bookoftheweek: Cell by Stephen King

Remember when I said that Stephen King writes really killer openings but sucks at endings?  Well, he did it again with his newest book, Cell.

The premise is pretty simple, but cool: everyone with a cell phone has turned into zombie-like creatures.  People without cell phones are normal.  The book then follows a group of these normal folk as they try to survive.

Simple, right?  King captured me from the get-go with that premise, and I eagerly flipped the pages, wanting to see what would happen.  What was also interesting to me was that this felt like it happened in the Dark Tower universe, with the event seemingly caused by the Crimson King.  Heck, I think he even makes a cameo appearance, although obliquely (you'd have to be familiar with school mascots).   Things were building up to an exciting finish when...

He ends it.  Just like that.  He ends it.  No sense of closure.  Nada.  I nearly threw the book at something, except it would've woken up the wife and kids.  He addresses this somewhat on his site (scroll down towards the middle, posted April 26, 2006), but to me it felt like he didn't know how to end it, so he just did.

Nonetheless, it's an entertaining page turner and is worth the read. 

Just make sure you don't hit anything if you throw away the book in disgust.

Going to the Dogs

Shih-tzus have invaded the choychoy household.


The two dogs, Lola and Pepper, are owned by my sis-in-law (AZ) and sis-in-law (CA) respectively. Lola's older, and she's pretty mellow, while Pepper is your typical teenage boy, full of hormones. They're cute dogs, and the twins love them, except when Pepper starts getting all hyper and starts nipping. Hopefully he outgrows that.

Anyway, this was taken this past weekend, and was the first time the dogs met. Pepper immediately took to Lola; I believe they're hoping to breed the two at some point. They said they were going to give us one of the puppies, but I doubt the wife would go for that... 

Rockstar: Supernova, Week 7

Well, that was an interesting show. It was probably the best show overall in terms of performances--no real "weak" performance, except for Zayra, and only because she sang an original which nobody knew. She sang it well, though.

Ryan still scares me though. Magni may look more like Chris Daughtry, but Ryan's up there with Chris in terms of "intensity". Dude looks like he's going to kill someone.

I think Patrice is gone. She looks like she wants out already. Maybe she can sing Jordis' Try Not to tell the band she doesn't want to be there anymore.

(I actually think Try Not was the best original song from RS:INXS. Trees was kinda light-hearted fun, while Pretty Vegas...well, let's not go there. Try Not is still in heavy rotation on my Zen).

Message In A Bottle

I'm a big fan of messageboards. Ever since the day I first got a modem (I think it was a 14.4K or something), I've been logging onto BBSes, talking to complete strangers about absolutely nothing. There was a time when 99% of those logging into BBSes were guys; when that occasional female wandered into one by mistake, everyone would start hitting on her (not that I did, though. What?).

Of course, no one ever thought that it could be someone pretending to be female, just to elicit a few laughs and giggles. But I digress.

Now? Everyone and his second cousin are arguing about something on amessageboard/forum. Here's a couple I read on a regular basis, because they're pretty interesting:

• The Straight Dope is probably the most interesting, with some very intelligent people, some very political people, and some people who are just weird. This is my favorite messageboard as it covers a broad spectrum of topics. There was a time when I was actually a full-fledged member, but then they started charging for the right to be able to search, and I figured that I spent more time reading rather than posting, anyway.
  
• Digg keeps me up-to-date with the latest technical news, and the forums keep me entertained. Especially when a Microsoft or Apple story gets on the front page. The fanboys come out in full force.
  
• Mac Daily News/http://Apple Matters are Mac-centric sites, with some of the scarier zealots posting on the forums. There are some sane ones, like "Beeblebrox" and "Ben Hall", but there are others who are of the "Jobs-can-do-no-wrong" type. At times I've been sorely tempted to post something, but I never do, since nothing I say would change their minds anyway. I don't have a Mac, but I've been close to buying one at times. Maybe I will at some point, but it's a bit scary to associate myself with the rabid fanboys (who will then say "Good, we don't want you here anyway!")
  
