~* ON A SHALLOWER NOTE *~

* updated!

I went on a {vanity} panic last week. As usual, I was looking at my face on my little purple mirror by my office desk (my former guy officemate used to ask me: "Must you have a mirror on your desk?" Oh yes I MUST. I am a mirror-glancer, if you know what I mean. ) ... and good gahd, I could not deny seeing fine lines on my eye area! *gasp* I am getting old. I immediately texted my mom and my friends and asked them what eye cream they are using. Surprisingly, my friends are not even moisturizing! Anyway, after choosing among Clinique's All About Eyes, Body Shop's Vitamin E Eye Cream, Squibb Vitamin E cream and Pond's Early Defense system, I decided to grab a jar of Squibb Vit. E cream from Mercury Drug. It's cheaper than the rest and I was not in the mood to splurge on something like eye cream (coz I'm planning to buy another Naturalizer shoes... I'm just waiting to find a nice style on their racks). {I couldn't resist. I went to Rustan's last week to get a jar of Clinique's All About Eyes.} I am intrigued though by the Ponds product coz the commercial precisely addresses my concerns. I haven't read any reviews about it though so I wonder if it's any good...

Anyway, I think the panic about seeing fine lines on my eye area was compounded by the fact that I just discovered a partially white strand of hair as I was combing my hair at the office rest room that same morning. Basically it was just about 2 inches of white from the roots while the rest of the strand was my usual black hair. Strange. It was the first time I ever saw white hair on my head. Well at least it was not an ENTIRELY white strand of hair. It was probably some sort of freak of nature. Whatever.

Oh hey. I finally did some actual exercise yesterday! I'm so proud of myself! I got my butt off the bed at 5:15 AM and joined my mom & dad for their usual 5:45AM walk at that open road area in Southwoods where lots of people usually walk/jog/bike/play badminton. We walked for about an hour and then went home. Got on my Ab-Lounge which hasn't been used for months. Did about 60 sit-ups on it. Woopdeedoo. I finally exercised!

I plan to go back to my derma soon. My face looks like sh*t with all those little annoying zits. Probably due to late nights watching Seinfeld at 11PM.

I plan to get a foot spa/pedicure again from our friendy neighborhood salon. done!

I plan to get a hair cut again just to avoid those annoying split-ends. done!

I plan to get a stone massage or some kick-ass massage from the spa one of these days. Heck, I may even redeem such reward from my Citibank Rewards. I think I have earned more than enough points for a spa thingie.

Oh, I just bough this nice pair of jeans from Goldcrest last Friday. It fits sooo nicely! It's low-rise but they cut the back waist/butt area a bit higher than the front so that you won't get a ridiculous butt cleavage exposure when you sit down. Bad trip though coz I had to pay for it in cash... which sets me back to almost being broke and un"liquid" this week. Oh but payday's coming soon anyway... Hurray for moolah!

So there. 'Had to post something terribly mundane to shake off the sad vibe my previous post created.

Oh by the way, I am reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. I am just on page 5 and it's actually boring me to death. If it weren't for the Lake House mention, I would have put it down by page 2. Oh well. I'll read some more soon. It may redeem itself after all.

~* ON EMO-MODE *~

'Just came home from watching The Lake House in Greenbelt. Hmm. I still like Il Mare better. I think what lacked in The Lake House was the emotional connection that the two characters had in the course of their letter-writing. Il Mare focused mainly on building up the relationship as they discussed stuff about life & love. I did not see how the two grew to love each other in The Lake House. Their "bonding" was so much deeper in Il Mare. However, it's nice that The Lake House also expounded on the father-son relationship. They made creative variations to the story but {WARNING: SPOILERS!} I wish they did not change the reason why Keanu's character died. The story behind why the guy died in Il Mare was much more emotionally-wrenching. And the blink-of-an-eye montage shots (whatever you call that technique) during the flashback in Il Mare was more emotionally affecting. The 'wine glass breaking/guy tragically dying' frame shots played on one's senses more. Nevertheless, there are two scenes from The Lake House which I loved: the scene wherein Keanu & Sandra were dancing/later kissing and the closing scene when they FINALLY "really" meet at the lake house by the mail box... 'loved the golden color of the scene there. Overall, I like the cinematography of Il Mare better -- how they showed the beach house against the sunset was just beautiful. On the other hand, the lake house was more of a glass house which looked elegant on some shots but frankly, my first impression when I saw it on the first few shots was Sleepy Hollow-ish. Must be due to the leafless winter trees. And hands down, the Il Mare mail box was so much nicer with that intricate design and all.

