2022 October
2022 September
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I didn't watch any movies the previous week, so I decided to watch a few this week. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) I have a vague recollection of watching this before at David's house, but I have no memory of the plot or anything, so this was practically a first watch. This was so good! Since I was feeling a bit sleepy I planned to watch only maybe half of the film, but ended up just sticking through til the end. Felt a lot less whimsical and a lot more high stakes compared to the other Ghibli
2022 August
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Better Call Saul Went through seasons 5 and 6 of Better Call Saul the past few weeks. Spoilers below I guess. There is a little bit of tension lost in this series because you know that characters like Saul, Gus, and Mike survive through to Breaking Bad. That means the tension primarily revolves around the fates of the newer characters, particularly Kim Wexler and to a lesser extent Howard Hamlin, Lalo Salamanca, and Nacho Varga. The last two seasons solidifies Jimmy's transformation into Saul and his involvement with Lalo and the drug cartel and the stakes escalate quickly for those
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Here's the second set of reviews for movies I watched this week. Previously. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) Watched this one because the r/movies Nice Guys thread mentioned it as one of Shane Black's earlier films that was closest to Nice Guys. That's kind of true because half of the movie is also a black comedy about two guys trying to solve a murder. The two guys: a young pre-Iron Man RDJ playing a petty thief mistakenly thrust into the Los Angeles showbiz scene and Val Kilmer playing a gay PI who isn't shy about talking about his sexuality all
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This week I decided to be unproductive and just watch a bunch of movies. To avoid flooding the weeknotes, I'm writing the reviews as separate posts again! Predator (1987) I heard good buzz about the new Prey film, but I've never seen the original Predator films so I thought I'd watch the first two films first. This one is pretty good: the action, the setting, the setup, all great. It's one of those old-school action films where the plot isn't super important and the action is all-important. Everything is tense: The way the Predator stalks them continuously and takes them -
The World Despite dire warnings from Beijing, US Speaker of the House Pelosi went ahead and visited Taiwan. In response, China has suspended international cooperation in several areas like climate change, and has conducted military exercises around Taiwan, even firing missiles over Taipei. It could be really bad for the world if all of this escalates while the whole Russian invasion of Ukraine is still ongoing. As of today, we are at 4k+ covid cases per day for four days in a row. We are inching up ever closer to 5k covid cases per week. I am hoping that this
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The weekend kind of got away from me, so I'm doing this on a Monday instead. My weekends often seem to be busy, maybe I should consider just scheduling these on Mondays? The World Last Wednesday a magnitude 7 quake struck Luzon's Northern region. I am told it was felt all the way here, but I was asleep and of course felt nothing. I awoke to an annoying NDRRMC message though. Former PH president Fidel V. Ramos has passed away. There is a pattern. We broke 4k daily covid cases last week, though the counts really feel like they are
2022 July
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The World Our local covid cases continue to tick upwards, albeit a bit slowly, and the health care utilization rate still holds at low values. Positivity rates are climbing though, especially in NCR, so the "real" case counts are probably a bit higher. If I had to I would guess the current "surge" peaks in maybe 2-3 weeks. Tomorrow is president BBM's first state of the nation address. It's a big brouhaha I hope to ignore completely. Earlier today, there was a shooting incident at Ateneo de Manila. Three people died. It was a politically-motivated assassination attempt in broad daylight -
It has certainly been a week. The World Professional troll and part-time entrepreneur Elon Musk wants out of his Twitter buyout deal, and his social media platform of choice is taking him to court in response. No one is surprised by this. NASA published the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Comparisons to previous images we had are amazing. A massive leak of documents details how Uber broke laws, duped police, and lobbied governments in their early years. Looks like the files are mostly about their dealings in Europe, but it's not hard to imagine they did some -
Continuing the MCU phase 4 things. I don't have spoiler-free reviews for these ones. This post will have unmarked spoilers. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) I watched this with my brother last Monday right after my long trip. IDK if it was the trip exhaustion, but I wasn't super impressed. My brother felt it was better than Ragnarok, I think it was maybe a bit worse. The movie felt a lot goofier than Ragnarok, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was funnier. Most of Korg's narration jokes were so-so, and I'm not a fan of Thor himself being exceptionally goofy
