[Social Networks] Is It Time to Leave Multiply?

Image via CrunchBase

A few years back I decided to streamline my online activities and cut down on my social networks. It took some doing but I eventually killed of Friendster, Ringo and Birthday Calendar at the very least a few other specialized ones. What I was left with was pretty much LiveJournal for my personal blogging, Shelfari for my books, Flixster for my love of movies and Multiply to act as my photo sharing center and pretty much mirror of my personal blog and my Geeky Guide reviews. The arrangement has largely worked out over the years, that is until I finally gave in and created a Facebook account.

As annoying as some of the changes have been to Facebook, the site remains one of the most robust social networks (and gaming website) that I've ever seen and the ease of which I can share random images, videos and interesting links is something that's hard to match using any other service.

Recently Multiply has been making a number of changes too and what's most annoying about the changes is not just how awkward the interface has become, but the fact that they're clearly trying to copy Facebook in some made attempt to remain competitive somehow. This has me thinking - is it time to leave Multiply?

As always, the main things keeping me on Multiply on Multiply are (1) the sheer volume of content I've loaded onto my profile and (2) the network of contacts I maintain there. Number 2 isn't as big an item anymore, I know - most of these same friends are also on Facebook or share some other network I cater to like Plurk or Twitter. Ultimately, contacts were one of the last things tying me to Friendster as well when I was weighing my options and it became a no-brainer whether or not I should stick around.

So now it becomes a question of content - my personal blog entries are all there, albeit only as an exact mirror of my LiveJournal blog. Most of the photos that I have on Multiply are already on Facebook, although migrating those uniquely on Multiply will be painful since I no longer have the hi-res originals for any of those photos.

Oh Multiply, I was much happier with your old interface and how this kept you unique. Now your Inbox is clearly trying to mimic Facebook's News Feed. You've added the option to create Notes as a way to "compete" with Facebook's status messages. You've even added a suggested friends feature just like Facebook. Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to clone Facebook? If Multiply starts offering applications, I am so done and over with the site and I'll just stick with Facebook, I suppose. Why should I maintain two sites that try to do the same thing, albeit one does it a lot better.

And it really does! Sharing videos, links and individual images are a LOT easier on Facebook than they are on Multiply. Why the heck did you change your video import process? Why does a new tab / window need to be opened to edit the video I just imported from YouTube? Why is posting a link so complicated? Why did you have to hide my nice visual network calendar like that? The questions keep on coming.

Have you readers ever found yourself in the same fix? Do you find yourself wondering why your social network of choice has turned into yet another Facebook clone? Do you ever find yourself thinking that you're maintaining too many sites that all do the same thing?

What's your criteria for whether or not a social network or website is worth keeping? When do you decide to abandon ship? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter- just mention it in the comments or maybe even email or IM me directly.

[Movies] Strong Ladies Make Good Films

Okay, so sometimes I post stuff that reminds everyone that I'm not just the Geeky Guide, but I'm a gay one to boot (and proudly so!) Case in point - a few interesting trailers for upcoming movies that may seem a bit too female for most common geek's tastes, but are still definitely worth the time of day to see. Seriously, at least I don't obsess over cheesy gay romances and chick flicks, okay?

First up is a movie that'll make The Devil Wears Prada seem a tad shame - a true depiction of Anna Wintour, infamous woman of power behind Vogue, perhaps the penultimate driving force in the fashion industry.


'The September Issue' Trailer HD

The other is something starring Meryl Streep, an amazing actress who is definitely not limited to the role she played in The Devil Wears Prada (which is an odd coicidence to cite right now). This time around she's portraying yet another powerful woman - secret spy extraordinaire Julia Child in what promises to be a pretty interesting movie inspired by two true stories supposedly. Oh, and did I mention it stars Amy Adams of Enchanted fame?


JULIE & JULIA trailer

I guess I can relate to that last title a lot more since I too am trying to learn to cook. I just haven't bought her book yet...

Both films are set for release this year.

[Fandom Live!] June Episodes

In case you geeky readers didn't already know, the Geeky Guide spends his Sunday evenings recording a web show called Fandom Live! with his fellow geeky friends where we talk about all things geeky and generally make fools of ourselves doing so. Not that this is a problem mind you - it's all in good fun as is the way of geeks.

So if you're looking for something else to kill time with on YouTube or if you're just curious as to what I look and sound like in real life, then check out a few of this month's episodes here.

Kudos to our friend Dek for the editing work and the amazingly funny comment / captions. Pardon her for the occasional typos - it's not like we're paid to do any of this after all, haha.


Fandom Live! We View: Star Trek the Movie


Fandom Live! Happy Father's Day


Fandom Live! We View: Terminator Salvation

[Movies] WaSanGo / Volcano High (2001)

You can go back to the classic Hong Kong Kung-fu movies as a basis for the notion that Asian martial arts movies tend to be among the best around. The Western answer to this in terms of action movies tends to involve major special effects or at the very least very large explosions, which is just not the same. *coughsMichaelBaycoughes*

Despite the progress made in the special effects arena, there seems to be no end in sight for the continued development of Asian martial arts films, and this covers multiple countries beyond Hong Kong. In recent years, I have to admit that I find myself more and more impressed with Korean productions - something you have to see for yourself to full appreciate.

Tobie has been introducing me to more and more Korean films as of late and this latest one was a real gem and quite fun to watch, too.

