lisaisms

i watched the third x-men movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, with my family today. the film's effects rocked (of course). i especially liked the scene where wolverine was walking towards jean grey (or phoenix): her power was so strong that it tore his skin -- what's cool about it (well at least i think so) is you can actually see his adamantium skeleton. hehe.

on the other hand, the script sucked. let me give an excerpt (sorry for the spoiler):

jean grey: will you die for them?
wolverine: no.. not for them.. for you.
jean: (regaining her consciousness) save me..
wolverine: i love you..
(and then he kills her)

dammit. i swear, the scriptwriters are pinoy. as for the acting.. well, what do you expect from a movie based on a comic book? right. i'm a fan of the tv show (having no interest yet for comics back then), and i was eager to see the different characters onscreen. and to my disappointment when i saw the first x-men movie, my "favorite" mutant, Rogue, was completely unlike her cartoon counterpart. and Cyclops. basically, most of them are not what i expected (i think a lot of people would agree with me here). argh. also surprisingly, Halle Berry disappointed me. in fairness, Ian McKellen was great as Magneto.

anyhow, you watch a movie like X-Men not for the dialogue, but for the action and to see the latest developments in technology. so there. will i watch it again? i actually think it's the best out of the 3 installments. so yeah, sure.

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my sister wore a pink spaghetti strap with a VERY plunging neckline. take note, she looks older than me AND has bigger boobs.

rewind to 3 summers ago >>

(in an argument which was apparently caused by a t-shirt and shorts)
dad: .... i don't want you to become an object of sin!!!!

so where was that yesterday?

bah. i should be over this by now.

• i bought a new book yesterday, "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. next i'm going to read 2 of my brother's books. i'm on a reading frenzy. it's good because i get to exercise my brain. being a bum is more difficult that it seems.
  
• speaking of being unemployed (i'll save my rants for another post), i'm starting to get a little uneasy, now that june is fast approaching. once my siblings go to school, i won't have anyone to bother! and television is getting stupider by the day. honestly, i'm in the phase wherein i'm bored with Pinoy Big Brother. gerald is sooo cute. kim is the new sandara. mikee is really an atenean. (naaawa ako sa kanya kasi pinagpipilitan siya sa love triangle-showbiz-ek-ek nila. and he's apparently too smart for that.)
  
• but! i am still seriously considering auditioning for the show. the auditions in metro manila start on june 17. so if i don't find a job by then, then most probably you'll find me lining up with others who do not have a job and/or are looking for an easier way out(?).
• and knowing that is a possibility, i gained my drive to work out. i'm currently alternating Mari Winsor's Pilates and bellydancing (with Rania and the twins). (of course, i HAVE to look good on TV. hehehe.)

finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula. no wonder it's a classic. it's the kind of book i would want to read in one sitting (but of course i did not). it's impossible to read it in one go because of the "old english" used by the author. i took 6 days, around 2 hours per day, to read the book. actually, that's the longest time for me to finish a book. back then (wow, i sound old), i used to read a John Grisham novel in only one day. anyway, that's not really my point :)

the book is amazing. i like the way how stoker describes people and events; his descriptions are so precise, that really get a clear picture of how they looked like. more than that, it's amazing how he managed to keep the suspense all throughout the novel -- all 400+ pages of it (ok, minus 5 or so pages that i skipped). another thing that i liked about Stoker is that he was not a sexist (in my opinion). unlike authors of the past, he gave the female, Mina Murray Harker, a huge role in the story -- and not as a villain. yes, there were also negative portrayals of women in the characters of the vampire women, and the heroes were mostly male. but without the Mina, the men would not be able to solve the mystery and destroy the Count. I'm glad that he made her beautiful, strong, intelligent (though he describes her as having a "man-brain") and compassionate.

my one complaint though (well, not really) is that the ending was a little vague and well, "rushed." the story went on for 400 pages, and only ended in 10 (of course i'm just estimating). but anyhow, i liked the book. the story made popular by Stoker is indeed as timeless as Dracula himself.

joan, shean, pril and i watched The DaVinci Code at greenbelt. technically, the film sucked. if you're a "virgin," as Sir Leigh Teabing would say, you would not understand the movie at all. The film sucked as a film. There were a lot of unexplained events, unnecessary scenes, the script seemed hardly a script at all (they just lifted a lot of lines from the book), and it feels as if you're rushed into the whole thing. the flashbacks and scenes of ancient times were just AWFUL. on the bright side, i thought that the cast was great, except for Audrey Tautou (i love Amelie though). if you've read the book and a fan of it, you'd probably agree with me that it was an "OK" rendition of the novel -- basically because i think it did a good job staying true to the story. but then again, that's not enough to make a good film. the ending was good, though.

still, it's quite amazing to see the story unfold onscreen, that is, you can actually see what you've imagined (so that's what a cilice/keystone/cryptex/the key/rose line looks like!). and more importantly, we were able to see different places in Europe: the Louvre, church of the templars, saint-sulpice, and more -- for me that was most amazing. and if i was already breathtaken just seeing the louvre onscreen, i wonder how i would react if i was actually there! (i'd probably cry. yup. i'd burst into tears. haha.)

i still do not understand the issue about the whole thing. there is nothing blasphemous about the movie or the book. it's FICTION. i wonder why some people cannot understand that. it all boils down to personal FAITH.

i read the book twice. so would i watch it again? i think i'll just go for round 3.