• Slashdot is something I visit on occasion, especially when "Anonymous Coward" was rumored to be either Steve Jobs or some high-up Apple executive. This was also a fun read back when the "Hack-a-Mac" challenge was running.
  
• Engadget keeps me up-to-date with the latest toys. This is where I first heard about Zune, and the hundreds of opinions regarding it; the back-and-forth banter between Microsoft and Apple fanboys was a thing of beauty.
  
• Television Without Pity is where I get a lot of spoilers regarding my favorite shows. The snarking also makes it a worthy read.

I'm a big fan of sports, but not that big a fan of sports messageboards. This is because most posters can barely string a coherent message together, with most posts barely going beyond "Your team sucks" and "{player name here} sucks". I'd rather read the actual stories.

We've come a long way from those BBS days.

Rockstar: Supernova, Week 6

Loved Magni. I'm a casual Live fan, and he just did that song perfectly. Better than that Chris fellow on that other show. His kid is soooo cute too--and surprisingly mellow. Duuuuuuude.

The rest? Storm reminds me so much of Shirley Manson of Garbage, Dilana's becoming forgettable (sacrilege!), Ryan's still a tool, Lukas is still annoying, Toby was good but JD-esque and Zayra is still out there on planet Zayra, sans underwear.

Did I forget anyone? Oh yeah, Jill, Patrice and Josh (who butchered one of my favorite songs. You bastard!). See ya.

Hanging with Mickey and Friends

This past weekend we finally took the kids to see Disneyland. It had been building up for the past month or so--hardly a day went by without the twins watching one of the Disney Princesses on DVD. Their favorite was Ariel, followed by Belle, then Cinderella, and then finally Aurora (because the kids had only recently started watching Sleeping Beauty). They were also big fans of the New Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, complete with a new theme song from They Might Be Giants. Hot Dog!

PJ and I were also keen on seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, due to the fact that it had been remodeled to tie up with the movie.

We broke down and got two four-day passes from Costco--at $119 per pass, it was a bargain, considering that a single-day ticket was $79. Kids 3 and younger were free.

We got to the park at 4pm. We figured that this would be plenty of time to see what we wanted to see, since the Park closed at 11pm. The smaller crowds and the cooler temperature were also a plus.

We decide to watch the Snow White mini-play first. Unfortunately, we were unable to catch the 4:15 show, so we had to waste some time until the next show, which was at 5:30. To kill time, we went to the It's a Small World attraction, since the lines were relatively short. So we lined up, and waited.

And waited. Whoops, the ride broke down. And it was only 4:45! We decided to head to Toontown to see Mickey Mouse's house. No lines! So we walk in...and hit a line. By 5:15 we were this close to meeting Mickey Mouse, but no luck. We had to leave if we wanted to catch Snow White. So, we leave and proceed to the ampitheatre to watch Snow White's Scary Adventure.

It was pretty much the cartoon, except with Live! actors. Snow White was a cutie, but here face was a bit long. The dwarves were rather tall; I'd say they were my height (if not a bit taller). Then again, from an American standpoint, that's probably short. The Magic Mirror, though, was pretty awesome; the wicked stepmother was cool. The stage production of Beauty and the Beast still beats this, though.

We then went back to It's a Small World to find that the ride was now up and running. I wish it had stayed down; that was seriously annoying. I was ready to jump out of the boat and start ripping up displays.

After escaping from that creepshow we staked our claim to a prime spot to watch the parade. Once the music started the kids hid their faces, but when Ariel came out they got interested, and just proceeded to watch (Amelie got scared by the Ursula float though).

Ursula, the "o-pus" as the kids call her

Unfortunately, the girl who played Ariel wasn't as attractive as the one who played her the last time I went and saw the parade. The other princesses weren't so great either; I'd say Alice was the prettiest of the lot.

