Movie Review: Iron Man 2

The review format is in an easy to read what-I-liked-what-I-hated format. I then give a rating out of five based on how it wasted my time or increased my interest on something.

Today we have Iron Man 2 up for review.

Image courtesy of http://larryfire.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/two-minute-iron-man-2-film-clip/

Plot: Tony Stark is under fire because his suit is considered a weapon. The government wants to take it. Some villain wants to get revenge. He saves the world (Well OK so maybe just a city). The avengers recruitment is in between all of this. That's basically all you need to know about it.

Just a brief background. *Breathes In* I watched this at SM Manila for 160. Maybe a reason why I'm even more disappointed with the film. A hundred freakin' sixty pesos for a terrible cinema. I mean it looks more like a theater than a cinema. It isn't even that dark (No, not for couples). Having a dark cinema is essential for focusing on the film. Greenbelt cinema charges 170. Glorietta 4 charges 130-150. I'd have rather watched it there than the crap that is SM Manila's cinema. Did I mention someone was snoring the whole time I was watching? *Breathes out*

What I liked:
Laser-thingy Whips are Badass: Whiplash is a decent villain with a very awesome weapon. Whips have been used a zillion times already but making it sparkly, lethal-as-hell and giving it a tad of "scientific" explanation just makes it badass.

Oh, I want that too: There was a lot of moments, I wish I had the same technology in my room. The suitcase armor is definitely an awesome thing to have at home or on the go. The Artificial Intelligence running Tony Stark's lab is something I want to upgrade to after Windows Vista.

Robert Downey, Jr: The whole film may not be excellent but Robert Downey Jr still acts excellently. I think he portrays the humanity of an Iron Man/Tony Stark quite well.

Humor: There's still a nice amount of humor in the film. It was presented well too.


What I hated:
Whiplash is not awesome: His character was built to be a super villain. He's smart and can obviously create badass weapons. He's out for revenge. Later in the film, he gets all the resources he needs to battle Tony Stark. Even with all this, I never felt a strong character in him. I never felt that in anytime in the film that he was an awesome villain. Maybe I never saw the potential that he could actually defeat Iron Man and you just need that to add a bit more suspense in the film. Being the only real opposing character to Iron Man, it's just a big let down.

Iron Man was never gonna lose: At anytime during the film, I never felt that Iron Man even had the hint of losing. The idea of seeing your lead character about to lose adds a great level of suspense to the film. Too bad, Iron Man 2 didn't have it.

Too Short: What was the time for the movie? An hour and forty five? I forgot. It seemed really short though. Maybe it was good since it wasn't a great movie.

Was that it?: Besides being too short, the story doesn't seem to be that interesting. It was over before any of the plot/sub-plots got interesting.

What was the plot again?: We have the US government trying to get Tony Stark to surrender the suit; Tony Stark about to die; Tony Stark and the Avengers and the Whiplash revenge plot. But where was the really interesting or most developed one? I don't think there was one.

We want more explosions: While I think the movie is trying to tell a bunch of different stories, there was not too much action scenes all in all. There wasn't even one that really stood out. There wasn't an oh-shit-awesome-explosion moment at all. The only interesting action scene was when the F1 was sliced into two. And that lasted for what? 3 secs.

There was no Climax: Climax is defined to be a point of great interest. I didn't find it. The last battle where Iron Man and War Machine was against Whiplash wasn't epic. It was like okay. That's it? It needed to be longer and more exciting. It needed to be awesome but it wasn't.


Conclusion:
It's definitely worth a watch to see Robert Downey Jr's interesting character portrayal in Iron Man. It's cool to watch all the fancy gizmo and some action scenes but don't expect a comic book movie as great as The Dark Knight. There isn't quite as much as powerful conflict or story in this one.

Rating:
Overall, I give it, 2.5 dancing iron-man uniformed cheerleaders out of 5.

Note 1: After reading a bunch of reviews online, one common thing I found was that they agreed to the fact that there was a lot of action. Maybe there was a lot. Maybe I would have reviewed the film better if I was in a better cinema and with a better audience (I felt the guy's snoring was part of the soundtrack already). Maybe I should have watched it in 3D.

Note 2: Are physicists really great programmers too?

Let's Talk About Ice Scramble

Let's Talk About column answers your most perplexing questions about a certain topic. Feel free to contact me for suggestions on topics.

Image courtest of http://www.giantcrush.com/

What is exactly is ice scramble?
Ice scramble, scramble, iskrambol, or even "iCe xRAMBleZ" is a Filipino street food. It's along the lines of sago/gulaman as a palamig or a drink created to beat the radioactive Philippine heat.

What's it made of?
I'm guessing the ingredients goes something like crushed ice, food coloring, and skim milk. For it's sweetness obviously there's sugar or a substitute. Oh and to make it more sinful there's chocolate syrup and sometimes marshmallows on top.

Is it awesome?
Yes.

Why is it awesome?
The creaminess of the shaved ice is a start. The addition of skim milk creates something that complements the creaminess of the shaved ice. Oh and how can we ever say no to chocolate syrup? It won't even cost you a leg or an arm. The average price of a cup of scramble is a measly 10 pesos.

So is it like ice cream?
No, definitely not. It should have it's own definition in the dictionary. I'd say it's a mix of ice cream, shake and whatever has syrup and marshmallows.

