Wednesday, December 12, 2007

wise man East

finally snagging a copy of Letters from Iwo Jima last weekend, i resolved to watch the great Clint Eastwood's two-barreled 2006 offering back to back. Flags of Our Fathers was sitting on my shelf for awhile now, gathering a bit of dust and begging to be watched. my pal time bandit saw it and went 'b-o-o-r-i-n-g.' i guess he expected another attempt to save Ryan's privates.

we all know about Saving Private Ryan and some elements are clearly recycled for this film (the visceral and bloody beach invasion, old men waxing poetic and looking back at the past, Barry Pepper), but they demand to be. plus with Steven Spielberg executive-producing - well, helloooo. that being said, its fun discovering the ensemble cast and what they can do - i picked out quite a few of them without reading the IMDB entry or the DVD insert - there's Robert "T1000" Patrick, Neal "Tin Man" McDonough, Ryan "I'll Always Look 19" Philippe, of course Barry "Blessed be the Lord, My Strength, Which Teacheth My Hands to War, and My Fingers to Fight" Pepper, and even poor Paul "I Don't Care About The Fast and the Furious 3, I Am Being Directed by Clint Eastwood, Dammit" Walker.

But the bulk of the dramatics go to Adam Beach, who's been here before with Nicolas Cage (Windtalkers), playing an(other) Indian whose unease in being labeled a hero was inversely proportional to his comfort in playing second fiddle to the white man, at least until showbiz and politics cross his moral lines, and he totally loses it. of the two other survivors of the second team that plants that flag as depicted in that immortalized Joe Rosenthal photograph, only Ryan Philippe's character (and author of the book which the film is based on) is grounded enough, despite being swept by the winds of history. but that's a valuable lesson in keeping your head about you and still feeling the earth underneath your feet.


on the other side of the coin, the Japanese point of view of that same conflict is explored in Letters from Iwo Jima. Ken Watanabe, the comeback artist of the last five years, agonizes with both pride and sadness as General Tadimichi Kuribayashi, the military tactician tasked to defend the chunk of volcanic rock before the Americans totally overrun Japan. Kuribayashi's injection of humanity in the face of war runs contrary to what made the Japanese military machine what it was then - brash, cold and calculating. this is a much better use of Watanabe's talents than in Memoirs of a Geisha. the young private Saigo (played by the revelatory Kazunari Ninomiya - a boybander! where's Wowie Cruz?) also presents a human face to what we would always assume would be the cruel army who occupied most of Asia for awhile and committed lots of atrocities. war brings out the best and the worst in anyone involved in it, and thankfully, both films chose to focus on the best parts.

it was really cool to watch these back to back, though Eastwood never cheats by recycling footage as some might do, and Iwo Jima is clearly superior to Flags. the clear winner here is writer/director Paul Haggis, who contributed much to both scripts and is clearly on a roll after his Crash victory.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

here we go again



is it indicative of numbness and apathy that when you hear about this, your instinctive reaction, aside from the jolt of concern for anybody you know in the immediate vicinity, is ... a big yawn ... and then you go back to surfing the internet?

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

all i got for Black Friday was ...





... cheap dvds from a one day members' sale at Borders (sorry ha, wala akong $$$ for HDTV or even a PS3).

the best things about these, clockwise from the upper left are: Jenna Fischer, Maria Bello, Katherine Heigl and ... wait - there's no hot chick in Hot Fuzz. dammit!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

time to hunt



wish this was the banned version. but it'll be enough to exercise the homicidal instincts festering inside you when idiots put you through the grinder for the last couple of months. it'll be easy to imagine killing said idiots in this game.


happy halloween.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

oink is dead

long live free music!

this article kind of sums up how i feel.

since the early days of recording tapes off FM radio stations, using up my college allowance to buy cassettes, discovering CDs (and pirated ones), discovering Napster and MP3s, a flirtation with MiniDiscs, to the current fall of the music industry expressed through two iPods (and maybe more), i barely download anymore, much less buy CDs. i guess am stuck with the music i grew up with, but being around with a younger set does leave you sometimes with cases of the infamous 'Last Song Syndrome' ("you can stand under my umbrella ... ella ... ella ... ella").

it is interesting to see what business model comes out of this crash, if Rick Rubin and other progressives make the suits see the light. in the meantime, you have to excuse me, because i gotta go babysit my file copying from my Netgear SAN drives to a newer Western Digital MyBook before the former dies on me again. building that huge music collection ain't easy, you know.