After the parade was over we went and had dinner. Of course, the price of food at Disney is off the charts. We pretty much had classic kids food--mozzarella sticks, chicken strips and fish and chips. We spent around $30 for the carcinogenic nightmare. The good thing was that I managed to find a seat fronting the Rivers of America--a primo spot to watch the Fantasmic! show. The kids, of course, hid their faces again--but once I pointed out the Disney princesses in their barges, they began to watch.

Jack in Night Vision!

As a finale, we went and rode the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction just to see what changes they made to match the movies. They've added Jack Sparrow in various areas (three in all), and the dummies look amazingly like the real deal. Sadly, no Keira. Davy Jones and Captain Barbossa do make appearances, though.

After that, it was 10:30pm! We headed home.

I'd say the twins' first trip to Disneyland was a moderate success. We'll see how they react to California Adventure, which would be our next stop.

Photos by me. All characters are owned by Disney, except of course for Mommy and Camille.

King of Pain

Bianx took issue with me saying that The Dark Tower series (which I mistakenly referred to as The Gunslinger series) ended badly. Yeah, I felt let down pretty much after Book 3 (The Wastelands, probably my favorite installment, with Blaine the Mono and all that riddling).

King took a long time between Book 3 and Book 4 (5 years, I think), and it shows. It's like he couldn't decide how to advance the story, so he bought himself some time and wrote a prequel-of-sorts instead. Then another 6 year hiatus between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla--and a different direction again. There were some clever touches in Calla (such as the sneetches! You half expected Flagg to pop up saying he was Voldemort...and he still could be, come to think of it) but again it felt like a filler book.

Things finally got moving in Books 6 and 7 (especially 7!) but the fates of Randall Flagg (a kickass character) and Roland were ultimately unsatisfying to this reader. Maybe it's because I was expecting a showdown between Roland and Randall Flagg, just like the Westerns that heavily influenced the series. I wanted an epic battle, something that would make up for all of Flagg's evils in books like Eyes of the Dragon (my favorite, and the only King book I own) and The Stand. I wanted a real ending, darn it, not the ending which I saw coming a mile away.

Instead, I got an ending that felt like a cop-out. Which is one of King's biggest problems: a lot of times he doesn't know how to end his novels. It happened with It, and it happened here (sorry, Bianx).

Despite my disappointment though, I can say I still enjoyed the series. It didn't turn out to be the epic I was expecting after Book 3, but still quite readable. YMMV, obviously.

In The Blink of an Eye

The winners of The Blink of an Eye contest over at Flickr were announced, and unfortunately I wasn't one of them. I wasn't expecting to anyway, after seeing the other pictures that were there. Here's my entry:


That's Camille at the CityWalk over at Universal Studios, after we had watched the Wiggles concert. Camille's consistently photogenic; if only she wasn't constantly aburido like her daddy. =)

Peanut Butter (No Jelly) Time!

I've discovered the goodness that is Peanut Butter - Dark Chocolate Dreams. Made by the Peanut Butter & Co., it's only available in health food stores such as Whole Foods. Dark chocolatey goodness without the partially hydrogenated stuff, and (supposedly) can bring up my HDL levels (the good cholesterol).

I may have to buy a case. Yum!

Rockstar: Supernova, Week 5

Tommy Lee's right--the reason why guys try to learn guitar/play piano/learn the drums is to get the girls. At the very least, it gives you an opening. Hey, it worked for Billy Joel.

With that said, that was a great performance by Ryan "David Blaine" Star. Normally I dislike the guy, because he just seems so angry all the time, but all that angst worked this time around.

Unfortunately, Dilana was just okay this time around. Hopefully it's not the start of a Jordis-spiral. Zayra was awesome.

Good: Ryan, Storm (ch-ch-ch-changes!)
Bad: Jill, Lukas

EDIT: Dana gets a tattoo--and it's a freaking clef note! Take that, SuavePorn! She's a rocker now!

