13 things i’d tell my 13-year-old self.

There’ve been several lists like this before, so here’s my take on it, being a 23-year-old hermit.  (And yes, this is the birthday post.)

A decade ago, I was still a Freshman, in a new school — fast-forward to the present, my Freshman P.E. t-shirt still fits as pambahay.

Given the chance, here’s a couple of things I’ll be telling my 13-year-old-self, who’s probably clueless about what to do.

1. Nurture your inner geriatric. While everyone at this age is nurturing their inner child, (thanks to the revival of 80’s favorites) you should focus on nurturing your much-wiser inner old-coot.  You could be a child on a day-to-day basis instead.

2. Work on the laugh. Life’s funny.  As Dr. Horrible puts it, “a lot of guys ignore the laugh.”  You may not be a mad (yet) scientist (no, a Computer Science degree does not make you a scientist), it’s no reason not to laugh like no one’s looking.

3. Some people will get you;  some people won’t. You DON’T have ANYTHING to prove to anybody, really.

4. Follow your dreams. Even if your dream is sitting in front of the computer for a few hours as a living.  Plus, some of your best dreams will occur in the classroom.

5. Bluff to the future! Remember: it’s never a lie if you believe it.  Honesty is subjective; as long as people ask the RIGHT questions, whatever truth you can think of WILL BE the absolute truth for you.

6. You will not end up with HER. (Whoever “she” was at that point in time.)  You will not have half-her/half-you babies (yet) — but you will get to meet other (and better) post-modern/old-fashioned girls in the future.  Get over it.

7. Angst isn’t cool after 20. (Scratch that.)  Thanks for getting it out of your system by 17.

8. However “cool” material possessions are, work on the intangible stuff, the nominalizations. (yow)  The kind of things that you can’t put in a backpack or a wheelbarrow.  (P.S. Do your research about these words.)

9. Work on your list-making abilities. It will buy you stuff one day.  (While you’re at it, work on the wordplay, the puns and whatnot.)

10. Eat what you want, when you want. Hopefully, there’re gonna be cures for everything.

11. Any unique emotion you’re feeling, or is about to feel can be expressed by a Beatles, Morrissey, Jeff Buckley, Elliot Smith, Billy Idol or Sting song.

12. Never break the rules you make. Ever.

13. Invent a time machine, so that this list can have any actual bearing in the present.

***
Thanks for all the greetings!  This has been the best birthday yet.  (I mean, any birthday where you don’t have to attend a funeral is always better than one where you have to.) 

(Image from here: http://photofile.ru/photo/fishki_net/3568632/77932205.jpg)

the dark knight.

“Insight beyond insanity,” is the only way to describe the Joker in the new Batman film. (And, quite possibly, the best-ever superhero film. Ever.)

While the internet’s already brimming with positive reviews, (even going so far as reading about TDK being “the Godfather of superhero films) it’s truly, truly hard to disagree. (Plus, as of this writing, the movie’s breaking all sorts of records.)

Great acting all around, (even with the ever-growling Batman voice) with the excellent addition of Heath Ledger as the Joker, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes.

What makes this movie even more concrete is taking the Batman symbol that was established in Begins, and the Joker trying to corrupt that, or, at the very least, break it — and then running with it, regardless of how many plot threads and layers are added.

Taking away the Joker’s “unpleasant-run-ins-with-chemicals” origin only adds mystique as to why he is truly deranged. There’s even a little nod to “The Killing Joke,” by making each of his origin stories different, but in truth, he’s just messing with his victims. In the German language, they have an idiom for this, which I think is apt: “In der Kürze liegt die Würze. / In the shortness lies the spice.”

It also helps that all the orange tinge from Begins is replaced by a bluer hue, making everything darker this time around.

After the movie, talks of a posthumous-Oscar for Ledger can be heard. For good reason too, since he turned the Joker into an absolute entity of terror, whose acts are dictated by whim and personal amusement, without regard for anyone. (Insight beyond insanity, yow.)

dr horrible’s sing-along blog.

