skinnyblogcladdink

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just dropping by. i should probably update the typelists while i'm here...

anyway, this made me smile: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/09/still-smiling.asp

i know, it's about a year old. but i hadn't realized Mr Gaiman had answered a question i'd sent in through his FAQline. must have been one of those times i'd zoned out. or had i read that before and simply forgotten?

anyhoo... if anyone's still reading this... why the hell for? Zen in Darkness is so much easier to access, and is so much more up-to-date...

*

so i added a few things to the typelists... not very comprehensive, but just the things that came to mind within the brief time limit i allowed my headspace to dwell on those things...

 

incidentally, i think i should probably mention that i started an "investigation" a while back over at whatkillscats.blogspot.com.

nothing critical. but you might be interested.

i've no idea whether i'll ever come back here, but, well, you never know.

skinnyblogcladdinks

just dropping by for people who may still be watching for updates on this blog. i've stopped putting up mirrored posts. i've been hanging about the other blog a whole lot more, as it's easier to access in more places around the world (as i learned while i was in Spore City).

for updates and other useless drek on ostensibly cool things, check-out http://skinnyblogcladdink2-0.blogspot.com.

i'll still be dropping by to say hi every now and then, but much less frequently than in Zen in Darkness, and i'll probably be talking about other things here than what you'll find over there.

Doctor Number Nine; possibly some spoilers

i've been spending most of my downtime watching the second-to-the-latest incarnation of Doctor Who. i was never much of a fan before, really. i'd seen a few of the Tom Baker episodes, and though i loved the bit of the series that i did see, with the TARDIS and the Daleks and, with my cheezy little kid sensibilities, K-9, and all the other things that made that version of the series what it was, my access was limited by the awful signal and schedule of broadcasts provided by the now defunct Far East Network, and i never really got into it.

i heard they were making a new series with a new incarnation of the Doctor a while back, but it never made much of an imprint. i must have thought or said something like, well, that's interesting, and quickly forgot.

when Neil Gaiman started blogging about watching it with Miss Maddy Gaiman, i thought, well, that's nice, and quickly forgot.

then i found an old edition of Doctor Who and the Android Invasion by Terrance Dicks, with an introduction by Harlan Ellison, and i thought, well, i'm not really into anything right now (i wasn't, at the time. i must have been re-reading something from my "already read but loved it enough for another read" pile at the time). it's got recommendations from Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison, and i do feel like something of a romp, so this ought to be interesting. so i picked it up for fifteen bucks, read Mr. Ellison's introduction and a few chapters, dropped it into my "for reading" pile, and, well, quickly forgot.

only not really. my interest was rising. Mabel was in LA at the time, and i thought to ask her if she saw the DVD set out there, and if she did, could she get me a copy.

she didn't. so she couldn't. and, with the copy of Veniss Underground she got me, not to mention the Sin City double disc, i, you guessed it, quickly forgot.

then, just last week, i chanced upon the entire first season of the new series on DVD. suddenly, i was excited.

when i got home, i popped the first disc onto my spinner, then the second, and the third, and soon found i'd gobbled up the first five episodes in one sitting. i'd have watched more if a sense of prudence hadn't set in and i remembered i had to get up for work early the next day.

it's that good.

i totally agree with Mr. Ellison on this one. all you Trekkies and Jedi/Sith/droid/whatever-you-call-yourselves Star Wars junkies must have your heads on the wrong way. it's not that i don't enjoy dipping into those particular franchises, but next to the Doctor, well... they're rubbish.

admittedly, Doctor Who isn't hard SF, but neither, and i may get flamed for this, is Star Trek (no need to even mention Star Wars here, but fans might feel left out). the thing is, unlike Star Trek, it doesn't try to be. the "science" in Doctor Who is all in good fun, and serves the higher purpose of the series: ideas that make a good story.