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snatched this from moosekleenex:

random sleep tactics:
1. turn on the radio
2. play cellphone games
3. place my small pillow over my face

random fears:
1. lizards
2. being fat
3. that i'll go blind

random skills:
1. folding my tongue
2. organizing stuff
3. criticizing

random food combinations i like:
1. mcdo's cheeseburger meal -- cheeseburger, fries and coke
2. banana and bagoong
3. tostitos (plain or lime) and salsa (tostitos medium or tomato and garlic)

random weaknesses:
1. chocolate, of course
2. books
3. math

random needs:
1. contact lenses
2. to grow up
3. a job

back to NBI carriedo this morning to get my clearance, which, by the way, proves that i am not a criminal nor had any criminal record. the driver droped me off at the ayala MRT station, and to get to carriedo, i had to ride the MRT to taft, then ride the LRT 1 to carriedo. it's easy. the real challenge is enduring the heat, dirt, and stench. and by god (as Jim Ross would say), our country is a third-world country near the equator. so there.

as much as i do not want to go back to there, i was still amazed at everything. carriedo was a totally different world for me. it's part of manila that i never knew (actually, i am only used to the st. scho area of manila); makati, paranaque and quezon city are much different. i hope i do not seem elitist, but i realize have never REALLY been to manila. it's sad, actually, because it is the capital of our country after all. sure, i have gone to the National Museum several times, but that's not really experiencing manila. going to manila in a car is totally different with commuting in the LRT, bus or jeep. and as much as i would prefer NOT to commute, i like riding the LRT and MRT. i like seeing different kinds of people and "sight-seeing."

it's amazing how filipinos can cope with so little. amidst the hustle and bustle, heat and stench, a song with the line "it's a beautiful world, "was playing on some street vendor's radio. and when i was in line to get my ticket, i saw this on a tarp:


onli in da pilipins. proud to be noypi!!!

brandon again!!!

i can't believe chax remembered to make me a drawing-- of Brandon Boyd!!! it's even titled Pardon Me, which is one of my favorite songs and also the inspiration for my very first oil painting titled spontaneous combustion (woe is me). true Incubus fans :)

in our last conversation, my friend mary said something like, "dreams are the manifestation of our deepest desires," which is also what Sigmund Freud believed in his theories regarding the unconscious. despite our fairly serious conversation, i couldn't help but laugh-- at myself. for a relatively sane person, i really have weird dreams (ask my brother about it). people dream about their desires, aspirations, fears, past experiences, past lives, or anything related to what they have seen or heard. why don't i dream about those? some dream about the future. or why wasn't i born a seer?

i've dreamt of zombies, trains, haunted houses, swords, babies, janitors, sandslides, dinosaur eggs, blackholes, flying, death, motorcycles, sexual harassment, and saving the world. but for some reason, i don't dream, or remember dreaming for that matter, about things i actually like. and i dream in color; my dad says that means something, but i don't know what. sometimes i also dream in third-person POV, but usually in first-person; my dad also says that means someting. lately, my dreams have the theme of saving the world. haha. i don't even know what to do with my own life, much less the rest of mankind.

i love dreaming. it's always a story. an adventure. when i wake up in the middle of a dream, i try to "continue" it, and i usually succeed. even when it's a nightmare.

even before i read the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, i was already fascinated with dreams. since i was in grade school, i remember dreaming weird things. there was even a time when i was supposedly projecting myself onto the astral plane. i felt that i was totally in my element when i read the Sandman.

i have a lot more to say, but i won't. hehe. i'll just end with a quote from Mr. Gaiman's Preludes & Nocturnes:

kakatapos ko lang basahin ang Stainless Longganisa ni Bob Ong. ang galing lang, kung kailan ko kailangan ng inspirasyon, dumating naman. nitong mga nakaraang araw kasi, medyo nalulungkot ako at nawawalan ng pag-asa. parang wala kasing pinatutunguhan ang buhay ko. buti na lang, dumating itong librong ito sa di inaasahang oras. hindi na ako magpapaligoy-ligoy pa sa mga realisasyon ko at nabasa. ang masasabi ko lang: salamat bob. nakatulong ka nanaman nang di sinasadya.

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sabi nila swerte raw ang unang ulan ng mayo. ewan ko ba kung saan nila nakuha yan, pero siguro nga. mas ok na ako ngayon.

this is a first.

having nothing better to do while being unemployed, i watch TV. and with no decent prospects at the present, it seems obvious enough that i look to the tube. let me go girly-silly with this one. my picks?

pick number one is adam brody from the OC. i absolutely love his character, seth cohen-- "socially awkward, a bit of a wise-ass and, despite his best efforts to appear otherwise, full of longing" (from FOX's official site) -- hmm, ako ba yan?

i still can't get the scene in which summer becomes prom queen and seth tells everybody that he doesn't care what everybody thinks and he could be her jester and that he loves summer and that makes him king. whew. the first thing that came out of my mind while watching it: i cannot believe how cliche that is. this is the closet cybaby talking.


hey you! i want to be your jester.


pick number two is jon from Manhunt. yes, i actually watch this crap. i just love this surfer. and i just found out that he is the winner. he's 22, 5'11", 165 lbs. he was born in iceland on june 23, but his family moved to the US and they're now living in california. he plays the piano, clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, and guitar. he's studying astrophysics and wants to join the air force or navy, ultimately wanting to pilot a space shuttle. he is in a serious relationship with a girl who goes to art school (info from the manhunt site) -- hey, i like art!

basically, he's perfect.


the point of this post? nothing. haha. i'm bored.