms were mostly fair and on-point. I don’t understand those writers, however, who object to the use of a lion (in the book and movie) as a symbol for Christ. They’re just plain clueless.

Conversations

On Saturday evening we headed to Dublin for a party at a friend’s house. It was a great get-together complete with a hilarious White Elephant gift exchange. At one point in the party I braved the chilly air with the smokers outside (although I’m not one myself). Our conversation turned to Christianity somehow. One of our long-time friends mentioned how most of her family are followers of Christ and how they fervently pray for her. Although they don’t condone her homosexual lifestyle, they are non-judgmental towards her and love her dearly. She says she herself is a believer in Christ. She says she acknowledges what the Bible says about her lifestyle but she has a hard time letting go, especially of her current relationship.

Quite a frank admission.

The recent riots in France by disenfranchised Muslim youth reminded me of a comic strip by French artist Moebius* called White Nightmare (”Cauchemar Blanc“) that was published in English in the early ’80s by Heavy Metal magazine. In it, inept French racists bungle their attempt to kill an Arab in the middle of the night. Here are three pages I scanned from the 12-page comic:

The story was based on a real event in 1974 wherein an Arab was beaten and killed “in the middle of a building complex of a suburban housing estate without anyone doing anything about it.” This tells me that the tension between Muslim immigrants and French natives has been simmering for many decades now. The comic was adapted into short film by the director of Gothika early in his career.

*My favorite artist. Do you guys see his influence on my drawing style?

Okay, this is way overdue. I was tagged by Arnold a couple of weeks ago. Without further ado, here it is:

Total Number of Films I Own on DVD And Video
I’ve been waiting to come home to tally them up: I’ve got a paltry 60. I’m not looking to build a DVD library. There are really only a few DVDs that I find I want to watch over and over (most of these are the ones I watch with the children often). I’d also buy a DVD if I know it’s hard to find. If I’d like to watch a really good movie again all I have to do is rent it.

The Last Film I Bought
Constantine. This DVD was heavily advertised in video stores in Manila. I bit. I hadn’t seen the movie, and at the local price, it was cheaper buying it than renting it in the States. My mistake: I forgot about the regional coding. Aaarghh. I’d have to wait until I get my hands on a region-free DVD player in order to watch it. I’ll probably just give in and rent it anyway. (To add insult to injury, the movie was one of the in-flight movies on the JAL plane I was on the other day but with all of the distractions, I never got to watch it in its entirety.)

Five Films Which I Watch a Lot / Mean a Lot to Me
Bladerunner - groundbreaking sci-fi film.
Fifth Element - Euro sci-fi so derivative, yet so strangely unique (Chris Tucker gotta go though).
LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring - the delicate way Jackson handled the opening Shire scene let me know that the rest of the movie, and the trilogy, was going to be special.
The Prince of Egypt - the burning bush scene gets me everytime.
Okay, this one’s a guilty pleasure: The Sound of Music *cringe* - I actually force my kids to watch it in order for me to hum along to “The Lonely Goatherd.”

(Three) People I’m Passing the Baton to
It took a while for me to answer this I’m hesitant to pass it on (Is this how memes die out?). The lukewarm potato goes to Mark, Ariel and Sunny (his movie quizzes are so good, I’d like to take a peek into his collection).

We’ve been here in the Philippines for a little over two weeks. I haven’t had time to get online and post anything because of our tight itinerary. The times I actually get on the internet I just check my email and answer some comments, then quickly logoff.

My wife and I anticipated the difficulties traveling with three young children so we adjusted our expectations and tailored our trip to be as kid-friendly as possible. So far it’s been good. Our home base is at my uncle’s place in Las Piñas which is fairly near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Our first few days here we spent in Cavite where my wife went to high school for one year. She took time to reconnect with her old ka-barkadas. Cavite is unrecognizable to her she says. Gone is the small town feel as Cavite has acquired new roads and shopping malls as part of the effort by the local government to improve the area’s infrastructure. Coincidentally, Cavite, a film making the rounds in independent film festivals worldwide, depicts its landscape as “dismal and upsetting.” The movie, although said to be visually stunning, “shows a kind of poverty and desperation that most Americans rarely see.” I’m not sure if I saw the same Cavite but had the filmmakers shot it ten years ago, its portrayal would have been even more dismal. I was told the route from Manila leading to Cavite was known as dumping grounds for victims of vigilante-style murders but this has been largely eliminated due to the improvement of roads in the area.

While in Cavite, we took a quick trip to Tagaytay, had lunch, enjoyed the view and went horse-back riding.
  

Next: EDSA and Cubao

Last year, we witnessed wacky Napoleon Dynamite get down to the funky music of Jamiroquai. Not since Pee-Wee Herman’s Tequila Dance have we been this much enthralled by a sissy strutting his stuff on stage. It’s probably the dream of all dweebs to gain fame through their unique style of dance (remember Patrick Dempsey in Can’t Buy Me Love?). Some shun fame altogether, however. Gary Brolsma, who gained notoriety for his hilarious Numa Numa vidcap, has become an “unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity.”

A lesser-known nerdy dance routine from 2004 that deserves a second look is found in the Kings of Convenience video for “I’d Rather Dance With You.” Erlend Oye’s performance eclipses that of Napoleon Dynamite in my opinion. From the Royal Tenenbaum nod in the beginning, to the silly dance lesson in the middle, to the recital as denouement, the song and dance number expresses endearingly the sweet revenge of a geeky dancer.

(Learn to Dance w/NP link via DYL)