My Trip to Hong Kong

Hey people! I'm back from my trip to Hong Kong. I'll tell you all about it and also upload photos next week starting on Monday. Unfortunately, my hotel didn't have Wi-Fi and the internet cost an arm and a leg at the hotel room.

So, expect more to come in the coming days.

Trip to Hong Kong Update 1

Well, I'm all packed for my trip to Hong Kong. All my clothes and my toiletries are all tucked inside my new Tumi Luggage.

In a few hours, I'll be leaving for Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the primary international airport here in Manila. Our flight leaves at around 3PM so I hope I get some reading done.

I brought two books for reading on this trip: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Love Walked In by Marissa De Los Santos.

I hope I finish these two books before I come home.

Vacationing in Hong Kong

Hello readers (all 1 of you and that's being generous)! Tomorrow I will be off to Hong Kong for the Holy Week break vacation. I, with my family, will be gone for about 5 days and will be returning on Saturday. I don't know if we will be having an internet connection (that's free) where we'll be staying so I don't know how often I will be able to post, but I will if I can.

If not, I will be posting when I get back, thoughts and impressions as well as reviews and other helpful information along with pictures and maybe video (although the quality won't be great as it will be from my point and shoot Sony Cybershot DSC-W130.)

Hopefully, though I can post on Twitter and Facebook when I can find Wi-Fi hotspots (I'm not lugging around my laptop everywhere.) My Twitter handle is KC_Tan, my facebook profile is here.

So happy Holy Week!

Movie Review: How to Train your Dragon

I didn't expect much from this movie when I went into the theater and sat my butt down on my seat. I told myself, "Well, it isn't Pixar...". But I was very impressed with the movie overall and I was pleasantly surprised by both its story and the action scenes.

How to Train your Dragon is the story of a boy who befriends a dragon, a dreaded Night Fury, which no one has ever seen or heard of. This boy's name is, strangely enough, Hiccup. Oh, and he's a viking. And the movie's vikings see dragons as their nemeses. To top it all off, Hiccup is the son of the Chieftain of their village.

There are plenty of sub-plots within this story: the relationship of Hiccup and his father, the budding romance between Hiccup and the girl he has always liked, being an outcast from other kids his age. But the story is essentially the relationship between a boy and his dragon. How our preconceptions about something lead us to assumptions that can wholly be wrong.

That's why this movie works, everything is else is like whipped cream, nice but unnecessary to the main plot of how two different beings can overcome their differences and forge a lasting bond.

Of course, this being a dragon movie, there are a lot of action scenes. There are a lot of dragons that breathe stuff: both on-camera, fire-breathing dragon, fire-breathing dragon that is on fire himself; and off, dragon that can spray scalding water that melts people faces off.

There is also, near the end of the movie, a gigantic dragon that looks like Godzilla with wings and is pretty cool. I was amazed by how such a large creature could fly, even if it is just a movie, and an animated one at that.

As I was writing this and referencing IMDB for some names, I noted that Hiccup was voiced by Jay Baruchel, who is a frequently staple in comedies especially the Judd Apatow version. Although the entire voice cast was good: America Ferrera as Astrid, Gerard Butler as Stoick, Hiccup's dad, in particular, I thought that the standout was Hiccup.

Jay Baruchel really nailed it with his performance of Hiccup. Initially he had this whiny, grating voice perfect for a whiny, weak boy. But eventually, he turns into this man who is brave and willing to do anything to save his friends, particularly his best friend, the Night Fury, Toothless.

So, How to Train your Dragon is pretty good for an animated movie, although there are some scenes that maybe the kiddies would get a little scared of. Especially, at least to me, near the very end where a main character loses a limb. I can imagine the questions children might ask about like, "Mommy, where did the leg go?"

Also, the other stories feel tacked on, like the relationship between Hiccup and Astrid and the outcast subplot. The father-son relationship works better though and is a key factor in developing the story.

Also, I watched the non-3D version. I don't know if the 3-D version is any better, but I was satisfied with the non-3D one. I feel that most 3-D feels tacked on and isn't real 3-D anyway, just depth of field.

Anyway, if you're looking for your animated movie fix this first quarter of 2010, How to Train your Dragon is a pretty good pick.

No Movie Review for Hurt Locker Today

Didn't get to watch the Hurt Locker this Saturday. I was accosted by an insurance salesperson and was detained for two hours. Maybe I'll watch it this Saturday if it's still playing or on DVD at a later day, in which case my review will be forthcoming then.

