Adobe - dobeedoo...

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Last weekend, Adobe Systems Inc. and Wordtext Systems Inc (WSI), the exclusive Adobe products Philippine distributor sponsored a FREE Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2) seminar at Onstage in Greenbelt I, Makati City. It was an all-day event where expert speakers demonstrated the new features of Adobe's CS2 namely Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive and InDesign. The full version of the Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium retails for P84,995. Yes, software does cost a lot of money.

Anyway, I won the water bottle in the raffle. The 100 Photoshop CS2 Hot Tips booklet is included in the kit they handed out to participants, which the distributor claims cost around US$25.00. Yey.

The Cold and Day-old Pizza Test

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The true test for great tasting pizza is when its cold and a day old. The thin crust double cheese pizza of The Pizza Company passed the test. I had the leftovers for breakfast and it still tasted great even if it was cold and a day old. :D I just found out that The Pizza Company is a leading pizza brand in Thailand. The only branch in Manila that I am aware of is at the Market! Market! mall in Fort Bonifacio Global City in Makati.

Books, Books, Books...

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Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do... I have started on Book 5 of the Harry Potter series but somebody borrowed the book from me. I borrowed a copy of Book 6 from a friend and I'm currently reading Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe which, I am told is book 2 of a trilogy. I recently saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie recently and I loved it.

Pinoy Pulp

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I was fortunate enough to get a FREE ticket to the premiere screening of Peque Gallaga’s newest film, Pinoy Blonde by Unitel Pictures. That was about a week ago. Took me that long to finally decide if I liked the film. Now do I like the film? As of this writing, I still haven’t decided yet.

I’ve seen some of Peque Gallaga’s work before and I’ve grown to love them. Oro Plata Mata (1982), an episode in Shake Rattle and Roll (Manananggal, 1984), films co-directed with Lore Reyes Kid, Huwag Kang Susuko (1987), Isang Araw Walang Diyos (1989), and Shake Rattle and Roll 2, 3 and 4 (1990, 1991, 1992 respectively). Pinoy Blonde is quite different from all these films I’ve mentioned in the sense that it didn’t follow the norm that these films conformed to. I think it’s heavily influenced by by Quentin Tarantino’s movies though, like Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003) and Kill Bill ver. 2.0 (2004). My fondness for these films does not carry on for the director though.

Anyway, the pseudo-intellectual banter, unusual camera work, cut-to animation sequences, the title graphics were all done very well and it seems that a lot of work has gone into the making of this film. It involved a lot of very talented and capable actors. I commend all the people involved in the making of this movie. But they could’ve done better. The people involved have already done a great job as it is. All I’m saying is they could’ve pushed it a bit further than where they’ve gone with it.

A lot of the stuff they did here has never been done before in Philippine Cinema. But Tarantino has done it before. We've know of and have seen Tarantino. So nothing's really new here except that its the first film to mimic Tarantino and Tarantino-esque film ideas. Like what they're tagline says, hindi typical Pinoy film on one hand but on another, it's a typical Tarantino-style film.