WaSanGo (or Volcano High in English) is an odd story about Kim Kyung-Soo (Hyuk Jang), a juvenile delinquent of sorts who has been kicked out of 8 schools already and has landed at Volcano High as his ninth and perhaps last chance at an education. There he finds that the school rivalry between the various extracurricular groups is a lot more intense than normal with all the clubs vying to be the top dogs of the school. This conflict comes to a head when the Vice-Principal makes a bit to find the Secret Manuscript that the Principal has been safeguarding and the balance of power is thrown out of whack.

The best way to explain this movie is to think about your typical Japanese Anime and convert it into a life-action movie. This means amazing fight scenes, over-the-top characters and personalities and really colorful and dynamic hair. Without appreciating that fact, one might find this movie to be a bit extreme in its depiction of high school students, which is probably what the film makers wanted to accomplish. The almost surreal depiction of characters in the movie just makes it all the more fun as they all play out their roles.

Hyuk Jang was great as the lead character, his portrayal being an odd mix of the serious and the highly comical that Korean movies tend to favor. He's really good at pulling off the whole dorky hero with unbelievable natural power / potential - something I'm beginning to think is a really common theme in Korean movies. Or maybe it's just an Asian thing in general, who knows?

Su-Ro Kim was also great as his over-the-top antagonist Jang Ryang, head of the weightlifting team. I mean seriously, he's a lot to swallow and one can't help but laugh at how unrealistic and probably insane he seems to be, which is exactly what he needed to portray.

Oh, and Sang-woo Kwone is rather cute...and pretty hot to boot based on some of the photos I've found online. Yeah, minor gay eye candy right there.

The story may seem a tad tricky to follow at times, and it's not just because of the need to catch up reading the sub-titles (unless you speak Korean). It's not exactly your normal story and the introduction of so many characters and alternate sub-plots can get a bit dizzying at times, especially when these story threads aren't exactly logical, which is all part of the fun. You'll find yourself staring in minor disbelief at times in trying to understand why the characters did what they just did or why exactly it's plausible for a school to have students like this and then you realize you need to shut down your higher level thinking and just enjoy the movie for what it is.

The fights are a lot of fun, but not necessarily the best I've ever seen amongst Asian martial arts films. There's the added element of special effects here and they but that aspect doesn't get out of hand at least and it's not too difficult to more or less understand what exactly they're up to or what the characters are capable of.

Like many other Korean films, there's a strong element of comedy at play throughout the movie that can border on the inane or perhaps the childish and slapstick. More and more I find this to be a cultural thing along the same veins as why Indian movies out of "Bollywood" need to have large dance numbers involving trees and pillars one can hide behind or something.

If you're looking for a fun movie with great fight scenes that take a lot of cues from popular anime, then this is definitely something for you to see. It's pretty tricky to find locally and you might have better luck sourcing it online.

WaSanGo / Volcano High gets 4 love letters never to be sent out of 5.

[Books] The Graveyard Book (2008)

It's hard to determine what really counts as a "children's" book these days. In a post Harry Potter universe, the lines have blurred between the book classes with more and more young adult authors catering to adults or perhaps this is just their way of acknowledging the children are a lot smarter than we think they are and deserve more mature reading. This is not to say writers shouldn't filter the content that trickles down to the youth of today - it's more like maintaining those safeguards while respecting their intelligence.

Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman has always respected this - his attempts at fiction aimed at younger audiences tends to lean on the disturbing side by the standards of more traditional fiction. Just take for example the tale of Coraline, a young girl who finds herself trapped in an alternate version of her world where her parents have buttons for eyes is not something you'd usually offer a young person to read.

This is part of the appeal of Gaiman, I suppose - his willingness to test those limits and treat children as the young adults they really are has certainly made him a lot "cooler" to his readers and thus increased his accessibility and his fame. His latest book still plays to such strengths and very, very well.

The Graveyard Book follows the story of a young boy named Nobody Owens who is raised by the ghosts in the graveyard. Inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the loose collection of chapters act as individual stories from the boy's life as he grows up and eventually has to come to terms with how he came to life in the graveyard and what happened to his original family.

Image by kwc via Flickr

The wording of the book is deceptively simple - it certainly feels like a book meant for children given the grammar level, but in no ways is this a simple book. In fact, it's a lot deeper than it initially appears and it takes a significant degree of imagination on the reader's part to fill in the gaps about certain characters or events. Take for example Silas, Bod's appointed guardian. It's clear that he's a member of the undead, but what precisely he is based on the current lore is obscured in shadow. Is he a vampire? Some other kind of ghoul? While it's not important to the central theme to ponder what he really is, it still makes for an interesting side venture to speculate and look for more clues here and there throughout the book.

The story progresses from the chapters living a few years apart from one another and eventually comes together in a final fulfillment of things. The story has to come to a head after all and Nobody must learn the full truth about his parents and the consequences of such knowledge. He needs to learn to master the worlds of the living and the dead and eventually determine where he is to go - how he is to live his life as an individual. It's this progression and evolution of the character that really gives this book strength and is probably why it was found worthy of the Newbery Award - and it truly deserved it.

Regardless of age, The Graveyard Book is yet another Gaiman masterpiece that deserves to be read completely. It has a lot of themes and ideas that may become clearer after your first 2-3 readings of the book and the experience just gets better over time. You can also catch videos of Neil Gaiman reading the entire book at the Mouse Circus, the website dedicated to his young adult fiction.

The Graveyard Book gets 4 tombstones out of a possible 5.