If you’re a fan of Buffy, (most especially the musical specials) or just a fan of AWESOME entertainment (the kind that has a phd on horrible-ness), then you’ll love Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  It has laughter, action and tragedy … all in Super Villain musical form.  With the ever-awesome NPH as Dr. Horrible himself!  (To quote Tycho, “It’s a supervillain musical written by Joss Whedon, starring a bunch of awesome motherfuckers.”)

Check it!  Today’s the last day it’s gonna be up, so check it NOW.

(P.S. I’m crushing on the cute fan-girl in Act 3.  Maurissa Tancharoen, yow!  And also, Whedon is my master now.)

pose for paws: july 20.

From the PAWS e-group:

Dear Whatsuppaws,

We hope you can invite your animal-loving friends to attend our fundraiser at Eastwood City called “Pose for PAWS” by forwarding this email.

PAWS celebrity volunteer, Karylle, poses with her dogs, Jack and Kung-fu, to promote our latest fundraiser

Thank you for supporting our work for the animals.

-The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)

p.s. PAWS volunteers who would like to help out at this event, please attend short briefing on July 19- 10am at the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center (PARC). Thank you.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *******

POSE FOR PAWS at Eastwood City on July 20

SAY “CHEESE” !!!

Are your pets ready for their close-ups? If so, then head on down to Eastwood Central Plaza on July 20 (Sun) for the launch of “POSE FOR PAWS”. Anytime from 1-6PM, you and your pet can get your portraits taken in our unique photo booths manned by professional photographers.

Proceeds from all portraits purchased will go to the PAWS Animal Shelter which houses over 100 dogs and cats rescued from cruelty and neglect. The facility is not funded by any international organization or the government, and is solely dependent on donations and fund raising activities such as this to keep it running.

Last year, despite its limited funding, the PAWS Animal Shelter was able to spay-neuter 298 animals, respond to over 2000 calls from pet owners and animal rescuers, adopt out 30 dogs & 28 cats and rescue 42 animals in distress. Its humane education volunteer group has already reached over 5000 students and 28 schools - teaching kids and young people about kind treatment of animals and responsible pet ownership.

“POSE FOR PAWS” is made possible with the help of Eastwood City, Frontline,
McDonald’s and the Philippine Star Pet Life Section.

Soul siren, Nina, poses with Moony as representatives for feline lovers and in support of POSE FOR PAWS.

More sample portraits here: http://babybranny.multiply.com/photos/album/76/Pose_for_PAWS_-_Sample_Portraits

You can also post your questions about the event here: http://babybranny.multiply.com/calendar/item/10159

batman: arkham asylum fan film.

Trolling around Youtube got me this: a fan film by Miguel Mesas based on the Grant Morrison / Dave McKean graphic novel of the same name.

Though it’s not in english, what got me hooked is the excellent production. (They even got the fonts right!)

optimus rhyme - obey the moderator!

Dedicated to the 14 surviving contestants!

Been getting into nerdcore music lately, and the funny thing is, I could relate to the lyrics of this song! Haha!

From here.

Related post: How to Behave On An Internet Forum

jay-z answers gallagher.

Jay-Z answered his critics, notably Oasis’s Noel Gallagher at Glastonbury. Striding on stage with a guitar slung over his shoulder, he led the crowd in a rendition of Oasis’s “Wonderwall”, smiling throughout, and with wife Beyonce Knowles in attendance, his set included songs such as “99 Problems”.

In a radical departure from the indie rock and guitar bands commonly associated with Glastonbury, the festival recruited the New Yorker in a bid to reach out to a younger audience.

Michael Eavis, who runs the festival on his dairy farm, admitted they had “stuck their necks out on this one.”

Organisers staunchly defended the choice of Jay-Z, despite the slow ticket sales and sniping from Glastonbury veterans like Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher.

