The Demo Site

Battle Royale, the ultra-violent 2000 Japanese film, is about a busload of high school students who are brought to a deserted island where they must kill each other until one remains standing.

Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, released in 2008, borrows heavily upon this premise. A post-apocalyptic country, divided into 12 districts, holds a televised annual game where the last person standing is declared the victor.

Twenty-four representatives or 'tributes' play the game. Two are chosen from each district, one for each sex. As soon as the candidates are selected, they are whisked off to the city capital called The Capitol, where they are groomed, trained in survival skills, and presented to the live audience and the entire nation.

The whole spectacle reminds me a bit of the Olympics where athletes representing each country parade during the lavish opening ceremonies. Unlike the Olympics, the games played by these 24 chosen ones are literally deadlY.

Once they are brought to the arena, A The-Truman-Show-like dome comes to mind where the organizers can manipulate the weather and the environment, all hell breaks loose. The 24 fight to the death to survive.

The novel, the first in a trilogy, focuses on District 12 who has not won the games for over 30 years. It is narrated in the first person by 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who is the exact opposite of that girl Isabella created by Stephenie Meyer who writes like a high school student. While Collins' Katniss is all spunky and fiery with a touch of vulnerability (Julia Stiles comes to mind), Meyer's Bella is just plain pathetic, clumsy, and faint-hearted.

The book is a great read, having been designated Editor's Choice by The New York Times and The New York Times Notable Book which is a sure sign that the book is worth spending a few hundred pesos on. There is calculated manipulation, a little bit of romance and heartbreak and angst, and a lot of heart-stopping action.

I'm pretty sure this won't get to be as popular as the Twilight series since it does not have a male protagonist who sparkle like diamonds. But I tell you, this book is miles better and more wonderfully written with a kick-ass ending.

This week has been a test of patience.

It started over the weekend when the new 500Gb hard drive I bought crashed a day after I mounted it on EFA. All my files died with it. The good thing was I have backup drives where I backup my digital copies of movies, TV series, mp3s, personal videos, and photos. I spent most of Sunday and Monday getting a new second hard drive, requesting for a replacement for the crashed drive, installing the OS and other applications, transferring and organizing files from the backup drive, and downloading software updates. I was frustrated I wanted to metamorphose as Hellboy (credit goes to a former teammate who said I transform into Hellboy when I get mad/embarrassed) and pick a fight with anyone to vent out my anger.

Sunday tennis was frustrating too. I can’t get in the groove of hitting the balls inside the court. I lost all of my singles matches. On top of it, our trainer seems to see every flaw on the way I play – from the way I grip the racket to how I volley to how I bend my knees when I hit the ball. I don’t really get it since my friends hit the ball the same way I do and they don’t get called for it.

Then there’s work which is not getting any better. My lead, who is based on India, does not respond to any of my emails unless I remind him via email or instant message which should really not be the case. Request for new software installation takes ages to get approved. Tickets (Issues) assigned to me are written in Finnish. The internet connection speed sucks. And my office crush went AWOL.

Tomorrow marks my 6th day of hell on earth. It sucks.

I was feeling nationalistic over the weekend. So in between shipping my desktop to my hometown and hoarding DVDs in Quiapo and chatting with a good friend over office romance and a 5-hour tennis training I was able to squeeze in three Filipino movies on my tight schedule.

I saw Marian Rivera dance out of a cake in My Best Friend's Girlfriend. This movie proved that Richard Gutierrez can't act and that Rivera is a sight to behold and that Star Cinema makes way better romantic comedies than Regal and GMA Films combined.

I then shifted to Ded Na si Lolo, our official entry to this year's Oscars . The movie about five siblings coming to terms with their father's death is inconsistent, loophole-filled, directionless, and at times hilarious. It is no Departures or Cinema Paradiso or The Lives of Others or Pan's Labyrinth and has absolutely zero chance of getting nominated.

The last film that I saw and hands down the best among the three is Richard Somes' Yanggaw, official entry to last year's Cinema One Originals festival. I dare say it is the best suspense/horror local film I have seen in years. It tells the story of Amor who returns home to her impoverished family in the province after she is turned into an aswang. Cheap scare tactics take a backseat in the film and focuses more on the ties that bind a Filipino family.

Go get yourself a copy of Yanggaw. For the other two movies, you can wait for them to be shown on free TV.

The year is 2008. The Olympics in Beijing is in full swing. It has been the topic for days in your household and in your workplace. You were enthralled over the possibility of Michael Phelps beating the record of Mark Spitz.