Monday, October 01, 2007

axiom of the month

those who can't play, end up in the E.R.




corollary: spending time in the E.R. opens a can of worms.

enjoy life, however short it may be, but try to prolong yours as much as you can.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007


requiescat in pace. 9/11. never forget.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

maddening

hey, its mid-August. that means its time once again for ...



yes, this is aside from the Prospectus from the Schatzter and the boys, which i've been reading on the train despite it weighing like 50 pounds.

since i haven't played Madden in a while (like 4 months?), i just jumped in without worrying about settings. so who do i beat up first?


i'm playing the Chargers, of course.

doesn't take long for LDT to get to the endzone. 21-0, first quarter.


look out, there's Quentin Jammer for the home run!


the Tony Romo these Cowboys rolled out must've been the one they got right after the playoffs ... he couldn't elude my defenders, whether in the pocket or scrambling. and they got backed up right in their endzone more than once. thanks, Mike Scifres. by the way, the Cowboys coach eerily looks like the now-departed (and slightly slimmer) Bill Parcells (sure wasn't Norv Turner). strange, since Parcells and reknowned grump Bill Belichick are the only coaches whose likenesses are not licensed with Madden. trying to be sneaky, EA? (or maybe Wade Phillips looks like Parcells - i gotta check).

and that was the score just before dinner.


in the second half, there were a couple of scares - Tomlinson got injured on a pass play (he wasn't the receiver), lending credence to Gus Ramsey's observation that the game had an injury bug to the Chargers' star (i was listening to the BS Report podcast on the way home from work), and i forgot to call a fair catch and muffed a punt after backing the 'Boys again, giving them great field position. then after scoring a touchdown, i even botched the extra point. the 'Boys even scored on the last minute - either i was careless or the programming wouldn't allow shutouts.

look! there's LDT again!


final score: 55-7. then i checked and the difficulty was only set to "Pro". booooooooooo.

of course, by this time, the hardcore Madden Nation has probably won the SuperBowl (more than half of its members already lost their significant others, if they even had one). they also probably found those half-human tackling dummies a little creepy, just like i did.

with the NFL season barely a month away ... its time to push the buttons again. 21-Z Alpha Cross Left Out!

(yeah, that didn't even sound like a made-up play)

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

whooops



Mr. Gallo, you slay me. i don't think the Bostonians would like to be reminded of that. now am in a bit of a pickle myself - root for the Celts (and burn my Timberwolves cap) or keep on my side of the fence in the NYC-Boston rivalry?

Monday, July 09, 2007

goodbye, Mr. A.C. its been an honor and a pleasure.



Monday, July 02, 2007

2800 takes later



damn, photoshopping is hard!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

sick transit gloria america

recovering from his suicide bomber role in Team America, Michael Moore has resumed his crusading duties and examines and skewers the American health system in his new docu, Sicko. and man, does it hurt (pun intended).

blowing the lid off the shenanigans of health care and insurance companies, Moore wants each and every American (whether they have insurance or not) to know that the US health care system is broken and must be fixed asap. these greedy fucks' sole enterprise is to make money, not make you better, so its scary to think that you are signing money away to them with no real assurance that you'll be getting the proper medical care you need. and if you don't have insurance, you're screwed too. damned if you do, damned if you don't.



and to twist the knife in further, countries that the US keep dissing - like France, their friendly neighbor Canada (who had absolutely no gun problems as per Bowling for Columbine, and - tada! - Cuba) - takes better care of their citizens. you'd be surprised at the cost and width and breadth of what the French, Canadians, Brits and Cubans get in terms of health care. and since docs work for the guvmint, they don't need to feel slave-driven and worry about their next meal. they should only be worried about personal relationships ala Grey's Anatomy (or maybe they don't have those hangups too).

sure, Moore manipulates things to his advantage and you get the feeling he dumbs things down ... but maybe that's what the (thick-headed) common man needs. the common folk that foreigners feel are too cowed by the powers that be, that they never muster effort to change things. seriously, they should take lessons from the French Revolution. heads must roll. this shit (IN$URANCE + LOBBYI$t$ + POLITICIAN$ = POWER) has been going on for way too long. if you're a patriotic American, i dare you not to be mad after watching this. i'm not an American and i'm enraged.

two final thoughts:
1) Moore needs to lose weight ... he was the poster kid for obesity in this movie (allegedly he already has ...)
2) i need to check immigration procedures for and a one-way ticket to France right now.

-----
yes, yes, after this, we'll read all the rebuttals and the takedowns. but then again, we know the American system is flawed. can we try another country's? is there any hope?