[Movies] Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo / My Sassy Girl (2001)

I'm not a big fan of romantic comedies, that much I admit. It's not that I hate them or anything like that - I just generally don't feel the urge to go out and see one unless the leading man is (1) significantly hot and (2) has a very high change of appearing shirtless / naked.

But of course the romantic comedy genre is pretty popular in terms of the larger population and these are still pretty entertaining feel-good movies, and so they do deserve their time in the sun. Even more so, the Korean romantic comedy, like other Korean productions, probably deserve a class all on their own given their unique sense of comedy, love the slapstick and other classical comedic devices put together in a strange way.

Perhaps one of the most famous Korean romantic comedies around remains to be Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo, better known as My Sassy Girl in the international scene and I finally got to see the original Korean version of this particular movie because of my current partner and the experience wasn't as bad as I had feared.

My Sassy Girl follows the misadventures of Gyeon-woo (Cha Tae-Hyun) who encounters a character that we can only refer to as The Girl (Jun Ji-hyun) under the most unusual of circumstances - her being drunk on the subway. The movie then continues on to follow their unusual relationship as friends and ultimately leading to them getting together.

What makes My Sassy Girl so unique, I suppose, is that it's a very fresh spin on the romantic comedy story. Here the budding romance is in no way easy or direct - the characters seem to practically hate one another for most of the film and only seem to barely tolerate them towards the end. And yet this is still a romance story and the characters will end up together - the trick is trying to follow how this happens.

The movie has a lot of visual gags, slapstick moments and other elements of what might be termed as somewhat more "shallow" comedy. This is not a bad thing given too much comedy or comedy that presented itself as too complex or intellectual would ultimately complicate matters and distract us from the core story unfolding before us. This is not to say most of the gags are of this nature - there are a lot of more subtle elements at play throughout the film that reward the highly observant with even more inside jokes of reasons to smile and smirk throughout the film.

Like most other romantic comedies, certain plot elements tend to be highly predictable and I found myself calling a lot of these out in the middle of the movie. And yet there's a lot of things about this film that become very new even though it's composed of various cliche story ideas and plot devices. Kudos to the director for somehow managing that little feat - it certainly gave us a pretty interesting movie as a result.

My Sassy Girl is definitely a great date movie or something you can hunker down on the couch to watch in order to de-stress let your brain rest a bit. This gets 4 full-palmed face slaps for Gyeon-woo out of a possible 5.

[Metro] 5 and 5 Things About the MRT

Image via Wikipedia

My move to Cubao has triggered a change in my daily travel routine - the need to use the MRT. You may or may not have noticed the increase in entries about Manila's main public transportation conveyance (at least symbolically) and after about a month of time using the "train" (quotation marks since it's not an actual train in the original sense of the term based on some critics), I've had my fair share of experiences.

It's not that I'm totally new to the MRT, mind you - it's just that now is the first time that I've come to riding the MRT pretty much daily since it's the fastest way between my condo in Cubao and my office in Makati. It's not that bad as a means of travel when you get down to it, although I have to admit I speak from the perspective of somehow who works at night, and thus I only deal with the train schedules (and accompanying human traffic) in reverse to the rest of the "normal" working world.

Now like many other geeks who manifest certain potentially obsessive compulsive behaviors, I kinda figured it would be nice and neat if I just talked about my MRT experiences in sets of five - five things that I love about the MRT and five things I hate about it. Continue on and see if we share the same opinions or not, hehe.

5 Things I Love About the MRT
The Current Fare Structure - When you compare the current rates to the initial rates when the MRT first started, things have certainly come a long way. Before the MRT was an amazing boon to commuters but certainly expensive when it boiled down to daily costs. Compared to the cost of taking the bus or even round-about jeepney-hopping, it was hard to adopt to the MRT in the beginning. The various tweaks to the rates over the years has made the conveyance a lot more accessible to more commuters.

Creative Wraparound Ads - Most forms of public transportation can't help but supplement their revenue with advertising, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. There have been some pretty creative ads placed in the MRT such as creative hand-strap attachments or things plastered on the floors of the station. My favorite ad variations remain to be the complete wraparounds for the cars themselves since there have been some pretty entertaining ones that have come out that usually simulate the riders. When they're not creative, at least they sort of act as tint to diffuse the heat of the sun, so that's still a good thing.

The Free Ride at the End of a Stored Value Ticket - Getting Stored Value tickets are always a smart idea since it means you line up a lot less at the counter. Even better, regardless of how little is left in the card, you burn off the "excess" as a free ride, so your ticket is always good to the last drop, in a manner of speaking.

Free Newspapers - The MRT has resulted in the creation of several simplified newspapers that are purely maintained by ad revenue, starting with the ever classic Libre. Sure, they're not very substantial and even tabloids probably cover more ground but it's a lot better than nothing plus the horoscopes tend to be pretty funny for the most part.

Speed - Of course the best thing about the MRT remains to be the speed in which one can travel across the city. Despite everything else that comes along with it, you just can't beat the trains when it comes to urgently needing to get from one end of EDSA to the other.


Those are the good things - so here are the not-so-good things.


5 Things I Hate About the MRT

People Who Cut In Line - I know, the queues are never very clear, but frankly there still needs to be some sense of order at the stations. However time and time again, there will be those people who choose not to form lines but instead just sort of stand beside you as you wait for the train, even though you're clearly standing on the appropriate yellow marker on the floor. Or they try their luck getting to the escalator. Or they cut in even at the initial bag check. Really, grow up people.

