on the fountain and metaphysical trips (into overtime)

I tried to watch this while answering emails, which made it truly difficult to watch. Aside from the metaphysical eklavu meanderings, there were moments of fine acting, visuals that had you traversing the middle of a nebula, and a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo. Hugh Jackman plays conquistador to Rachel Weisz's queen (Izzi-bella haha), (mad) scientist searching for a cure for his wife's (Weisz again) cancer, and then he becomes a bald astronaut zipping around in space.

Ahh, Darren Aronofsky. I think I see what you wanted to do. It's an ambitious project, and you succeeded in some level, although the edges could have been tied more securely, and some of the mythos handled more succinctly. It is a treatise about death, and time, and savoring the moment, and inevitability.

Comparisons have been made to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Monolith vs. Tree of Life, eh?

More arthouse than mainstream, The Fountain is a visual feast that is a little hard to digest, and then, somewhere around the hour-mark, becomes quite tiring, even the beautiful non-CGI imagery (which were apparently macro views of items like bacteria culture). Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz (so lovingly lit by her director-domestic partner), and Ellen Burstyn were quite wonderful. Aw, you got me, I'm just really a sucker for some good Wolverine lovin'.

-oOo-

The SO's grandmother died last Thursday.

-oOo-

Have to work today! Wow. First time I've had to work on a weekend since starting at production support. Of course, we were no strangers to it during the development phase. What sucks is that I was only dragged included in the project, er, YESTERDAY. Just in time for the overtime today. Oh well. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I just have to be done by around two. Oh, and will take a break at 10am to meet up with y-slaybelle.

-oOo-

On a much livelier note: Bespren M arrives tonight!

they work, you know... and i'm getting old

My glasses work.

I got these as "protection" since GeeksForHire has an allowance for eyeglasses, being an uber-computer-intensive industry and all. I thought I could use them from time to time, as needed, but apparently, I really actually need them everyday--as my eyes get really tired when in front of the PC for hours at a time, but when I'm wearing them, it's not that bad. However, I take that as a bad sign of aging. Hee.

By the way, the picture's not all that bad... it's taken with a three-year-old 6220, imagine that.

-oOo-

Watched Legends of the Fall again earlier, since was on a sick day due to a bad case of the sh*ts. I so love this movie (and Tristaaaan with the bear and all, and a partly-paralyzed Anthony Hopkins/Col Ludlow with a shotgun, ahh brings back fond memories). Reading through the trivia, I can believe 1994-Johnny Depp was offered the role, but it would not have made as much impact (hee) as fafa Brad. With long blond hair and all (hmmmm I seem to have this thing for men with long blond hair... the Nelson twins and Legolas included). Another bit of trivia was that the movie was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for Sean Connery and Tom Cruise. Err. Err talaga.

Last Song Syndrome : Pinoy Ako, Pinoy Tayo, sung by the Slovenian exchange-housemate

sayonara sanjaya

Ah. In a result that for some was weeks overdue, Sanjaya Malakar is out of the running for this season's American Idol crown. Sorry, Fanjayas.

And news for me, I now have a favorite: Jordin Sparks. I listened to the opening bars of I'm All Right which the Idol contestants sang on today's results show, and it was heavenly (I'm a sucker for "a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll"). So even if Melinda is the odds-on favorite, I'm absolutely loving Jordin, even if I'm not actively watching American Idol this season. Hmmmm. I think maybe now with Sanjaya gone...

Last Song Syndrome : Something to Talk About - lethargically sung by Sanjaya
"Let's give 'em something to talk about... other than HAIR..."

-oOo-

Rest in peace, Virginia Tech victims, especially you, Livio Librescu. May your soul continue to sing.

-oOo-

Got a 50-ml bottle of Tommy Girl from Minnesota Tita. Not bad at all.

lito lapid is within spitting distance of our windows

Perils of the campaign season.
And we are still awake because of this, inane campaign jingles, emotional speeches and all.
I wouldn't vote for someone who purposefully caused my lack of sleep. Seriously.

icon and i will

Taking a break from homework (as in work brought home), the catharsis that is Zuma, and trying to fix the room a little at a time while there is still a lack of furniture--I stumbled upon this icon while surfing around. It's me. Totally.



Last Song Syndrome : Kiss Kiss - Holly Valance <-- only because I saw her on Prison Break

the remains of the drive

Blogging was put on hold for the past few weeks because of so many little things that added up to... well, no blogging.

This is the first:

The laptop hard drive crashed. As in, blue screen of death and all. Irrecoverable errors. The problem was with the drive itself and not the OS (which would have been easier to handle).

Technician at HP could only smile sympathetically and say, "we cannot assure you ma'am that we can recover the data", although they will replace the HDD unit as it was still within warranty. Fortunately.

Am still hoping that the data can be retrieved but I have to brace myself for the possibility that it will be gone. Unfortunately, the last backup was done Jan 1, 2007, so I'm going to have to say goodbye to nice pictures from Pacific Malayan visit, the lisianthus picture that I was so loving and wanted to place on notecards (the version on flickr is low-res), the wedding pictures of Mandy+Allan, Julius+Erica, and Pam+Jonathan (aaarggh--I was pretty in these pictures!!! especially the Julius+Erica)... Also gone would be Dallas v2's baby pics, Zeester#1's Palawan trip (aaaarrgh, so many nice pictures there!), and all the scrapbook kits that I downloaded from Jan 1 to the present which I wasn't able to back up yet. Some of them I had to watch for everyday! And for them to be gone, in a wink.

One of the pictures whose high-res copy I am bound to lose:


It's like the past three months have just been erased, just like that. I feel like crying but I can't.

Sigh.

The tragedy of it all was that I was indeed scheduled to do a backup (at least of all pics and scrap-related stuff) around mid-March.

I was not able to backup because lately I've been focused on putting up the wireless network (which is temporarily useless now that the laptop is out of commission) and resurrecting the Duron, which Donnell was able to do, bless his soul and his alternate life as a computer technician...

Since the Duron was resurrected last weekend, I was planning to transfer all my files to the Duron hard drive, which, IMHO, would be more stable, and easier to retrieve. Unfortunately, Nins was so busy the past few days and our schedules didn't work out, so I was not able to reserve a chunk of time to copy the files. Besides, the long weekend was coming, and I would have all the time in the world...

And then, horror of horrors, the blue screen of death descended upon us. Sigh. I want to turn back the hands of time (Superman? Flash?) and just pull an all-nighter to copy everything. Alas, I do not live in the DC universe. Neither the Marvel one.

And so, a lesson learned: Always backup, don't wait until you can do a one-time backup that would fill one CD because you never know. I waited until the pictures could fill up one CD. So wrong. Of course you can append files to CDs.

It's the same with life, right? Don't wait to do things that will make you happy because you never know. Hee. Tama ba namang haluan ng metaphysical eklavu.

Sigh.

-oOo-

Because I was feeling tremendously down when I left HP, I treated myself to a Razon's halo-halo, which is just across the street from HP's service center along Jupiter. This was the first time I had a Razon's halo-halo. It was absolutely divine, I tell you, divine.

Doesn't make up for a crashed hard drive, but it was a wonderful picker-upper.


Last Song Syndrome : Jumper - Third Eye Blind