Oct/090
Zombieland
Zombieland was a very fun movie. Who knew zombies could be so funny. Woody Harrellson is just plain ridiculous. Not only does he have no total fear of zombies, he is a crazy fanatic on the art of killing them. It so reminds me of the Knott’s Scary Farm and all their masked freaks running around the park and in mazes. This movie takes a lighter not on the subject. While sure, a lot of people died and it’s almost an end of the world kind of scenario, the matchup of Woody Harrllson as the gun slinging cowboy of death and the pre-pubescent humor of Jesse Eisenberg who plays a general wuss make this movie damn funny. 
Jesse has some simple rules about staying alive when the rest of the world has turned to zombies, but my two favorite are “cardio” and “double tap”. Cardio: no duh. The faster/longer you can run, the better your chances are against zombies. Double tap: Don’t think if their dead or not, hit em again. These same principals follow through in first person shooters. Don’t stand around and don’t let go of the trigger till they’re dead. While the male actors did a hell of a job, their female counterparts didn’t do much for me I think. I mean, Emma Stone at best is only like a 6 in my book. She only gets that high because of her gorgeous red hair.
Oct/090
Paranormal Activity
Wow. Where to start. I loved this movie. I mean, I thought it was a very entertaining A+ movie, that I would love to never watch again. It’s been almost a week, and I got a cold chill looking up a picture for this damn post. It’s a different kind of scary. It’s scary because it hits home to a lot of people. It keeps you thinking about it because so many can relate to the setting. It doesn’t take place in some far off distant woods or some creepy two hundred year old hotel. It doesn’t even take place in a prison or some abandoned town. It takes place in some quaint neighborhood in San Diego County, CA. Hit home #1: I am from San Diego and also had a two story house there.
The basic plot of the movie consists of a young woman who has been plagued since childhood by something out of this world and by a fearless and somewhat retarded boyfriend who attempts at all costs to figure out what’s going on using a camcorder. Hit home #2: I was plagued as a child because my old old house I used to live in was haunted, seriously. I would wake up to see a little girl in the corner of my room at nights or randomly throughout the day I would see her run across the end of the hallway. Anyways, enough on that matter.
Ending up somewhat antagonizing the spirit, lots of crazy things begin to happen. The video is taped from what seems to be a normal camcorder, and you get the real life feel because of it. It was sort of Blair Witchy in a sense that sometimes the movement with the camera could get some people a little nauseous. Anyways, I don’t want to give away too much because I don’t want to ruin a movie that I think everyone should see. It is freaky!!! I love it. The special effects were very simple, but done so well, it was scary.
Hit home #3: Rice and I own the same shower curtains! Hit home #4: We sleep on the same sides of the bed as they do. Hit home #5: We hear strange thumps and bumps at night too, but it’s probably from the people that live above us in our apartment complex.
Watch it, it’s good. Just don’t expect me to watch it again. The first night was rough going to sleep. That’s how good of movie it was. Some people get freaked out from having to relive the movie in their heads days after. I just think it’s the sign of a good movie.
Oct/090
Snowboard Season 2009/2010
Rice and I are stoked for the great ski/snowboard season to come. We’ve already hit up the Burton shop in Los Angeles and picked out the gear we want. We both can’t wait for our first snowboard, boots, and bindings. A bit pricey, but it’s an investment, not just a purchase.
My setup includes the Flying V, Cartel bindings, and the Grail.
The Flying V is a new type of rocker shape which is a ridiculous hybrid of camber and rocker boards. There’s a a rocker in the middle, a little camber beneath your bindings, and more rockers near the edges. It looks like a “W” shaped from the side. It took me a while to figure out the difference between camber and rocker boards and really determine which would be right for me. Rocker boards sound like fun, but don’t have the pop and feedback that camber boards do. I decided to go for both in this model because as much as I like hauling ass down the mountain and powering through turns, it would be nice to get into doing some tricks too, and rocker boards will help me catch less edge. As far as all mountain, rocker boards are also great in powder as the nose and tail are slightly lifted getting you out of the deep and helping you ride on top of all that goodness.
The cartels are just the standard for bindings. They’re responsive, but flexible, and they now have this toe strap that can act as both a cap or strap depending on what you feel like. As far as the bindings go, I can’t go wrong with these.
Now the grails were a different story. I actually tried on a bunch of different boots, and came to the conclusion that this one felt the best. It all comes down to boots and for what it’s worth, it should be the first investment anyone puts into snowboarding. You can rent all the boards you want, but if you have good boots, it feels a whole lot better. These boots are nice and cushiony, making it ideal for what they call “the holy shit” landing. Although I don’t plan on being 40 feet in the air anytime soon, the cushioning support actually helps your stamina. Face it, when you snowboard, you put a lot of pressure on your feet all day long. With good boots, you go longer. I also found out, that I should get a size 8.5, not a 9 like I’m used to. The reason for it, is if my toes can touch the front of the boot, then that means I can get more power onto it. I never knew. Any bit of slack in the boot will result in your body having to do more to get the same response. Anyways. I tried on a bunch of boots, different boots in the same size felt tighter. Because of my wide feet and my huge calves, this felt the most comfortable.