In April, Gallagher slammed the booking of Jay-Z to headline to festival as “wrong”, declaring: “I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It’s wrong.”

diablo 3, officially announced.

After the speculation/denial when Blizzard acquired the Diablo 3 domain, it’s now official.  Fans got a treat at the Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational when the gameplay footage started playing.  Check it.

love in the time of coca-cola.

My name is Paolo, and I’m a Coke-aholic.

If you know me, then you probably know about my run-ins with Coke-ahol in the past.

Shaving off my hermit-beard (but still in bad need of a haircut), I left the batcave to attend the Buhay Coke ng Bloggers thing at MoA.

Fast-forward to around 7:30, went in with Drei and Ven, and among the dozens of new faces, I saw a good buddy of mine. (Okay, so it was the Coke.) Saw Gary and new-best friend Chai — Drei and Ven left for Get Smart — so we sat ourselves down.  BTW, I saw Arpee by the entrance, hehe.

I saved the seats and exploited the FREE Coke thing while Gary and Chai set out for the buffet. The usual buffet rule applies: the amount of time you spend not falling in line is inversely proportional to the variety of food you’ll get.

A thing I did notice though, is that there were a lot of new faces (and this isn’t just the hermit talking) during this event. (And yes, I say that and it sounds like I know everyone’s face, but really, it’s pretty cool to know that each and every one of these new faces is entering the blog scene.)

Fortunately, Chai got sum squids — hence the new-best friend thing.

A couple of pounds later, I spotted Jori and he joined up in our table. He pointed towards Tarugoman — and while we were saying our hellos to people inside, we witnessed some banana-dancing bloggers. (LOL)

We moved outside and we drank. And smoked. And talked with Jayvee about Age of Conan and that Warhammer MMO.

Cathie arrives, while we continued to drink. And smoke. Missing out on the costume contest thing — olats.

Jori, Iggy, Mike (tama ba?) from TFPH set out to watch Wanted. Azrael arrived just a couple of minutes after the Wanted group left, and a little while later, Gary and Chai left too — leaving me with Cathie and her sister, Tin, along with John. (Around this time the venue was slowly turning into a disco, of sorts, lol.) Cathie told me that they were about to leave, and since I was going to have to wait ’til Get Smart was finished; I started chatting up fellow bloggers beside me. (Arvin and Red) How sad would it be to be hanging out with a case of Coke? (I asked for a couple more cans of Coke.)

Introduced Whored myself out to Coy and Kring, both of whom introduced me to a couple of their blogger friends. (This was cool, since I was looking for some allies to kill time with.)

Met Joe, Poyt, Eric, Marcelle and Juned. And also, instead of hogging all the new blogger friends, I introduced them to the other bloggers I met earlier. (Connector? LOL — it was nice meeting you guys!)

While this was all happening, Get Smart ended a bit early, so essentially, I was getting picked up from daycare. It was time to go back to the cave.

All in all, (lahat sa lahat, yeh) I had a blast! Thanks to Coke and SM Hypermarket for making this happen. And thanks to Aileen’s ever-active Plurking for the live updates of this event.

Photos here. (Feel free to grab ‘em)

LINK LOVE:

Arpee Gary Chai Jori Jayvee Iggy Aileen Cathie Tin Azrael Red Arvin Coy Kring Joe Poyt Eric Marcelle Juned

gaiman’s ninja turtles.

Think you’ve read everything Gaiman’s written?  How ’bout this Gaiman-penned Ninja Hero Turtle* strip for Comic Relief from 1991?

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Hero Turtles*, as written by Neil Gaiman:

Not convinced?  Read here for details.

* From Wikipedia:

Upon TMNT’s first arrival in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Austria and Germany, the name was changed to “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” (or TMHT, for short), since local censorship policies deemed the word ninja to have excessively violent connotations for a children’s program.

(Get it, before the high-res images expire!)