Not for all the love in the world

It's not about winning the battle. Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war. You should know that better than me, you did love to read Sun Tzu and the Art of War. But I guess, here again, I am wrong. Nowhere did Sun Tzu mention that losing the battle was a wise decision...in fact, it was, win, win, win.

So there, this early in the argument, I lose. I lose, and move on with a heavy heart and leaden feet. Another wrong decision, another rejection, another unwise move.

You show your age,
when you drown your rage.
But i see past those laughter lines

You never did, I guess. Or is that statement another demeaning generalization from me?

Pipe dreams fade,
and all the underdogs get laid.
Left your heart in the hands of a jugglin clown.
And so you crave recognition,
but the keys to the city went missing

People are all puzzles to be figured out
But you just said,
"Not for all the love in the world"

Cause she didnt realize, now thats alotta love

I guess that everybody,
went to a better party, oh no
Not for all the love in the world
But she didnt realize, now thats a lotta love.

-- The Thrills

The party is always better on the other side.

You call this good governance?

According to the government, we are in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Oil prices are rising, and these oil prices are beyond the control of the government, so we should all do our share in belt-tightening measures.

According to the government, we have very little money to spend on crucial education and social welfare programs. But the popularity rating of GMA is at an all-time low, and she is constantly on the verge of being unseated.

So what does the government do? It will risk the ire of troubled MRT commuters by reducing the number of MRT tickets in circulation. It will cut up existing and fully functional MRT tickets, implement a manual system to replace the fully functional automatic ticketing sytem, and spend 10 million pesos to create new MRT ticket cards. Why, you may ask? Why did the ticket shortage occur? Bigla bang dumami ang populasyon ng Pilipinas? Hindi. They decided to phase out fully functional MRT cards that had Erap's picture. In the midst of all the budget deficit talks. Perhaps...not seeing Erap's face will make everyone love GMA more? Haha. Talk about using government resources to hold on to power...this is one hell of a vain and power-hungry president.

Read the full article from INQ7.net here.

A critical shortage of tickets has prompted MRT 3 management to cut into two most of the old tickets and reuse these as manual passes for train rides, MRT 3 General Manager Roberto Lastimoso said.

Last month, the MRT 3 started using tickets bearing the face of ousted President Estrada but pulled out the electronic cards after the agency reportedly got into trouble with Malacañang.

The pullout of 400,000 Estrada electronic cards in mid-July immediately led to a shortage of tickets. Lastimoso said the agency needed 800,000 tickets a day so it won't have to retrieve from the machines.

But lately, only 245,000 tickets are usable. "So we retrieve our tickets four times a day. Even that is not enough so we resorted to cutting the old ones."

MRT 3, which carries about 420,000 passengers each day, is hard-pressed for funds, according to Lastimoso, which was why it has a hard time financing even the production of the electronic cards.

The agency is seeking a P20-million budget for a one-year supply of tickets but often, the budget gets channeled to items like salaries and other operational expenses.

"We will soon get the delivery of the first batch of the 800,000 tickets we ordered. Maybe, we can get half of that by the second week of September," he said.

Winning bidder Digicom will print 800,000 cards for P10 million.

Yes, this is the solution to all the political instability. This woman sure has her priorities straight.

Go Fug Yourself

Came across an interesting site dissing celebrity fashion:

Go Fug Yourself

Cry Freedom

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

Who is Steve Biko?
Cry Freedom and the flight for freedom

===========
Directed by Richard Attenborough
Starring: Kevin Kline as Donald Woods
Denzel Washington as Steve Biko
============


It is 1975 and we are in Cape Province, South Africa. Amidst the violence of white militia persecuting panicking and hapless black communities, Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom introduces us to 1970s apartheid-era South Africa.

The movie tackles the story of Daily Dispatch editor Donald Woods, who is white, as he struggles to reveal the truth about South Africa’s oppressive anti-racial government, and its silencing of those who oppose such a system. His main subject is Steve Biko, his friend, and a black activist who had stood up to the South African government to raise black consciousness among his countrymen. The story is told in confusing flashbacks between the present, the past, and the future, and it takes a while for the viewer to get used to recognizing the time frame in which the scene actually occurs. It’s like a history book narration of the events, chopped up and re-assembled to achieve an artistic effect. And in some ways, it does work. The violence in the opening scene is eventually explained in the final sequence, completing a full circle and simulating a sense of closure for the viewer.