The High Cost Of Living

Coming back from my annual checkup I find out that my high cholesterol levels have returned. Not really surprising, since I haven't exactly been exercising ever since the twins arrived (heh...blaming the kids). Plus I hadn't seen a doctor in a couple of years, so the high cholesterol was expected.

So, time to make a lifestyle change again. On tap are (a) more exercise (probably walking/running, since I can never get to a gym--plus, trying to save money) and (b) better diet. Yeah, time to lay off the cheetohs and anything with "partially hydrogeneated oil", since that turns into bad cholesterol.

Unfortunately, eating healthy is expensive. I bought natural peanut butter for $5.00 ($3.00 more than the regular stuff), and "good" butter for around $3.00 ($2.00 more than the regular stuff). Bread costs $4.00 (around $2.50 more than the wonder bread type). Less fastfood as well (which I guess is okay, because I don't eat that much anyway). Still, though, it would be nice to have that option.

Gotta do it, though. Otherwise I'd get to meet the cute little ankh-wearing lady sooner rather than later.

Rockstar: Supernova, Week 4

The good: Storm, Magni and Dilana. Good version of "Time after Time", although my favorite still remains that by EBTG (Tuck and Patti isn't bad either).

The bad: Josh, Ryan, Phil and Zayra.

Posers: Ryan, Dana. "I'm wearing denim skirts! Combat boots!" Yeah, those make you a "rocker". Sigh.

Everyone else...*yawn*

Bye, Phil.

Miss Universe

Since there's nothing on this summer, we decided to tune in to the Miss Universe pageant. It's mostly irrelevant nowadays around here, but I remember being all excited about it when I was small, hoping Ms Philippines would somehow make it into the finals. I still remember Pebbles de Asis' answer when Bob Barker asked the question:

Bob: "So you have The Price Is Right in the Philippines?"
Pebbles: "Of course, it's my favorite show!"

The answer, innocent as it was, made me cringe. The answer probably didn't matter one way or another, but I'm still convinced that contributed to her not winning.

This year, it's Miss Japan...yowza. Talk about mysterious and attractive...unfortunately, she was only runner-up to Miss Puerto Rico. I'm also convinced that her slip-up (when she didn't answer the "How did you learn French and Spanish" but instead said "Hello" in English) during the first Q&A that did her in.

Oh, and Miss Philippines winning Miss Photogenic? Pinoy vote-in power at its finest--the same folks who got Jasmine and MiG all the way to the top three.

Photograph

I think I've mentioned before that my wife had given me a Canon Rebel for Christmas, but wound up returning it. In exchange, we got a Canon EOS 30D. It's a lot of camera, and sadly I haven't been using it to its full potential. I brought it to Manila and all, but at times my trusty old Canon ELPH S410 seemed to outperform it.

I'll start taking it a bit more seriously, though. My goal is to get good enough so as to take pictures of my sister-in-law's wedding in November.

 

Sometimes, though, I get lucky. The shot above is of Amelie. The scab on her nose was caused by an overzealous puppy. 

Rock Star: Supernova, Week 3

Yes, Storm, I did use Google. Didn't know she fronted a band called Storm Large and The Balls (heh), with two bald guys. "Laura Domela" is the search term Tommy Lee should use, if he were so inclined.

Anyway, Magni rocked, I liked Jenny but she's so terribly wrong for this competition, and was disappointed in Toby. And then there's Dilana. Wow.

Hopefully she doesn't flame out like Jordis did.

Doubleheader

The wife and I played hooky from work today, in order to watch two movies:Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's and Superman Returns.

Loved POTC:DMC. I'm not sure why so many people are dissing it--it was a pretty good thrill ride, and I though the plot points meshed together nicely (a sharp contrast from other comments I've heard, which complained of the disjointed nature of the movie). YMMV, of course. Johnny Depp was fabulous as CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, while Bill Nighy was fantastic as Davy Jones. His crew was pretty creepy too. A lot of people were saying that the first one was a lot better; personally, we watched POTC:COTBP the night before and I fell asleep! I guess they just looked fondly upon the first movie because they remembered the ride. Of course, I missed the "extra" scene after the end credits, like when I missed the monkey extra scene from the first movie. I'll see it on the DVD, I suppose.

