Facts ‘Bout Me

Posted on April 13, 2008 at 12:01 pm | 16 Comments
Filed under Random Realities

I decided to rewrite my “About Me” page. I started from scratch again and I come up with an seven-paragraph introduction to myself. I decided to post it here so that it’ll get the attention that it will need. The front page is always the best part where you can put stories that you want your audience to notice.

*****

During the year I started blogging, my answer to the question “What’s your ASL?” was 14/M/Pampanga. Now that almost four years have passed since I first encountered that question, my answer is still the same, except for the age part which you have to add to four (that’s equal to 18). But of course, giving you a two-digit number, a letter that stands for “male”, and the name of a province here in the Philippines is not enough for you to know me. So the purpose of rewriting my short description of myself is for you to visualize me better on your head. Feel free to make your own image of myself. I’ve also provided links to my previous posts, that you can freely read (minus those password protected entries) which can help you know more about myself.

I was born three days after Christmas in the year of 1989. December 28, 1989 was the start of my journey here on earth. Eighteen years later, I’m already 18 years old, obviously. Kidding aside, I think, I’ve achieved a lot of things but there are still many things to conquer. Currently, I’m a college student but I still have to learn how to love my course and I still think that college is synonymous to hell.

Reading books has been my main source of entertainment since sixth grade when I first read JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Since then, I have read more than 50 books which include the whole Harry Potter series, two of Dan Brown’s controversial books, reads by Mitch Albom which are all talking about death, and even books that are more disturbing like Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner which is my most favorite book, by the way.

Other forms of entertainment that I enjoy include watching American TV shows especially Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes and The Amazing Race, ridiculing incompetent teachers, sleeping, surfing the Internet, and most recently, listening to indie music by Feist, Death Cab for Cutie, Snow Patrol, The Postal Service, Hellogoodbye, Jack Johnson, and many more. As a matter of fact, because of my obsession to indie music, I named my iPod touch as Gibbard, in honor of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service’s singer: Ben Gibbard. Just visit my Last.fm account to know my listening patterns.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also love writing. I was actually the news editor of our official student publication for two consecutive years back in high school. But until now, I still don’t know how I was able to get that position because of my faulty grammar. I know, my grammar sucks. And if it were not because of Firefox’s spell checker feature, I would have committed lots of misspelled words. I need an editor, really. Haha. But despite all of those reasons I’ve mentioned, I’m really thankful for my adviser who trusted me. Writing news never gave me pleasure. You have to be specific with the facts and you can’t give your own points and using adjectives is a big no-no.

Now, I want to tell you what I’m not: I’m neither a singer nor a dancer (I suck at both). I’m not also a cellphone and SMS addict, I can leave even without a phone. I hate PE classes (I’m just glad that I will not wear my PE uniform ever). And oh as some of you might already know, I don’t have the ideal body weight (take a guess if I’m overweight or underweight) and I don’t look like an 18 year old student (I look younger… lol).

I’ve got more things to tell you but I guess, I’m already boring you. Just watch out for the next version of this introduction to myself to know more about me. But if you need something or you just want to leave your two cents, feel free to contact me.

*****

DanHellbound and Dre tagged me to post facts about myself. BTW, Mr. DanHellbound tagged me way back in December of last year. Dan says I should post seven facts, and Dre says that I should post eight. But obviously, I broke the rules. Lol. And oh, I didn’t make this post because of these memes. It’s just coincidental. Of course, everyone is invited to post random facts. Yeah, I’m tagging you everyone!

16 Comments

Tagged as • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Ten Books

Posted on February 23, 2008 at 9:35 pm | 21 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books

A Heap of Books Because I cannot think of an experience I had for the past few days that is worth sharing to everyone who visits my blog, I decided to write another blog post about books. This time, I’ll write ten short reviews (and in some cases, with an accompanying synopsis) for ten books.

The Weirdest Book

For me, the weirdest book I had read is “The Dogs of Babel” by Carolyn Parkhurst. It’s the weirdest because in the story, the main character tries to teach his dog how to speak like a human being. Yes, you read that right. Paul Iverson, a linguist, decided to teach his dog how to speak because he wanted to know the real reason why his wife died. At first, I didn’t like it much, but on second thought, I realized that it’s really a good book. The ending of the book was nicely written. Actually, it was one of the New York Times Notable Fiction & Poetry books of 2003. You can read my full review of the book here.