People Who Hoard the Wrist Straps - True, the number of wrist straps hanging from the bars are severely limited. But it doesn't make things better when you're already holding on to the vertical bar near the door and you pull one of the wrist straps closer to you so can grip both. Worse is when you see people holding on to two of the straps even though the train is clearly crowded and people are struggling to maintain their balance.

People Who Do Not Respect Women and the Elderly - I always feel guilty as heck about sitting down when the MRT is crowded. As much as possible I try to make sure any nearby women or people quickly approaching or are already past the senior citizen mark. And yet there are those who forget about the concepts of chivalry and respect and just sit down as they please. Worse are the cases when I see younger folks rushing to the seat in order to deny a much older woman. And don't even get me started on the folks who pretend to be asleep in order to hold onto their seat.

Surfing the MRT - When I have nothing to hold onto given (1) the sheer number of people in the train and (b) my lack of height, I end up trying to master the art of MRT-surfing, which means maintaining my balance in a moving train without holding onto something. Sure, when this happens the train tends to be really packed and thus it's not that much of an issue to fall - someone is bound to act as padding. Still, the experience is terribly uncomfortable and it usually leaves me with sore legs or something.

The Sheer Volume of People - Even though I work nights, I still get my fair share of crowded trains. You can tell that the MRT operators are always concerned with maximizing the number of passengers per train rather than adhering to a set schedule and prioritizing the regularity of trips at certain time intervals. If we either increased the number of trains or even just add a fourth car to each MRT trip, I'm sure it'll make such a difference to the human traffic situation and avoid the ridiculously large build-up of people we tend to see at stations like North Avenue, Cubao and Taft.


With the good and the bad all put together, taking the MRT everyday is a decent experience but definitely more of a necessary one than one I'd get into voluntarily. Still, it beats getting tuck inn EDSA traffic in some bus or taxi cab.

[Movies] Push (2009)

Superhero movies are just a few steps above video game movies, that we all know to be doomed to failure. We can end up with some pretty amazing ones like last year's Iron Man and you can also get really, really bad ones like the original Captain America movie or dare I say it - Catwoman. **shudders**

Hollywood clearly sees superhero movies as a high yield potential cash cow that can either hit or miss with the fans, but will still ensure a return on their investment since people get suckered into seeing it. It's an annoying practice but we all still buy into the mythos given we are fans at heart and we still retain the notion of hope that good depictions will come to fore some day.

This movie was clearly not one of those films that inspire us to hope against hope. In fact, this one probably "pushes" us further down the depths of despair.

Push is set in a world where Nazi experiments on humans to develop superpowers were revived by some mysterious group known as the Division. One such super-powered individual is the Mover / telekinetic Nick Gant (Chris Evans) who escaped the Division as a child and now tries to live a life in Hong Kong in relatively secrecy. His life changes when a Watcher / clairvoyant named Cassie Holmes (Datoka Fanning) seeks out his aid in saving a Pusher / telepath named Kira (Camilla Belle) who plays some larger role in things based on her visions.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Now that story does sound confusing (and it gets worse) and to be honest I only watched this movie in the hopes that there would be shirtless or nearly naked scenes for Chris Evans, who does satisfy many definitions of what constitutes as brainlessly hot by gay male standards. To suffer through the movie, all the while struggling to stay awake and to end up not getting aforementioned shirtless sequences was more than disappointing.

The entire movie can be described with a single word - flat. Whether used to describe the quality of the acting, the flimsy plot or the boring fight scenes, this remains the best adjective to use. The movie simply failed to be engaging on any level.

It started out with some potential - the universe described in the introduction along with a sampling of the types of super powers out there was pretty interesting and I was keen on seeing how things would go. Instead we ended up with a dragging story where the characters either barely used their powers or used them in ways that were not at all visually appealing / stimulating. Plus Chris Evans never took off his shirt.

Kudos to Dakota Fanning for proving to us that she continues to look as disturbing as she did as a much younger kid based on her earlier films. She's grown up to be even weirder and still relies on her eyes to do most of the acting. At least she made an attempt to act - Evans just sort of stood around in the same clothes for most of the film doing very little.

I would not wish the curse that is the movie Push on anyone and if you find yourself with no more books to read, nothing and no movies to watch except this one, I beg and urge you to not even consider this movie and turn away while you can. Seriously. This is not worth the damage it'll do to your brain.

Push gets 1 badly drawn image of the future out of 5.

[Movies] Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

I've been a Transformers fan all my life and ever since I saw the original 1986 Transformers animated film, I had always dreamed about the possibility of seeing the robots in the flesh. That dream evolved into a desire to see them depicted in a life-action movie - I mean come on, they could make dinosaurs from scratch, so why not transforming robots, right?

This dream was eventually realized when Michael Bay's Transformers movie came out in 2007. Now I clearly mark it as "Michael Bay's" since (1) he was never a fan of the series and thus (2) his creation was never intended to be absolutely true to the original. He just had one mission from Hollywood - create a movie about transforming robots and make it a major summer blockbuster. Thus given his usual movie style, we ended up with film filled with massive explosions, cheap comedy and Megan Fox. And yet we couldn't really complain since he did something eternal kids like me always dreamed of - seeing the Transformers in live-action.

So now he's come out with a sequel and expectations were never meant to be all that high given we knew what Michael Bay was capable off (or limited to doing?). Just how did it go this time around? Let's take a look-see.

