The Escapist's Redemption

For those who follow my Multiply blog, I wrote about how depressing it was to have a writer’s block last Thursday night. For various reasons, I was not in a happy mood. Struggling to express myself just made it worse.

It is a boring Friday night at home. Yes, I am not outside in the malls or bars like most yuppies do but that’s my personal sacrifice to discipline myself from spending (for those who know me, I am already disciplined in spending – no sarcasm here – as I am what you can call kuripot). I am sitting comfortably in our living room viewing Veronica Mars. I called it quits after two episodes as I do not want to watch too much lazy, sunny San Diego scenes. I do not know the exact reason but I just do not have the motivation to watch San Diego sceneries as much as I get intoxicated with the sophisticated skyline of New York in TV or films. Do not get me wrong, I like watching Veronica Mars.

I decided to re-watch the latest How I Met Your Mother episode (the one with Jenkins). I had a few laughs but it soon ended as it is just a twenty minute episode. 9:30 PM. I am thinking of burning more time. Should I watch Californication? But uhmm… there are just three episodes left and Season 2 download has not yet passed 50%. I thought of saving it for some other time. 30 Rock? Not in the mood. Despite the numerous unwatched TV episodes in my Downloads folder, I decided not to watch any TV series episode for the rest of the night. Tonight should be Friday movie night. However, I felt depressed just like last Thursday because I found out that I barely have any unwatched movie in my Downloads folder. The movies that I had were files that I want to keep just in case I want to re-watch them - phenomenal films like (500) Days of Summer, The Godfather, Up In The Air, Inglourious Basterds and The Dark Knight.

January, An Entertaining Month (Translation: If You Like US TV Shows, Read This)

Oh January! This is the start of a new year. The start of a decade. For most of us human beings, it is just a continuation from the past X days of our lives. However, we view it with a new outlook,  a new hope. We make resolutions and goals which we could have done in any of the 365 days of the year but we did not/we could not. Why? It is because the month of January has the beacon of beginnings. As for me, January is the month where I resume my normal life after I pressed the pause button two weeks before December ended. Work returns to its typical stressful form. Your wallet is back to its empty form. Traffic – well, traffic is always the same for the rest of the year. And for entertainment, it returns to its normal schedule. TV series are back again – these are continuations of episodes from last year but in some way or the other, we view these differently. Like these are pilot episodes but are not. We just know that the show - no matter how good or bad it stopped from the previous year - would pick up on a new direction this January.

The Decade (Part 3)

This is the last part of my blog about the decade's bests. Part 1 | Part 2

Most Memorable Things In The Double-Zero Decade:

Asian Horror Movies. Last decade saw the emergence of Asian horror flicks which changed the landscape of Hollywood scary films. Audiences started to realize that Hollywood horror movies pale in comparison to their Asian counterparts. The Ring started it then The Grudge improved it. Many followed like The Eye and Shutter. But these proved one thing – special effects do not scare the shit as it was advertised to. Asian horror flicks provided a haunting, old-fashioned setting that disturbed the wits out of their viewers. Nevertheless, Hollywood – with the gazillion of movies it produces – had several awesome horror flicks. Here is my list of the best horror movies of the decade (gore-centric movies do not count.):

The Decade (Part 2)

Here is the second part of the decade's bests and most memorable things. View the first part here.

Best Computer Games
10. Poker Stars (PC). It was poker frenzy dating back to 2005 as the World Poker Tour was avidly watched by a lot of people. We were playing poker by writing the scores/number of chips in a piece of paper (thus, testing our mathematical skills). Poker Stars was the favorite then because we are usually online anyway and we love to chat. I can still recall Jeb trashtalking the foreigners in our poker table.
9. Bioshock (XBox 360)
8. Marvel Ultimate Alliance (XBox 360). I love to play superhero games ever since I was a child (I used to try borrowing my friend’s SNES Spider-Man game even if it does not have a cartridge cover anymore). However, there were several failed superhero titles. Thus, MUA was the perfect game for superhero fans who want to play all their characters together in one game. Also, Marvel > DC.
7. Guitar Hero World Tour / Beatles Rock Band / Guitar Hero 5 (XBox 360)
6. Grand Theft Auto 4 (XBox 360)

The Decade (Part 1)

I know that the double-zero decade has passed but it is never too late to celebrate the awesome things that has happened to us for the past ten years. In this blog entry, I shall discuss the ten bests of various categories from the past decade. We all know how wild it has been – with the advancement of information technology as cellular phones and the Internet have been more utilized than it was in the 20th century. We have witnessed another people power revolution taking place and we have seen entertainment reach a new level thanks to technology. If there was one thing this past decade, it was the fact that the world rapidly changed in a matter of ten years but still I shall try to summarize the most notable moments and events in this writeup for us to have a better appreciation of what has been.

As compared to my previous journal entry, I shall be writing fewer descriptions in here as I shall be tackling ten instead of just five. This writeup despite having its own biases is aimed to be collective – meaning, it can be understood by people of different walks of life. You may or may not agree, but that is the essence of such rankings – there is no definitive way to rank them correctly. Everyone will always have his own biases. But, I will still try to show my explanations to provide my point of view.