The Most Intriguing Book

Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” will surely stir your faith especially if your faith’s foundation is very weak. The story revolves around the secrets of the Holy Grail. Robert Langdon, the protagonist in the book, with Sophie Neveu tries to decipher the chain of clues while they try to get away from the cops. The author is good in intertwining facts and fiction. The reader should be careful in separating the facts from the creations of the author’s imagination. In my case, even though I enjoyed reading the book, it still remains as a fiction. Period.

The Funniest Book

I guess, everyone who had read Bob Ong’s “ABNKKBSNPLAko?!” will agree with me that it’s the best book out in the market if you’re looking for a way to relieve your stress. Since I’ve read this way back during my sophomore year in high school and my copy is missing I had already forgot most of the details of the book. What I can only remember is that it is a story of the misadventures of a pupil who goes to a public school. Though the book is really filled with humor — actually, I cannot remember not laughing every after reading a few paragraphs — the reader can still learn something from the book.

The Saddest Book

Chinese Cinderella is the autobiography of Adeline Yen Mah, an unwanted daughter. Practically, the story revolves around Ms. Mah who was always maltreated by her step-mother, father, and even her siblings. And wouldn’t it hurt you if your own father forgot your name? That’s how unimportant Adeline was to his parents. But no matter how many hurdles in life Adeline had encountered, she was able to prove to herself that she can do something. As a matter of fact, she is currently a doctor. A full review written by me is available in Choice.

The Much Awaited Book

Among the books that I had read, it’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by JK Rowling that I really waited for. I read the first installment of Harry Potter way back in 2001 and it was only six years later later that the final book in the series was published. I was lucky enough to get the book on the day it was released. In the last installment, Harry, Ron and Hermione try to find a way how to vanquish You-Know-Who. Rowling ended her famous tale impressively. The only bad thing is that there were only few pages left after the climax. But of course, I won’t tell you who died and survived.

The Most Entertaining Book

“Youngblood3” edited by Jorge V. Artura and Ruel S. de Vera is an anthology of articles that were published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer under the column Youngblood. The essays were written by twenty-something and below that’s why I was able to relate with their stories. The book was entertaining because the essays didn’t just focus on one topic. There was an essay about solitude, a student who fell in love with her teacher, a battered wife, and many more that really glued my eyes on the book.

The Most Disappointing Book

Christopher Priest’s “The Prestige” really disappointed me. It was adapted into a movie back in 2006 and I had seen the trailer of it (just the trailer, not the movie) and I was impressed with it. So the first time I saw a copy of it in a local bookstore, I didn’t hesitate to buy it. But after reading it, I find the book neither good nor interesting. Actually, the ending gave me the creeps. Okay, I need to shut up, I hate talking about this book.

The Most Interesting Book whose Theme is Death

I had read a number of books that has something to do with death. Three of them are by Mitch Albom, and I can say that his “The Five People you Meet iin Heaven” is the most interesting book that I had read whose theme is death. In the story, Eddie dies because of an accident in Ruby Pier, the amusement park where he works. In heaven, and as what the title suggests, he meets five people who has in one way or another had a connection with his life. My full review.

The Book that Left me Devastated for Days

Nicholas Sparks’ “A Walk to Remember” left me out of my mind for days because of the very tragic ending of the love story of Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan. Actually, because this book left me devastated, I even posted an entry entitled “A Walk to Forget“But of course, I’m pleased that I read such good novel. Indeed, it’s a very tragic story. For those who want to read a tragic tale, you should read this, I’m sure you’ll be thinking of ending your life after reading it because the resolution of the book was really depressing. Okay, I’m exaggerating.

The Best Book

Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” is the best book I had read so far. It’s about two Afghan boys — Hassan and Amir — as close as brothers whose friendship was destroyed because of a very tragic event that happened during their teenage years. Years later, it’s in Amir’s hands if he want to be good again. This book really captivated me. I learned that friends are really precious things here on earth and we had to take care of them. If you are looking for something to read, this is the book that you should try! I have no regrets on asking my Uncle to buy this book for me.