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes place a few years after the first movie. The Autobots have been working with the US military as a group called NEST to hunt down rogue Decepticons all over the planet. Meanwhile, Sam (Shia LeBeouf) is getting ready to finally leave home to go to college while leaving his ridiculously hot girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) and his Autobot protector Bumblebee behind. Naturally, the increased Decepticon attacks are signs of a larger plan that will place the Earth in jeopardy while Sam inevitably becomes the focal point for the conflict given he gets mind-warped by a fragment of the Allspark still left with him. He starts seeing symbols and hieroglyphs everywhere and these somehow play a part in the fate of all Transformers.

You still following me? I know it sounds pretty messed up as a plot, and in many ways it is, but given this is a Michael Bay film that's just par for the course. This is probably one of the biggest reasons that the critics seem to be in universal agreement that this movie is just plain horrible - I can totally understand this perspective. But in the same way that I do my best to review movies with the consideration for the genre or the style of the film, we need to do the same with Transformers: ROTF.

Image by oseillo via Flickr

This movie is a classic "summer blockbuster" set piece. It's not meant to be amazingly though-provoking nor is it meant to change our lives somehow. It's meant to draw huge crowds, generate massive ticket sales and make full use of theater technology to do so. This means amazing visuals, bone-jarring sound effects, cheap comedy, and explosions, explosions and explosions. If they studios wanted to make a serious Transformers film, they wouldn't have hired Michael Bay. But they did in order to address a demographic, to appeal to their marketing interests and as an audience we tend to buy into this hook, line and sinker. There's nothing wrong with this per se - we just need to admit to thus truth. We go see movies like this because we want to be entertained and we want to have our brains throttle down a bit so we can escape reality for a few hours. This is the context in which I try to look at this movie.

So first, visuals, and here Michael Bay has his usual mix of the amazing and the disappointing. Sure, the Transformers look better than ever in all the varied forms and there are some amazing fight scenes in this film that push the limits of current movie technology. At the same time, the sequences are blindingly fast and we tend to miss a lot of the action or you may find yourself unable to figure out who;s fighting who, what's going on and who might possibly be winning. That's just what happens. It's a classic problem of Bay and I can only hope he grows out of this some time soon. What's the point in spending thousands if not millions of dollars on CGI to render these robots if they won't let us viewers get a good look at them.

That brings us to the characters in terms of casting and portrayal. The usual crew came back from the first film and they weren't put in the forefront as much, thank the stars. Their level of acting was never meant to be all that great, so given this expectation they delivered as best they could, haha. The first movie felt too much like G.I. Joe and the Transformers given the amount of time devoted to the humans so this time around they toned that down and bit and gave us a lot more robots, which is cool. The only problem here is that they didn't bother trying to give screen time to develop the characters and personalities of the Transformers other than the politically inappropriate faux-Ebonics banter of the twins Mudflap and Skids. With all the Transformers in the movie, we hardly knew who anyone was or even what they were supposed to be. What were their names? What made each of them unique? How can you supposedly convince kids to buy the toys when they don't even know who to look for?

This brings us to another angle - the marketing aspect. Given the franchise has its roots in being a blatant marketing tool to young boys (like myself many years ago) to buy their toys (which I did), this movie, just like its predecessor, failed to maximize potential brand awareness marketing here. If we can't identify the Transformers, why will we buy them? If we can't relate to them on more than just a superficial level, where's the emotional hook that will trigger that illogical buying decision and thus making us pick up the merchandise. The only case where the movie succeeds in this aspect is advertising the US Air Force. Let's face it - that's always been the heavy price the movie had to pay in order to get the rights to feature all those cool jets, UAVs and naval warships.

Thus we end up thinking about the glue that ties all these elements together - the story. And this is where things hurt a bit - or maybe a lot. Longer term fans of the franchise were hoping that the reference to The Fallen meant a reference to a character more prominent in the comic book series, but of course it wasn't. This is Michael Bay after all and he doesn't need a character as defined as that one. He just needs characters to assemble together in hodgepodge fashion. Thus we end up with a really weird spider-like character who doesn't make sense, a need to bring back Megatron that also doesn't make sense and a bonus character of some internet blogger who decides to tag along the entire time as Sam and Mikaela dodge various Decepticons. Things will continue to not make sense throughout the film as it becomes more and more evident that plot was clearly not of the primary considerations for this film at any level.

And this is why we ended up with warped versions of Transformers we used to love dearly. Devastator was huge, visually stunning and had even less personality than he did in the original cartoon. I know he's supposed to get dumber when he combines, but not THAT dumb. Arcee was just...there, and not much beyond that. Where was all her spunk from the original 1986 animated film? What about the other dozens of miscellaneous Decepticons who joined in the fighting? Who the heck were they? Plus even main characters like Bumblebee and Ratchet totally got shafted and did little more than transport humans or appear to be fighting in the background.

Okay, so maybe the robot angle wasn't a total loss. Ravage was really, really cool in a way that only Ravage can be cool and Soundwave, while changed, was still true to his essential role of coordination, but now on a global scale. And yes, it was still pretty cool to see a gestalt like Devastator come together and try to kick some serious ass.

Put this all together and you get a pretty shallow movie that executes its role perfectly well - it's just amazing to watch and it'll occupy you for a few hours but it won't leave any lingering thoughts in your head about the "meaning" of things. It's CGI porn at it's finest, aimed at the eternal adolescent in all of us and that is not necessarily a bad thing to begin with.