The year is 2008. It is morning and you just had sex. You lay spent on the bed. A few minutes later you grab the remote and turn on the television. The Olympics is being shown. Suddenly the person beside you asks why the Olympics is being shown on TV.

Your face registers a bewildered look. Just the night before both of you had watched the swimming competition. You ask more questions. The blood drains from your face. Your partner does not remember anything except your name.

What triggered the amnesia? Was the sex that great? Or was the sex that forgettable? Find out here.

Women have their chick flicks and their romantic comedies. Men have films from other genre – porn, action, war, science fiction, and buddy flicks aka bromance films.

This list contains my favorite films on friendships forged among men. Most of the films in this list do not have neat endings.

Here then is the list of my favorite buddy flicks.


1. The Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darabont has adapted three of Stephen King's writings – The Shawshank Redemption in 1994, The Green Mile in 1999, and The Mist in 2007 – to the big screen and all of them had favorable reviews. His first attempt in 1994, the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption which was included in his 1982 book Different Seasons, is his best. The film is about a friendship between two men who meet in prison and how they help each other survive and make something good our of prison life.

2. Good Will Hunting. This 1997 film from Gus Van Sant is said to be his most commercial film to date which is about Will Hunting who is intellectually-gifted but wastes away his skills by getting into fights and working as a janitor in MIT. I first saw this movie in college and I had thought it was the best-written film I had seen about male bonding. It has been more than a decade since and it still is the best twenty-something-male-bonding film out there.




3. Rain Man. Tom Cruise stars as a hotshot car dealer in Los Angeles who discovers that he has an autistic brother played by Dustin Hoffman upon his father’s death. Incensed, he embarks on a cross-country trip from Ohio to California with his brother to get his fare share of the inheritance but discovers along the way that he genuinely cares for his brother. This film won Oscars for Best Film, Best Director for Barry Levingson, and Best Actor for Hoffman. It also won the top prize that year in Berlin .




4. Sideways. A divorced guy and his college roommate go on a road trip through vineyard-populated Santa Ynez Valley in California , meeting two women – a waitress and a winery employee. The script is astoundingly good and delivered with such panache by its stars Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church , Sandra Oh, and Virginia Madsen. That dialogue between Giamatti and Madsen where the latter compares wine and relationships is one of the best I’ve seen in film.




5. Dead Poet's Society. Carpe diem. This is probably the most famous line in this sad but inspiring film about the friendship forged between an English teacher and his male boarding school students. Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke star in this film directed by Peter Weir, who directed the little-known Harrison Ford film Witness and the terrific The Truman Show.





6. Stand By Me. Based on the novella by Stephen King, this 1986 coming-of-age film is about a group of boys who go in search for a missing boy who was reportedy hit by a train while picking up blueberries. I saw this film in my early teens and to this day the boys’ adventures reminded me of the summer days with my brother and friends going on bike trips, skinny dipping, and climbing trees to pick cashew seeds and cooking them.




7. The Motorcycle Diaries. Gael Garcia Bernal star in this film about Ernesto Guevara de la Serna who, along with a good friend, embarks on a road trip across South America. What he witnesses – oppression and poverty - on his nine-month journey transforms how he sees the world as a carefree young man. It is said that his trip across the continent fueled and inspired his motives as Che Guevara, the Argentinean revolutionary.





8. Colorum. One of the better entries in this year's Cinemalaya, this Jon Steffan Ballesteros film is the story between a cop and an ex-convict who embark on a Manila-Bicol-Samar-Bicol-Manila-Ilocos Norte-Manila road trip after they get into a tragic road mishap. Alfred Vargas is surprisingly good but comedian and theatre actor Lou Veloso owns the film. His Best Actor win was well-deserved.



9. American Pie. This maybe a surprising choice but I had a grand time watching this movie about a group of teenage boys who plan to lose their virginity before graduating from high school. The scenes were freaking hilarious and gross. Remember the scene with Nadia and the webcam? Jim getting caught while doing the deed with a pie? Alyson Hannigan with her ‘one time at band camp’ line? Stifler accidentally drinking on a cup which he thinks contains beer? Stifler’s mother?



10. Pare Ko. Jose Javier Reyes' 1995 movie is about a group of friends battling personal problems - family, love, and heartbreak. I saw this film in my mid teens and was just blown away by it. I know this is not a perfect film. I would probably dismiss it as crap when released today but back then I thought this film was perfect.

