i am twisted

When I was 17, I made my first spontaneous roadtrip. The summer after graduation, my highschool buddies and I spent a whole unsupervised week sleeping in a pick up van and waking up in the deep-south nowhere. We brought along food and clothes good for 3 days as planned, and to scavenge and make our own if food is already needed. I fell in love with that peaceful freedom.. freedom from the society, freedom from home, freedom from school.

You see, road tripping requires a lot of absurdity to maintain the hype of the trip, in addition to avoid homesickness. In moments like these, you tend to be impulsive, random and creative, in other words, you tend to be insane. From that trip, I realized how far my craziness can get. There are no limits to absurdity, just moods. And sadly, I messed up the last two days of that trip from a mood disorder.

So just how crazy is crazy? Give it a minute. There are things that I’m not sure I want other people to know how bad my craziness can get. Well sometimes I feel like I'm off the hook. You know, I really hate having a mood disorder. There are many times when I feel like it is most definitely not OK to say I’m OK. But when I'm about to recognize the reason I’ll trip over myself trying to avoid facing the fact that I really have no real idea when it is OK to say I’m not OK.

I believe everyone at some point refers to themselves as crazy, nuts and retard. A cold-hearted fuck you if you say you're sane. You're just less fucking crazy than me. I would say crazy not in the conventional sense but I don't think there's any specific convention, and that's sort of the fucking point.

I see some readers are enjoying the irreverent language in this post and cheers to you! Let's celebrate insanity through profanity. See.. I told I'm nuts.

love will tear us apart

Control is a depressingly brilliant biopic of Ian Curtis. You see, before there was a Kurt Cobain, there was an Ian Curtis.. lead singer of the post-punk band, Joy Division. I guess anyone who is thinking of seeing this is already a fan. So perhaps I don't have to explain how amazing Curtis is and how tragic his story is. Likewise, this adaptation gave justice to his legacy. The cinematography is stunning and well executed adding up to the depressive feel of the movie. Hats off to Anton Cobijn for delicately handling this piece of art. Seriously folks, this movie deserves your time and your respect.

a dark masterpiece

Finally. Now I can say I've seen the dark knight and it was amazing. So far, the greatest superhero movie ever made. Even the attempt of comparing it to spiderman and superman is absurd. Tim Burton's batman was great, a superhero classic. But Nolan's the dark knight reshaped the movie genre into an intense, mature and dark crime movie. For me, it is more than a batman movie. I may say that the dark knight was well crafted into a more intellectual and realistic approach.

As much entertainment and action as there is in the movie.. it's the acting that makes it a phenomenal masterpiece. Besides the action and stunning cinematography are some impressive performances. Bale was just right.. cunning, mysterious and intimidating. But Ledger definitely stole the show with a more scary than funny approach on the joker. I could smell an award from those crazy gestures and laughs. Insane, sadistic, downright evil and psychotic.. the incarnated Joker was just amazing.

Whether you look at the directing, the writing or the acting, the dark knight is stunning in any aspect of the movie. It was a well-executed piece of entertainment, surpassing every expectations raised by the fans. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next batman movies. Most linear superhero movies I've seen failed to maintain the hype on the succeeding installments. And I hope this time.. Nolan's Batman would break that trend.

underspeeding?

Men versus women on sense of direction.. men clearly come on top -haha. no pun intended. Well I guess not this time. I already found holes in this stereotype. I will not deny that my dad and our driver are incredible at knowing where they are, where they're going and should a wrong turn or detour become part of their path. Both my dad and our driver are always back on track shortly without even asking for directions.

Unfortunately, I don't have that skill. So where's my sense of direction? Has my sense of direction become a victim to lack of use? Was it even there to begin with?

Anyway, I was driving on my way to katipunan last night to check out my friend's friend's gig. I brought a driver to take the car home just in case I decided to get drunk. The text says that the place was under a big billboard along katipunan avenue where there are hundreds of distracting billboards. I tried to call my friend but my battery died. I wasn't sure of the place I have in mind so I couldn't get out and ask. My driver warned me but I traced the road on a 20 which is even slow for grandma's driving. After all, it was about 10pm, so no cars behind to worry about.

I was driving so slow that I caught a motorcylcle cop's attention. Oh shit! I turned the hazard lights off and pulled over.. now I'm screwed. Was I underspeeding? Underspeeding?!! I was thinking between lying and telling the truth which both sound stupid and ridiculous. My hands were shaking and sweating as I rolled down the window.

The nosy cop asked me what's going on and I was as polite and cooperative as I should be. I didn't lie.. well, I guess I lied a bit. I said I was not familiar with Katipunan. I told him I was lost and I was looking for the venue of ateneo's ''amp'' under a billboard in katipunan. I was surprised he knew where it was and politely gave me the direction. I thought I was screwed. But it turned out well and the officer was nice and polite despite the stare and his intimidating mustache.

The moral lesson here: Underspeeding is like overspeeding.. they both catch cops' attention.

metropolis

Black and white silent films are not always synonymous with "boring night at my grandparents' house". Watch Metropolis. It is the movie icon of the silent era. Set aside the acting and the mediocre effects. Consider the fascinating concept and art direction and it'll hold you for two glorious hours. The groundbreaking creativity, retro-futuristic appeal and impressive relevance to the society made it fun and worth to watch.