This counts as 3.5 Michael Bay level explosions out of 5 (or perhaps 4 cheap ethnic jokes out of 5) from a rating perspective and remains to be something worth seeing on the big screen since this is how the effects were designed to be seen. The jury's still out on whether or not IMAX-level viewing is truly necessary since there's not that much IMAX screen time to begin with. Enjoy it for what it is and not for what you hoped it to be.

[CollegeHumor] Star Trek Confusion

The recent Star Trek movie has done remarkably well at the box office and has been generally well-received by fans around the world. Naturally, there are still a large number of supposed "purists" who are outraged at the film and feel like the movie became too much like Star Wars, or something else along those lines.

Now frankly, I think this is just silly. First, there's no reason to be solely a fan of Star Trek or a fan of Star Wars - both are very good franchises. A lot of the elements that people feel were "stolen" from Star Wars from a narrative perspective can actually be traced back further to the Hero's Journey monomyth, which is a the structure for many of the greatest stories of classical literature. If you want to try to the whole technology aspect being somehow "wrong", then that's yet another misnomer since even Star Trek has had more than its fair share of technical inaccuracies - the very fact we can see phaser fire is the most classic example.

It's a good movie. It's good entertainment. It's a great way to get new fans interested in the series. Deal with it - we're done with Rick Baker.

If you really think this latest Star Trek movie was too much like Star Wars, then take a look at this - now this would have been REALLY bad. =P

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

[NWA] Balasa / OGM

Here's a heads up for all you fans of collectible card games (CCGs) and all things table top may they be classic board games of your youth or dice-driven role-playing games like AD&D or anything White Wolf.

This Saturday is a major 2-in-1 event for fans of both genres - the Balasa / Open Gaming Meet! It's this Saturday, June 27, 2009 at the Cyberzone at SM Marikina. The event starts at 10:00am and ends at 09:00pm.

So if you're looking for people to play against. then this is the event for you! The Geeky Guide will be there and I'll be posting a post-event review when everything's said and done.

For more information, feel free to visit www.thepugs.org or www.tabletopwars.com.

See you there!

[Social Networking] My Evolving Relationship With Twitter

Image by notoriousxl via Flickr

I've been using Twitter for some years now - since when exactly, I can't quite remember. I wasn't necessarily an early adopter but I was using it fairly early on when most people just talked about what they were eating or something. In terms of buyout offers / rumors, I figure it's been at least 10-12 times that Twitter has been rumored to be on the brink of being sold to one company or another.

Yes, you can really measure Twitter's lifespan that way, hehe.

With the recent Twitter boom because of the added attention given to it by celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, networks like CNN and even countries like Iran, it's interesting to note how come things have come for me in terms of how I use Twitter although it's not exactly life-changing just yet.

I first joined Twitter because of it's potential as a micro-blogging service, which was a pretty cutting-edge concept as a time, and of course to provide another angle of interaction for the Geeky Guide, which was also pretty young at the time. And thus I mostly used Twitter as a broadcast service for new updates and to let readers know whenever new entries are published.

I didn't have many friends on Twitter initially since most folks didn't get the point of the service compared to IM and I also wasn't into following supposed celebrity Twitter feeds since (1) they were dubious in terms of authenticity and (2) I'm really not that into celebrities. That still holds true until today although I've finally started following some of the more famous geeks like Will Wheaton, Neil Gaiman and Gina Trapani (she rocks!) in more recent months.

Without many friends joining Twitter and given I'm not that into finding strangers to talk to via Twitter, this level of Twitter interaction went on for some time. I'd have a few "@reply" exchanges here and there but those were few and far between.

I continued to treat Twitter as a broadcast service well until Plurk came along and eventually Facebook statuses became the sort of "in" thing after yet another Facebook redesign (and a failed attempt to buy Twitter perhaps?). That eventually led me to unify my status update broadcasts to Ping.fm and thus Twitter continued to remain a secondary service. Heck, I was talking and interacting with more people on Plurk given it has a more forum-style approach to micro-blogging.

The recent celebrity boom for Twitter has caused a lot more of my friends to join the service ranging from the people I value hearing from to those who take the service to the extreme and update every single score, move or play in major sporting events. Suddenly everyone is into micro-blogging or perhaps playing at being news reporters or sports broadcasters. The Twittersphere has gotten rather crowded as of late and I'm not sure I appreciate it fully.

What is nice is that I have more people to interact with and I have had some pretty good @reply conversations as of late along with some pretty interesting answers and solutions to open questions or on-going technical issues. The web is a wonderful place. I still spend more time addressing all the conversations I have going on Plurk given the number of geek friends that I have over there.

Even my technical usages of Twitter has changed over time. Before I used to take the time to visit my Twitter homepage a lot in order to get updates and that changed to using remote services like TwitterMail, then using the Twitter app on Facebook and now updating via Ping.fm but tracking updates via TwitterFox, my third party extension / application of choice. I don't see the need for an entirely separate program like TweetDeck, Tweetie or anything like that - seriously, there's only so much you can do on the service and if you need to manage multiple accounts and the like, then maybe you're getting a little too Twitter obsessed, hehe. Ah well, to each his own.

So what's your Twitter story? Are you another longtime user like me who's surprised with the recent surge of interest and therefore users? Or are you one of those who just recently joined the bandwagon and still don't quite get it? Feel free to share your stories in the comments or just email me directly - I've love to hear your stories and swap ideas!

And for the curious, here's where you can find me on the micro-blogging world - just be sure to introduce yourselves!

