Self-Reference It Some More

Until yesterday, I thought you could only get The Simpsons on cable, which we don't have, or through pirated but crystal-clear DVDs, whose mecca in Quiapo Manila Mayor Lim recently had closed--for how long, we're not sure.


Anyway, that was a pretty stupid assumption, give up just because RPN 9 stopped airing the episodes.  Hello, we have Internet for the past three years, and practically everything is on offer there: baby chairs, comic books, mineral make-up, keychains, cookies, even ancient episodes of The Twilight Zone.  So how much more our beloved Simpsons?  So I go typing watch Simpsons online, and what do you know, not one, not two, but a dozen sites stream Simpsons episodes, some of them even up-to-date, although come to think of it: The Ned-liest Catch (the finale of Season 22, where Edna Krabapple and Ned Flanders hook up) was aired last May.  Still, better late than never.


After gorging on Simpsons reruns yesterday, I stumble on this: a very dark, gritty, opening sequence that unapologetically self-references the production process of the animation series.  Suddenly, the sequence panning the not-so-bucolic, anything-goes town of Springfield veers into a scene from inside the Simpsons TV set, revealing a sweatshop somewhere in Asia where animation stills are painstakingly drawn under dire conditions, and where other outrageous procedures for manufacturing various Simpsons merchandise: Bart dolls, DVD sets, etc.  

Retro Toy: the BigTrak

Yes, there was a time when toy cars were clunky and carried dozens of buttons to function (just plain unsightly--not to mention awkward when installed on a real-life car), but hey, the Bigtrak was programmable, and it paved the way for future RC toys cars and vehicles.

Chapter 12, In Which They Go to the CCP Museum. Sort Of

--Why, it's not so blasphemous as I thought it would be!



--And I'm afraid it's not nearly as artful either, Colonel.


--Stop, you're right.  I wonder why all the media fuss then.  It's just sensory overload, if you ask me.  


--I'm reminded of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ photograph.  Now, that's good!

--Guys, I hate to break it to you, but we still haven't left the house.  This is not the musuem.  We're looking at an actual bedroom altar.

Un-Paintballing at the Ruins of Diplomat Hotel in Baguio

1. Just got back from a three-day vacation from Baguio.  Me and Edge have turned five.  Whoopee!


2. For the first time visited Diplomat Hotel, thanks to a signboard near the Lourdes Grotto (which was our original itenerary).


3.  The signboard said "This way to Prayer Mountain", and because we were in the mood to pray (seriously), we trekked a whole kilometer to this so-called prayer mountain.


4. Turns out we wouldn't be in a particularly prayerful mood since there is just a hotel, or ruins of it.

5. The lady at Ibay's Silver Shop back at the Grotto did warn us that there is just this old hotel called Diplomat Hotel at Prayer Mountain, this closed-down hotel now a haunted house, which according to her, is always featured in reality TV shows during Halloween.


6.  Just when we thought it'd be a scary place, we find that there are well-taken care of flowers all around the area, and teenagers in full battlegear cosplay making poses in front of their super duper DSLR camera.


7.  For our part, me and Edge have no imaging device whatsoever.  I purposely left my point-and-shoot camera at home, I accidentally left my cellphone with just a VGA camera at home, while Edge's own cellphone is only good for texting, as an alarm clock, and a flashlight.


8.  We didn't need the flashlight because it was broad daylight.


9.  In a span of one hour, more people (living, hopefully not deceased) appeared at the rooftop of Diplomat Hotel where me and Edge have cozied up in a corner.  They all proceed to take pictures of the beautiful 360 degrees scenery of Baguio.


10. You can tell Diplomat Hotel was grand: it had two big fountains, bathtubs and fireplaces in some of the rooms, traces of parquet flooring, and a grand driveway.  But now, it's all stripped off walls, wet floors, and general decay.  