I can’t wait to get the gear and attack the mountain. Oooh… Rice and I might even go up to Ski Dazzle in San Jose next month to get some deals on other gear. Unfortunately, we can’t go to the one in L.A. because we’ll be in New York that weekend. Damn. It’s gonna be a great winter.
Oct/090
Protected: Why am I still here?
Oct/090
Body Art Expo 2009, L.A. Convention Center
Rice and I made a trip to the L.A. convention center to check out the body art expo on October 10th. I’ve never been to one before and I was just interested in seeing who’s hot and who’s not in piercing and tattooing, but mainly for the tattoo side of it. I made sure to call the appropriate people first. I contacted my HR department at work and asked about appropriate policies. I was told no facial tattoos and only nipple piercings were allowed. Well then, I guess I’ll have to live without the piercings. I then contacted my mother and told her I was going to get a tattoo. She responded with “haha…. that’s good”. Either she didn’t hear me or she honestly doesn’t care anymore and respects my decision to do what I want with my own body. Most likely the former.
Anyways, the event was pretty cool. I wasn’t surprised that everyone in the place had at least half a dozen tattoos. Even the little kids that were roaming around had a spray on done that day and they literally looked more bad ass than my untapped canvas. There were artists that were good at lettering, those that were good at old school type tattoos, those that were very good at portraits, and such. I was thinking of something Asian, something, tough or mean looking, and no gore or killing on it. I found one of the better teams doing Asian art called Ink Fiend Art. They were by far the best at drawing dragons, coy fishes, demons, phoenixes, etc. I wanted a tattoo from them. I’ll keep thinking about a design, but definitely them. Maybe a dragon. I sorta want a Filipino sun on it too. Then in the future, I want to have a portrait of my parents on there. It started out with me thinking I wanted a small tattoo on my arm, but now I want a full blown, from back to arm to chest mural. Why not just jump right into it huh? I mean, I don’t want to get a small tattoo and be like “damn that’s sick, but it’s so small”. I’d rather wake up and look in the mirror and go “damn, you one crazy mother f*cker, I can’t believe you did that”. Haha.
As for piercings, I wasn’t too interested in any. I want to start off with some plugs in my ears. The most I would ever do would be to get my brow pierced. There were tons of piercings to be seen, some which were seriously studs right into the skin anywhere you wanted them. I thought those were pretty extreme. They also had a human suspension demo. Wow…. EXTREME!!! If you haven’t heard/seen this before, be prepared, some people get a little queezy at it.
Now that I have the ideas of what I want, all I need to do is save the money, decide on the design, hit up the artist and start sharing our ideas. I can’t wait.
Oct/090
Being more Filipino
Sometimes I am ashamed to be proud of being a Filipino. Don’t get me wrong, I love being Filipino and everything associated with it, it’s just, I don’t know if I’m being as Filipino as I could.
Filipino things I do: I shoot pool, lots of it. I drink San Miguel beer while eating balut. I love most Filipino food. I cook my own lumpia for breakfast. I eat lots of rice. I understand Tagalog.
Filipino things I’d like to do: I’d like to be able to sing. It would be great if I could bust out when my friends and I go out for karaoke. I’d like to learn how to cook traditional Filipino dishes. I’m great at eating them, but other than lumpia, I don’t know the first step in cooking Filipino food. I’d like to learn how to speak Tagalog.
I’ve always wanted a tattoo. It would be great to have the Filipino sun blazing on my back with a picture of the flag and my parents next to it, but I don’t feel like I have the right to unless I speak Tagalog and can sing. I know, it’s just me, but maybe I’ll hit up Rosetta Stone and take some voice lessons somewhere. Until then, my dream will have to wait.
Oct/091
Thirst
Park Chan-wook’s work has always been entertaining. This movie continues that legacy with his deranged and violent style. I loved it. Other than getting sick halfway through the movie with my uneasiness for self mutilation and slow, voluntary blood letting, I thought it was another great work of art. Old Boy still is my favorite of his movies, but Thirst just adds another twist to the theme of vampires. ****SPOILER ALERT**** A priest ends up becoming a vampire. A girl falls in love with the priest. The girl tricks the priest into falling back in love with her. Priest kills her. Priest brings her back to life as a vampire. They go on killing more people and living life. Eventually, priest has enough, filled with guilt, kills himself and his girl. ****SPOILER END**** Sorta sad and true love story where it’s not all happiness, but there’s mutual respect between the man and the woman. It was interesting. Due to my weak stomach, I probably wouldn’t watch it again, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others.
Oct/090
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
A lot of people have mixed reviews about this. Stated simply, I thought it was…. ok. It wasn’t great. I liked the first one better, however, I didn’t mind watching Michael Bay blow up everything to hell. It’s pretty cool. My testosterone levels were flying a bit seeing all the destruction. I watched this and several other movies before my flight back from Fremont from my Unitek boot camp. I have to admit, the only thing keeping this series alive now is Megan Fox. The crazy girl that transformed to a robot herself was pretty awesome too. I heard that the two seconds on film that was her up close face transformation, took an additional two months of work by the computer graphics people. Insane! The ending sucked though. What a short and pathetic fight. So… it kept me busy for almost 3 hours. I give it an…. ok rating.