Liked Superman Returns. This one went on too long; I found myself wondering what time it was. Lois Lane wasn't pretty enough (then again, Margot Kidder wasn't too hot either), and Jimmy Olsen just seemed annoying. PJ's in love with Brandon Routh, though. And, like Calai, I found out about one of the plot points--on a freakin' technology website! Argh. Anyway, that ruined it a bit for me.

Oh, and the trailers for Night At The Museum and Talladega Nights were pretty cool too! "Lord, thank you for my sons, Walker and Texas Ranger." Hee!

Rock Star: Supernova, Week 2

(all hail Leper Pop!)

These are the "14 best undiscovered rock talent in the world"?!? A Marty Casey wannabe (who kinda looks like Michael Hutchence, IMHO, but without the talent or the charisma)? A bad Courtney Love impersonator? A camel-toe showin' Warrior Princess? Daddy's little girl playing dress-up (Born to be Mild...hee!)? Lindsey Lohan?
Creed homeboy who smiles too much?

*sigh* The only ones worth a damn are Dilana (who's still scary, but is apparently a sweetie offstage) and Toby. Oh, and (barely) Magni, who opened the show quite well. Other than that...meh.

I watched the performance show in thirty minutes (gotta love the DVR), as I was fast-forwarding through all the crap. RS:INXS was so much better, with practically everyone a good singer (yeah, even Asshat).

And yet, I'm still strangely compelled to watch. OB:House still kicks ass, and Bwak-bwak's good eye-candy. Plus, it's always fun to guess what Tommy and Jason are on that particular night.

EDIT: Wow, Jill killed EvenAsia...er, Evanescence tonight. Interesting that if they just tone down all the "peacocking", they're all actually quite good. Even Chris.

Rock Star: Supernova Week 1

(or, as I like to call it, "Tommy's Diner". Seriously, though, it's like a buffet for Tommy Lee, don't you think?)

Boy, that was interesting. Although I can't help feeling that Tommy Lee was heavily involved in the selection process. Most, if not all of the female rockers are all hot in some form or fashion. Well, except for Dilana, who's a bit scary. And (again, except for Dilana, who's one of a kind) is it just me, or do all the females look like or perform like someone who's already famous?

• Dana, the sweet little rich kid looks kinda like Winnie Cooper and performs like Jessica Rabbit from RS:INXS
  
• Jenny looks and sings like Liz Phair. I think she's better as a solo act.
  
• Jill looks like Charo, along with the *ahem* frontage to match. PJ thinks she looks like Pamela Anderson with those lips
  
• Patrice looks like Miranda from Sex and the City...so I can't picture her as a "rocker". More like a lawyer moonlighting as one.
  
• Storm looks like Tiffani Amber-Thiessen, or (depending on the camera angle) Lindsey Lohan. And who the heck names their daughter "Storm"?
  
• Zayra looks like Lucy Lawless, and makes like Daphna Dove with the flowing scarves

The guys...well, only Toby stood out for me, with his acoustic Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Lukas, although he sounded great, felt like Ty part 2 to me. Which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but he's too emo and seems to be too high-maintenance for my taste.

It's only Week One, though. We'll see if people improve, and if Tommy Lee can manage to keep his hands to himself. Doubt it, though. =)

Teaching Kids How To Spel

I like to think that I'm a good speller--after all, I did win a Spelling Bee waaaaay back in grade school (heh). Imagine my horror when I stumbled upon an article in Yahoo!, where an organization called "Simplified Spelling Society" is pushing to change the spelling of words to reflect how they're pronounced. Yes, change the spelling of words to reflect how they're pronounced.