11. Three days later, back home, I Google this Diplomat Hotel and what happened to it.  The name Tony Agpaoa surfaces, a psychic physician who supervised the hotel and then died of a heart attack in 1987.  That's when the hotel started to fall into disuse.


12.  Agpaoa rings a bell.  I ask Mami if this Agpaoa is the same guy to whom she had brought Ditse, her sister, when she was sick.  I remember her telling me how they went to a posh hotel in Baguio in those days, seeking psychic-medical help there.  I remember her exclaiming over the minibar and how their friend told them they can have anything, courtesy of the hotel management.


13. Sure enough, it is the same Agpaoa. 


14.  I tell her about how Diplomat Hotel looks like now.  I even show her pictures though she can't remember if it's the same hotel.  Anyway, a lot has changed, too hard for the mind to comprehend in a single glance.


15.  Apparently, enterprising people also use the hotel grounds as their battle area for paintball combats.  There were no paintballers that day.  I don't remember seeing paint splatters either, but that's probably because the paint is water-based.


16.  Edge tells me the teenagers with the DSLR could come up with better angles.  Also, that the hotel grounds would be good for a pre-nuptial shoot.  


17.  We leave the hotel grounds before it gets darker and foggier, and because we still haven't had lunch.

* * * 

Mr. DeMartino: And why are we going to engage in simulated combat? Daria?


Daria: Because no high school education is complete until you've chased your fellow students around the woods with toy guns?




-from Daria the Hunter, Episode #202, year televised 1998

Dance, Dance, Dance with OK Go's New Interactive Music Video

Maybe it's unintentional, maybe it's deliberate, but US band OK Go is best remembered for their quirky music videos (the treadmill dancefest, the rube goldberg machine, the pingpong match) more than the songs themselves.  As if the songs get drowned in the visual style of the videos they happen to be in.  Which is weird because there are a lot of great videos out there, both texturally and textually rich, say Madonna's Bedtime Story, or Chemical Brothers' Let Forever Be, and we all know how the songs go. 


Here, however, at last, is a song by OK Go that's not forgettable: All is Not Lost.  Finally, I can sing along and I don't think I'll forget the chorus any time soon.


All is Not Lost is still quirky and geeky as only OK Go can go, and the guys are back to doing what they do best: dancing.  Not on treadmills again, but on the glass floor this time, with the Pilobolus dance group, wearing light teal green unitards, slinking ever so smoothly in incredibly choreographed and synchronized movements. 


Then, because the video plays best in Google Chrome, the window splits all of a sudden, and the next thing you know you're watching multiple windows, with people seemingly falling like leaves, etc, and then spelling out ALL IS NOT LOST, plus the message you typed in earlier.  I did tell you the music video is interactive, right?  Guys proposing to their girlfriends can use this interactive messaging feature to the fullest.


OK Go is dedicating All is Not Lost to the people of Japan who have been recently ravaged by the tsunamis last March.


Just head on to www.allisnotlo.st, type your message, wait for the page to load, and dance along.

Resurrecting the Smurfs

How do you introduce a bunch of peaceable, blue-skinned, white capped, and three-apples-high folks living in idyllic conditions and whose voabulary seem to revolve around the all-encompassing harmless word "smurf"--how do  you introduce the Smurfs to kids of today reared in Plants Vs. Zombies, Angry Birds, and God of War? 

You make a comeback film shot in 3D, and hope ticket sales are brisk and reception is good because we don't want the little guys rubbing off the wrong way on kids seeing the Smurfs for the first time ever in their life. 

If the movie fails (despite Neil Patrick Harris's best efforts, and Katy Perry's involvement, and Hank Azaria's overcharged antics), there's always McDonald's to further immortalize the Smurfs with Smurf action figures in every Happy Meal. 

When I was a kid, I used to have a Smurf action figure (though action figure may be the wrong word as it didn't have movable arms and legs).  Anyway, I don't know where that is now.  Also, I've forgotten what the Smurfs TV show was like.  I remember they lived in a forest, and that they were all blue, and pretty much that's it.  The same way that the only thing I remember about the Carebears is their powers emanating from the image on their tummy.  Oh well.