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I just came back from a pretty good 5-day out of town trip via a miserable 9-hour bus ride, so this past week's weeknotes are coming in late and will probably be a bit short. The World Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has been assassinated. Noahpinion has a pretty good writeup on how he changed Japan. Amid multiple crises, the people of Sri Lanka have ousted their prime minister via wide-scale protests. Hopefully they learn from certain other countries' mistakes manage to stop his children from coming back in 30 years to revise history. Speaking of mistakes, our president has -
Dictator's son and habitual liar Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr officially took over as the president of this country last weekend, a living testament to the power of propaganda and short memories. I did not pay attention to the festivities. In fact, I try not to pay attention to news about him at all; though I am paying attention to cabinet appointees and I must note that we still don't have a health secretary! The pandemic is still a thing! Covid19 cases are still on a slight uptick over here, though the number of daily cases at the end of the
2022 June
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The week has been a bit busy, and I don't have a lot of time today, so these weeknotes will be a bit short. The year nears it's midpoint, and it seems like the world continues to regress. A couple of the days ago, as prophesized by an earlier leak, the US Supreme Court struck down the 50-year old Roe vs Wade precedent, clearing the way for multiple states to almost immediately ban abortions. I am neither an American nor a woman, so I do not feel I have the standing to weigh in. In fact, as someone who grew -
Another exhausting, errand-filled week for me. For some reason being human means limited amounts of time and energy to do all the things I want to do. Covid19 cases are starting to go up again in these parts, which is threatening some end-of-month plans I had. I think most people aren't paying the rise in cases any heed, but I have to be extra cautious given that I live with a couple of seniors. We'll see how it goes. Markets are crashing, crypto is crashing, no safe place to put your investments at the moment. Cash is king. Support for -
The World I have honestly kind of tuned out the rest of the world this week and focused on my own stuff for a while. We could all use a break from all the bad news. I do know that the Depp/Heard defamation trial has concluded, a media spectacle/shitshow that went on far too long and was apparently plagued by all sorts of misinformation. Here's a good Twitter thread I read about it. I also like the coverage by Today in Tabs. Links of Interest Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival? | Melon's Thoughts: What
2022 May
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That scene near the end of ROTK is so great. "My friends, you bow to no one."
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It has been a sad week for the world, something that happens perhaps way too often in the past few years. The World PH: Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, has proclaimed Bongbong Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte as the winners of the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections. Some reactions from one of my group chats: Of course, not everybody is sad. Presumably, his supporters are happy he won, though I've found little evidence of that online. It's more like they're happy Leni lost than BBM winning, and are a bit incensed that she's happily ignoring the noise -
The World PH: it has been a very rainy week over here, with the mornings typically hot and the afternoons and evenings with daily showers. Weather agency PAG-ASA has declared the official start of the rainy season, making my daily walks more challenging. At least we are hopefully going to suffer less of the summer heat. Covid isn't even over, but apparently there's a new disease to worry about: Monkeypox. I asked an infectious disease specialist I knew if we should be worried about it and she answered "At this point no. But that's we said about Covid too." So -
A Quote In the river I have seen you Through love age and misery In the river I will find you for you will always be you and i will always be me Gwyn Davies, Legends of Tomorrow S07E12 The World PH/Politics: The elections have come and gone and like it not, we must live with the results. I have written some post-election thoughts here. PH/sports: Some good news though: Last Friday the UP Maroons defeated ADMU in the final game of the UAAP basketball season, ending a 36-year drought. The Maroons last won the championship after the dictatorship fell. -
I've been putting my media reviews in the weeknotes but I felt like these two reviews would be long enough to justify a separate post. I posted spoiler-free reviews the other day. This post will have unmarked spoilers. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (Click photos to view full-size) Watched this with some friends last Wednesday, only my 3rd film seen in the theaters since the pandemic, and the first time I went with friends outside of immediate family. I usually try to avoid watching all except the earliest trailers for MCU film to minimize spoilers, but after