Joined Foursquare

I just joined Foursquare yesterday and to my not-so-great surprise none of my friends were on it. Checked my e-mail contacts, Facebook friends and Twitter followers and I got nada, zip, zero and nothing. My joining was accelerated by almost everyone talking about it on podcasts due to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

I had to choose between it and Gowalla, but it seemed that foursquare was more popular, so that's where I went to.

Still I wanted to try it out for myself this weekend when I go out to watch the Hurt Locker. Gonna be posting my review of that movie probably on Monday.

I'll also be getting my PS3 back from the shop today after it Amber Light of Death'd on me. Hopefully I will get to finish Star Ocean: The Last Hope International and share my thoughts about it.

Getting back to foursquare though, I won't be delving into it very much because I haven't played with it extensively, but I feel that it could be a very popular tool, but only in certain uses. Most commentators and pundits have talked about location-based services especially in the context of social experiences and marketing.

I agree that these are two use-cases where this service has the highest probability of succeeding. Another I think would be Augmented Reality. Foursquare, Gowalla and other services could integrate augmented reality services or have built-in augmented reality features in the future with their services thus opening further potential to monetize not only though advertising, but interactive experiences that allow easy ordering or perusing of a menu or check item availability.

Still, that is still far off into the future (5 years maybe? Funny how short the future has become with technology developing so fast.) and for now, I am satisfied to get maybe at least one of my friends to join.

Movie Watch: Crazy Heart

Last Saturday, I watched Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall and directed by Scott Cooper and I found it to be absolutely fantastic.

Jeff Bridges was nominated and did win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in this movie and it was completely well-deserved. He turned in an unbelievable performance as Bad Blake, a down and out country singer who seems perpetually drunk, perpetually jaded and perpetually hard-assed.

But despite all that, you can see him as a real person. If you didn't know Jeff Bridges and if you didn't know that this was a movie, you would think that you would be watching a brief snippet of the life of some real country singer. Jeff Bridges was that good. He makes people forget that he is an actor playing a role. He becomes his role and owns it completely.

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall were also great as the girl Bad Blake falls in love with on his one-man tour and as the best friend that stays with him throughout all his ups and downs. Colin Farrell was less so because... well he's Colin Farrell, playing a country music star, words that don't seem to fit well in a sentence at all. But it was refreshing to see the protege not stabbing his mentor in the back like in every other movie. Tommy Sweet, Farrell's character, seemed genuinely grateful for the start that Bad Blake gave him years before.

There are a lot of things that are unsaid and unseen in this movie, but they aren't really necessary. We can somehow see it in the way that Bad Blake moves, the way he talks and acts. The history is in the atmosphere of the film, and even without it being explicit, there is a kind of understanding that takes place between the viewer and the film. At least for me, there was.

That being said, Crazy Heart is a movie that is propped up by the strength of its actors, or in this case, actor. And while that might be said of a lot of movies, this is one of those times where if you change the actor, the film just doesn't work.

So congratulations to Jeff Bridges, you deserve it, and then some. Fifth time's the charm right?

State of the Race

I had written some weeks ago here that I would post a piece about the current 2010 Philippine elections. This is that post.

As I had said before, I believe that similar to the 2008 U.S. elections, 2010 will be a referendum on the policies of the past. And based on observable and verifiable reports and the facts on the ground, the policies of the past have largely been a failure.

In fact, in terms of all facets of government, not much has changed since 2001, when we had a different President sitting in Malacanang. Health care is still shoddy, public education is absolutely abhorrent, our roads and infrastructure are woefully inadequate, development in other parts of the country (i.e. not in the Metro) are almost non-existent. In fact, it can be argued, and it has been in many columns and blogs, that we have become worst than before.

Some argue that she is even worse than notorious dictator Ferdinand Marcos. I wouldn't go quite that far, but nonetheless it is still telling that some might say that this administration is worse than one that constantly jailed its opponents and tortured activists, journalists and those that would fight for freedom's cause.

Therefore, like in 2008, this election is about change and the individual who will win this election is the one deemed by the people as the most credible, the most capable and the most honest about bringing about this change.

Currently as it stands however, and this is my own personal opinion, there is no credible candidate for change. Unlike in the U.S. where they had Barack Obama as the clear candidate for change (whether he has brought the change he promised or will have the capability to is another matter altogether). Here the closest to a change candidate I see is former Defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro.