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Friday, June 15, 2007

blanked

yes, we witnessed ... a superstar not yet ready for the big stage. wait, he needs a new team. REBUILD, Cavs!!!

and remind me not to prognosticate. or maybe i should veer towards teams i dislike so i can jinx them.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

what we'd like to see ... (part 2)

so here we are, Game 1 of the 2007 NBA Finals. just was too busy to make another collage of sorts, just like the crappy one i made last year. plus writing one seems to have an adverse effect on the team i would be rooting for (Exhibit A: Dirk "Just Leave Me Alone" Nowitzki). sorry, Mark Cuban - the Mavericks cap i bought back in 2003 was when Steve Nash was still with the team. i officially (and sadly) am putting it in mothballs. and you're putting up a new football league, you say? good luck with that.

a few notes on the Playoffs: since most of the games are usually not on public cable TV, i missed out on some of the great moments of this season's run - like the Dallas meltdown. i managed to download the much raved-about Bron-Bron's East Finals Game 5 performance, but i can't watch it on my DVD player or PS2 because it was recorded off a DVR. this means i can only watch it on my PC. all the teams i pegged or wanted to reach the promised land (Phoenix, Chicago) went by the wayside. and even in the East Finals, i predicted Detroit would win. given my impeccable skills in prognostication, i will now go on record to say that the winner of the 2008 US Presidential Election will be ... Ru Paul. oh wait, his name is Ron Paul? sheeesh.

the other feel-good storylines, apart from the rise of the Cavaliers and the ascension of King James, are the resurrection of Bay Area basketball (but could be just a blip because Don Nelson might just leave the Warriors again) and the maturation (of sorts) of the Utah Jazz. i'm still disappointed Jerry Sloan hasn't won the ultimate coaching accolade, but i expect the Jazz to be contender for years to come with the Deron Williams-Carlos Boozer combo. Boozer in particular, seems to have refurbished his rep after that mess he left in Cleveland. even i soured on him and thought the Jazz should trade him, especially during his injury streak. if he never left Ohio, would he be playing with LeBron right now? that would have given the Cavs a greater chance against the Spurs.

so now in just 4 years, King James has brought the Cavs to the Promised Land, where they've never been before, even back in the Mark Price/Brad Daugherty days, thanks to someone named Michael Jordan. now they have someone cut from the Jordan mold (although more Magic than Michael), and i can only imagine the frustration and dejection and deja vu in Detroit, after their short reign/dynasty has been ended (again) by a player whose last name starts with a 'J' (note to Joe Dumars: time to reboot).

the one big thing going against the Cavs is the Spurs' experience (3-0 in three Finals, Tim Duncan, great supporting cast), and odds are they will be celebrating another championship down the Riverwalk this month (which means, ugh, more Eva Longoria sightings, and Bill Simmons picking up the razor blade for the umpteenth time). for all the Spurs (and Duncan's) contributions to the greatness of the game (fundamentals, teamwork, winning tradition), it may all be backfiring against them because audiences want sexy back. TD is not sexy, he's the Big Fundamental. people want insane point makers, alley oops, crafty passing and last-second game winners. the Spurs are easily the bad guy in this series (hello, Bruce Bowen). but do they care? hell, no. not when they have three championship rings and you don't.

it's no secret that the NBA's ratings have been steadily going down the drain, and LeBron's rise may be the only way to stem that tide. problem is, LeBron is not MJ, and if he ever wins the championship, it will be because he controlled the game, not dominating it a la-MJ. he's not going to score 48 points every night. but you have to admire his body of work, which has just begun. this is the only way he'll be gaining that experience that the Spurs have in heaps.

so prepare to be disappointed, but don't dismiss the thing altogether. after all, you never know what you might witness.



so what am i predicting ...? despite the crappiness of the Eastern Conference overall, they've won 2 out of the last 3 Finals. so let's see them make it 3 out of 4. Cavs in 7, blind faith.



by the way, Melo fans, its your guy's move.

---

breaking news: Parasite Hilton just got out of jail. probably because she freakin' HAS to be in San Antonio tonight for Game 1. justice in this country is a sham (are you listening, Alberto Gonzales?).

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

what we'd like to see ...

... starting tomorrow night.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

if only we could fart around!

save yourself!

1. Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel; whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking, or prevent emotions from arising in your mind, it makes no sense to be proud or ashamed of either. You didn’t cause them. Only your actions are directly under your control. They’re the only proper cause of pleasure or shame.

2. Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse. The more you think about something bad, the more likely it is to happen. When you’re hair-trigger primed to notice the first sign of trouble, you’ll surely find something close enough to convince yourself it’s come.

3. Ease up on the internal life commentary. If you want to be happy, stop telling yourself you’re miserable. People are always telling themselves how they feel, what they’re thinking, what others feel about them, what this or that event really means. Most of it’s imagination. The rest is equal parts lies and misunderstandings. You have only the most limited understanding of what others feel about you. Usually they’re no better informed on the subject; and they care about it far less than you do. You have no way of knowing what this or that event really means. Whatever you tell yourself will be make-believe.

