From Comic Books to Motion Pictures

I am a comic book collector. I am proud of it. I'm proud of my geek heritage. I do not hide it. I am a geek. A nerd. I play video games. I buy toys (for myself). I buy action figures. I watch anime. I am a geek. And I am proud of it.
My fascination with comic books started when I was young. Back when I was collecting the Infinity Trilogy (Marvel) with Kuya Nelson Banzon. When my brother, Karlo and I, were collecting The Punisher: War Zone. When Roy Rebong and I were into X-Men comics and Infinity Watch. When I collected Thor and the Fantastic Four. Engaged myself in famous storylines like the Dark Phoenix Saga, X-Cutioner's Song, Legion Quest, Days of Future Past, Onslaught Saga, etc. Even whenI spilled over from Marvel to Image to collect Stormwatch, Soul Saga, Bloodstrike, Brigade, and Supreme.
Even now, I still trade comic books with my good friends Andrei and Robert. We often talk about the newest comicbook-turned-movie that is going to be shown. Movie adaptations of comic book superheroes have been here for the longest time. Like the Superman movies of the late 70s and the Batman movies of the late 80s. (Trivia: the first ever superhero film: The Adventures of Captain Marvel was in 1941) Now we have the X-Men movies and Spiderman movies. Next attractions are sequels to the Hulk, Fantastic Four (previous blog entry), Punisher, Sin City, etc. And productions to new superhero movies are under way as well, Iron Man, Thor, Iron Fist, Avengers, etc.
I can't wait for all these movies. Even if some of them are not well received by critics, I'd still watch them. I never listened to critics, anyway. I am my own best movie critic. Well, me and my friends, anyway.. So i'm excited and I can't wait. But all these upcoming flicks got me thinking.

They will probably never make a movie out of my most favorite superhero of all. Adam Warlock. Why is he my favorite? Here is a character thinking purely by logic, not bound by concepts of good and evil. He thinks not only of the future, but of the long-term future, millenia-spanning future. He always takes into consideration the butterfly effects all of his actions would make. Have you ever heard of a superhero not bound by good or evil? That's him. That's Adam Warlock. Some groups even consider him a supervillian because of this. I want to know what it feels like, or rather, what it means to be operating purely by logic and see what decisions I make. What would I do? Why would I do this? When do I do it? And then consider the effects of my every action in a non-judgemental way. Imagine this, Warlock gave up being a god, a god in every sense omnipotent and omniscient over the entire universe, because he saw the future that the universe will ultimately come to its end if he was ruling. Anyway, Adam Warlock will never be featured in a comic book movie adaptation. His fan base is too small. Screenwriters would be having a hard time writing for him, directors and producers wouldn't know which demographic to target with Adam Warlock as the main hero. He's not a flamboyant character (although his team, the Infinity Watch, could be!). He has ordinary superpowers i.e. super strength, ability to fly (cosmic), and shoots powerful ray beams out of his hands. His best strength is his mind, really. In other words, he could be viewed by others as boring. So here's to you, Adam Warlock, the best conceptualized character in all of the comic book world. Here's to your movie in 2025, when I get to direct my first feature-length film. You'll be the main hero. Millions will watch it. Billions will buy the 4-disc special edition HD-DVD or BluRay. I'll be a gazillionaire. I'll buy a small country. I can have all the toys and action figures that I want. I'll play all the video games, I'll buy all the comics. I'll... wait...
Ahh.. this'll never happen.

Birthday Celebration

For the past few years, I haven't celebrated my birthday with the traditional style i.e. invite friends over, bog-tsi or nom-i, or go someplace else and celebrate there, or even have a small handa at home. I've been too tired to celebrate. Maybe the better way to describe it is I just didn't care. I was okay, I mean I didn't have the need to feel special and I didn't have the need to have friends over in honor of me. Probably having a birth date close to Christmas will do this to you. Anyway, so my wife and I had this idea. Why don't I celebrate this year, and make it a band jamming, magic-singing, gran-matadoring, arkan-meloning, poker-bluffing birthday celebration? So that's what I did. We set up a makeshift studio in the garage. (Thanks to: Warner Montezon for the drums, Andrei Coronel for the cymbals/percussion, Robert Roque for the lead guitar and amp, and Kerrots for the rhythm guitar and amp. Of course, I still played with my trusty red Vantage bass.) I jammed with my current band Andrei Coronel and Robert Roque, as well as former bandmates, Jay Castelo and Warner Montezon. As usual, it was hard to get a nice tune going but, man, it was fun. Like Bobby says, "Ten years na tayo tumutugtog, kung ano yung tinutugtog natin noon, yun pa rin ngayon!" But it was fun, let me tell you that. Yun naman ang essence ng Robert Band eh.. We don't care, basta enjoy!