Anyway, The Lake House made me wanna buy Jane Austen's Persuasion. The way Sandra Bullock's character described the book made me think that it was just my type of read. By the way, it's out of stock at Powerbooks. Damn.

~oO0Oo~

"I am happy for the happiness ahead of me."

That's from Ally Mc Beal.

I wonder if it's possible for me to do that. I keep trying. But I am just not that sold with the idea. Coz I keep thinking: what if I am counting my chickens before the eggs have hatched? I think with all the crapdom I have been uhh blessed (?) to have experienced, suffice it to say that the lesson I have learned from all of them are the same: Don't go banking on great expectations. Don't go dreaming up those grand pictures of perfect bliss. Coz with great expectations comes great disappointments. 'nuff said.

~oO0Oo~

Just got reminded of this entry I wrote in my diary (yes, I still keep a real-life diary coz I miss literally writing down my thoughts sometimes) last MAY 29, 2006. I remember suddenly getting this thought when I was praying the Act of Contrition during mass:

I think I no longer fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. What is this
anyway? Is it not that I have already lost my heaven and I'm mourning in pain in
my own little hell?

Eww. That's probably the most emo thing I've ever written. Good gahd.

~oO0Oo~

I came across this presumably old episode of Oprah on hmm, Studio 23, I think. Her guest was James Blunt. He sang "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover". Both songs were about his ex pala. Oprah kidded him and she wondered what James' ex would have said once she realized all those songs were about her. His last words were "she didn't mean that much to me really" with a sheepish smile and sad eyes. Aww.

And aww. Just watching James Blunt's live performance almost got me teary-eyed. I swear, his blue eyes were almost brimming with tears after he finished singing "Goodbye My Lover". I thought he was gonna cry right after taking a bow.

I loved You're Beautiful after hearing it a few times on the radio last year. I was initially a bit irritated with his ridiculously high pitch during the chorus but after a while, the song grew on me. I found the song so -- uhh, for lack of any other word-- beautiful.

As for Goodbye My Lover, I first heard & saw it on MTV. (Never saw the vid again after that. dang.) I instantly liked it and made a mad scramble to download it on Bearshare. Anyway, here's its very poignant lyrics if you're curious. Bring out your Kleenex.

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart, you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bare my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.

I might as well have colored everything in aqua huh. Love is blind and that I knew when my heart was blinded by you. I still hold your hand in mine when I'm asleep. I'm so hollow. Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend. You have been the one. You have been The One for me.

*Triple sigh.*

~oO0Oo~

I think I'm all emo coz I just attended a wedding yesterday. Don't you just almost cry too when you see the bride crying tears of joy as she walks down the aisle and when the groom cries too as he gives his speech during the reception?

Ahhh. There probably exists some kind of intense pure love out there that makes you cry your heart out in a good way. Wouldn't that be wonderful to have? Oh the almost impossible things we pine for...

*Sigh*

~oO0Oo~

Same frame of mind last Jan 2005. Mushy as ever. I am disappointed that I couldn't get to download Whistle's version of Right Next to Me. Instead, I am stuck with an R&B-inspired remake by Jed Madela. I wish he just stuck to the original melody of the song. The R&B flavor made it less hmm touching. Oh but I have Blaque's version. Nice but I sooo wanna have the original version of the song. It's just so scarce in Bearshare :(

~oO0Oo~

Wow. So half of the Moffats are alive. The twins are called Same Same. I actually like their first single "Love Isn't" Typical pop boyband mush.

Love isn't always as you see it
Love isn't always as you dream it should be
Love isn't always gonna find you

~oO0Oo~

It's 1AM. Why is it that when I'm all emo, I can't sleep? Dang. I sooo wanna sleep this off.

Another good song I like hearing nowadays:

Have you ever thought of nothing else?
As I wake up each day until the moment I lay my head on my bed
And as I close my eyes and cling to my pillow
Though you're miles away I still wait for the day that would never come

And I don't wanna wake up
Without you again, without you again, without you again
And I don't wanna wake up
Feeling so close, close to the end, close to the end... close to the end.

The stars are bound to die
It all makes no sense
I can't take the chance
I don't want to see you go, see you go...

~ Close to the End by Mojofly

~* BACKSLIDING *~

"Starting over is hard. Starting over again is even harder. Backsliding stops your progress right in its tracks and sends you reeling back into the hellish pit of pain that you've been trying to claw your way out of. It's like reopening a wound that had already started to heal."

~ It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken, Greg & Amiira Behrendt

Sometimes I think eating crumbs {yes. good gahd. we are back on the subject of crumbs...} are better than nothing.

But no backsliding. No backsliding...

