Plurk has cost me a chunk of my misery today. I don’t wanna handle any of this bullcrap any longer so I quit. Addiction kills, it seems.

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I saw this shocking report from ABS-CBNNews.com. Just when I thought the concert will finally commence.

Ely Buendia rushed to hospital; Eraserheads concert cut short

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Just to be fair with my first post, I’d review “Ako si Kim Sam Soon”, (I Am Kim Sam Soon in English). Just saw the first episode and here are my evaluations:

1. Technical / Cinematography

First time I saw the teasers, I said to myself, it really looks like the Kim Sam Soon series I watched before in GMA 7, except for the overly-baby-powdered face of Regine Velasquez. Camera shots were continuous, moving, always follows the actors. But when I saw the pilot, camera movement went from dizzying to ridiculous. There’s too much camera movement going on, and it kinda reminded me of this “Oka Tokat” clone series that GMA had (it had Anne Curtis, I guess… please, if you know this series, remind me about the title).

Lighting was OK, and blocking was mediocre. Same old Filipino soap opera angles (other than those 180-degree shots). The bridge scene was near beautiful, it was just over the top, IMO.

2. Score

I guess, it has been the “sickness” of all Pinoy soap operas (My Girl included). It’s too noisy!

3. Story

I actually like the story and how fast-paced, slapsticky it is. At least for the original. Later, I will discuss why it lacks so much in slapstick. It’s just the pilot episode. Maybe I should also watch the other episodes.

Also, the “naming excuse” (Kim Sam Soon is obviously a Korean name, and can never be Filipino) that “Kim Sam Soon” came from Kim-berly, Sam-uel, and Soon-ya (the midwife was Visayan) made me puke like hell because it was soooo lame! They should’ve left her name as Kim Buot.

4. Acting

What got me hooked with Korean soap operas is the very good writing and exceptional acting. Provided the material, the cast should at least try to do it the same level as the original. Problem is, there isn’t enough slapstick in it, especially Regine Velasquez, who seem to lack that “Kim Sam Soon” luster. Her mouthing the other women who brag about their loved ones was total proof that she’s giving the effort, but just shows that the role was forced to her. She’d really do better, IMO, if she did Betty La Fea. Everyone just seems to settle for their old-style acting, including Wendell Ramos, and surpsrisingly, even Mark Anthony Fernandez who have tons of potential of being a better actor than the original Korean leading guy.

Conclusion

No matter how the ratings will say, I daresay Filipinos have lost the ability to ask for more from the old-school soap opera acting, technicals, and storyline. Cinematography was supposed to be good, but too much camera movement would make viewers literally throw up in front of their screens. I have to admit, My Girl has lost its fast-paced narrative from its first three weeks, but people could easily still get hooked with it because of Kim Chiu’s commendable effort to be the Pinoy Kikay that was “Jasmine”. “Ako si Kim Sam Soon” has lost all Korean storytelling flavor, even so the Pinoy slapstick we usually see in Pinoy sitcoms. “Kim Sam Soon” as a character is so demanding, the original actress has to gain weight to live up with the character. Compared to the suckingly-obvious paddings that Regine has, they just made “Ako si Kim Sam Soon” a waste of money, promotion, and ratings bribing (come on, I see a lot of people watching My Girl from Alabang to Valenzela to Makati, Quezon City and Manila. The ratings can’t be a measly 22%!).

With these big disappointments like Mari Mar (sappy, slow-paced, and sappy), Dyesebel (since Marian was there, same as Mari Mar), Babangon Ako’t Dudurugin Kita (With free instructional on how to use a gun! Brilliant! As if kids aren’t watching), and now, “Kim”, I can’t be a proud Kapuso.

In my most honest opinion, only Channel 2 sets the bar higher. GMA just feeds the people all their ratings BULLSHIT, that’s why the other does the setting the bar higher again.

No asterisks.

Just a big period.