However, he is still so far and away from the ideal that his closeness to the ideal is only because everyone else is so far from it. The problem with Teodoro or "Gibo" as he is popularly known is that he carries with him the taint of the Administration as well as the endorsement of current President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. These two might as well be the Kiss of Death for Gibo.

The best comparison I can give to Gibo is to John McCain, however not the ultra-partisan John McCain circa 2008, but a composite of his 2008 and 2000 self. Gibo is intelligent, articulate, has a lot of young people admiring him, and seems perfectly capable of running the country and turning the tide around. But he will never win.

John McCain in 2000 was a "maverick" as most people called him back then. He was never hesitant about crossing the aisle to get things done or endorsing positions that are antithetical to his party's positions. He was not afraid to defy his base as long as it served the best interests of the country. In 2008, McCain became the typical partisan that can be watched on Fox News endorsing positions he was so vehemently against (2001 Bush Tax Cuts a good example).

But the primary reason why he lost was because 2008 was a referendum on Bush and McCain was merely more of the same with Bush in terms of the policies that voters cared about then: the economy. Here however, Gibo has the taint of President Arroyo, who is in a similar position President Bush was in 2008: someone reviled by the majority, whose ratings are abysmally low and is perceived to be one of the worst Presidents in history.

I am almost certain that most of his opponents will just say that Gibo is more of the same with Arroyo (whether or not this is justified is a whole different discussion altogether) and this will resonate with voters: he is from the same party as Arroyo, he was part of the Arroyo administration and he was publicly endorsed by President Arroyo, as I said before, a certifiable kiss of death to him.

I could be wrong about this, but I believe this is the case. Moving on to the other candidates, there are only two other people that I will mentioning in this post: Senator Manuel B. Villar and Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III. In my opinion, these two, plus Gibo who has a very small chance, are the only possible candidates to win the election in May. Right or wrong, these are the facts. These are reflected by various firms conducting national polls in the country.

Some might say that these polls, or "surveys" as they are called in local parlance, (I still don't know why they call it "survey" instead of a poll, "survey" sounds so derogatory to me.) are questionable and reflect bias, do not reflect the will of the people, etc. However, unlike in the U.S. where national polls are less important due to the Electoral College system, here it is of vital importance, even only as a barometer or a metric to benchmark against.

Here, the elections are held in one day for all positions and everyone has to vote for them, and a national tally is made for all the votes for a particular candidate that means each vote is equal. In the electoral college, it is a winner takes all (with some exceptions) contest with only electoral college votes being relevant. This why Al Gore lost in 2000 to George Bush despite winning the popular vote. If the Philippine system was used, Al Gore would have been President.

Therefore, national polls are truly important and while I agree that in this early going, the national polls do not reflect the winner yet. It is a good way to judge the state of the race.

My thoughts on Aquino and Villar are as follows: Of the two, I would rather see Villar win than Aquino win. One of these two men will win the election as it currently stands (unless something major happens in the next few months) and Aquino is currently the front runner. 

I feel that Aquino is an opportunist and is very disingenuous. This is because he only ran when his mother past away in August of last year. I feel that this is a situation where he is taking advantage of the situation because he does not have the merit whether on character or on competence. In 2008, if Obama was not able to show his competence and mettle in the primaries and the general, McCain would be President right now, no matter how good his change platform was.

It shows to me his character that he could not run on the merits alone. And this is a recipe for disaster if he knows it, which I think he does. I truly dread it if he wins. Cory Aquino was not a good President, no matter what people say. Rolling power outages, constant coups, unfinished and never finished projects. She might have lead people power, but that did not mean she did a good job as President. She might have been a moral force, but Noynoy is not her, and we should not project her moral force into him especially during a time where an election is extremely important.

As for Villar, I also do not believe in him as well. He seems to me like a snake oil salesman. He peddles good cheer and promises, but I truly doubt that he will be able to fulfill all the things that he has promised. He seems to be trying to put one over us, with that good smile and all that money and advertising. And the C-5 road extension controversy is really a dent in that persona of being the guy for the masses. Still, at least he seems to have a credible plan and some good ideas. And that is why given the choice I will still pick Villar.

It all boils down to the most important issue today: corruption. The fact of the matter is, corruption will never be eliminated, no one has done so. Not the U.S., not Europe, not Japan, not any country in the world. The difference is that the corruption there is not so destructive and blatant as it is here.