Anyway, aside from the karaokes and the poker games, my wife, Mae Dei also had a surprise for me. She had a stripper do an all-the-way dance for everyone and a special lap dance for me! Thank you, Med! See the inlay picture on the left? That's the 18-year old (I think) stripper who was baring it all for everyone. Also, you can see at the back, Andrei lighting up a cigarette and his girlfriend, Michelle, on his left, who by the way had this as her first experience seeing a live stripper doing what strippers ahem do. Congratulations, Icelle.

Anyway, so everyone had a good time. I appreciated everything that everyone has done for me. These things made me think, "Next year kaya ulit? Jamming, Magic Sing, Poker, Stripper, Billiards, PS3, Lan Party...?" I was about to rethink my whole stance on the birthday thing. Then suddenly it dawned on me, "Okay lang, kahit hindi..."
Back to my old self again.




***By popular demand. More birthday celebration pics. Langya.
***Warning!! Nudity!!
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Can't Wait for this Movie

Everyone! Stop what you're doing and click the picture at the left right away! It's the trailer for the new movie: "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" at Apple.com On the left you can see the Silver Surfer being chased by Johnny Storm in a tunnel. Will there finally be a Galactus sighting in a Marvel movie...?

Fantasy NBA

I was enjoying my #1 Rank in the Philippines' most important NBA Fantasy League, the Solar Entertainment NBA Fantasy League. At first, I thought a got a weak roster, but as the season started, I started winning and winning. Now at Week 9, i'm at a 70% win-loss percentage. Remember, this is a 20-team, awfully deep league, this is a nationwide competition, stars are hard to come by, even non-productive starters are somewhat a rare commodity. But I managed to assemble a somewhat competitive roster: Michael Redd, Yao Ming, Luol Deng, Emeka Okafor, Andrew Bogut, Brevin Knight, Damon Stoudamire, Derek Fisher, Ime Udoka, Jamal Magloire, Johan Petro, and Michael Pietrus. Everything appeared to be fine, and then this happened: See inlay picture. Pfft. Tough luck. He was my solid guy. A player that contributes in almost 10 categories! I got Zeke/Magloire/Petro as rotation players to fill in, but still the 20 and 10+ points and rebounds (+blocks, assists, and awesome percentages) will surely be missed. Oh well, you can't enjoy too much being on top.
Life, after all, gives you trials like these. You can be at the top of the world one day, down on your luck the next. Sometimes, even things that you don't have control over can bring you down. Best you can be is be prepared and always stay positive and ahead of the game. Just like the professor of that school for gifted children said: "Always hope for the best; but be ready for the worst."

I'm Proud of You

I'm proud of my wife. She has just been offered a job as an Account Executive at some events place in Greenhills. Here's the story: She was working at a call center in Ortigas as an Operations Supervisor. She loved her work and she loved the people she was working with. Nevertheless, she completely understood me when I asked her to resign from her work a few months ago. I said she needed to focus on Blue Pill (our internet cafe business) and our upcoming wedding. Like most things she works on, both became successful. Now that Blue Pill will once again open and our beautiful wedding is over, she started looking for a job about a couple of days ago. And guess what? It didn't surprise me that she would find one so quickly and be offered a job like that. I believe in her and her skills. I'm proud of you Tatu-Med. Congratulations. Now, if we can somehow make our schedules work....

In Honor of Andrei Coronel

You might ask why I titled my blog as such. Maybe this e-conversation will help:
"Drei, may blog ka pala. Pag nagkita tayo, tsaka ko na sasabihin sayo kung ano tingin ko sa blog mo."
I always thought internet blogging was a friggin' waste of time. Who the hell would want to read articles, endless babbling, and random thoughts about my life? I say no one. Nobody's that interested.
Now here I am making my own blog. I wouldn't presume to understand why my friends did it, why others do it, but like they say.. Who cares if nobody reads it or not?