4. Take no notice of your inner critic. Judging yourself is pointless. Judging others is half-witted. Whatever you achieve, someone else will always do better. However bad you are, others are worse. Since you can tell neither what’s best nor what’s worst, how can you place yourself correctly between them? Judging others is foolish since you cannot know all the facts, cannot create a reliable or objective scale, have no means of knowing whether your criteria match anyone else’s, and cannot have more than a limited and extremely partial view of the other person. Who cares about your opinion anyway?

5. Give up on feeling guilty. Guilt changes nothing. It may make you feel you’re accepting responsibility, but it can’t produce anything new in your life. If you feel guilty about something you’ve done, either do something to put it right or accept you screwed up and try not to do so again. Then let it go. If you’re feeling guilty about what someone else did, see a psychiatrist. That’s insane.

6. Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you. Nasty people can’t make you mad. Nice people can’t make you happy. Events or people are simply events or people. They can’t make you anything. You have to do that for yourself. Whatever emotions arise in you as a result of external events, they’re powerless until you pick them up and decide to act on them. Besides, most people are far too busy thinking about themselves (and worry what you are are thinking and saying about them) to be concerned about you.

7. Stop keeping score. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t have mystical powers. Because something is expressed as a number, a ratio or any other numerical pattern doesn’t mean it’s true. Plenty of lovingly calculated business indicators are irrelevant, gibberish, nonsensical, or just plain wrong. If you don’t understand it, or it’s telling you something bizarre, ignore it. There’s nothing scientific about relying on false data. Nor anything useful about charting your life by numbers that were silly in the first place.

8. Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned. The closer you stick to any plan, the quicker you’ll go wrong. The world changes constantly. However carefully you analyzed the situation when you made the plan, if it’s more than a few days old, things will already be different. After a month, they’ll be very different. After a year, virtually nothing will be the same as it was when you started. Planning is only useful as a discipline to force people to think carefully about what they know and what they don’t. Once you start, throw the plan away and keep your eyes on reality.

9. Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions. To hold yourself responsible for someone else’s success and happiness demeans them and proves you’ve lost the plot. It’s their life. They have to live it. You can’t do it for them; nor can you stop them from messing it up if they’re determined to do so. The job of a supervisor is to help and supervise. Only control-freaks and some others with a less serious mental disability fail to understand this.

10. Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one. Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it, so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s personality in one place is a determined effort on their part—usually through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are, make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your way.

- from lifehack.org

Sunday, May 20, 2007

foxed

useful even until now ... wait, 3 years and am still a noob! dammit!

Firefox Boot Camp:
1. To quickly find any word in a web page type /word it will highlight the word and press Ctrl+G to “Find Again” that word again
2. If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop down menu,
Highlight it without clicking and use Shift+Delete.
3. Clear your Download history to make the download manager more
responsive : Tools | Options | Privacy
4. Type about:cache?device=disk in your address bar to view/save items
that you have in your firefox disk cache
5. Type about:cache?device=memory in your address bar to view/save items
that you have in your Firefox memory cache
6. Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the
link.
7. If you accidentally delete a bookmark and want to recover it, open the
“Bookmarks Manager” and use Ctrl+Z,
or Edit | Undo.
8. Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’
9. Holding down the Ctrl key when you right click
to “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New
Tab or New Window.
10. A bookmarks Folder’s position can also be Dragged & Dropped but you must hold down
the SHIFT key while Dragging.
11. To prevent a website from replacing/changing your rightclick context
menu go to Tools > Options > Web Features then click the “advanced
tab” and de-select “remove or replace context menus”.
12. You can work offline in Firefox just go to File > Work Offline. This
means that you can browse your previously visited pages even when
you’re offline this is a really cool feature but not many people who use it.
13. You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the
location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the
desktop to make an icon for that page.
14. To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.

Friday, May 18, 2007

copa cubana

and that's how you do it, Mav-Wrecks!