~* IL MARE *~

"We're tormented because love goes on, not because it goes away." ~ Il Mare

Okay, I don't really watch Korean movies but this one I really sought out coz I heard it's the movie which "The Lake House" {Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves} was based on. The Lake House will be opening in theaters this week so it was ideal that I see "Il Mare" first before seeing the Hollywood flick. I love the cinematography of Il Mare. The shots of the beach house against the purple/deep blue/orange dusk sky is just breathtaking. I liked the movie. I hope the Hollywood remake will be just as nice...

~* NOW PLAYING: Much Has Been Said by Bamboo *~

Much has been said
Said you’d never leave
Why’d it have to be harder than it had to be
Don’t you throw blame
You were part of this
Wasn’t supposed to end with us just walking away
So many times we tried
Holding on to the pain but in my baby’s eyes I see my shame
Asking why you had to leave
Wasn’t I strong enough to make you see
That the biggest part of this it’s not about you or me
But it'd just be wrong if we held on

So maybe tomorrow we’ll find
A taste for the old days

Hard lessons we’ve left behind

This mirror’s an open door
I can barely stand to see myself
I don’t know what to do anymore
I’m crying out for help
Ohh Lord

Much has been said
Will I never learn
Keeping my fingers crossed
Praying for my luck to turn
But I can’t complain
I’m living it easy
Job's keeping me busy

I'm going crazy
Can’t describe the way it felt
When you left and said your goodbyes
It just seems crazy for me to think
That I’ll find love a second time
But we all know how it all wraps up in the end

What am I leaving behind
Sweet how we see the big picture when your life’s not on the line
I know the way out but do you see what I see
A tortured life always second-guessing the bookie
Put money on table thought that I was all I had to do
Never came home
Never said a word to you
No one ever said it was going to be easy

Easy

Start over again

This time, this time let’s do it right
Start over again

This time, this time let’s keep the fire burning

You say I only hear what I want to

You say I talk so all the time

~* THE SOUL PATROL WINS! *~

Woohoo! Taylor Hicks won!!!


I NEVER watched American Idol until this season. I only started to catch the latter part of the auditions (I think I started with the Texas audition...). Taylor has been my favorite since I saw him during the auditions so I'm really happy he won! :) He has such a warm aura... he just lights up the room everytime he sings, plays the harmonica and does that crazy pseudo-epileptic dance! I swear he sounds like one of those singers from yester-years (I dunno if it's Boz Scaggs or someone else...). His ashy hair reminds me of George Clooney.

Anyway, I also liked Chris Daughtry and Elliott Yamin. Good thing that Katharine didn't win... I don't really like her. I know she's really pretty and sexy but her only performance that wowed me was her Somewhere Over The Rainbow number (which was probably a fluke!).

~* MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING *~

I've read Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code a long time ago. In some instances, my memory muddles the details from the two books that I am confused whether the detail came from A&D or TDVC. I wish I've re-read The Da Vinci Code in time for the movie... but anyway, I tried very hard to recall the pertinent details so I could compare it to the movie. It's fun to check whether they have faithfully adopted the book or not. Well, apparently not. The "big reveal" at the ending sucks. Where the heck did the "Sophie-has-a-brother-living-with-grandma" detail go?!?

As expected, with all the hype and MTRCB's super late screening of the movie (if I'm not mistaken, they only screened the movie last Tues. to determine its rating), it was hard to get movie tickets for it. As I overheard from someone at Starbucks, he described Powerplant as "parang Mordor [ang pila] dun!". Yeah, people got way too excited to see the movie... what with all the controversy and debate all over the place. Trust that people will go out of their way to do/see something when an authority explicitly prohibits or violently objects doing so. It's fun to break the rules. And it's like morbid curiosity over a road accident. The usi's (usiseros) can't help but slow down and look.

Anyway, I think the Pinoys are overreacting. I-ban ba daw sa Manila?!? What the?!? What's the big deal? So why didn't they ban the Dan Brown book in the bookstores in the first place? Why are they just zeroing in on the movie? I don't recall them spending this much thought and energy over the book when it was sold here in the Philippines years ago! Anyway, I thought of an answer to my own question: I guess it's coz the wide reach/accessibility of the movie was deemed far more threatening than the thick book sitting on the shelves of Powerbooks. The common tao/masa crowd is more likely to watch The Da Vinci Code than read it. Heck, some of them may not even know how to read in the first place! And probably, they are not the fancy page-flipping type who goes to Powerbooks.

I think all the hullabaloo of the anti-Da Vinci Code camp just did Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures more good than bad. And the SM theater group probably feel "sayang" that they couldn't cash in on the insane popularity of the movie coz it was rated R-18 by the MTRCB.

