Paranormal Activity

I'm never a fan of horror movies but I do get to see one once in a while, just never alone. The other night I got to watch Paranormal Activity and yes I gave in because of all the hype. What I heard was it was filmed much like in the way The Blair Witch Project was made and that film scared me, so I was pretty excited to watch this one. I watched the teaser the other night and I am shamefully admitting that I couldn't sleep with the lights off. Hahaha (so much for that.)

  Paranormal Activity was about a couple who were experiencing strange unexplained activities in their house and decided to document it. They consulted an expert psychic and found out that Katie was haunted vehemently by a demon or a spirit since she was a child. They couldn't leave the house because it just follows her everywhere. So they were pretty much left with the problem on how to exorcise the demon themselves.

The Verdict

Well, I was left a little bit disappointed after watching the movie (and even after watching the alternate ending). Yes the hype made me expect too much. Although it did provide some good scares but none lingered. I have to give a hands down though because all the publicity made the movie such a hit everywhere. Why was I disappointed? Well I noticed too much tiny details that disillusioned me from being wholly scared. I noted several discrepancies with the night counts, the video clock and some from the conversations. I also noticed too much how they were over-acting some scenes especially the one where they were arguing. Mica's fake brave voice when he's taunting the demon also threw me off. They made good use of sound effects though. Timed just good enough to get our hearts racing.

Alternate Endings

Yes the movie had 2 endings. One was the original one and the other was the alternate that they've dubbed the "theatrical" ending. I think I like the original ending better though, the theatrical ending was too predictable for me.

They've started an online petition for the movie to be shown worldwide. You can cast a vote or check out the stats here.

Technorati Tags: paranormal activity,paranormal activity review,paranormal activity online

Happy Halloween

Yesterday while we were at work, the TV suddenly turned on. Me and James exchanged startled looks. I've just watched Paranormal Activity the night before and I was still jumpy. After several minutes of investigating, we discovered that the remote was under his bag and when he got something from it, he must've accidentally put a bit of weight on the remote under it. Hahaha so much for our scare.

Last night was a harrowing night, typhoon Santi passed over the country's capital and the wind blew really hard all night. I kept getting up to check on the dogs. The power was out until after lunch today. Looks like our Halloween this year will be a wet one. I missed out on a lot of parties last night all due to the storm. And now I'm having a movie marathon of scary movies and such. Hahaha Just getting my fill folks.

Happy Halloween!

Technorati Tags: halloween

Google's Halloween Logo

Have you noticed Google's logo today on their homepage?

Click or Treat!

At first I thought this was really boring but after I clicked on it…surprise!

The logo transforms into candies.

Click it one more time and whoopiee!!! more treats.

  One more click…whooops the treats are all gone.

If you click one more time, you’ll be taken to a search page with the search results for “Halloween 2009.” Great huh?

Here’s a look back on some of the Halloween logos by Google throughout the years.

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Halloween Icons

It's October 31 and Halloween is upon us. Here are some prominent symbolisms and icons that never go missing during this holiday.

Jack-O-Lanterns

These carved pumpkins originated from the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, who was doomed to wander the night with only a "lantern" and people had to carve faces into turnips (carving pumpkins didn't originate til 1886) to keep "Jack of the Lantern" away.

Black Cats

They were believed to be able to sense good and evil spirits. They were also believed to be a bridge or connection to the supernatural world. In some countries, black cats are thought to be reincarnations of people.

Witches

During Halloween, the witches are at the peak of their power. The witches are devoted to utilizing and interpreting unseen energies. The halloween witch is usually a hag with a pointy hat and a broom silhouted behind a full moon.

 

 

Bats

Omen of back luck and evil. It was believed that if a bat was in your area, it generally means that spirits are up and about. One superstition held that if a bat flew around a house 3 times on Halloween, there would almost be certainly a death in that household.

 

Technorati Tags: halloween,happy halloween,halloween symbols

Get more with your Globe Tattoo

We've all seen the ads, the commercials and read some of the reviews, but is getting Globe Tattoo Broadband really worth it? Tthe Globe Tattoo Broadband uses a USB stick as a modem so that users can access the Web anywhere, anytime. The surfing speed however varies per area on what type of signal your Tattoo is connected to. Connecting via 3G and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) of course enables you to surf at high speeds.
Tips on using your Globe Tattoo more effectively:

• Check if your area is included in the HSDPA listing. This will save you a lot of frustrations and calling up the customer service from time to time. As a reference of the variable internet speeds depending on the signal, here's a screenshot of the chart from the Globe Tattoo's official site.

• If you're going to be spending several hours just browsing or downloading media, it's better to set your browsing status to Time-based. The setting for all Globe Tattoo SIMS by default is Time-based. You will be charged Php5.00 for 15 minutes.
• If you're just going to quickly check an email or a site, set your browsing status to a "Per-KB" browsing. You will be charged only 15 centavos per kilobyte. To switch from Time-based to Per-KB browsing just text KB to 1111 using your Globe Tattoo SIM.
• To check your default browsing, text STATUS to 1111.