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Ahhh! Food! Each flavor is totally unique! But combine one flavor with another, and something new is created…

Before I sound like Remy from Ratatouille, let me first show you what kind of food I have been eating for the past few weeks…

Amici’s famed Italian food like the Vegie Lasagna, Caldereta (not Italian), and Marinara pasta

Teriyaki Boy’s Kani Salad, Seafood Tepanyaki, and Yakimeshi (mixed fried rice)

Sarang Korean House’s Dishes

And now, for the fun part. If you are subscribed to my blog, you must’ve known that I had gastritis last Sunday, so bad I was hospitalized to the tune of 5k pesos. For the entire week, all I am allowed to eat is sardines, eggs, and oats (even eggs aren’t allowed). And it even gets better!

This week, PiKitchen’s free dinner is all about those tasty pork preserves like tocino (sweet salted pork), longanisa (local sausage), bacon, and pork chop. Seeing my colleagues eat food like that makes my mouth water, enough to the point that I won’t need drinking for the next two hours. They even tease me while they eat their savory slices, while I settle with plain oatmeal (I can’t find any fruit that’s not acidic enough to rip my tummy to half) and grass-like lettuce (they were cut thinly, it looked and tasted like grass – and yeah, I already tasted grass).

And how long should I endure this? Two weeks, people! Two frickin’ weeks! With this thought, I decided to let go of the control, and eat as much Chinese as I could eat (in Zhu Zhou, Malate Area). That night, I slept in agony, and never had a full 3 hours of straight sleep. I woke up miserable, and went back to swallowing oatmeal.

And better yet…

I should be having a night out with my college friends this Sunday! I would have had a Sunday with my family (my aunt is coming to our house, and everytime she goes to our place, we celebrate it with a night of karaoke), but I’m planning to cancel it out, until this frickin’ tummy tremor came into the scene. Point is, I’ve prepared so much time and effort for this event, but I can’t even ride the jeepney because everytime I get stressed out (like climbing the stairs or walking on inclined spots), it hurts so badly!

And now, food and fun is like my high school crush… so near, yet so far. (Yeah, I know it’s too cheesy to be a blog ending.)

Technorati Tags: food, gastritis, ratatouille, remy

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Last Saturday, I had this great time with my High School classmates Jan and Kit, and had a bongo-ful of beer to celebrate the night. We had baked scallops, sisig, and pork rinds for beer match. I haven’t eaten anything that day so I scraped the dishes empty. We spent that entire night talking about high school sweethearts, purchasing magnets for girls, and making my Kirei work on Kit’s iPod hifi.

Gerry’s Grill’s famous Sizzling Sisig

I only have one photo of Jan that night, so, I’m sorry Jan…

Kit, Future MBA Graduate

The next day, I was supposed to prep up for my big day for the 1 vs. 100 game show screening, so I bought a new pair of pants to wear (I only have my old Bench Overhauled, which was bought Christmas 2006, as my most stylish pair of denim). When I went home, I felt really nauseous and I kept on puking to the point that I threw up all my dinner down the toilet bowl. Next thing I knew, I was calling Terence and Jolo to help me go to the nearest hospital because my tummy feels unbearbly painful.

I went to the hospital (for the first time since I was hospitalized when I was a toddler), took medications through the butterfly they stuck on my hand, had IV, a bunch of tests including fecalysis (I hated getting my stool sample), a 4k-worth of hospital bills, and a diagnosis that I had gastritis. If that wasn’t enough, wait until I get to buy my 1.5k worth of medications!

I thought at that point that my day was finally ruined. Terence told me not to go on that “Monday thing” because my body won’t be able to withstand such distance (I’m in Makati) to travel. I told myself that whatever happens, I would go for the “thing”, but when my 8 o’ clock alarm woke me up, the pain went worse, to the point that I was kinda delirious.

And so, I canceled my only chance of using my smarts (if ever I had stuff for that) to be an instant thousannaire. I’ve been so much looking forward to this, but I guess it was really a sign that competitions like 1 vs 100 aren’t for me.