• Twitter - rgsunico
  
• Plurk - rgsunico

[Movies] Terminator Salvation (2009)

Longer-term readers of the Geeky Guide should already know that I have a bit of a thing for the Terminator franchise - I did write a tribute entry for the series some time back and despite the monstrosity that was Terminator 3, I still love series.

What's not to love about human-killing robots, post-apocalyptic nightmare worlds and time travel, right?

When they announced there was going to be another addition to the franchise beyond The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I was fairly excited although with a generous dose of caution - yes, Terminator 3 really burned me bad, I guess - but the movie did promise to show us more of what had always been only scarcely glimpsed in the previous movies - the dark future where Skynet rules supreme.

Terminator Salvation takes place well into our dark future but not too far away - just 2018. In the previous movies it had been established that John Connor (Christian Bale) was detined to be the leader of the resistance movement against the machines but here he seems to be just another soldier in a larger army. Humanity is continues to fight against Skynet from various locations around the world as coordinated from a hidden base.

At the same time, a man named Marcus (Sam Worthington) finds himself in this same world and is inevitably involved with the resistance and a very young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who will one day grow up to travel into the past to protect Sarah Connor and eventually sire John. So yeah, he's pretty important too, in the classic Grandfather paradox kind of way.

Image by lrargerich via Flickr

Now initially the movie received some pretty bad press ranging from Christian Bale's outbursts on the set to the movie being panned by many critics. Admittedly, the movie does have its flaws (like any other film) and could have handled a number of things better. Some of the Terminator fight scenes did seem a bit too much like rehashed Transformers footage, but that's not quite the point (even though there were some pretty awesome fights).

I think the biggest challenge to the film is the misconception that it's about John Connor. Sure, he's played by a big name actor, but from the very beginning of the film you'll realize that it's really about Marcus - John Connor is just an incidental character who is still important in a general sense, just not necessarily to the story. Once you get accept that notion, it'll really go a long way to helping you appreciate the film.

The movie is also a slight homage to past films in the franchise such as quoting the classic line, "Come with me if you want to live" or even having the original Sarah Connor tapes played in the film - the same dialog recorded at the end of the first Terminator film. And yes, there was the CGI Arnold cameo and even that seemed fitting enough and not overly cheesy.

Props to Helena Bonham Carter (as usual) - she didn't have a major role but definitely handled her part in the whole story very, very well. I'll never quite look at the franchise ever again without imagining her face...

I can do without another major Christian Bale movie. Seriously - he's a decent actor but the constant stream of films is starting to make him seem somehow stuck in the horrid curse or typecasting as the rough hero or something. Worthington was okay and Yelchin was amazing in the sense that you'd never think he was the same guy who played Chekov in the last Star Trek movie.

As for the fact that this was yet another blatant attempt by Hollywood to milk an existing franchise for all its worth, I guess it can't be that bad. I mean seriously, they could have done a lot worse with it and I don't see why the critics were so pissed. This doesn't mean I want to see another trilogy with Bale or anything like that - what we really need is some fresh, new ideas and continuing efforts to push the limits of storytelling.

Terminator Salvation remains a great movie for any fan of the series or of Christian Bale or of wanton destruction involving killer robots. 4 out of 5 naked Arnolds, haha.

[Transformers] Global Robot Sightings

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In recent years, TV networks and movie studios alike have started to experiment with the marketing potential of the internet, and this has resulted in some pretty interesting "guerrilla marketing" campaigns for shows like LOST, Heroes and for movies like Cloverfield and even the recent Star Trek movie.

It seems the Paramount has decided to jump on the same bandwagon in line with the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen next week, and I found out about this through a direct email from someone called Daan, Chief Robot Spotter.

The basic idea is that Transformers have been making appearances all over the world and these sightings have been captured on various video sharing websites. The videos are pretty fun to watch since it becomes a game of "spot-the-Transformer" to some degree and it's certainly an odd way of getting attention. Details below.

If you want to check out some of the "official" videos released so far, try the following links:

• UK - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo0cwRY59X4
  
• Tokyo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0oQZi2G_Ns
  
• Barcelona - http://www.dailymotion.com/RubiTruji/video/16052462
  
• Berlin - http://www.vimeo.com/5125821
  
• Machu Pichu - http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu135/p3t3r_photo/DSC00030.jpg
  
• France - http://www.dailymotion.com/Vinnylemans/video/16143347

To add fuel to the fire, they've also created two blogs that are supposedly tracking all these sightings and will continue to post updates about these sightings. You can check'em out here:

• The Real Effing Deal
  
• GiantEffingRobots

One question for Paramount, though - what's with the effing profanity? Is this supposed to make you look cool?

While the notion behind the campaign is pretty cool, I think it would have made more sense to launch this campaign perhaps a few months ago in order to build more buzz. This late in the game, guerrilla marketing is not really that powerful since everyone is focused on the actual trailers and TV spots (not to mention the movie tie-in toys) that have already flooded the media airwaves and the internet for that matter.

Either way, I guess it's a cute idea and I'm not one to complain about seeing Transformers all over the planet.

[Philippines] Manila Billboard Battle

Image via Wikipedia

Given this is a supposedly predominantly Catholic country, we often end up with some of the most ridiculous moral stands in the strangest of places. Sure, there are those classic incidents of "accidents" on live television or commercials that inadvertently cross some sort of line in terms of morality or good taste.

Then you get the really weird stuff.