Oh, yes, those books on the photo (you can click on it to see a larger version, Lightbox supported) are all mine. XD As much as possible I don’t call them as my collection because I buy books not to collect and put them on display but to read them, leisure myself, and learn something from them. Reading has been my hobby for years and I guess, it would be very hard for me to remove it from my system. Though others say that reading is boring especially if the book is only pure text (no illustrations), I find it fun and enjoyable… as long as the text is interesting enough.

21 Comments

Tagged as • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

2007 in 7 Lists of 7

Posted on December 30, 2007 at 9:16 pm | 10 Comments
Filed under Boggling Blogs • Bulky Books • Daily Dose • Internet Insanity • News Central • Random Realities • Site Stuff

It’s been my tradition here in my blog to post a yearend entry (2005, 2006). I usually post the most memorable things that happened to me from the very first day of January until December in my year ender specials, and in 2006, I’ve also included a list of my favorite entries for the whole year. But this year, I decided to make seven lists of seven. The lists talk about the best of 2007 except for the news category. I’ve also added notes here and there, and some are potential spoilers so be warned!

Most of the things that I have listed below are in either chronological or alphabetical order.

Books

This year, I was able to read 15 books, almost twice than last year. I really had fun reading this year.

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — JK Rowling: The ending of Harry Potter’s epic tale was really fantastic. JK ended it with a fitting finale. How I wish there is a sequel to this book, but then, the time has come to end this very fascinating story.
  • The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini: I like this book very much. Furthermore, this is the best book I have read in my entire life. Unlike other fiction reads, this book is realistic. I recommend this to all, but most especially to those people who are not hooked into books and to Afghan refugees.
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
  • The Chinese Cinderella — Adeline Yen Mah: [My Review]
  • Youngblood3 edited by Artura, et al: If you’re into Filipino literature, this is the book that you should buy. Very entertaining. And this is not fiction, by the way. [My Review]
  • The Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst: The weirdest book I have ever read. It’s about Paul, a linguist, who tries to teach his dog how to speak. No, not because he’s out of his mind but because he wanted to know the real cause of his wife’s death. The words Parkhurst used in the ending of the story were really strong. [My Review]
  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom: Another tale about death. Yes, it’s a good book, but how I wish Albom would explore other topics. [My Review]

If you have read these books, you would notice that most of them are sad stories, but yeah, the characters lived happily ever after.

Songs

Entries

  • Faulty Schedule: My craziest misadventure this year. In this entry, I wrote how I spent almost 12 hours… in the mall.
  • The Perfect Duo: Chemistry and Zoology: You would fail these two subject if you don’t know how to memorize. And would you believe me that I enjoyed them? Haha.
  • The Divine Subjects: A review of my subjects back in first year, second semester. I used Dante’s concept in his Divine Comedy to give the final verdict for each of my subjects.
  • Stinks and Sells: I particularly enjoyed writing this. It’s my own version of what’s in and what’s out.
  • Big Surprises: The story how I acquired my notebook.
  • Let’s Talk About Grades (Part 2): What I realized in these posts was that grades aren’t everything.
  • Signs and Symptoms of Stress: The title says it all. I had a good time writing this and rereading it makes me laugh. XD

I know that the title of this entry says that for every list, there are seven items. But I have to break that because I reckon I have more interesting entries this year. And so we continue…

Web Apps

  • Last.fm: A cool way to discover music.
  • Google Reader: This one is a bit old, it’s been out since like two years ago. But it deserves a spot here.
  • Twitter: Who doesn’t love Twittering, eh? It’s enjoyable even though there is a maximum of 140 characters per tweet.
  • Sxipper: This one is actually a Firefox plugin. It can automatically input your information in every single form. It can also remember and generate passwords for you. A similar service is Clipperz.com.
  • del.icio.us
  • Flickr
  • Google Apps: Sign up and get your @yourdomain.com mail. All of the essential features of GMail are included. There are also other available applications that you can use.

News

Unlike the other categories, this one does not talk about the bests of 2007. These are the breaking news here in the Philippines. Majority of these are bad news.

  • Bus Hostage
  • The Glorietta 2 Blast: What’s the latest developement? Have they solved this?
  • Mariannete Ampere’s Suicide: A very very sad story
  • Erap’s Pardon: No way!
  • House of Representatives Bombing
  • The Peninsula Hotel Siege: Trillanes, please spare the hotels. Lol.
  • Peso’s Increasing Value: How come we cannot feel it?