But that love has gone to semi-hatred in a span of five months. I almost hate my job. I don’t like going to work. It has become a chore, a hassle. I don't like it that no production issues or requests are coming in that I could sink my teeth into. I don't like it that forums and vendor sites related to my job are either blocked or access is limited. I don’t like sitting on my ass for nine hours with not much to do but watching out for breaking news on www.inquirer.net, staring at MS Outlook, or discreetly watching The X-Files on my Ipod.

Friends have told me that I must be the luckiest guy in the world. I get paid to sit and surf the internet and write blog drafts. I tell them having idle time for once or twice in a month is good. But for 4 months and counting?

My brain cells are stagnant. They’re asleep. They need to be woken up and do some serious exercise.


I thrive on teamwork. On quick lunch outs. On small non-work-related chats within an 8-hour shift.

Now, how do I survive on a team who are on war with each other? Where One gives Another the cold shoulder because Another earns more than the One? Where the boss does not try to defend his subordinates in times of head-butting with upper management? Where the boss is meek and assertiveness is an alien word? Where, in short, the boss has absolutely no leadership skills?

Working on a team such as this one sucks the life out of me. Signing in on to this job was a mistake.

The rough ride ended when we reached a makeshift shed with the blue-colored sea beyond it. I could see on the far right, obscured by some trees, a majestic white rock formation. After a 15-20 minute ride, Kapurpurawan was now only a short walk away.






















We then made our way down a flight of steps and through a short trail that led to a wide stretch of land. It was like I had stepped into J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The place was part Shire, part Mordor. I half-expected Gollum to jump out of the puddle of water demanding for his beloved precious.






















The ground we were standing on was made up of corals. The whole beach was practically covered with these dead marine organisms. The place most probably was submerged in seawater many years ago and a natural phenomenon could have caused the water to recede.






















When we reached the rock formation, which was hundreds of meters from where we parked, the group who came before us we were leaving. We had the place to ourselves. We took advantage of the opportunity. We took photos. We took videos. We climbed on top of ledges where we could stand, take photos of the place, and have our photos taken.






















I stared and took photos of the creases, curves, and black stains that lined the floors and walls. The floor looked like a river of water had passed through it for years, eating up the rock, and producing an intricate design.





























In between shots I continued to marvel at the place, wondering how many years it could have taken nature to carve something extraordinary out of a big mountain of rock. I wondered who could have first discovered the place, it being so far from the highway and with no obvious human inhabitants in sight.

Do these receivers not realize that two simple words can make the giver deliriously happy? That the time, energy, and effort spent to provide this and that were not done in vain? That the giver does not care if no material gratification is received? That what giver cares is an acknowledgment of the sacrifice no matter how small it was.

Is it really that hard?

The giver does not understand. The giver shows his appreciation all the time. The giver says THANK YOU to the guard who opens the door for him. To the lady who prepares his lunch. To the woman who does his laundry. To the cashier who hands him his change. To the baggage boy who bags his groceries. To the woman who expertly massages his body each month.

THANK YOU is a phrase the giver uses more than once in a day. The giver believes the phrase can never be overused. It must be spoken to those who deserve to hear it.

A couple of weeks back I was contemplating shelling out P700++ for a hardbound copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol at a local bookstore when a shelf filled with familiar blue-colored books caught my eye. Hardy Boys. I grinned. It has been years since The Hardy Boys crossed my mind.

I strode to the shelf, grabbed a copy, and checked the back cover to see how much these books cost these days. These books, which cost around P50-P80 in the late 80s and early 90s, now cost P185 each.

I guess I was lucky books were not as expensive back when I was about 9 or 10 when I first discovered The Hard Boys, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, Choose Your Own Adventure, and Christopher Pike novels.

Our school library encouraged reading and one of the ways they devised was to post on the bulletin board at the end of each month a list of students who had borrowed the most. I remember borrowing as many books as our librarian would permit to get my name on that much-coveted list. In retrospect, those years spent chasing the Bookworm of the Month title was my informal training on speed reading.

Those years were also the the advent of my fixation on books. I would save part of my daily allowance to raise the funds to buy myself the latest Hardy Boys paperback edition. Hardbound editions were not a priority since a couple of classmates, who owned pretty much every title in the series, lent me their collection.

I think I amassed a few dozens of these books up until the age of 13 when I outgrew them. I remember many years ago removing all my Hardy Boys collection from my bookshelf, replacing them with books from Grisham, Rice, Crichton, King, Irving, Rowling, Updike, Chabon and more recently from McEwan and Murakami.

I stacked my Hardy Boys in a cardboard box and kept locked inside my cabinet with no plans of selling them at a bargain. Who knows maybe my future kids would also want to go on numerous adventures with Frank and Joe the way their dad did.