But in most ways, the rearrangement doesn’t work. For example, it is only half way through the latter part of the movie when the uninitiated finally understands who Steve Biko is. There are scenes that seem to be lost, like that of a black female editor berating Donald Woods for an editorial he wrote. The editorial’s topic was not mentioned, nor was the significance of who the black female editor is mentioned. (The scene exists to show us that Woods was initially openly critical of Biko’s pro-black stance, but Woods eventually supports Biko’s cause.) It is also with befuddlement that the viewer struggles to find out the significance of who Steve Biko is, what his connection with Woods is, and why the South African government “banned” them both.

Activist Stephen Bantu ‘Steve’ Biko believes that black men should not be second rate citizens in their own country. He establishes several medical clinics, patronized by black citizens and run by black doctors. He also encourages black students not to study Afrikaans, believing that this national language oppresses the unique identity of the black people.

After Biko dies suspiciously, Woods makes it his mission to expose the truth regarding Biko’s death. In the process, Biko’s advocacy for black consciousness is given newspaper space, and the South African government bristles at this disturbance of the status quo. Woods plans to go to the US to tell his story, but is stopped at the airport by the government. He is then “banned” for five years, forbidden to travel and, with the exception of his family, forbidden to meet up with more than one person at a time.

With his actions severely limited, and with no way to get Biko’s story across, he resorts to writing a book. Before his five-year sentence is up, he and his friends devise a way to smuggle him across to Zimbabwe, seek asylum, and get his book published. Disguised as a priest, Woods gets through different situations, and it is through his moments of difficulty, that Biko’s cry for freedom, and its need to be told, inspires him to move forward and trudge on. By January 1978, Woods and his family finally succeed in escaping from Africa. When Woods and his wife finally reunite in Zimbabwe, after a night of tense escape, Woods kisses his wife and says, “Welcome to exile.”

And exiled they are. But they do succeed in letting the world know the oppression in South Africa. However, the movie tempers that positive news by showing how white militia indiscriminately shoot down young black students rallying against using Afrikaans. The violence is shocking, and reminds the viewer that South Africa’s struggle for freedom isn’t over yet.

Kevin Kline delivers a sufficient portrayal of Donald Woods. Denzel Washington is superb as Steve Biko, downplaying his usually handsome and cultured self to deliver the goods. His Steve Biko is witty and charismatic, but unfortunately and quite ironically, his screen time is slightly limited. Penelope Wilton who plays Donald’s wife Wendy Woods, also deserves mention for effectively showing the strength and complex emotions that the wife of a man like Donald Woods must need to support him and their six children. British thespian Sir Richard Attenborough, excellent actor and Oscar-winning director of Gandhi, directs this historical drama.

The tagline of this 1987 movie is ”The true story of the friendship that shook South Africa and awakened the world.” It is a true story, and in the end both Biko’s and Woods’ voices joined all the cries for freedom that eventually forced South Africa to officially end apartheid in 1990. Too bad that in this movie, it somehow loses its focus on Biko and concentrates a lot on Woods’ flight for freedom, not even devoting much screen time to the vaunted friendship between the two. Nevertheless it still remains to be a story that should be told, and the world is a whole lot better for it.

Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Foreign

A Review of Run Lola Run
Lola rennt
A film by Tom Tykwer

Review by Symonette Lim


I've always been intrigued by the movie "Run Lola Run". Ever since it was mentioned that it was actress Franka Potente's break-out role, the role that made the producers of Bourne Identity notice her. And I really liked the Bourne Identity (the movie and the book), so it was only natural that Run Lola Run would interest me. But Bourne Identity, and Potente’s next movie, Bourne Supremacy, is another story altogether.