Spurs-Jazz could be boring (unless a superbrawl could happen ... nah, not with Timmy D ... hey look, we can reconfigure Duncan's nick as Timi-D, as in shy). which is why I have been rooting for the Suns to get to the Finals. if they don't get screwed over again (David Stern isn't reading this, so I won't get a time-out like he did Dan Patrick). or they're already really screwed and tonight's Game 6 is where the Spurs clinch.

on the Left Coast, the Bulls are gone (get KG, dammit!!!!), and since i'm not too sold on the Cavs or the Nets to get to the Finals, that leaves the Pistons. well, that shouldn't be too bad.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Wha-?!

say it ain't so!

signs of the times - say what you want about ticket prices at the Garden, but it had history and tradition on its side. now it's just gonna be all about the money. a fitting ending, i might admit.


wait - what, its only the theater that's gonna be renamed? oh thank goodness.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

oh, what the heck

ok09, i've f9been sitting11 on this02 9dfor a couple74 ofe3 5bdays nowd8 so41 here'56s myc5 contri63bution to Inter56net 88mob rulec0.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

to all graduates ...

here's one from the future host of The Tonight Show.

obviously you don't need to graduate from Harvard to appreciate it.

-----
Commencement Speech to the Harvard Class of 2000
by Conan O'Brien

I'd like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious. I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought exactly what you are now thinking: What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24 hours and my roommate's Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out. Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.

It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very badly to be a Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech from fifteen years ago: "Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic Ah-ha tune which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold: "I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority." "I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule." "I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography." "And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals." And then there's some stuff about the death of Wall Street which I don't think we need to get into....

The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of '85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of "Dynasty." My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.

After freshman year I moved to Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot himself a year earlier. 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been seven years old. Seven years old. Do you know what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in a fight. And I mean bad. It would be no contest. If any one here has a time machine, seriously, let's get it on, I will whip your seven year old butt. When I was here, they sold diapers at the Coop that said "Harvard Class of 2000." At the time, it was kind of a joke, but now I realize you wore those diapers. How embarrassing for you. A lot has happened in fifteen years. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around our TV sets and watched "The Cosby Show" on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called "Cosby" on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft.

But of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day. Many of you are justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard Grad School, a plum job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card and then a plum job in your father's firm. But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia, or that guy in South America-you know, that guy-will enrich you for the rest of your life.

There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a brass toe ring and they aims to get it. Imagine: These people just raised 2.5 billion dollars and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're tired and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing they just raised 2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." It's chilling.

What else can you expect? Let me see, by your applause, who here wrote a thesis. (APPLAUSE) A lot of hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis... and no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis: Literary Progeria in the works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that, during my discussions with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years after graduation I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over. (ACT OUT) License, registration, cultural exploration of the Man Child in the Sound and the Fury...

So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"

But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you my story because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six thousand people and talk about yourself.

After graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles and got a three week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380 a month apartment and bought a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that, technically, it's not a car. Here's a quick tip, graduates: no four cylinder vehicle should have a racing stripe. I worked at that show for over a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me they were letting me go. I was fired and, I hadn't saved a lot of money. I tried to get another job in television but I couldn't find one.

So, with nowhere else to turn, I went to a temp agency and filled out a questionnaire. I made damn sure they knew I had been to Harvard and that I expected the very best treatment. And so, the next day, I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. When you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose Graduate School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man, in good conscience, would ever wear. I tried a lot of things during this period: acting in corporate infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theatre, I even took a job entertaining at a seven year olds' birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox Network as a writer and performer for a new show called "The Wilton North Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way, it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause.

Eventually, though, I got a huge break. I had submitted, along with my writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live and, after a year and a half, they read it and gave us a two week tryout. The two weeks turned into two seasons and I felt successful. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom and, when the network decided to make it, I left Saturday Night Live. This TV show was going to be groundbreaking. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened: When the pilot aired it was the second lowest-rated television show of all time. It's tied with a test pattern they show in Nova Scotia.

So, I was 28 and, once again, I had no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and didn't know what to do next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips. And that's when The Simpsons saved me. I got a job there and started writing episodes about Springfield getting a Monorail and Homer going to College. I was finally putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue for a man who's so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heart beat. Life was good.

And then, an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way . A chance to audition for host of the new Late Night Show. I took the opportunity seriously but, at the same time, I had the relaxed confidence of someone who knew he had no real shot. I couldn't fear losing a great job I had never had. And, I think that attitude made the difference. I'll never forget being in the Simpson's recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane. But a week later I got another call: I got the job.

So, this was undeniably the it: the truly life-altering break I had always dreamed of. And, I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building that show over the summer, gathering the talent and figuring out the sensibility. We debuted on September 13, 1993 and I was happy with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment and put my very best foot forward. And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post: "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late, Late Show and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence he came." There's more but it gets kind of mean.

Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid.

I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion.

I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.

