a record of thoughts

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a story of a man born and lived backwards — agewise that is. Benjamin was born in his eighties and aged backwards. The story was told perfectly (I can’t agree on adaptation because I have not read the book) through the film. It took three hours to show how Benjamin aged to infancy and finally closed his eyes. I’m very sensitive when the story’s main theme is time. For this one, though not entirely a time travel, I’m satisfied. The story ought to be taken as an existential observation. The fact that no matter where we begin, there is always an end. A scene that I was mostly touched was when Benjamin learned how to miss someone from a friend who said that death is relevant in life because that’s the only way we would know the importance (or how valuable) someone is. For anyone who’ve been following what I’ve been writing here, I’ve said over and over again that the only way to avoid grief is through detachment. It’s a contrapositive of “Benjamin”.

Brad Pitt has always been an underrated actor. Hopefully he gets what he deserves.

Yesterday, WordPress released version 2.7. It’s a point upgrade which means there are significant changes that could affect my plugins and themes. I’m not that impulsive as to upgrading software version, so I ran an upgrade on my test site. It’s close to identical to this “production” site of course so that I can properly troubleshoot if any. I was satisfied with the test, so I decided late last night to upgrade. This is my first post…

The new admin panel looks more like MovableType. Hmmmm. This release is AJAX overload :)

Right, so I hardly do this kind of things. I’m out of topic, so I guess I’ll report my earnings for this blog. The site is not well optimized, so the numbers are very low. I only average $100/month and with the traffic I’m getting, I should be able to at least double that, but I’m not going to submerge my content with advertising. I’m a bit slow last July and this month which I think was caused by the lack of subject in my entries and the change in theme. When I switched back to Blix, my average $3/day earning returned. So without further adeu…

The Blix theme is back and I call it BlixGreen after changing a chunk in the backend. As I was working on the theme, I was thinking about joining some SEO contest…I’m still thinking about it if it’s worth my time.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to join the whole family to go out of town. The destination is New Jersey and the first stop is Six Flags. I haven’t been in the said theme park. This weekend is supposed to be my first time. We will be at the Hurricane Harbor because of it being summer and all. I’ll try to ride everything, but I’m guessing I won’t be able to handle it. I have a serious fear of height and most of the time not because I’m afraid of falling and dying, but it’s the fear that I might jump. I’ve always been curious of how free fall feels like. I should go sky diving, right?

Going away also means I’m going to miss the greatest performance night of Pinoy Idol. I’m really excited to see the performance because I saw Ram’s rehearsal and it’s amazing. I hope the weather won’t act during my absence so that the DVR behaves properly and I can watch the recorded show when I come back.

Today, I saw someone riding my Ducati bike. I really need to get my driver’s license before the summer ends. I’ll start reviewing so that next Friday I can take the exam for a permit. Then schedule a lesson at the end of August.

My silence starts here and I will end it with a recap of my weekend getaway.

The theme that’s inherently present in the world is rebellion. There is no perfect system. People will always criticize and change a system. Usually a group would confine themselves into one goal in changing a system, but once that system is changed, another group within that new system will breakthrough to change and it becomes a never ending chain of changes. (more…)

Last night I saw on DVD Julie Delpy’s film “2 Days In Paris”. The film hit home. The film has so many features that I will probably miss most of them in this entry. “2 Days” is about a couple – an American and a French – who stopped over in Paris for two days on their way back to New York from Italy. The French girl was reunited with old friends and lovers. Delpy, who wrote, directed and produced this flick, brought out, in my opinion, everything that is negative about the Frenchies. But she didn’t miss the assault on America either. (more…)