Bloggers

I had fun reading your blogs! Keep on writing interesting blog entries!

WordPress Plugins

Yes, I know, most of things/persons that I have listed above (Especially in books, songs, web apps, and bloggers) were not published/released or didn’t start blogging this year. But then, this is my blog. Haha.

Well, I suppose, this is my last entry for this year. May everyone have a prosperous 2008! Rock on!

10 Comments

Tagged as • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Good but Brutal

Posted on July 23, 2007 at 4:14 pm | 15 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books

No big spoilers down here.

My HP Books

Deathly Hallows

I’ve already finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’ve been reading it almost non-stop since 3:00PM of the 21st until 6:00AM this morning.

It’s my favorite among the series. I can’t still believe that the epic story of Harry Potter has already ended (or it isn’t yet?).

The good always wins. Love always conquers evil… and in this case, even death, though there are a few who should be sacrificed.

PS: I’ll write a decent and detailed (that means it has spoilers) review about the book once I have the free time, you see, it’s our prelims in our major subjects until tomorrow and I have to meet some deadlines. If my school was an horcrux, Harry would have to destroy it. Haha. Lol. Joke.

If you want to spoil the fun, or you can’t have the book now and want to know everything that happened, Wikipedia is the right place to spoil it. But once hp-lexicon.org has already finished its articles regarding the last Potter book, it would surely beat Wikipedia’s.

15 Comments

Tagged as • • • •

HP5 the Movie: Disappointing

Posted on July 14, 2007 at 4:50 pm | 16 Comments
Filed under Featured Flicks

Before anything else, please add my Twitter account.

Spoilers Warning

If you still haven’t seen the movie yet and you are planning to watch it, please skip this for now. There are spoilers in this post that might ruin the already ruined movie even more. Thank you.

I’m disappointed.

As usual, there are lots of scenes in the book that were not included in the movie version, but of course, the movie makers have to compress the 800 plus pages book into an approximately two hours. Moreover, the transition of the scenes were too fast. I suppose, Steve Kloves is better than Michael Goldenberg, the writer of the script in this movie. Steve Kloves had to work with another movie, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is another adaptation originally written by Mark Haddon. Good thing, Steve Kloves will write the sixth’s script.

What else do I hate? Oh, those newspaper clippings, I hate those, they really made the phasing fast. And the one that I really hate was the changes they did with Cho Chang’s role. She was not the one who is supposed to tell Umbridge about the Dumbledore’s Army. It was her friend, Marieta, who unfortunately was included in the movie. And this is not the reason why they Cho and Harry ended their relationship. But most of all, the prophecy was not fully heard nor explained.

Now, here’s a list of things, places and people that I wanted to see in the movie but were not spared from getting into the movie:

  • Bode, an unspeakable who works in the Department of Mysteries
  • Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry’s ex-professor
  • St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
  • The screaming portrait of Sirius’s mother (ah, how I wish I’ve heard her screaming), she was heard speaking, but not seen.
  • The fountain in the Ministry of Magic was there, but they should have sticked with what happened in the book. In the book, those statues should have sprang into life during the battle of Dumbledore and Voldemort.
  • Quidditch was obviously not included even Luna’s strange hats plus “Weasley is Our King”
  • Rita Skeeters! I hate the movie makers for removing Rita!

As for the good parts, well, the cast was good, their acting was superb. The most notable members of the cast were Imelda Staunton who played Professor Umbridge (she was really irritating), Helena Bonham Carter who portrayed Bellatrix Lestrange, and Evana Lych as Luna Lovegood. The sets were nice, especially the Ministry of Magic but that was not how I perceived the Ministry. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was great, and Umbridge’s office was really decorated with the color pink. I also like the changes they did with the Educational Decrees. In the book, there are only a handful, but in the movie, there are almost a hundred of them.

Well, I suppose that’s all. If there are some errors, please notify me. You might as well want to read Differences between book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, an article from Wikipedia.

PS: I decided not to watch it for the second time because it’s not that good and it does not worth my moolah. I should be saving my money for the last book which will be released on the 21st.

16 Comments

Tagged as • • • •

« Previous Entries