"Lola Rennt", or "Run Lola Run", is a German film directed by Tom Tykwer and starred in by his then-girlfriend, Franka Potente. She plays the role of Lola, who must come up with 100,000 marks within 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life. Because of a series of minor unfortunate events, Lola’s boyfriend Manni lost the 100,000 marks that he must return to his gangster bosses. He calls Lola, and Lola must think of ways to come up with the money and be with Manni, all before 12 noon, or Manni dies.

And so Lola runs.

The opening credits shows goth clocks and timepieces, and for a moment there, I am thinking that this is an old-school European type of horror film. But the next sequences quickly get into the frenzied MTV-style pacing of the rest of the movie. Animated sequences to show Lola racing down her building steps are a clever device, and the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” is perfectly apt to describe the quick picture montages used to tell the life stories of the people she bumps into. In a film that seemingly borders on a superficial music-video-type of energy, the value and consequence of every single second is explored and realized. Lola gets to repeat those crucial 20 minutes over and over, and each instance is different simply because of a few second’s difference.

In one instance, she trips over the stairs, and because of that delay, her dad’s mistress gets to succeed in telling him that she was pregnant, but it was not his baby. The other instances only had her telling him she was pregnant, and him assuming that it was his baby. The truths and half-truths in that storyline is interesting, and the value of time and how we react to certain information is interesting.

The segue to each instance is nothing short of clever. Sequence editing was exceptional, and we are able to empathize with Lola and Manni’s predicament. Romantic moments between the couple is shown balanced, one with Lola’s relationship dramas, and the other Manni’s. The musical score is brilliant, completely aiding the viewer in “feeling” the movie’s energy and vitality.

After watching the movie, I wanted to go to the gym. That was how effective the movie was in showing Lola running. But despite the frenzied pacing, the storyline between the two main characters was not neglected, and the two lead actors successfully act out their roles. Writer, director and composer Tom Tykwer is in his element here, and the clever plot twists, interesting story line, editing, music, and casting all add up to a great movie.

All in all, a clever and satisfying fun ride.

Eleven Minutes

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Paulo Coehlo

Let’s Talk About Sex
A Review of “Eleven Minutes”, a novel by Paulo Coehlo
Novel translated from the original Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa


-----------------------------
“Eleven Minutes” is Brazilian author Paulo Coehlo’s attempt at writing a high concept erotic novel. Similar to his best-selling inspirational book “The Alchemist”, the prose here is decidedly dreamy. The novel decides to start the story as all fairy tales start, with the phrase “once upon a time”. And thus it sets the mood for a story that has “one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”

It tells the story of a young Brazilian girl, Maria, who grows up in the interiors of Brazil and deeply agonizes over her teenage heartaches. She eventually grows up to be the prostitute Maria, still a cynic when it comes to love, but an almost-expert when it comes to sex. She concludes that “when the moment came to go to bed with someone, eleven minutes later it was all over.” Her story is the fairy tale of her journey through her chosen paths in her search for her happily ever after.


Her Story

At the age of eleven, she falls in love with a boy who walks the through the same way to school as she does. They don’t talk, but her feelings are intense and her disappointment at losing him convinces her that love is dangerous, “certain things are lost forever…and that, in the end, the most interesting people always leave.”

By the time she’s a teenager, she falls in love again, learns how to kiss correctly, gets her heart broken, concludes “love is, above all, a cause for suffering”, and learns to masturbate. Yes, masturbate. Since Maria is conveniently pretty, with a “sad, mysterious air”, almost everyone falls in love with her, and she utilizes it to her advantage. In her early twenties, she decides to spend a week in the “city of her dreams”, Rio de Janeiro. All along, she still hopes to be swept off her feet by the Prince Charming she keeps looking for. Before the week is through, she gets offered a way out of her small town – a job to dance the samba in Switzerland. After skipping work, she loses her job, tries to find work as a model, and ends up as a prostitute, aiming to earn enough money to be able to go back to Brazil and buy her family a farm.

The story is also told in parts by Maria’s diary entries. Most of her diary entries are elegant, the prose simple, flowing, and obviously meant to inspire. From diary entries such as “Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.”, “I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life,” , “I need to think … and write about love – otherwise my soul won’t survive,” we are made to see that although Maria is jaded and sad, she chooses to take charge and see only the positive in her life.

