I don't know what Hollywood has been complaining about people not going to the movies anymore, because have you seen the top ten movies of the past weekend?

Let's see, simple kid movies, silly comedies, and unoriginal thrillers. It looks like people ARE willing to go to the movies, except it isn't the "quality" films that people are willing to go see.  This goes again with what I've been saying for a while now. People can't say that there aren't good movies to watch in theaters, because there are, people just don't want to see them. They'd rather see a man dressed up as an old lady in "Madea's Family Reunion," because they apparently didn't have their fill of watching "Big Momma's House 2," which is also about a man dressed up as an old lady.

Random Cigaro

brokeback mountain action figures (link)

flamboyant referee (video)

the ugly face of crime (link)

freestyle Korea 2004 (video)

Next-Gen DVD Copy-Protection Debacle (link)

another phony photo booth (video)

quad tetris (game)

passion of the Christ 2 : Judgement Day (video)

my network TV (link)

office wanking policy (video)

angry alien production (flash)

blue print (game)

Looks like the streak of bad luck continues. Some 16 year old California gangsta wannabe out there named Claudio, has used one of my e-mail accounts to create a myspace page. I don't even know how he did it. Did he hack my password for my e-mail or something? He afterall needs to access my e-mail account to confirm myspace registration right? Freaking bastard. I went ahead and deleted his myspace account ofcourse. He better not try anything after this crap.

oh, while I'm at it. Myspace sucks! There are some really useful things about it like the band / radio pages, as well as a portal to connect with friends who are only on myspace (as opposed to traditional instant messaging or friendster). Those are the only reasons I even have a myspace account. For the most part though, myspace is simply bad bad bad. It's filled with a lot of tripe, mostly coming from adolescent teens who use the format to lambaste other people, or they get simply hung up on the idea of popularity of trying to have the most numbers of friends on their list. In the case of this post, it also looks like some kids are even willing to hack into other people's e-mail accounts, just to get a myspace page. Simply pathetic.

You know what I realized is actually a "turn-off" for me, when it comes to women? Hot women who have a Chihuahua for a pet. Don't ask me how that happened, but I'm pretty sure the idiotic Paris Hilton has something to do with it. I didn't even know I felt this way, until I found out that my model acquaintance at work has a chihuahua for a pet. She brought "Ponce" (that's his name) to work because he was acting up and couldn't be left at home alone. She even joked by asking me if I wanted to take him home and take care of him for the day (I think I gave her an unresponsive response). The dog is cute and friendly and all, but it actually changed the way how I see my model acquaintance. Bizarre reaction?

Random Revenga

real life simpsons home (pic)

"flying cars no more exclusive to science fiction" (link)

the lego suicides (flash)

creative home engineering (link)

drum corps solo (video)

google food photo blog (link)

nikki does goofy singalong (video)

fish tank of the month (link)

the super mario bros sound board (flash)

Sicko "Marriage Contract" One For The Ages (link)

duck and cover (video)

uber breakout (game)

The Da Vinci Code - by Dan Brown

I just recently finished reading this popular book, and wow, "the Da Vinci Code" has got to be one of the best novels I've ever read in my life (short of the fact I don't normally read novels). People weren't kidding when they said that this is a "page turner," because as a mystery thriller, I got caught up in it whole heartedly. In a way Dan Brown kinda cheats though, because each chapter is rather short (just 2-5 pages at times) which makes you think that you have time to read "just one more," and "just one more," and "just one more," and next thing you know it, you've gone through six chapters. Not only is the length of the chapter encouraging to continue reading, but they almost always end in a cliff hanger that more or less compels you to keep reading.

I have to give Dan Brown a lot of respect at how smart his story telling is, as he incorporates real life history, art, science, and math to explain the puzzles, clues, plot, and characters in the book. I actually educated myself just by reading "the Da Vinci Code," by learning things here I've either never considered before, or simply never even heard of. The Fibonacci sequence. The Divine Proportion. Knights Templar. Secrets (or speculation) of Leonardo Da Vinci's works. The Holy Grail. Those tricky riddles and puzzles. Awesome stuff! Another thing I'd like to point out are the rich set of characters he has in the story. Each one of them as developed and realized, showing that he has put as much time in creating the characters as he does the puzzles. Robert Langdon is definitely a character I'd like to see again (that's where "Angels & Demons" comes in).