Metropolis is an interesting silent film that shows a pessimistic interpretation of the future society. A society with gloomy skyscrapers and dark cityscape sadly divided into major social groups. The movie shows a dissection of classes between the thinkers and the workers.

Scenes were creatively crafted to serve as visual metaphor to stress the movie’s implications. Like the loud massive machines screaming industrialization in the opening shot. The machines work to sustain the life of pleasure for those living on the surface. And it seems that these images are relatively clear.. Man is dependent to the machines.

The movie implies a socio-political issue as it impressively discusses concerns of the potential society through figurative scenes and details. The director came out with an intriguing concept of giving the audience a taste of what the future would be like continuing the way people were living. And in my opinion, Metropolis delivered an idea not that far to the modern society.

smell my brainfart

I was about to update my blog when I suddenly had a freakin brainfart. I completely forgot my blogger password. I was staring at the cursor blinking for about a minute when I finally snapped out of that odd retard gaze. Well, in my defense, it’s the best password in the history of all my online accounts.

You see, my password is a piece of art, actually. It has a mixture of letters, numbers, letter cases and at no point among the seven creative characters make sense in any language. Its complexity has a guaranteed security.. and unfortunately even I can't figure it out. The problem with my password is that I'd know the whole thing if I can only remember the first character... and that became my problem yesterday.

I was way off the tracks and I knew it. I wasn’t sure of the spelling and letter case. It took me a minute to get it right. One minute? .. that’s eternity in password-remembering time. I knew I messed up that one. So why did I suddenly forget it after years using it without any problem?

I've been really busy with my thesis. I've been doing a lot of researching these days and everyone knows that the brain can only hold so much information. So perhaps stuff like page-by-page reading and studying could be critical for some. I found out that obsessive researching can cause mental glitches. Anyway, I guess it's time to change my password. Perhaps this brain’s full. Damn.

round one

No rivalry comes close indeed. If there's a school that abhors the other as much.. then I guess the answer would be the Ateneo and the De La Salle. Though this photo does not say so, yesterday I heard Ateneo defeated La Salle with a few score behind. I heard Chris Tiu did well so congrats to the Ateneo. I didn't catch the game so all my informations are at second hand. But I'm so sure that all the Ateneo-La Salle games have always been the most celebrated and overrated games in the UAAP.

I guess this is definitely the biggest rivalry in the league that never fails to bring alumni and basketball fans alike.. and this is not at second hand. I know the DLSU green archers have vowed to aim higher to shoot the blue eagle down.. Hey! Cheers to the Ateneans! ANIMO LASALLE!

are you happy?

I have asked myself that question a few times before and I've always been stuck for a reply. I’ve continuously searched for an answer and last night I finally ended up saying that perhaps I am not. Everyone may say that he’s happy from a certain perspective to fit a positive situation. But generally, we are not.

I see people around unhappy with their lives. Some of us are drowning in fame, money and bona fide career and yet, they are unhappy. They seem to have all the necessary ingredients to be happy yet they whine about life. As a result, they seek happiness in material possessions. We buy pricey stuff to comfort ourselves. I impulsively buy costly stuff to conceal my sadness. But sadly money becomes an issue in such lifestyle.

As a student, I depend on my allowance. And as of now, I am broke. I have a few hundreds hidden somewhere in my closet and that’s all I have. Am I happy? No. And yes, my happiness is defined by my financial situation... let’s be real. Can I ask for a few from my parents? Yes. But my pride wouldn’t.

Psychologists say that happiness is a frequent but a fleeing emotion and much of it depends on how you battle adversities that life constantly throws at you. Heck about psychologists and life adversities. The only adversity I recognize is lack of cash. I balance happiness with money. I seek comfort on the pesos I see in my wallet. But as of now I’m broke. Therefore I may say that I’m not happy.

I apologize for this shallow and random read, my head is bruised right now with constant brain wave activity. School work has killed my ability to explore into what I have been really mulling over and put them into words. School has been kicking my butt, I may say. I am flooded with heavy loads that seem to stretch me beyond my limits.

My mind is continually attacked by so many demands of my thesis adviser. So you can see now why I’m so busy. And it seems like whenever I sit down to blog about something, guilt and school interrupts me. But I am still here. I’ve got drafts of things to blog about, although some will most likely drop off due to no longer being necessary.

viva la vida!

Viva La Vida is great, but nothing can top A Rush of Blood to the Head. I don't care how commercial they are now. After three mainstream hit albums, I'm still a fan of coldplay's music. The comparison and reference to U2 are unnecessary. The pointless shits of some reviews are just distracting. Perhaps not everyone will agree but my opinion is that Viva la Vida is a good album from coldplay.

I may say that the band have finally developed their music. Viva La Vida opens with a brilliant instrumental and as the cd plays half way through, it explodes quite a number of good tunes. I could say that they haven't yet made a bad cd. So whatever you think of the album, I guess you have to applaud them for not taking the easy route making another X&Y cd.