Thusly I Will Have This Captain America Shield Ricochet with a Purpose

Amidst all the predictable Captain America movie tie-in products and gimmicks happening right now (you know, Captain America action figures, Captain America bucket meals, T-shirts, etc), here is one that's completely different and quirky and fun, from our much-beloved hotdog brand: Purefoods Tender Juicy.


For a PhP 170 pack of Tender Juicy you get a toy freebie.  Don't get the one with the blah pencils though; get the other freebie, the one with the red and blue plastic pieces you snap on a la railway tracks and two plastic discs with holes in them. 


It's called a spirograph.

Your ballpen tip, preferably colored, goes in any hole on either disc. Then you carefully run the disc along the inside of the railway tracks, like cogs and wheels, faithfully following the entire circumference of the racks.  And in the process produce beautiful geometric circles and blooms.  If you're patient you'll get perfect patterns each time.  If, however, you"ve got tremor of the hands, or have bad eye and hand coordination, or just plain careless, you get sloppy drawings of course such as this and this.

So the Spirograph discs by Tender Juicy still have Captain America's mighty shield going for them, at least in terms of the sticker on them, plus the red and blue color.  Anyway, a shield able to create artworks is better, I think, than the real shield of Captain America which just ricochets and boomerangs off walls and enemies' foreheads.


Okay, the freebie isn't an original toy anymore, which is why I'm filing this post under Classic Toys.  The spirograph has been around since the 60's, invented by one Denys Fisher, who, not surprisingly is an engineer.  Really, beneath all the smooth seemingly mindless fun of creating wonderful geometric patterns is an actual mathematical curve.

Originally, Fisher intended the contraption to be a tool for draftsmen (move over boring compass), but he thought it best to market it as a toy.  And sure enough, it won Toy of the Year and was the best selling toy in 1967.
 At the grounds of Quiapo church they sell spirographs too, for 20 bucks.  No hotdogs included, but for 20 bucks you have about 5 or 6 or even 7 discs of different sizes, so there's a wider variety of geometric blooms possible.

Hand Puppets for Your Sanity

We've seen Mel Gibson loony before (in Conspiracy Theory) and he was wonderful, if not all the more charming.  Why do we have a weakness for unstable people?  Is it the urge to fix them up?  Is it the fact that said loony people are too busy being loony to notice our own flaws that's why we take them in, confident we will be undetected?   

Anyway. 

Here's the trailer to the Jodie Foster-directed comedy-drama The Beaver shown in theaters last May 2011.  Here Mel Gibson (playing Walter Black) is once again out of sorts and depressed--no conspiracy involved though.  Just his wife kicking him out, and his toy company steadily falling  in shambles.  Then he stumbles upon a beaver hand puppet in a dumpster, puts it on, and starts talking to himself and later to everyone else through the gruffy-voiced puppet and in the process gets himself back on track.

Nothing like a good beaver hand puppet to refresh your mind and purge your demons.

Thankfully, Walter does not to start a ventriloquist act with his new beaver toy, for that would be creepy.  But he gets the beaver puppet talking all the same, his own mouth visibly forming the words with no attempt to throw his voice whatsoever.  So the "sane" people are faced with a dilemma: do they insist it's Walter they're talking to, or do they play along?  I say we play along.

Anyway.

The Beaver will have a limited release again starting August 10 at Ayala Cinemas (Glorietta, Trinoma, Greenbelt).

Because Babies MUST Play With Your iPhone

There are some things that just don't mix well: babies and your precious iPhone, for one. 




Well NOT anymore.  Because Fisher-Price® believes in starting them young, they came out with the ingenious Baby iCan Play Case.  It's a baby-proof case that fits snugly on your iPhone, protecting it from drools, accidental drops, and scratches. 