Author's note: In the long run, Time-based charging saves you a lot more than Per-KB browsing because you can download files and media no matter how big they are and you won't be charged for the amount of data that you've just downloaded.

To suit your personality and artistic lifestyle, checkout the Globe Tattoo Broadband New Skins. Each USB stick is graphically designed to appeal to every user type.

If you've got an inspiration or an idea for the design of the USB skins, you can design your own and submit it to the Globe Tattoo Broadband Gallery. Your design will be rated and if your design is good, you will be awarded with Php 5000.00 plus see your design on an actual Globe Tattoo unit.

Seeing Orange and Black

Happy Halloweenie Bench Monday
Originally uploaded by Theresa Thompson

Halloween colors!! Seeing this almost everywhere now since it's only just a few more days til All Hallow's eve. Happy Trick or Treat!

Meet James Jean

James Jean is an award-winning artist and illustrator born in Taiwan and raised in New Jersey. He is well-known for doing the illustrated covers for the comic book series Fables and The Umbrella Academy. For his work, he won six Eisner Awards for "Best Cover Artist".

Register here to get updates for this event.

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Upcoming Fully Booked Events

Watercolor Secrets with Eileen Bondoc-Escueta

When: Every Thursday from November 5 - 26 at 2:00pm to 5:00pm in the afternoon to be held at the Forum, 4th Level Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street

Fee: Php 2500.00 for 4 sessions excluding materials

For inquiries, please call any of the following numbers:

(02) 895 3086 / (0917) 5393107

 

Inkblot: How to write when uninspired

A creative writing workshop to be handled by 3-time Palanca-Award Winning Writer Joachim Antonio

When: Every Saturday from November 7 - 21 at 2:00pm to 5:00pm in the afternoon, 4/F Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street.

Fee: Php 3000.00, for students Php 2,500 only.

For Inquiries, you may email at siningbodega@gmail.com.

Empower your searches

Let's face it, the web is a vast resource of endless databases of information and user-generated inputs and sometimes searching for something that you need is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Here are the search engines I use that I find particularly helpful when doing some internet research and I would like to share them with you.

Zuula

 Zuula is a metasearch engine combining the most popular search engine platforms out there. These are Yahoo, Google and Bing, but it also incorporates search results from smaller search engines like Gigablast and Mojeek. Unlike other metasearch engines, Zuula offers the search results per search engine via tabs and you can just browse through them religiously. It also has an image search, video search and even a blog search. The filters are pretty good and searches are more organized.

Creative Commons

Sometimes I need to post pictures to go with my blog posts or a presentation and when I'm searching sometimes I wouldn't know if the images were copyrighted or not. That's why I use the Creative Commons search engine, so that I can be sure that the images that will result from my search is really available for commercial use. These results can be filtered from Flickr from users who licensed their photos with the creative commons license and from other various photo databases.

InSuggest

This is a recommendation engine which presents results based from user recommendations. They usually offer the searches with thumbnails so that you can have a sneak peek of the results. Web Insuggest is a search of all the relevant websites in relation to the keyword that you've typed into the search box. I find this very useful as well. Images Insuggest presents results mostly from Flickr. Just type in a phrase or keyword and you can easily browse through hundreds of thumbnails, the only drawback is sometimes the photos are not for commercial use. Bookmarks InSuggest crawls most of its results from Del.icio.us bookmarks.

How about you? What search engines do you find most useful to your needs?

Hotel rooms at amazing rates

It's the last week of October and we'll be saying hello to November and December soon. The holiday months are fast approaching and you can really feel the coldness at night that's only prominent during the "ber" months. Most families are all probably planning what's in store for the holidays.

If going out of the country is on your list then it's your lucky day. Starting today October 27 until October 29 the campaign starts for Accor Hotels 3-Day Super Sale Asia Pacific. The 3-day Super Sale encompasses one million hotel rooms offered at amazing rates across the Asia Pacific. If you book online now, you'll get rates for as low as US$30 per night.

The country list include Thailand, Korea, China, Japan, HK, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Fiji, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, Bali. The offers are good for staying over the holidays between December 09 to April 10. Please do remember that different rates apply for each of the participating hotels.

Several hotels are under Accor, these are Sofitel, Novotel, Grand Mercure and Pullman, just to name a few. So if you're looking for a place to stay in overseas, try looking through the site's hotel listing now.

 

Technorati Tags: accor hotels,hotels

Halloween inspired cupcakes

With Halloween just around the corner, I’ve gathered a small collection of cupcakes decorated in their best halloween style. Perfect for little trick-or-treaters.

Technorati Tags: halloween,cupcakes

500 days of summer

I got to see this movie over the weekend and I loved it. I loved the simplicity, the directness and the harsh truths in it. 500 days of summer stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.

The Narration

Technically the story was told through Tom's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) point of view as he recounted his 500 days with Summer (Zooey Deschanel) but it was given a nice retro feel through a narrator. At the very start, we were warned that this wasn't a romantic comedy...and yeah it wasn't.