Here we give hundred peso bribes to traffic enforcers to get us off and 99% of the time, it does. Here we give a few thousand pesos to the agency of your choice to get "premium" service that those less fortunate cannot ever hope to achieve. Actually, I do not have a problem with offering premium service for more money, as long as it is part of the system. It's like how you can pay PHP 2,999 for 3 mbps internet instead of PHP 1,999 for 2 mbps internet. You pay more, you get more.

What I have a problem with is the underhanded nature of the transactions, done in the shadowy backrooms by those who have connections. And therein lies the crux: I do not believe that either of the two can eliminate corruption. I do not think anyone can do that. But I think Villar has a better incentive to lessen corruption than Aquino.

Corruption is one of the largest costs of doing business here in this country. Pay your taxes, the BIR will still try to say you haven't and will threaten you with closure. Want to have a business permit? Good luck unless you pay some "tribute" to the city hall. Small things that when summed up, show the corruption economy at work. Villar is a business man, he knows to make more money, there needs to be less of these things.

Large scale corruption will still exist, but those are easier to sniff out. Small-scale corruption on the micro level done all over the country crossing thousands upon thousands of small transactions that have been internalized? Those are extremely difficult.

I will oblige Villar his large-scale corruption, as long as he eliminates the small ones, he will get his comeuppance in due time. Aquino, I am sure will focus on large-scale corruption issues, and he will inevitably fail. These are intractable problems, they are like oxygen, they will always exist. People hate focusing on small problems because large ones have immediate impact and, more importantly, generate more publicity.

The bottom-line is this: of the three, Gibo is the candidate that I would vote for if he could win (he will not) and Villar is the candidate I would like to actually vote for (because he can win). We must not further our problems with illusions of improbability. We must focus on reality, who is the best candidate that can win the election. Only with this clear-eyed goal of realism and putting forward the tough task of righting the direction of the country can we actually get things done instead of bickering about this and that.

I'll have some thoughts soon about how to lessen corruption posted in a few weeks (or days if you're lucky). If you have a different opinion or you would like to shout to the world that I am crazy and that I don't know what I'm talking about, please comment below. Also, please tell me if I have made any mistakes as well.

Book Review: The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory by David Plouffe

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Audacity-Win-Lessons-Historic-Victory/dp/0670021334

As I first read this book, it started off pretty well as I was having dinner by myself at an awful restaurant. I was engrossed by the tale weaved by David Plouffe during the historic 2008 election where Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States.

The content was pretty good, some of it I, and probably most people who followed the race closely, already knew from reading articles online, watching cable and local news shows (although mine consisted mostly of cable because I lived in another country) and acquiring other forms of information, directly from the then-nominee as well as the media punditocracy in the U.S.

There were, however, plenty of insight and although one must always take a grain of salt when reading the version of the "winners'" history, all in all, I thought it was mostly a truthful and refreshing take on the election from an insider's point of view.

Some highlights include:

• How a campaign stuck to its guns despite the overwhelming clamor for them to change their strategy and tactics.
• How the campaign placed a whole lot of trust on people; knowing if that they failed to deliver they wouldn't even have made it past Iowa.
• How despite the errors they made along the way, they dealt with it in a calm manner.
• Most impressive of all, was how the candidate stayed focus, trusted his advisers and the people on the ground and was always calm, rational and made good decisions along the way.

These points all illuminated for me that the choice for the Presidency in 2008 was not mistaken, and that despite all the haranguing about Obama right now, I think that the U.S. is in a far better place than it would have been had a different outcome occurred in November of 2008.

To inject a little bit of context in terms of the local situation, some terms of contrast can be made:

• Point: The 2010 elections are about change similar to the 2008 elections.
• Contrast: There is no change candidate in our country.

• Point: The 2010 elections offer an opportunity for greater participation due to the large hunger for said change that can be capitalized by candidates, similar to 2008 where Obama's campaign broadened the electorate both in the primaries and the general elections.

• Contrast: It is likely that turnout will have little to modest growth, but not in the way 2008 inspired young people, who carried Obama to victory in terms of both votes and effort, will have here in the Philippines.

• Point: Digital media has transformed the way campaigns are run.

• Contrast: This country is still very weak in terms of internet connectivity, having only at best 25% broadband penetration. Plenty are still in the dark about this game and world-changing technology.

I am sure there are other points and contrasts to be made, but is best to leave it for another time. My time reading this book was further made enjoyable by allowing me to compare how the 2008 U.S. elections fared compared to how the 2010 Philippine elections will fare. I'll be posting my thoughts in this matter at a later date.

Recommendation: Read it Now!