The season of love hits Divisoria

Now that the Christmas season is over, the streets of Divisoria are once again cleaner and more spacious. The air is fresher and the battalion of yuletide peddlers have disappeared.



So what's going on in the busiest commercial districts of Manila nowadays? Getting ready for Valentines! After looking over the stalls and shops in the area, I noticed that the shop owners have replaced the Christmas ornaments and decorations with a redder motif. Stalls in Divi Mall and 168 are now selling flowers, romantic candles, Valentine greeting cards, and other cupid inspired items.



Of course, all these flowers are fake. But then they are cheap, and some of them beautiful.



Here's an interesting flower product being sold at Divi-Mall, a paper soap flower...



Aside from Valentine products, some shops are starting to cash in on the Chinese New Year holiday by selling Tikoy....



It just goes to show how much the shops here are in touch with the season, and know how to market the right products to buyers.

PLDT = Sucky Customer Service

Our landline phone at home has been dead for five days now.

I have been calling up PLDT everyday, following up on the repair. The customer service people there are useless. I doubt they even care or sympathize with the customer's problem, they are merely following a script.

Heck I already memorized their dialogue and lines.

"Let me check the records sir..."

"I'm sorry sir, but according to our files, someone already checked the line" (eh bakit ba sira?!)

"I will write a ticket and notify the technical team..." (you've been writing tickets everytime I call you up.)

"Medyo busy lang ang technical team ngayon, but they will fix your phone as soon as they are available" (kelan? when hell freezes over?)

Good thing my mom applied for a bayantel phone. At least we have another landline phone available for use. The annoying thing is, my internet access is connected to the PLDT line.... that means no internet at home until the phone company fixes this mess.

Dragonlance the New Adventures: Temple of the Dragonslayer

(3 out of 5 stars)

The first time I saw this book, I was surprised that Dragonlance would publish a new line of stories for young adults. It seems that the publishers want to bring the world of Krynn to younger readers. The cover art looks cool. It reminds me of anime art and i think it is appealing to kids.

Temple of the Dragonslayer is the first of a series of young adult novels called "Dragonlance the New Adventures". The series focuses on a new group of heroes -- all of them young teenagers, banded together on a quest to save one of their own from an evil black robed wizard.

The events that happened in the novels happened shortly after the War of the Lance. The main protagonist of the novel, Nearra, is a young girl who has no memory of who she is or what she was doing wandering alone in a forest. She learns about a temple, where healers may be able to bring back her memory.

Nearra begins her journey and meets several new friends along the way. Among these friends are a fallen knight, a kender with wizardly powers, a bastard elf guide, and a ranger with a dark secret. The group then encounters several foes, ranging from pesky goblins, an ogre, to a sinister green dragon -- all of them seem to be out looking for Nearra.

I had a nice time reading the book, and revisiting the world of Kyrnn. Unlike the other Dragonlance novels, this novel has a simple plot, with young characters, and a PG-13 style of writing. It took me a day and a half to finish the book (not counting my work and travel time), which makes this a light read (at least for me).

My only main comment about the novel is how Nearra managed to acquire a band of faithful friends in a short span of time. I can accept the fact that two of her friends have ulterior motives for accompanying Nearra, but the other two simply decided to tag along (for a lack of anything else better to do).

Nevertheless, I find the novel engaging and interesting. The novel ends with a climatic battle and it does build up the tension/conflict which makes me (the reader) want to continue on reading the next book in the series.

Pan's Labyrinth (5 out of 5 stars)

I've been wanting to do a review of this movie ever since I watched it last October 2007. I'd personally give the movie a six star rating for its imagery, story, and suspense.

Pan's Labyrinth (or "El Laberinto del Fauno" in Spanish) is the work of Guillermo del Toro, the same guy who directed the Hellboy movie. At first I was skeptical of the movie's English title, it sounded like a B horror movie. But then after hearing nice reviews, I decided to watch it and see for myself.

The movie is basically an adult faerie tale. By adult, I'm talking about the intense and gruesome violence depicted in the story. I wouldn't recommend having kids watch the movie because of the gory head bashing, torture, and the bloody gun fights.

Pan's Labyrinth is set in the wilderness of Spain, during the country's civil war. The military, led by a maniacal war freak captain, is hunting down rebels - killing them left and right. Amidst all the death and violence, a young girl becomes enamored in the world of faerie. She encounters a satyr and learns of a fantastic faerie world. With the help of the satyr and some pixies, the girl undergoes a series of quests to help improve the lives of her family.

Slowly the girl's secret fantasy world and the realities of war begin to overlap. The rebels waged their final war against the military and the girl is forced to make a choice - to save her dreams or her family.

While the movie revolves around the girl and her struggle to save her family from hardship and suffering. I think that her innocence and belief in faerie kept her protected from the brutalities of war. Since she is the only one who interacts with the Satyr and pixies, I was left thinking whether the faeries were real or if she made it all up.

Despite all the death and violence, the story redeems itself in the end. In the young girl's mind, she has succeeded in her quest and she has brought happiness and prosperity for her family and the land.

Kekexili: Mountain Patrol

I stumbled on this movie accidentally at AXN last Saturday and I was glued to the screen. At first I thought it was one of those mainland films depicting life under communist rule, but as I continued watching, I realized this was a story about life in the wilderness of Tibet.

The film acts like a travel documentary, revolving around a Beijing Photojournalist on assignment in Tibet. He gets first hand experience with the rugged and harsh life in the mountains.

During his trip, the journalist encounters a group of Tibetan vigilantes who roam the land to protect endangered antelopes from poachers. They track down illegal hunters across the mountains, arresting violators and burying the carcasses of dead antelopes they encountered.

The film portrays the harshness of the Tibetan mountains -- from its cold numbing frost, to its vast stretched of wasteland. It shows how people survive under poverty. Abandoned or simply ignored by the government, these people resort to illegal poaching, skinning of antelope skins (which are prized in the black market), and stealing.

One of the scenes that struck me was when the patrol arrested a group of poachers. The journalist interviewed one of the criminals, an old man who claimed to be the fastest antelope skinner in the region. The old man proudly showed his three sons who were along with him. He said that he was once a shepherd but because of the changes in the weather, his livestock died. Shortly after that, he became a poacher.

I liked the way the film portrayed the region as a "savage frontier", where everyday is a fight for survival. It also shows how the land affects its inhabitants, and how it affects ones moral judgment and view of good/evil.

Children of Men

Watched the movie on HBO last night. I 'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies and this was one of the best. The movie paints a realistic and terrifying vision of the near future, a future that seems all the more probable with all the problems that the world is facing right now.

The movie is set in the United Kingdom of 2027. Mankind has less than a century to survive, since all women have lost the ability to conceive and bear children. Accompanying this crisis is a worldwide societal collapse, rampant terrorism, and environmental destruction. Britain becomes the last functioning government, persecuting illegal immigrants and refugees.

Watching the movie gave me a picture of the world, if the present problems of global warming, political/financial instabilities, discrimination, and terrorism would continue to worsen. Unlike other apocalyptic movies where mankind is quickly eradicated by some kind of holocaust, Children of Men shows a slow and more gruesome collapse of humanity and civilization. Coupled with the mysterious dilemma of infertility, people have lost all sense of decency and morality. Many of them have simply surrendered to their inevitable doom and destruction.

Despite all the death and suffering, the movie offers hope and redemption for humanity. It might not be that uplifting (at least not for me), but it still shows that there is something positive and good about people, and there is a chance for mankind to survive.