A big part of the novel tackles Maria’s year as a prostitute, and here the novel flounders a bit. The novel tends to romanticize the profession of prostitution, that it seems that prostitutes in Switzerland are even better than the Swiss bankers. But Coehlo’s writing makes us overlook that flaw, and even in the midst of all the sex, he displays his usual inspirational, wise and comforting tone, peppering his text with nuggets of wisdom and insights.


Rehash of the old

Some of Coehlo’s prose though, repeats itself. One of the bar girls is repeatedly mentioned as the “Filipina Nyah”. I think I got it the first time; I don’t need to be reminded every chapter that Nyah is a Filipina.

Most of the interaction between Maria and her prospective Prince Charming, a rich and successful Swiss painter, is also cringe-worthy. Upon seeing Maria, the painter keeps on mentioning the “light” he sees in her. “I like your ‘light’”, he says. And through most of the book, the word “light” is mentioned repeatedly in quotation marks, ingraining it in the reader’s head but a pet peeve nonetheless.

The light mentioned, is of course a reference to Coehlo’s previous bestseller, The Alchemist. Allusions to The Alchemist abound in the book – the ancient pilgrimage road to Santiago, the light, the universe conspiring to place the protagonists where they ought to be, the roundabout way that they end up achieving what they initially wanted. In Coehlo’s stories, there is no direct way to a dream; the beauty is in the detours that the story needs to go to. In that sense, Eleven Minutes may be Coehlo’s sequel to his previous book, a retelling of The Alchemist’s essence in modern times.


Bad Sex

“The art of sex is the art of controlled abandon”, Maria’s character writes. This is a book about sex, but not in the usual lewd way that sex is portrayed in media. Even sado-masochism is given a noble glow in this book. Unfortunately, Coehlo falls flat on his face describing the much-awaited sex scenes between Maria and her painter-lover, which is ironic because the book was meant to make us see the sacred nature of sex and love. It is painfully obvious that writing sex scenes is not his forte.

Cheesy lines like
“You didn’t have an orgasm,” he said…
“No I didn’t, but I had an enormous amount of pleasure.”
and other more detailed descriptions of orgasms and penetrations rival the cheesiness in most romance novels.

In fact, this book was a finalist in 2003’s Bad Sex in Fiction award, and the short-listed passage compared having a fifth orgasm to knowing God, and sex to heaven, hell, earth and the whole of nature. (The winning entry compared sex to a car).

Coehlo obviously did a lot of research regarding the sacred origin of sex, and toward the end, with his story winding down, it seems that Coehlo didn’t know how to weave it in his storyline anymore. So he inserted a bunch of historical research in casual conversations that unnecessarily took on too heavy a purpose. A couple spends a romantic night in front of the fireplace intellectually discussing the two histories and the sacred origin of prostitution. How romantic! An initially quiet and reserved librarian suddenly talks about the scientific history of the clitoris and the G-spot, dumping a lot of historical details whereas before she barely spoke.

This results in some awkward scenes that detract from the usual dreamy mood of the book.



Not just sex

This story is not just about sex, however, but a fairy tale that happens to have sex. Coehlo mentions in his book dedication that “what matters most to the author is the honesty with which a book is written”. Eleven Minutes is most honest when it probes deep into Maria’s heart to show us her pain and her pleasure.

The story may falter a bit and be slightly predictable toward the end, but that’s how sex is sometimes. You may not always get an orgasm, but you’ll keep coming back for more.

you look like...

...Queen Amidala! Hehehe.
Well, at least FaceAnalyzer.com thinks so. This link I got from Don's blog. In addition to finding your celebrity look-alike, the site also does a race analysis, and offers up a personality profile as well. Interesting analysis, for one based on looks alone. ("Don't judge my brother, he is not a book!" comes to mind)

Aside from being judged solely on your looks, your photo is also ranked in terms of intelligence, risk, gay factor, income, promiscuity, among other factors. This means you can view the photos of the highest ranking males in "income" for example, or the highest ranking females in "intelligence".