I even thought before that my biggest worry is me facing the camera (again). Eventually, I had to deal with another species of bugs in my tummy.

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This week is pretty crucial for Bandwagon. We need to push the latest version tonight (Friday, PHT). Bugs have been piling up for two weeks, but gladly, we fixed all of ‘em (more serverside than client side last week). Is it a common thing in companies that when your boss is celebrating his birthday within the week, people tend to get busier than ever?

Well, to be fair, we’re kinda in a compressed schedule, but I guess we have enough / ample time before Terence goes to the US this September. Time enough to make and test our killer feature!

Also, for Bandwagoners out there who have been experiencing the multiple-computers-bugs and other bugs, please do watch out this morning / afternoon (night time in PHT) for the next release. We have something in-store for you guys.

BTW, I would like to thank the following guys who really helped us debug and come up with this new version:

• Dan Dorato (lots of bugs debugged with this guy)
• Matthias Slovig (lots of bugs debugged with this guy)
• Alec Peden
• Jackie O’ Camb
• Max Thomas

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Actually, if not for consistency or having long titles, I would’ve entitled this article “Shows that I’m forced to watch”, because honestly, Smallville doesn’t have the appeal that I’ve been used to with “hookers” (how I call shows that get me hooked) like Heroes, Prison Break, Kyle XY, Supernatural, and House. The first three grab Captain Hook by the balls by ending each episode with so much cliffhanger endings. Just like “Kyle’s” last episode that really got me standing up for not believing what I saw. Supernatural and House, though keeps on dragging you with this one-full-separate-story-crap style of storytelling, shine because of strong and very likable characters. Smallville, as of Season 1, fails to do this.

Well, Smallville has good stuff in it, like fancy CGI, devotion towards wrecking a car every episode, and the trying-hard nth character, that is Kryptonite. I actually hate all the characters. They are so predictable, so old-school. So… (sigh… my hair starts falling again, maybe I’m starting to be the next Luthor).

I mean right now, I can’t even watch the first season for two days. It’s been one and a half weeks.

People told me the latest seasons were good. I’m at a disadvantage. I need to go through the agony of watching the first season.

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Supersonic: World’s Fastest Residential Internet Connection – Gizmodo

Like OMG! I’d kill for that speed!

Well, other than having an iPhone and a car, or my own company…

And a nice macbook pro 64-bit dual core…

And a plane ticket around the world…

(And the list goes on and on)

Don’t you feel like it’s so unfair that granny gigabit’s using her connection just for browsing news sites? (Cry harder)

Blogged with Flock

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These past few days have been really really stressful for me, I can’t even find time to do support and answer our customers with full certainty with regards to Bandwagon. Well, there’ve been incidents this week that led me to asking what being human really is all about. I mentioned before about “being real” and being a citizen of Pleasantville, and I guess this post raises again the issue of being human.

Is the primal human instinct to be really social, or is he always thinking about self-preservation?

I strongly believe what my Social Studies teacher said. Everybody’s selfish. Every one of us wants to be accepted by the society, not for “the others”, but for “those others” to help us. We are social beings not for society’s and friendship’s sake, but for our own well being, be it a leeway for emotional stress or a living proof for our skills’ recognition. We don’t show off talents to please people, but to please ourselves that we have some things superior over others. We don’t do charity to make the oppressed feel better, but for us to feel better towards them. We don’t go running to cover a friend for a bullet, but for the privilege of being immortalized as a good person, or for the reward of our dire need to keep our loved ones alive, without thinking that they’d rather leave us than be left by us. Stuff like that.

Lastly, we don’t go telling people to love themselves to be the most of us being human. We give good advices because we want our perspective of “being good” be reflected on others, much like building our own ideal neighborhood or something.