Thank you.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

daybreak

i feel like Daniel, being thrown into the lions' den.

speaking of lions ... this always makes me laugh.



then again, who knows? maybe there's another change on the horizon.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

the Sims, Philippine Edition

so what about this latest brouhaha back home - a hostage crisis, the second in weeks to happen?

picture this: a 60-year old daycare school owner takes hostage 26 of his own students, inside a bus for 10 hours, demanding to get 'support for his school and improved housing for the poor'. at 7 PM Manila time, the guy, Armando Ducat surrenders, ending the standoff.

my first concern was: did the kids even eat during the whole ordeal?

the answer is, they got fried chicken at the end of the day (Jollibee? Max's?). so this means nobody ate during.

last night, while i was checking news wires as the crisis progressed, i read that Malacanang convened a luncheon meeting to discuss the problem. two things jumped out at me:

- that they were having a luncheon meeting. did they have krispy pata, lechon paksiw, pancit luglug, and puto, while considering options on how to get out of the embarrassing situation? since this is the Internet Age 2.0, news like this get picked up immediately - and i bet you some officials in that meeting were among the last to know. and while eating that crunchy krispy pata, a couple of them probably threw out suggestions to bomb the bus. bomb bus! wooohoooo!

- that allegedly, no one was panicking. that's what Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said - "who's panicking? we are hardly in a state of panic." that's true. i mean, how can you panic when you're having krispy pata and pancit? what, me worry?



other people didn't waste time having lunch, going for the media mileage and goodwill cachet instead - witness the distinguished Senator Bong Revilla acting on his moviestar instincts and negotiated directly with the hostage-taker. even Senator-hopeful and gambling lord Chavit Singson talked to the guy. are they all mahjong and pusoy buddies? c'mon, we need to know these things.

and how about this Ducat guy? alleged historical behavior of the sort notwithstanding (holding a couple of priests hostage because he was unpaid?), he demanded free education for his wards (whom he threatened basically by brandishing guns - an Uzi! - at keeping them in a bus without food for hours) and "unite with President Gloria Arroyo" to "dismantle a corrupt government" ... ehhh? didn't the instigators of the coup de'tat of 2003 demand the same thing? so instead of taking adults as hostages, we Filipinos try to prove a point alternatively by taking helpless kids hostages. if this doesn't work, look out for somebody taking a whole pet shop hostage next time.

so what was he thinking? he knows he's gonna face jail time at the least. jail time, if he doesn't go down shooting, taking a few kids along. really? was he really bent on shooting kids with his "fine" and "Israeli-made"* Uzi? he was allegedly a contractor. was he "contracted" to put distracting news on the headlines, and make a few people look good? everyone loves the Robin Hood type.

* that was the description of Senior Superintendent Danilo Abarsoza. is there an Uzi that's NOT Israeli-made? or are you just trying to impress the press? just asking, sir. and oh, make sure that fine firearm does not end up in someone else's private arsenal. or yours.

with the elections looming on the horizon, the only ones who will remember this down the line would be the traumatized kids. or maybe that ChickenJoy was enough to wipe away the bad memories. oh wait, somebody will make a movie first! i can see it now: "Manila Hostage Crisis: God Save Us!". or at least a "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode. expect Kris Aquino to interview a few kids. some of them might end up Star Circle Search Batch 2010.


and then we all forget about this crap. until all the pet dogs in Ayala Alabang get taken hostage.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

not AppleTV

while everyone else was enjoying their AppleTVs, i went the other way and got a media receiver instead. i did consider the AppleTV, but they were shooting themselves in the foot like Sony by limiting media formats. and since the bulk of my ehem, appropriated media content is mostly AVI/DiVX and MPG, i neither have the patience nor inclination to convert everything to what Steve Jobs deemed playable on his new toy. plus it may not work on my not-HDTV TV. we'll talk again in June, Steve, when iPhone comes out.

so for a few dollars less, i chose the D-Link DSM-520, a sleek wireless media receiver that has been out for about a year now.


recommended layout had it connecting to the TV directly, but since i had my Pelican Pro Selector device, i sent the receiver through that instead. initially i tried using an S-Video cable (against common sense), but that didn't work (boooo!). i didn't have a spare component video cable handy so i used my DVD cables temporarily.

and it works! i just needed to enter my secret 128-bit encrypted network password and we're rolling.


now for testing ... what's in my laptop? ah, a good choice: Pirates of the Carribean in AVI format.


wait ... that's not Pirates of the Caribbean!


of course, 'garbage in, garbage out' applies here ... if you have poorly-encoded media, your output will suck. which also means you go 'wow' when you're playing HDTV-source AVI files (props to revolutionary encoders!) it also doesn't like low level WMVs, or QuickTime MOVs, but that's no big deal. you can also have the option of having several media servers, so you can switch from one pc to another to play your stuff.