This week the unusual issue of choice is the nature of the billboards along EDSA, the main highway here in Metro Manila. Initially it was claimed to only be coincidental that certain "sexy billboards" were being taken down for violation of certain public guidelines such as being too near powerlines or whatever. I know, it sounds pretty stupid, huh? Of course it gets worse.

As the take-down operations continued, it was later claimed that the billboard operators had an 'attack of conscience' of some sort, thus they opted to remove them. Really now?

So as the operations continued, it's estimated that around 37 billboards were taken down, with news articles now trying to be all oblique by referring to some of the ads in their entries. I love how they try to skirt around describing the billboards of local celebrity Piolo Pascual, who sponsors everything from San Mig Coffee to Bench jeans without the benefit of a shirt. Admittedly, I kinda enjoyed those billboards.

Now as much as they mean well, even some government officials recognize this is too little too late. The real issue at stake is not whether or not these ads meet some sort of moral standard (which admittedly, they tend not to), but more because of the true safety hazard they have always posed to motorists.

Seriously, how many storms have come and gone with billboards have been knocked off their supports to fall onto the road and pose a danger to citizens? We've even had these giant advertisements fall onto the MRT tracks, also disrupting local public transportation and complicating traffic patterns around the metro. That's why these billboards post a risk to the public and not because they act as some sort of distraction to driving. If people really believe that is the case, I'd like to see some actual statistics on the likelihood of a driving accident around supposedly "sexy" billboards. I bet the numbers would not be statistically significant and there'd be equal chances of accidents in most places along EDSA.

I doubt this effort will last very long - I'm sure the advertisers must be furious that their investments are now being forcibly removed without legal justification. Case in point, the Piolo Pascual Bench ad along Guadalupe bridge disappeared at the start of the week but was back in place this morning as I was on my way home from work.

Yeah, now that's really taking a strong moral stand, huh?

[Games] Final Fantasy XIII Trailer

I love the Final Fantasy series, even if the stories don't necessarily make sense, the characters seem like rehashes of previous ones and they tend to repeat concepts and themes.

It still sooo works for many geeks like me.


Final Fantasy XIII Trailer - NEW!

[Philippines] The Dearth of MRT Time Tables

Image via Wikipedia

Recently, the MRT-3, otherwise known as the Metrostar Express, tried experimenting with expanding their operations window to a full 24-hour run in an effort to meet a presidential request to assist BPO employees and other graveyard workers with their daily commute. The anticipation around the event was pretty big in the call center industry and many people were looking forward to having a safer means of going to work despite the rather dangerous hours they have to operate around.

Of course when the 24/7 experiment started last June 1, it was met with heavy criticism and much confusion. Apparently the MRT operators only planned for 2 trains every hour starting at 11:00pm, this anyone visiting the station would have to wait around 30 or so minutes before a train comes along as compared to the much shorter wait during the day. A lot of people who were interviewed about their sentiments related to the "experiment" gave negative comments and of course the operators themselves noted that the revenue gained from the extra hours was not enough to cover their electricity costs alone.

While many feel this is a cop out of some sort and the entire experiment was wrong in the sense that there should have been more trains since people expect speed from light railway transit systems like this, but I think the problem is more fundamental than that. The real issue here is the lack of clear communication and information related to what this plan was around the implementation of the 24/7 operations scheme.

As helpful as the MRT is to city living, the biggest thing that has irked me about the transit service is the lack of schedules and time tables. I know, I know, obvious references to the supposed "Filipino Time" notion are bound to come into play here, but hear me out.

In other countries, any train / subway / railway service is able to publish expected schedules of trains arriving at stations. With this you can figure out which train you're trying to catch once you hit a particular station. Here, all MRT and LRT lines just publish the schedules of the first and last trains in terms of that particular station. Thus within that window, you have no guaranteed assurance of when the trains are going to arrive. Yehey! has published these schedules in an effort to make them more known while the actual Metrostar Express website emphasizes the number of trains expected per hour.

Why are we so afraid of committing to a schedule? Why do we continually buy into the notion that the Filipino cannot be expected to adhere to a time table? This is what I feel was a larger contributing factor to the "failure" of the MRT 24/7 experiment. Most people didn't know they were only planning to have 2 trains per hour and expected generally "normal" operations. Thus when the first few riders were shocked with the actual scheduling, this resulted in negative feedback, buzz quickly spreading by word of mouth or SMS and ultimately lower rider numbers. This is just factoring in the people who actually knew about the experiment. In my personal experience, a lot of folks didn't know about it until the day itself.

When are we going to learn? Instead we're just sticking to the norm, blaming the failure of the experiment on low rider numbers and thus justifying a change of plans. Now they're going to try experimenting with an extended run instead, citing barely anyone used the MRT between the hours of 01:00am and 04:00am.

They might have generated more riders had the public known in advance about the change in operations and with the expectations of when the trains would actually be there instead of just the start and end times. Knowledge of the precise schedules would have allowed commuters to arrive at the station closer to their expected transit time, thus reducing the amount of time spent loitering in the station and thus reducing the need for more stringent security coverage.

A time table is such a simple thing. Why can't we even manage that?

[Viral Video Chart] Literal Eclipse of the Heart

First there was the literal version of A-Ha's Take On Me. Now it's a literal version of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

This was just too funny! Even without the altered lyrics, now that I think about it...this video was just too gay.

Oh, and I finally have internet at my new condo, so expect regular entries again.


#5 - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version