The site will also make a wild guess and take a stab at your personality archetype, what you like or don't like, and who gets along with your personality type. For the photo I submitted, I was judged to be a "Beta Boss". Among the occupation examples listed for Beta Boss are: High/medium ranking military officer, Small/medium business owner, Gangster. Hmm. I'm none of the above, so maybe I should look into some of those fields mentioned...hmmm...

Analogia

This one I got from Sweetie Cow, Carla and Aldwin. I actually checked this one out first, then decided to try out FaceAnalyzer.com as well. Last week Carla submitted a different photo of me, and I got a whole different set of look-alikes. Today, my look-alike included Gina Gershon (sorry, sya lang kilala ko dito sa list. =D )

Obviously, I didn't get the same set of "look-alikes", but hey, they're all still celebrities, so I'm not really complaining. :)

******

System.out.println("Hello, World!");

Hello World to the new babies who were born less than an hour apart (though they'll celebrate their birthdays on different days)

• Jingyang Dong (born August 8, 5:41 PM EDT), to proud papa Ning


• Ada Ledesma Villalon (born August 9, 4:35am Philippine time), to proud parents Simon and Rina

t.club gimick

August 5, 2005
Makati Cinema Square Basement

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me A Dream

"If you want something you never had in your life, you must do something you have never done."

I remember reading this somewhere before, and just now I read it in a friend's hi5 profile. Well, the quote just struck me. If you're in a rut, and you keep on doing the same things, how can you expect to get out of that rut?

That friend is actually into selling Bel'Air Aromatherapy products, so his profile includes segueing to earning more while selling Bel'Air! Nevertheless, I'd still like to share excerpts from his profile...

[hi5 profile]
I'd Like to Meet I want to meet those who are ready to RECAPTURE their BIG DREAMS in life. Try to look back to the BIG DREAMS of your childhood. Whatever happened to those BIG DREAMS? For most people, those BIG DREAMS got smaller and smaller as they realize that they have NO financial capabilities to attain those dreams. So, INSTEAD of working it out to INCREASE the wallet, people just DECREASE their dreams....

Well, isn't that true. It's sometimes sad that as a sign of maturity, one learns the art of letting go. One learns to kill the urge to dream, to temper hope with reality, to "adjust" the dream to fit the wallet, so to speak. Though compromises are a part of life, there are moments when one is no longer sure what the real dream was in the first place. Everything has been changed, revised, edited, censored. And we're just here, surviving, day to day.

But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
-- Cat Stevens, "Father and Son"

Hope floats, so Sandra Bullock's movie says. This post is for all the dreams that were ever dreamt, and all the love that was ever spent. For soaring dreams, precious moments, overwhelming passion and endless new beginnings.

Gender Genie

You think you can write an anonymous note and get away with it? Hmm. Well guess what, they can predict your gender based on you're writing style!

Check out: http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

The site analyzes your writing style based on certain algorithms and patterns (like how often you use a pronoun, a word, etc). It's supposed to be 80% effective...although when I tried it, it "analyzed" me correctly 1 out of 3 times. Quickly browsing through the article elaborating on the algorithm, it did mention that "factual" and formal text are less likely to be easily distinguishable by gender. The algorithm assumes that men write more about "objects", while females write more about "relationships", thus factual pieces are more likely than not to be analyzed as "male".

But still...it's something to do when you're not doing anything.

AND...if you find yourself with 2 hours to spare, do check out the movie Crash. Right after watching the movie, I planned to blog about it, but surfing around I got to Don's blog and found out he loved the movie as well! Well, it doesn't hurt to spread the word.

Crash is an ensemble movie that deals with racism in LA. It follows the lives of several people in a span of two days, and challenges the audience to question their own prejudices. There is no real bad guy in this movie, everyone is flawed. The movie does a wonderful job of showcasing the character's back stories and motivations. The title of the movie comes from it's tagline: "Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other." The movie starts and ends with a car crash. In between, it moves back and forth between the different stories and timelines. Written and directed by the writer of Million Dollar Baby, Paul Haggis. Crash stars include Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Ryan Philippe, Sandra Bullock. A very thought provoking movie. "You think you know who you are. You have no idea."