anyway, the darned thing works! its not HDTV but now i can watch all that accumulated movies and TV shows of the past 24 months on a bigger screen than my laptop or desktop. which i have been thinking about for a long time now. hooohaaaa!


what, i have to do laundry?!? sheeesh.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

thumbing my nose

new iPod entries:

Joss Stone
Introducing Joss Stone


LCD Soundsystem
Sound of Silver


Arcade Fire
Neon Bible


Bloc Party
A Weekend in the City



The Brand New Heavies
Get Used To It


Sugababes
Overloaded: The Singles

Sunday, February 25, 2007

oca 2007

picks! for Sunday! i don't know! why am exclaiming! i haven't seen much yet! but i have most of them! most likely i'll watch them! after winners are announced! perhaps! i think i would miss the opening sketch! but there's always YouTube!

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” (THINKFilm)
Peter O’Toole in “Venus” (Miramax, Filmfour and UK Council)
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” (New Line)
Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond (Warner Bros.)
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Helen Mirren in The Queen (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” (20th Century Fox)
Kate Winslet in “Little Children” (New Line)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Best animated feature film of the year:
Cars (Buena Vista) John Lasseter
“Happy Feet” (Warner Bros.) George Miller
“Monster House” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Gil Kenan

Achievement in directing:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Alejandro González Iñárritu
The Departed (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Stephen Frears
“United 93” (Universal and StudioCanal) Paul Greengrass

Best documentary feature:
“Deliver Us from Evil” (Lionsgate)
An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
“Iraq in Fragments” (Typecast Releasing)
“Jesus Camp” (Magnolia Pictures)
“My Country, My Country” (Zeitgeist Films)

Best motion picture of the year:
Babel (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Achievement in visual effects:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Buena Vista)
“Poseidon” (Warner Bros.)
“Superman Returns” (Warner Bros.)

Adapted screenplay:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
“Children of Men” (Universal)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Children” (New Line)
“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)

Original screenplay:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Monday, February 19, 2007

big j



that's my first encounter with an ugly american.


yeah i know its a toy. its called a "Big Trak", and based on Google searches, there's still a lot of former kids out there who profess a love for this electro-mechanical wonder that came out back in 1979.


so why is the concept of an "ugly american" involved in this post? ah, well, back in those days, our landlord's relatives came to visit from America. i used to play with the landlord's kids, and with their new fandangled American cousin(s) in tow, they had to show off stuff to the dirt-poor child who lives in the ground floor. first among which would be this Big Trak, which made beeping sounds and followed commands input in the keypad.

their big American cousin (the male one), whose name is the same as the one of my best mate on the sidebar, also had to show off his karate moves to me, or rather with me as the tackle dummy. and the landlord's kid, who's dumber than a rock, cheered his cousin on, forgetting that when the guy returns home to America, he'll be begging me to play with them again.

so i wonder where the hell is that cousin of theirs now? i never saw them again, up until we left the place and transferred to our current home in Cagayan. he's probably collecting bottle caps and beer bottles for the 5 cent refund he can get from each. or maybe the jerk's a damn CIA agent now and he's monitoring blogs for anything nasty said about him.

darned kids.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

you can resist!

taken from a link in a post in our other blog ... but hell yes, can't i eat my Ritz in peace?

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Grammy picks '07

ok here i am with my picks for the next hour's Grammy jammy awards. most of my picks will be wrong anyway, but ah what the heck. obviously, my picks are strictly subjective and i'm going with what i listened and liked. which means, i am not picking Biatche. i'm not picking JT because sexy never left. and i'm not picking James Blunt because he thinks he's f**king good enough for Petra Nemcova.

watching? am i watching? hell no, i'm going to pop in The Godfather and check my selections in the morning.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal
My Humps - The Black Eyed Peas or
Is It Any Wonder? - Keane

Best Pop Vocal Album
Back To Basics - Christina Aguilera or
Continuum - John Mayer

Best Rock Album
Try! - John Mayer Trio or
Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs

Best Alternative Music Album
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys or
St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley

Best Female R&B Vocal Performance
Be Without You - Mary J. Blige or
I Am Not My Hair - India.Arie

heaven forbid Biatche wins.

Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
Heaven - John Legend or
Black Sweat - Prince

Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
Family Affair - (Sly & The Family Stone), John Legend, Joss Stone With Van Hunt or
Beautiful, Loved And Blessed - Prince & Támar

Best Urban/Alternative Performance
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley or
Mas Que Nada - Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas

Best R&B Song
Black Sweat - Prince, songwriter

Best R&B Album
The Breakthrough - Mary J. Blige or
3121 - Prince

Best Contemporary R&B Album
Kelis Was Here - Kelis

shit. i ain't picking Biatche.