I suppose I should at least address the Catholic controversy that surrounds this novel. Yes, there is a significant social commentary about the Church and particularly the organization Opus Dei (which I didn't know actually exists). I'd like to point out that being a Catholic myself, I did not find the material offensive at all, especially since it all boils down to the individual's actions and not the organization / religion itself. Besides the story is fictional, with a lot of speculation.

Part of the reasoning as to why I was able to get myself to read this novel, is because of the upcoming movie adaptation. When reading the novel, I was actually able to picture the actors/actresses as the characters already, which I thought gave it a little bit of a boost to my imagination. I'm really looking forward to the movie, as well as to Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou as the main characters. I'm a bit concerned that Akiva Goldsman wrote the adaptation though, as he did a lot of subpar work in his past screenplays. Hopefully Ron Howard as director will still be able to pull off a great film.

"The Da Vinci Code" deserves all the hype it's been getting this past three years now. I definitely recommend it.

Movies I've recently seen...

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)  B-

This was another beautiful movie to watch, both in the cast of actors
and the reproduction of a Japanese city. The story itself is rather
your standard drama that isn't so far off from a Cinderella story, that
kinda makes the movie more or less a "chick flick" (for a story written
by a western man). I'd like to also say that the main romantic story is a
little on the far fetched side. With a rich cast of Asian actors /
actresses, I found some of their accents thick enough that I actually
wished for closed captioning. I should also mention that a good
significant chunk of the story focused on the young Chiyo (wonderfully
acted by Suzuka Ohgo), that it made me question how much screen time Ziyi Zhang (later named Sayuri)
would be getting at the end. So while Memoirs of a Geisha isn't exactly
perfect, I found the story engaging enough to be captivated until the
end. I'm a little disappointed though that while this is about a
Geisha's life, I felt that I
didn't learn too much about the intricacies of what a Geisha really is.
Besides, Ziyi Zhang is still one of the most beautiful actresses I've
ever seen on film.

The Matador (2005)  A

This is a great and quirky story, about a lonely assassin who befriends
a businessman who is losing hope. From the dialogue and some neat plot
points, this movie kept me grinning all the way through. Pierce Brosnan
is exceptionally good in his role as Julian Noble, who seems very happy
go lucky for an assassin, until he starts having an emotional crisis
when he realizes that he has no friends. Greg Kinnear
is a down on his luck businessman who finds some excitement in meeting
a hitman, but would rather not get involved in that business. Ofcourse
when watching this film, you first have to believe that an assassin can
be a
nice guy, or that a suburbanites can be friendly to a man who kills
for a living. The movie however doesn't try to be anymore important
than what it really is though, a movie about friendship. As unlikely as
the friendship between the two is, it's enjoyable to see how different
they are from each other. At the same time though, you understand how
they are there to help each other. If this is the kind of movie and
role that
Pierce Brosnan is going to be getting after his stint as James Bond,
then I support him wholeheartedly. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing
another movie about his character here.
*this film has been added to my top 20 films of 2005*

B.Y.O. Random B.

basketball maniac (video)

even prostitutes call for a ban on Grand Theft Auto game (link)

Transformer robot! (video)

haunted places in the United States (link)

dating a hypnotist (video)

pretty pretty bang bang (game)

cute cat watching cats (video)

optical illusion collection (link)

wierd facial musical ditty (video)

leave the chihuahua to his toy humping (video)

tactical assassin (game)

zombie bashing fun (video)

For roughly seven months now, I've been ignoring the use of instant messaging (AIM, ICQ) and have opted to just not participate in it. Well, just yesterday I went ahead and installed Trillian; which is a software that supports multiple instant messaging clients at one time, it's the one I've been using before. So there you go folks, I'm back on instant messaging. You can chat with me on AIM, or leave instant messages using my ICQ account.

Sadly enough though, when I finally finished installing Trillian, I instant messaged three of my friends on it, and they didn't even respond in the span of ten minutes.