Doctor Who is all about ideas, and having fun at it as well. and forget Spock, or Data, or Han Solo... the Doctor is the coolest, most interesting character you'll ever find in pop SF.

it was always a bit iffy whether i would like Doctor Number Nine (the Doctor with a closely cropped do and a leather jacket?!?). but then, i grew up, after all, with Tom Baker and all the hair and the wool in my head as the only Doctor. but Christopher Eccleston pulled it off brilliantly. i admit to being a bit ticked off by the gravitas of the Doctor's ninth incarnation; the Doctor was always grey in my head, but never dark. but it makes sense; you don't get off the butt end of a war that exterminates your entire race leaving you the last Time Lord in the universe without it getting you a tad under the weather. and, anyway, he's still funny.

the series picks up right off and starts running at an amazing pace, with just enough touches of compassion and gravitas to keep it groundedly human, despite being thoroughly mental. i actually cried when Rose Tyler, the Doctor's latest assistant, met her father. and i couldn't resist joining the Doctor's hurrah at the end of "The Doctor Dances."

and the season finale was, to steal a word from Vince Vaughn, phenomenal. i admit, it felt a little too much like a Wagnerian opera to fit into my own mental frame for Doctor Who, but i had to cheer when the blue police box started hurtling through space to meet the attack of the 200 warships in orbit around Earth.

about my only gripe about the whole run was the very end. i was hoping for more from the "Bad Wolf" mystery, and i was never much of a deus ex machina sort of guy. then again, it does make some sense, as Russell T. Davies himself says that the TARDIS is a deus ex machina to begin with, and, anyway, it serves a purpose. never before has the Doctor had an "assistant" who was also his equal. incidentally, i prefer the term "companion," myself.

i look forward to the second season, although after Chris Eccleston's performance, David Tennant has some pretty big shoes to fill. and it's hard to imagine how the writers could top their achievements in the first season.

one with a lot of things in it

feels a bit odd to be popping back here after an eternity of blogtime. so much has happened in the past few weeks, i hardly know where to begin.

right. let's try going through things chronologically.

it seems like ages ago, but i suppose i should start with the day Mabel and i spent in Enchanted Kingdom with her family... oddly, all i can remember from that day is that i unwittingly caused a bruise about the size and shape of a middle-sized, black gerbera to, er, bloom on Mabel's right knee with a paintball. sure, there was the wall climbing, and the getting wet and Mabel losing her hat on the log, but the bruising seems the most newsworthy at this point.

yes, if you've seen it, that was me. i'm owning up to it. i plead the dumb luck defense, as i could hardly properly aim the thing through the massive mask and the cloudy goggles over my glasses that kept slipping down my face. but yes, i do still feel remorse for it, particularly as i don't think it's gone away just yet. i am an awful person.

fast forward a couple days, Elmer invited Mabel and me, with our good friend Eman, to a "beer appreciation" thing at Beer Paradise over on Polaris Street. The beer was amazing, particularly after spending my entire life thinking that beer could only taste one or two ways... however, i would not suggest you go there to get wasted. go with a lot of friends, and order one of everything. or as near to everything as you can get with the number of friends you take with you.

i personally recommend the Orval, the Grimbergen, and the Tripel Karmelite. admittedly, all those are of the more expensive variety, but i can't remember the names of the other beers. any of the fruit beers for the stereotypical ladies.

then go someplace with beer for 30 bucks to get wasted. a warning though; other beers will likely pale in comparison after you've had the Belgian stuff they have at Beer Paradise.

Danny and Michel, the pair of Belgian gentlemen who own the place, are either really nice people, or are very good at pretending to be; either way, it would be great to see their venture take off. we need more places like theirs around here, imho.

they make a classic buddy movie pair, those two, with Danny the loud, funny, entertainingly obnoxious one (his version of "Ano ba!" is beyond belief), and Michel the quiet, serious, more business-minded of the pair.

Going back in time a bit, i spent hours on the Sin City double disc set Mabel got me from her time in the US. i'd meant to say more about it, but, well, i can't remember half of it, so "Sin City is the most awesome movie i've seen in ages in all its forms, and that includes the re-cut and the green-screen versions" will have to do until i can re-wrap my head around it for blog material.

suffice to say that Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez not only made the most awesome movie to see theaters in recent years, but they also made the most interesting DVD material i've seen so far.

which goes in stark contrast with X-Men 3. since Bryan Singer left the project for Superman Returns, the movie has been doomed in my mind; seeing it, however, has doubled my frustration, as the movie had a lot of potential. admittedly, it seems fair to assume that Brett Ratner did a better than decent job of throwing something together that was even marginally worthy of theatrical release, but the odds were exponentially against him pulling it off.

shame, Singer, shame. Superman Returns better be worth it. though with Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, it's hard to imagine how it could not be at least slightly cool.

it occurs to me that i'd meant to say something about the whole Da Vinci Code nonsense, and how it being banned in theaters in Manila has to be one of the most repressive and idiotic things to happen in recent years, but, then again, a lot of repressive and idiotic things happen all the time, so it hardly seems worth saying any more on the subject.

anyway, i've neither read the book, nor seen the movie, so it doesn't seem quite fair for me to say any more about it either way.

oh, one last thing, a friend of mine, Nikki Dy-Liacco had a book signing thing last Saturday for "Yellow Paperclip" (click the link of Zen in Darkness). i feel awful for not being able to make it, nor advertising it here sooner, but, well, spilt milk, i suppose.