Anyway, going back to my movie experience... First of all, by noontime, we only managed to get tickets to the 10:20pm screening last Fri. And we only managed to get seats at the 2nd row of Promenade. Very 'dizzy up the girl' kind of arrangement. We had premium seats to Tom Hank's bad hair day and receding hairline. Great.

Anyway, having read the book, I couldn't help but compare...

{Am I still obliged to say "WARNING: MOVIE SPOILERS" when I'm almost sure that half of you who's reading this movie review now have already read the Dan Brown novel?}

1. In the book, a photo of Sauniere's corpse was faxed to Langdon. I remember somebody calling him up and waking him up in the middle of the night. To catch his attention, they faxed the symbol-laden dead body of the museum curator to him. In the movie, they showed the photo to Langdon right in the middle of his book signing. That's right, police guys -- Never mind the book fans who might see the shocking gory photo of a crime scene!
2. Hey, didn't Robert and Sophie actually go to a library? I remember descriptions of the old librarian and the search strings in the library's computer/search engine. In the movie, they were suddenly WAP-enabled inside the bus. 'Lang ya... shortcut! Blehhh!
3. I vaguely recall that there were so much clues that unfolded in the book. In the movie, it was just,"voila!" The next thing you know, they're already in Isaac Newton's grave.
4. There were two cryptexes (is that the proper plural form?) in the book. There was a cryptex within the cryptex.
5. And I vividly remember that Langdon was able to figure out the answer to the cryptex coz he looked out the window and saw the apple trees nearby (or remembered seeing the apple trees outside... something to that effect). There was not a single open window in the movie scene, just those tinted cathedral windows.
6. Isn't Teabing supposed to be pudgy? I was thinking of a Danny De Vito body type when I was reading the book. But anyway, Ian McKellen rocks. Surprisingly, I did not see visions of Gandalf in his scenes. He's really good then!
7. Paul Bettany as Silas worked. I even cringed at the self-flagellation scene... very reminiscent of the cringe-worthy scenes in The Passion of Christ.
8. Bishop Aringarosa... hmm, I kept imagining and half-expecting octopus tentacles coming out of his bishop robes! He's still Doc Ock to me.
9. Tom Hanks' bad hair day and shining forehead was pretty much entertaining but when I was reading the book, I was imagining Robert Redford or perhaps Harrison Ford as Robert Langdon. As one site mentioned, Ralph Fiennes would have been a more appropriate Langdon... and I agree.
10. The police's discovery of the tracking devices/gadgets/thingiemajigs aboveTeabing's garage or shack (or was it a barn?) was not in the movie.
11. I don't recall the book saying that Sauniere was NOT Sophie's grandpa.
12. And arggghhh, why did the movie omit the book detail about Sophie's brother who turned out to be the guy in the Rosslyn Chapel living with her grandma?!? Why, why, why?
13. And why the heck were there lots of people in the Rosslyn Chapel? With the manner they emerged one by one in the chapel, I couldn't help but feel like it was a scene from Village of the Damned. Kulang na lang white-haired and red-eyed silang lahat!
14. Didn't the book end with a bit of a romantic angle between Robertand Sophie? Was it in Da Vinci or Angels & Demons wherein the "leading lady" was in Robert Langdon's hotel room?
15. At least they put in the Rolex detail when the bank manager helped Robert & Sophie escape. I like that little scene!
16. As Tin pointed out, in the book, the bank code that Sophie & Robert decided to use was the scrambled one. The movie used the unscrambled one.
17. At least there was a brief shot of the memorable Mickey Mouse watch of Langdon. I almost thought they were not gonna show it in the movie.
18. Was there ever a DIRECT connection shown between Bezu Fache and Bishop Aringarosa in the book? I can hardly recall... I just remember Langdon noticing the button pin on Fache's coat that implied he was an Opus Dei... Anyway, I like Jean Reno. It's a shame he's only got a few scenes in the movie.
19. What is up with Audrey Tautou pulling a Jesus-walks-on-the-water act? I don't recall Sophie was trying to be THAT corny in the book.
20. At least I liked the dramatic last scene in the Louvre pyramid. ("Beneath the stars she rests...")
21. I recall there was so much more Da Vinci paintings, artwork, church architectures, symbolisms and stuff described and explained in detail in the book. I suppose the movie just couldn't afford to dwell into all of that. Or else it would have been an 8-hour movie. And two and a half hours is ass-numbing enough.
    

So did you like The Da Vince Code movie or not?
To those who've read the book, what else did the movie miss?