The CSB Experience 3: Doppleganger

The first term started off a wee bit odd. Not because I had 3 days worth of morning classes but maybe I may be suffering from a case of mistaken identity.

Get this, I saw this really-but oddly familiar girl outside the SDA. I saw her from afar and basing from her hair, type of clothes she's wearing and even her movements, I easily mistook her for some person I know from school. I yelled out her name and waved at her but to my utter surprise, she was actually someone else.

Nakakahiya!

Good thing no one else saw me doing that! :o

It happened again a few days later. This time, nasa malapitan na kami!

Just coming out from a dismissed class, I was waiting for an elevator in the 11th floor SDA when a bunch of students came to ride one as well. One of them looks exactly the one person I knew and I was like less than a few meters away from here. I waved my ahnd and called out her name but...

She didn't noticed...

I then realized that I made the mistake of mistaking a person for someone else... :(

I apologized the girl for my odd behavior and she said that it was alright. I never felt this so relieved, saving myself from total embarassment!

Just hoping it won't happen LOL!

Terminator Salvation

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy

I'm still reeling from wounds inflicted by Fox's cancellation of my favorite sci fi guilty pleasure, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The only way for me lessen the pain is for me to watch the latest installment of the Terminator franchise, entitled "Salvation".

T4 is set in the continuity of T3 and thus ignoring the events of TSCC. Viewers were introduced to a apocalyptic world after Judgement Day saw the rise of SkyNet, which in T3 became self-aware and perceived humans as threats. it then created terminators to hunt down humans to kill and/or harvest them for SkyNet's use.

The movie is led by Christian Bale as "John Connor", the one prophesied to lead the human race into victory and bring about the fall of SkyNet. In order to prevent this, SkyNet sent terminators back in time to kill John, or in the first movie, kill her mother. Other characters include Connor's wife from T3, Kate Brewster (or Kate Connor now in T4), a mute girl named Star, a cyborg (second lead) named Marcus Wright, and a very young Kyle Reese.

According to the continuity, Kyle was sent back in time by John to save his mother, Sarah, but was unaware that he was destined to become John's father. Thus in T4, John tried to look for his father because he knows that Kyle is the "key of salvation", for if SkyNet get theirs hands on him, there won't be any John Connor, so on and so forth. That's where marcus came into the picture...

Marcus was in 2003, a convict slated for death row. Before he died, he donated his body to Cyberdine Industries for medical research. But after Judgement Day, Skynet made him a cyborg, a cross between a human and a terminator. He has a conscious, a brain, and a living heart found inside a chunk of metal for a body plastered with human skin. He didn't knew that he actually brought Kyle to Skynet thus he needed John's help to save him.

I don't want to spoil much about the movie, save for the review, but at the movie's end was another open-ending giving us an idea that there's going to be another movie in the works.

My take:

The movie obviously didn't rely too much on special effects to drive the movie. Character development was more emphasized to produce a kind of storytelling relevant yet still entertaining. What's more is that because the movie was rated PG13 (the early films were R rated), it kinda toned down the gore and violence usually seen in the franchise including the TV series. The closest thing it could get was a guy in a submerged helicopter "chopped" to death by a eel-like terminator.

With the question about continuity, somehow it kinda made sense that John was indeed destined to die at the hands by a T-800 (special CG cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger) as predicted in T3. In T4, John was almost unable to make it out alive but because of the sacrifice made by Marcus, John was able to live on longer (because T5 is sure to happen).

I wasn't able to see the early part of the 1st Terminator movie but I'm guessing that the John Connor that was portrayed there was already old when he sent back Kyle to the 1980's so hopefully, this is going to happen in a future film. There's bound to be problems with how the continuity is going to play out as far as T4 is concerned. T2 obviously changed the timeline completely by delaying J-Day (as how in TSCC, Sarah and John traveled 10 years into the "present" timeline to stop Judgement Day and in the end John was sent to the future, meeting his father-to-be Kyle Reese). But despite the changes occurred, elements of great importance are ever more present nonetheless like the meeting of John and Kyle as well as the existence of Sarah's taped voice recordings to John (special cameo by Linda Hamilton).

My not-so-good take:

T4 also have its own share of problems, if you could call them "problems" actually. the movie is split in two different points of view, one from John Connor, the other from Marcus Wright. Like a balancing beam, the movie is focused too much on Marcus and less on John. Although we get to see how his character played out, it kinda made me wondering whatever happened to John right on the middle of the movie. I guess it's just me because the actor who played Marcus was indeed a scene stealer for T4.