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Waiting On The World To Change - John Mayer or
Bad Day - Daniel Powter

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera or
Stupid Girls - Pink

Best New Artist
Imogen Heap or Corinne Bailey Rae
(but Imogen was playing with Frou Frou for awhile now so i should pick Corinne)

Song Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

Album Of The Year
Taking The Long Way - Dixie Chicks or
Continuum - John Mayer

Record Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

Thursday, February 08, 2007

back to the L

since i've ignored the league ballers since the MSG Brawl, i need to get up to speed post-SBXLI. so here's 10 things i learned about Mr. Stern's (not Howard) playground 2007 edition.

1) i'm still weirded out by this and apparently, it doesn't work.


2) LeBron should already own the league by now, and he doesn't. stop doing those commercials already.

3) Hibachi!


4) so long, Pau Gasol-era in Memphis.

5) the AK-47 has finally broken down. also, will somebody give Jerry Sloan the Coach of the Year award before the guy retires?

6) the Pacers have quietly rebuilt, while the Warriors should blow up with Don Nelson's brand of alchemy. KG meanwhile, is slowly dying.

7) Isiah Thomas is still alive. why????

8) Toronto is on top of the Atlantic Division. Toronto!? oh, yes, its the Atlantic Division.

9) Joumana Kidd, husband-beater?

10) Meech (Orlando Magic '99) is gay. not that there's anything wrong with that.

Monday, February 05, 2007

post-mortem

congrats to Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy and the Colts for winning SBXLI.

with this development, among those who are gnashing their teeth this morning are:
- the city of Baltimore, who used to have the Colts franchise until the team sneakily moved to Indianapolis one snowy night in 1984
- superstar running back Edgerrin James, who took the free agent money to Arizona, and was easily replaced by rookie Joseph Addai
- the New England Patriots, who finally witness their nemesis hoist the Lombardi Trophy after years of preventing such an occurence

speaking of the Patriots, does it seem weird that their (sort-of) decline coincides with the Bush Administration's downfall? 2001, soaring presidential approval ratings and the Patriot ascension seem so long ago.

and with football season is over. time to switch over to the NBA.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

XLI

... eeeeehhhh.

so finally Peyton Manning made it. and Rex (Gross, Man) made it too, despite all the heat he got from the press. one's about "not getting to the big dance even if you play like that", and the other's about "not getting to the big dance if you play like that". so now the press just got shut up. for maybe 30 seconds.



who am i gonna go for? don't know. on one hand, we could root for anyone playing against Manning. except for the AFC championship series, where i rooted for him to shut up Sith Lord Belichick. now, i could still root for the Colts to win, just so to get it over with. better yet, i could root for either coaches, because they're such classy individuals.

either way, its just an excuse to be a couch potato (like when did that not happen?) this Sunday night with chips, spaghetti and beer.

added bonus: a whole new slew of funny commercials and of course ... the resurrection of Prince!!!

Friday, January 26, 2007

Monday, January 22, 2007

all hail ...

... the power of Bauer!

Venice, LA just got nuked. Jack just shot and killed one of his closest friends. Kumar is a terrorist. the guvmint is close to suspending civil liberties. and with 4 more nukes out there - woooohoooo! Thanks, Fox, for panicking the morons in this country!

Saturday, January 20, 2007

1st and 10 (conference champs)


"no, YOU calm down!"

i'm torn about the AFC championship because of the two teams playing. i like the Patriots, but after 3 championships, the TomBridget thing, that erosion of class and a slowburn souring on Sith Lord Belichick ... i kinda wanted them to get eliminated prior to this. on the other hand, there's Peyton Manning, whose every single failure i whooped up with glee (same reaction with his grudgingly-funny commercials). hey, the guy has CAA toiling to make him more money. and winning a SuperBowl will mean a lot more Manning commercials in the next few years, so much that it would be annoying. a-yiaaaa.

the NFC ... has been inferior to the AFC for awhile now. so between the Bears and the Saints, i think i'll just pick the Saints, because i don't trust Rex Grossman beating anyone on the big stage. he's been lucky so far, and even with the Bears' quality defense, the Colts carved up the Baltimore Ravens D, so it really don't mean jack.

so let's say the Saints win the NFC ... and if they meet the Colts, they'll have a chance with the two-headed hydra of Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush. now, if the Saints meet the Patriots, you know as well as i do Sith Lord Belichick doesn't frakkin' care if this is America's Team, or if the Saints were composed of Katrina orphans - - - he's gonna stomp his foot down on their necks.

playoff prognostication record so far: 3-5

New Orleans at Chicago ... we believe!
New England at Indianapolis ... can we just blow them both up instead?