"Yellow Paperclip" is a wonderfully imaginative and quirky book that deserves to be read and re-read to and by all discerning and undiscerning children all over the world. here's to seeing that colorful refugee from the office supply room off on more journies and destinations.

Mabel and i are still waiting for our autographed copy, by the way. ahem.

right. i'm off to Grumm City, or wherever the blank page/screen may choose to take me, though i don't imagine i'll make much progress wherever tonight.

*

good grief. had to pop right back in after logging out. i knew i'd forget something. the most important bit of news at that.

Mabel and i turned 2 last Thursday. hurrah. now, didn't i say i was an awful person?

right, on with your own business then.

no, the sky isn't falling... yet

i'm not supposed to encourage you to click this link. so i won't.

*

it occurs to me that i forgot to say who's who in which of the pics i posted last night. the racers in the pics are Michelle Bumgarner, Dado Pena, and Moreno Soeprapto.

the little girl is Mabel.

and here, as promised, are the rest of the pics, once more courtesy of Mr. Elmer Recuerdo.

Mabel with AF3 Batangas leg champ Tyson Sy.

Mabel, checking out some booty. or something to that effect.

and, possibly my favorite one,

that's Mabel with the absolutely lovely Gaby de la Merced, who seemed an awfully nice person, in a bubbly-without-being-annoying kind of way.

by the way, the thing in Mabel's hand in each of the pics is her new Palm T3, on which she collected autographs from each of the racers she got her pic taken with.

and, once again, dial-up has devoured my evening, so that's it for tonight.

The Hang

after about a month of intensive, near-daily blogging, i took a long break from it all, and now i feel as though i'm trying to juggle on a unicycle after years off a bike.

it doesn't quite help that i'm currently running less-than-lithely under the weather with a rapidly evolving respiratory tract infection.

i'd meant to say a lot of things about all sorts of things over the entire week i'd been off, but it has all gone the way of my goldfish memory.

i have not, however, forgotten about the wonderful day at the races Mabel and i spent with our new friend Elmer, and as the photos from that day just arrived this morning via e-mail, i thought i'd drop by to let folks who read this blog have a gander.

(no, you won't find me in any of them, and it isn't because i'm on the other side of the lens. i have a thing about being captured on film, particularly in daylight; the sort of thing that leads me to refuse to have my photograph taken, even when it means not getting to stand right next to a mossimo-bikini-clad girl.)

photos by Elmer Recuerdo.

well, this is taking forever. i'll post the remaining three photos tomorrow, or whenever it is i get back.

meantime, check out what Brother Consolmagno has to say. it's a relief to hear someone talk about something other than all that Da Vinci code nonsense.

right. must cough out my left lung now, which has somehow managed to jam up my throat.

Ple-THO-rrah

a lot to talk about since Mabel got home (oh, joy!)... among them a bit about the last leg of the Asian Formula 3 (thanks, Elmer).

i'll try to get a bit of everything from the last few days here in the next few posts, but for tonight, i'll stick to sharing my own personal satisfaction at having helped make my mother's birthday, in her words, memorable.

it was, i think, a momentous and memorable occasion for everybody in the family.

odd no one took pictures.

mission ends; the cat, the rat king, the storyteller

tonight ends skinnyblogcladdink's one month mission. at the moment, without provoking Schrodinger's cat, i'm pretty sure Mabel is on a plane somewhere over the Pacific, heading home.

Yay.

from this point on, skinnyblogcladdink returns to a more rag-tag schedule of posting.