The Love and the Laughs

I think one of the harsh truths in the movie was that love is not something that is always given back to you or at least not in the form that you expect it to be. The complexities of how a human being feels makes this kind of emotion sometimes such a pain to comprehend. It was hard for Summer to confront the reality of what their relationship was and although we can choose to sympathize with Tom on this, in the end we are told why. The understanding of course can come differently from each point of view and it all depends on how we come to understand love.

The Heartbreak and moving on

We find love and we lose it but there's always a guarantee that we'll find love again, at least that's what an idealist would like to believe. Tom went through a heartbreak phase that most of us who've ever been hurt can easily relate to and this probably scaled down the movie to an emotional level that added to its charm.

Would I watch the movie again? Hell yeah. This is definitely going to my favorite list.

Technorati Tags: 500 days of summer,joseph gordon-levitt,zooey deschanel,movie

Paranormal Activity: Scary Stuff

Ok because we were talking about this over dinner, I got very curious and searched for the trailer in YouTube…bad move. Now I’m too scared to go to bed. This is supposed to be the scariest movie of the year. Watch the trailer for yourself. Me, I can’t bear to watch it alone. Too scary.

HD trailer

Technorati Tags: paranormal activity,indie film

Places I would like to go to

Granted that I have the luxury and the means to just go leave everything behind and just travel and see the world, here's a list of places that I'd want to go to. I've compiled a bunch of pictures from the Lonely Planet website so that I can take you on a somewhat visual tour.

Ireland

Ever since I watched PS I love you, I got so curious with Ireland. All the lush greens featured in the movie, I wanted to see them up close plus I'd want to visit all the old castles.

Italy

I learned a lot about this country's history through its Period Architecture and Interiors, it would be nice to see all those architectural ornamentations and building styles. I'd like to be able to see all the famous landmarks and get lost in all that.

France

Of course I would like to see the famous Louvre Museum and I could just lose a day in it. I hope to someday visit the city of blinding lights with someone special. Paris is so romantic at night.

Greece

Greece is also very rich in history and I've seen just glimpses of it through some pretty famous movies. Aside from the classical temples, I also am very curious how modern Greece has integrated their historical heritage into modern times.

UAE

With all the developments going on that I see and hear all the time, I'd want to see all the innovations that they've done with their cities.

If you were to take a very long vacation, where would you want to go to?

Thousands Protest Global Warming

Thousands Protest Global Warming
Originally uploaded by wstera2

I saw this by chance and although this had humor written all over it, the message is not to be taken lightly. I hope everyone gets to do their part.

Create your own comic

Fancy yourself creating a marvel comic? Well you can do it now online. This was really originally intended for kids but who says adults can’t have fun as well.
First off, you get to choose whether you’d want to create a comic book or a comic strip.
I chose to do a comic strip. After clicking that option, I was brought to the layout dialog. Choose one that you like and this will be the strip layout that you’ll be working on.
Floating windows with the available graphic elements are all provided, you just have to choose one that goes best with your storyline.
After fiddling around for a bit, this is what I came up with.
Want to create your own? Try it for yourself here.

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Battle for Terra

Got invited to the premiere of Battle for Terra just the other day and me along with the other Bloggers and their guests watched it in 3d at the SM Digital Cinema at SM North Edsa. The movie was about how humans and the native Terrans fought for ownership of the planet Terra. The twist with this movie is that the humans are the invaders.

We are introduced to a variety of characters ranging from the peace-loving and yet rebellous Terran named Mala, to the kind-hearted and brave Lt. Jim Stanton and the evil, greedy and scheming General Hemmer. Mala was forced to kindle a friendship with Jim in order for her to save her father who was forcibly taken aboard the human's space station. Terra was a planet capable of creating oxygen that's why the humans chose it to become their next habitat even to the cost of the extinction of the native Terrans.

The characters were voiced by Luke Wilson as Jim Stanton, Evan Rachel Wood as Mala, Brian Cox as Gen. Hemmer, Chris Evans as Stewart Stanton, Justin Long as Senn, James Garner as Doron, Dennis Quaid as Roven and David Cross as Giddy.

While watching the movie, I was eerily reminded of Star Wars. The spaceships were similar and the Terran world was similar as well. The movie was short at 85mins. The story sequences were a bit rushed and key scenes in the story should have been given more emphasis. All in all, the movie had a good plot but it got lost in the way it was executed. 

The Women

I caught this movie while lounging around last Saturday afternoon at home. I must admit that when I first saw the trailers I thought that this movie would put me to sleep but the first 10 mins got me hooked. The characters individually were very endearing and the plot line is something that all women can relate to.

The main story line was about how Meg Ryan's character, Mary Haines, got over her husband's cheating and having an affair. Along the road she found her true calling career wise and re-established a strong connection with her daughter with of course the help of her friends. Her friends of course, provided the wisdom and laughs along the way.

This movie was all about girl power and coping. It's good if you're feeling down. I noticed that throughout the movie, there's an absence of a male presence. Sure they're mentioned here and there but most of the dominant characters are the women. I think it's brilliant. If ever you're into a night of a chic flick marathon, put this one on your list.

Technorati Tags: the women