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It really felt weird. Today, I had two simultaneous nightmares, and they really got me so worried, crying, even felt morbid with what my dreams showed me. For starters, I haven’t had much sleep today. I just had two releases of Bandwagon for today, and I received two or three performance comments and data integrity bugs. Things get me so worried it was brought into my sleep.

(Please keep in mind that this is just a dream, and gladly, I’m no psychic)

Anyway, just to share something in this blog, my first nightmare was about home. My mom was crying and very depressed, like the most depressed I’ve seen from such a beautiful face, and I’ve always been used with her seemingly calm face since childhood. I can’t remember why she was crying, but I consoled with her and gave her encouragements. Then I went to my usual siesta. After a split moment, I saw her pointing a long-nozzled gun at me (similar to the one I saw in Supernatural), on my bed. I was crying and pleading her not to do it. If ever she had problems, surely it’s not killing me that would help her out of it. But she fired at me. Thrice or four times, at first. Then she went to my dad. He was lying on the floor and I dunno what his situation was. She fired two times – I’m sure it was twice. Then she came back to me, and she fired once again. Then I struggled and the most weird thing was, instead of taking the gun from her, I struggled to point it to her. To her forehead! I was so not liking the scene, but it happened. I wished it did not continue, but it just happened! and then, death came filling in my breathing. I felt warm in my lungs as if blood was rushing to go out of my body. Was that the feeling of dying by gunshots? I wouldn’t know, and I don’t want to. I just want to be alive, living at the simplest.

Nightmare 2 was an emo bit. It just showed me transferring all my stuff since childhood to another house. One weird thing was I threw out a party for moving. It happens, but it’s really weird to have such parties. Anyway, as time went by, I saw a prominent female friend from first year approaching me. She wanted to borrow a book, and so I lent her one. Then she noticed a familiar book inside. I defended it was not hers and told her it came from my book allowance back in high school. She insisted in owning it, but I’m pretty damn sure it was mine. I didn’t get any book from her. And then from that point on, my friends turned against me. From high school to college friends. I can’t even believe that VT, one of my best friends in college, and the one who does a lot of comments in this blog, had this smug face and he just turned against me, just like everyone. Suddenly, police officers came rushing in, and cuffed me. I was thrown to an “Alcatraz” with a waterfall beside it. From that place, they do executions by dropping prisoners from above the waterfalls. I saw bones on sharp rocks beneath the falls, and I saw the horror of one prisoner breaking into big chunks of pieces, not totally separated, and died because of the execution.

I have to admit, I really have my own collection of bones in the closet. Of course not literally, but I was a kleptomaniac back in high school. I don’t really steal stuff away from people. I just get what I see is disowned in any place I can get to. And I only get disowned books or school supplies in corridors and areas back in high school. I just don’t have enough money to buy compasses, even ballpens. My personal fave back then were books, that’s why the nightmare started its havoc from books.

The only thing I killed that I can interact with was a kitten, because I was moving too much in my sleep and the kitten was so loving me she wanted to sleep beside me.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just too worried, but at least I’m being honest right now. Just to have a recap, I was a klepto back in high school. Mind you, I struggled my way out just to live college life (but failed to finish it). I’m proud of it because the only money I stole was my mom’s, because I really need to at least buy “Corn Bits” for lunch (she used to give me 20 pesos to go to school, knowing that it’s only enough for me to go there with no food, not go back home from school. I tried borrowing money and pay them from my earnings from washing jeepneys and doing programming projects). When I can’t really borrow money because of shyness, I go to VT, and he really deserves to have his name mentioned here. He helped me with my degree’s struggles, even the emotional ones.

I dunno. I just had too many life struggles back then. I’m still being bothered by a few prominent nightmares. I won’t mention them here because they were real events in my life.

A college schoolmate once IMed me. He told me he’s rooting for my success. He told me it’s pretty damn rare for a person dropping out of college to succeed in life, following his own passion. I’m doing my best to be that person, not for them, but for myself. I don’t want to go back to another set of real-life nightmares.

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