*

though i'm not a subscriber, i signed up for e-alerts for Nature, and so have been receiving regular e-mail updates on the publication for much of my existence in cyberspace.

i rarely have the patience to go through the formidable lists of contents i receive in the mail, but occassionally i do browse through them, and find interesting things like this.

reading through the first few bits reminded me of Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad, which speculates on the evolution of thinking machines following logically from biological, and more specifically, human evolution.

having finished reading the article, i feel even more inclined to think Mr Lem was, in fact, on to something.

though the article caused a veritable rat king of crossed wires and shorted circuits in my limited meat brain, the storyteller in me is rejoicing in the possibilities and other what ifs of it, racing from one point to another in a mad scramble of nonsense and speculation.

whether anything comes of it, it may be that only time will tell. but it would be absolutely brilliant if i do first.

reliving the Barry Egan in me

for contrast, tonight i put Punch-Drunk Love on the spinner, which i enjoyed over a canned tuna fish dinner.

for further contrast, i say no more about it here.

except, maybe, that Punch would be on the list i mentioned in the previous post as well.

Silent Hills

despite all the things i got to do this weekend, something about the past few days has been a bit of a let down for me.

trying to find a cure for my melancholy (with Mabel an entire ocean away), tonight i treated myself to something i hadn't done in a long time, but used to enjoy immensely: i went to see a movie.

(actually, come to think of it, it wasn't all that long ago; i remember i had seen Ultraviolet alone...)

Going to the cinema alone, i get to sit right up front, without worrying about the eyestrain and possible nausea it may cause whoever i'm with, and i don't have to worry about them being bored by a film i was thoroughly enjoying and wanting to leave before the credits finished rolling.

Just me and the movie. Silent Hill was perfect for it.

Hill is of that class of dark film that i find way too cool to be genuinely scary. although some of the imagery was genuinely horrific, and would probably have given me nightmares in my childhood, these days, i'm more likely to call them beautiful grotesqueries. and i do.

if anyone remembers the first three Hellraiser movies, Hill resembles those movies most of any other movie of the genre in my mind. only much stranger, with a comparatively cerebral twist of the knife, instead of the visceral gut wrenching you're more prone to experience with those other films.

have no doubt, however, there's gore a-plenty as well.

and while Clive Barker's films were ultimately and quite obviously driven by a masculine imagination despite having a female protagonist, Hill feels thoroughly Earth-Goddess/Mother-Spirit driven, despite being written by Pulp Fiction's Roger Avary.

certainly, it wasn't perfect. despite being billed by top notch actors in my book, there are some very-slightly-hardly-noticeable-but-nonetheless-kind-of-clunky bits of acting, and i can imagine how some bits of dialogue may grate in some people's ears (the exposition, for instance, may be too off-pace for some people, too much of an infodump concentrated in one spot of the film, much like the Architect in Matrix Reloaded. also, the narration for that bit feels a tad juvenile, and may break the mood it's supposed to set for some people, though i found the style wholly appropriate, and even creepier for it, when you think about it), and some people may find the twist a bit unspectacular for all the weirdness that leads up to it.

but the biggest flaw, to my mind, is the climax, which felt rather contrived after all the wonderful subtlety of the rest of the film. it was, perhaps, intended to be exactly as it was, and i would understand it if it were, can even defend it if it comes to that; nonetheless, it would have been nice to see something different in that particular bit of the film.

the end, however, is uncompromisingly dark, and at least partly makes up for the apparent gratuity of the climax.

there's a beautiful minimalism to most of the movie that is refreshing in a non-arthouse film: from the contrasting light and dark of the visuals, to the beautifully crafted soundtrack, and even to the bizarre creatures.

even after the rather gratuitous explosion of the climax and the lack of genuinely scary moments for me (but hey, that's me), Silent Hill is still my fave film for the moment, and certainly counts vertiginously near the top of any best-movies-of-the-last-five-years-list i'm likely to come up with.

we need more dark fantasies like this one in the movies, imho. and it's just what i needed.

*

the mall was closing as i left the theater, and yet despite the dimmed lights and barricaded shops, the air continued to chatter as though the mall were still wide awake.

until i found myself walking through the mall's closed bazaar. walking between the hooded stalls of the closed kiosks was like tracing ley lines through a strange land covered with blue hills, or faerie mounds. the sound of the mall still filtered through, but it was muffled, as though coming from an incredible distance.

breaking through to the other side was like breaking the surface of a calm pool of water, and all the sounds of the mall snapped back into place.

i wonder how long i'd spent in that odd place.

*

i put a coin into the old crone's hand, and it was only after thanking me that she broke into song.

definitely worth 5 bits in my book.