The supporting characters (Kate, Kyle, Blair, etc) were also given due relevance in the story and most if not all were used that necessitates their presence, not a one dimensional character hang onto a wallpaper.

I may have missed it but I feel certain that the trailer was a bit deceiving with what they showed early on. In the trailer, John said something about the futre was not the "future" his mother warned him about, but there wasn't a scene that showed him said that nor anything else in relation that would have made a great impact to the movie as a whole.

Nevertheless, the movie is still worth your Php150 movie ticket. There was never a dull moment and more or less, the movie is very satisfying indeed. It may have flaws but it is outnumbered by a lot of good points.

J Pics D40 Pics: Viva Las Flores De Mayo (Malanday, Valenzuela City)

Date: Saturday May 23, 2009
Location: M.H. Del Pilar Street and McArthur Highway, Malanday, Valenzuela City
ISO: 1600
Modes used: Manual, Bulb, Auto Flash (seldom used Auto Flash for quick snapshots i.e. ang taumbayan)

Vox Dei

Wow! Talk about fast and quick...

Can't believe I'm actually in one...

After going along the flow, I somehow got in...

Although it's been a while since I actually took something new...

Practice starts on this Thursday and Friday at 8...

J Pics D40 Pics: Obando

I forgot to have these photos uploaded. They were taken last March and were in my hard drive untouched. Kinda reminded that I have to upload them after I saw Michael and Chenee's pics during last week's Obando fiesta. :D

Nikko already posted some of the pics I took of him in his Multiply account, here are some more plus pictures of Obando and Arkong Bato.

The last time I've been in Obando's town proper was way way back. I was I think about 5 or 6 years old at the time. I remember the church and the large parking area in front of it and not much of everything else.

So without further delay, here are the pics. Enjoy!

*Some pics are not available for viewing






*Take note, tapos na iyung bahay na nasa likod ni Nikko :D







Model: Nikko Delos Santos
Location: San Diego Subdivision (Arkong Bato, Valenzuela City), Valenzuela-Bulacan Border, Obando Town Proper
Date Taken: Same time as "Shoeshine Boy"

Wet Pillow

Looks like weekends are more of a slow day for me. Nothing much to do but to stay at home, watch some TV and do a little Facebooking here and there. But if nothing good is on nor if no interesting new entries have entered in my Multiply inbox, I have no choice but to give myself a good nap on a generally clear and sunny Saturday afternoon.

Which I did...

Taking some time off on getting back at lost sleep is one thing but the feeling of waking up at almost 6pm with your head feeling weird, eyes swollen and your pillow as wet as sweat could make me convince that wasting time making siesta is possibly not a good way of spending precious time instead of doing more productive things.

So maybe napping is not the best way to spend my weekends after-all and neither feeding my addiction on checking updates on my accounts in Facebook, Multiply, Twitter, Yahoo! Mail, etc. Probably by next week, I'd be more organized with all the things I do both at home and at school. I want to spend my time well and use what's left of it succumbing to my vices but not as much as before (Hey, at least my vices are a lesser evil than having a vice in smoking and what-not! Hehehe).

And now I bid you adieu for now... XD

The CSB Experience 3: The First Day

Okay...weird first day I had a while ago. At least during the morning it was. First were the swarm of HRIM students in front of CSB Main, all wearing white. Then the increasing swarm of frosh in the SDA lobby. Good thing I went to schoool early, let's say 6:50am. My first class started at 8am.

Vidprod1 is the name of the my first and only class of the day. And I had quite a lot of familiar faces as classmates: Justine, Katriz, Jam, Alyssa-not-the-Matias, and classmates from past subjects. One thing I noticed later on: I'm the only guy in a class full of girls!

 

Vidprod1 is basically all about scriptwriting and my prof's pretty much veteran in his field of expertise. Sir Dodos in his orientation, encourage us to watch a lot of films and television shows to help us understand how scripts work. Good thing I'm planning on watching Terminator Salvation next week XD!

Later as the day progresses, I attended a meeting with regards to CG Overdrive '09 and everything that has to do with it. I finally got some clarifications with a lot of stuff about the event and I hope things go very well by June 15.

A half-day well enjoyed. Thank God, He is Good!