Wow. Just...wow. After the initial outrage (and wincing at the writing style of the author...I picture her patting herself on the back, thinking how clever she is), I continued reading, if only to find out what their motivations were. From what I gather, Simplified Spelling advocates are arguing that the current system of spelling is "confusing" to children; words like "enough" is pronounced "ehnuf", but "dough" is pronounced "doh"; their way, they claim, would accelerate learning among children. This way of thought even had some high-profile advocates such as Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster and Mark Twain.

Now wait a minute, I thought. Franklin? Webster? Twain? Big names! Of course, I googled it to make sure. Franklin, yes. Daniel Webster, not really sure, might have confused him with Noah Webster. Mark Twain--well, I managed to find his essay on it, which seemed to argue that it will save pen strokes; unfortunately, this doesn't really apply in this day and age, when more often than not people bang away on a keyboard, and some words such as "education" spelled as it is currently require less keystrokes than "edyukayshun". Twain also seems to be promoting a sort of shorthand as well.

So what to make of all this? Well, personally I think it's nearly impossible to implement. It's too massive a change--imagine all the textbooks that have to be re-written, all the teachers that need to be re-taught. Most important of all, it's too confusing for the wee ones. Imagine mastering several difficult words in the third grade, only to be told to forget everything you've learned in the fourth grade. It's like that Twilight Zone episode Wordplay where the father wakes up to find that the meaning of words have changed.

It's impossible to change something completely overnight. The English language is an evolving beast, though, and it wouldn't surprise me to see some of what SS is pushing make it to the language. For example, l33t speak such as pwned! and pr0n have made it to common everyday usage. They will undoubtedly make it to Webster's at some point (if they haven't already). The texting phenomenon is also an interesting case, one I see quite often whenever my family sends me a message from Manila. You see Simplified Spelling in action, since you're trying to cram an entire message with a limited amount of letters, to wit: "m gng hm now. wil be hm soon. cya". It's only in text messaging though; their e-mails use regular, boring spelling.

So, for now I'll continue to live in the past, and revel in the fact that I once won the Spelling Bee (oh, and pray that Gaudere's Law doesn't come back to haunt me).

Petals Around The Rose

If you've been following the strange-but-funny idealogical war between Windows, Apple and Linux faithful, you've almost certainly heard that Bill Gates is stepping down from day-to-day activities at Microsoft. This has lead to some people praising Gates for his charitable work (he's stepping down to concentrate on his Foundation), while others continue to villify him, wondering at the hidden agenda Gates has in giving away his wealth.

Myself? I think he's a pretty smart guy to have been able to do what he did. He's also been very lucky. Anyway, what does this have to do with Roses? Well, some of you might know the game Petals Around The Rose. I certainly hadn't heard of it--until I came across an article about a young Bill Gates from Lloyd Borrett's excellent site, which provided an insight into his thinking.

The parts about Gates were pretty interesting (especially the last part--pretty funny, and a reflection about how programmers are lousy spellers); the part that grabbed me though, was the game itself. It was the first time I heard about it--essentially, the set up is this:

There are five ordinary six-sided dice that are rolled. There are only three pieces of information that you can have:

(1) The name of the game is Petals Around The Rose.
(2) The name is significant.
(3) The answer is always an even number or zero.

The Potentate of the Rose (the carney running the game who knows what the deal is) rolls the dice, and then tells the crowd what the answer is if they ask. Some get it immediately. Others never do (according to the Bill Gates story a lot of geniuses and math whizzes think up complex algorithms to try and solve it, but still come up with the wrong answer).

If I read the article correctly, Gates got it in the span of around three hours. After playing the game on Borrett's site on-and-off for an accumulated hour (and running scenarios in my head in the shower, which is where I work out the answers to most of the great mysteries in life, such as "How do I open that jewelled egg in Zork?"), I was able to rise to the level of Potentate. I won't give anything else away--it's pretty satisfying to solve it yourself.