The Baby iCan Play Case also features a baby-friendly ergonomic rubber grip on either side (with colorful rattles thrown in), and a home button shield so baby doesn't inadvertently send emails and conduct business conferences behind your back.




For baby-friendly, educational apps your toddler can have endless fun with, head on to the Fisher-Price® website to download free Laugh & Learn apps for your iPhone.




The Baby iCan Play Case sells for $14.99.  But at least your techie baby is happy, and you have peace of mind.

Fisher Price Cashes In On Pixar's Cars 2

I could never get Cars, and now Cars 2.  You've got anthropomorphic talking cars.  Fine.  The cars need to move up in the world, i.e. move from Rust-Eze to Team Dinoco.  Okay.  The cars join a race, as you would expect from a movie about cars, for what good would their wheels be if not to move them about?  Some cars will lose, only one car wins.  Fine. 

In Pixar's sequel Cars 2, that race has become global, World Grand Prix, but with some espionage throw in as extra, because the race plot is getting old and Lightning McQueen, Mater, McMissile, and the rest of the gang need some new thing to do.  It's in 3D, by the way, so the vavavrooming has definitely been upped.

Maybe I just don't like automobiles in general.

 

Mater, $115 at Fisher Price



Here's something the kids will love though, no questions asked: the cast of Cars and Cars 2 rendered by Fisher Price in a rideable, drivable toy car.  Wee! 

Lightning McQueen, $115 at Fisher Price

 The Power Wheel automobiles come with a 6 volt rechargable battery and drives a maximum speed of 2 mph.  Very, very safe.  Good too, because you're sure you're not unintentionally raising  would be careless speed-addict roadsters with penchant for crashing into walls or driving off a cliff.
  

The Cars take a stroll in France, also by Fisher Price



Nano, Nano, Nano, Nano

What commercial had that theme song?  Na-no, nano, nano, nano...  It can't be NanoBlocks because I don't think those tiny guys existed back then.

Oh well...  Here are Pentax digicams with NanoBlock skin. 

I've seen Lego bricks used as USB flash disks, even wedding rings.  But I think I like the tiny sleek NanoBlocks for my digicams, thank you very much.

Skinny Steve Rogers and Skinny Love [free song inside]

Four months after I posted Captain America Inspires Skinny People Everywhere in this blog, I've been getting lots of hits from keywords people type in their quest for answers. Keywords such as "captain america skinny" (the most popular), or "captain america thin" or "captain america 2011 skinny" or something more detailed such as "chris evans in captain america small body."





Who are these people? Who are these people who have seen the movie, and then two hours later, came out, intrigued by the incredible transformation of puny Steve Rogers to hunky Captain America with his mighty shield that they lovingly type later on their keyboards "capitao america skinny" [sic]?





Skinny folks too, I guess. Because I don't see why gym-fit guys would want to search for that kind of thing, unless of course they're just gloating, Ha! I'm muscled, I've always been this way, there is no Before version!


Then again, I might be wrong. I'm just assuming that it's the thin folks who would be most intrigued, for the same reason that skinny me took to writing that entry last March. I was awed, I can't help it, so shoot me. I have tried a high-protein diet, yoga, and when that failed, sleeping my ass off the whole day so I don't burn off whatever calories I still have in store. So when a serum with the amazing properties of beefing up the scrawniest of peeps with 100% success presents itself, then who are we to decline?



I'm not really asking for superhero body proportions. That's just not me. All I'm asking is a little meat, is that too bad?



In the meantime, I'll go grab something to eat. And then maybe actually watch the movie tomorrow or the day after just to see how the SFX people turned Chris Evans into stick-figure Steve Rogers.




Oh, here's Skinny Love by Bon Iver ("good winter" in French), live at the Late Show with David Letterman. (The first time I've seen a performance--(excluding the Japanese taiko drum performances)--with three people going at it on three drums.)



P.S. Speaking of drums, they say "thin as a drum." That's good then, otherwise you got no beat.