Where can I try this?
Unfortunately for you and me, the target audience of manongs and manangs are children. They're more common in front of elementary schools than your fancy-pants university. There is good news though. Recently, there have been food stalls in malls serving this one-of-a-kind awesomeness.

What should I watch out for when eating this so called "ice scramble"?
Besides the sugar rush, if you purchase it from the street entrepreneurs you should be ready for anything. You never know if the ice they use is safe. If your adventurous try it and if not just find it in a mall near you.

Stall Name: Ice Breakers
Sells scramble for 7, 10 or 17 pesos. Additional toppings go for about 4 pesos. Try it!
SM Manila 3rd Floor near Mcdonald's I think.

Japan. Yesterday vs. Today

(Click to see the whole picture)
courtesy of kotaku.com

Food Review: KFC's Wow Steak

You've heard of reviews and you've heard of food (hopefully) but have you ever heard of food reviews? Of course you have. It's just that most of the food reviews we see are in the other side of the world. We're about to change that. Here's the 1st EVER blog ^{[citation needed]} that reviews foods in the Philippines.

The review format is in an easy to read what-I-liked-what-I-hated format. I then give a rating out of five out of the probability that my taste buds would like to be entertained by the same food again.

1st up: Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Wow Steak

Menu Picture (courtesy of KFC PH site) :













Actual Picture (with a crap cam phone):














As a food lover, one of my favorite things to eat is chicken. It can be tasty anyway you cook it. I'm not too sure if it tastes good uncooked though and I don't want to know. Anyway, today we have a fried variation pretending to be a steak.

What I liked:
Price: With it's 55-60 peso price tag, (Depends on the greediness of your local KFC stall) it's hard not to try. If you don't feel like shelling out about 80+ pesos for the 1 piece original with rice then this is the next best thing. It's probably the most affordable chicken and rice meal in KFC.
Mushroom Sauce: I've been a fan of Jollibee's Burger Steak since it premiered in Jollibee's ever growing menu. The KFC variation of this sauce isn't as good though. It suits the chicken but in no way is it awesome. 95% of people prefer KFC's gravy though only 5% notice that the two sauces are actually different. Yes it's not the same.

What I hated:
Chicken: Contrary to actual steaks, the chicken is deep fried. Steaks are supposed to be grilled or at least pan fried. If you take a minute and inspect the chicken, its not even fillet (I think). It looks like a bunch of chicken fiber glued together to form one piece of chicken. The taste? Well it tastes like chicken. Nothing special.
Crispiness: Steaks aren't supposed to be crispy! This confuses me really. Why make it crispy when you're going to put sauce in it? No, we're not talking about dipping it in gravy. Putting sauce in it defeats the purpose of the crispiness because it wouldn't be crispy after 5 mins in that sauce.
KFC: The whole ordeal of actually attempting to order in KFC is more like waiting for Christmas. The line may not seem long but it's simply a deception. KFC compared to Mcdonald's is like comparing an F1 to a bike. It's that slow. Oh did I mention, the staff seems to be on slow-mo? No offense to anyone but really it would be nice if you could please give me my order within a 1-2 mins and not freakin' months.

Rant: SM Manila Branch KFC's customers seem to be the most uncivilized KFC customers, ever. Why on earth would someone leave a spoon with gravy in it in the holder thingy. Really why? Can't you just take it with your tray and get another spoon? Effin' Jerk.

Final Thoughts:
It's far from great and it's light years from awesome. The only thing that's going for it is the price. So overall, I don't like it but if I feel like just eating something for the sake of eating, this is decent enough. They should have really just renamed it to Supposed-to-be-steak-but-it's-really-not-Chicken-with-mushroom-sauce but I guess that wouldn't really fit in their menu.

Rating: 1.5 Chickens out of 5

What I Noticed From Elections 2010

Image from: http://twitpic.com/1mxi4x
http://www.manilaheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/noynoy_aquino.jpg
http://2010presidentiables.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/makati_binay.jpg

Warning: Long Post! Go get a sandwich or some boy bawang to munch on while read this.

The first ever automated elections is over and we move on for a few more roller coaster years. The indelible ink seems more like incredible ink with its awesome ability to be unmoved by constant bathing. The results are up. Whether we like it or not, we have a new president and mostly the same old senators. The election process has changed but can we really say the same about the majority of people?

Being interested in the IT field, I was more excited for the elections. I did not vote nor did I really want to but I wanted to see how all this would go. I wanted to see what the technology would change. The results really do surprise me. The technology has changed but the people haven't.

You may say (and according to the funky Manila Bulletin ad) I have no right to complain since I didn't vote. Well, I'm not really complaining I just want to state what I observed. So here it is in a number format since we all loves lists, numbers and rankings.

Arranged in no meaningful order.

1. Platforms Don't Matter Because We Don't Care
Quick question. Give me the what current senator and soon-to-be bald President Noynoy Aquino will do when he goes into Malacanang (How do you do the maarteng n anyway?). Ok so we ALL know he won't be corrupt. What else do we really know? Not much.

Even though GMA, ABS and etc makes all those get-to-know-the-candidates shows, we really don't care much on the platforms. We're treat the election like a showbiz. We're more interested to find out the personality of the person. There's nothing wrong about that but it would be nice if we even remember the things these candidates will do. Some of us actually know these things but I don't think they're the majority. Most people,I would guess, knows more about the past works of these people than their platforms.

2. We Love to Know Personality
Speaking of personality, we all love to know who the candidate is. Gibo looks smart, Gordon looks tough, Estrada looks and speaks like a drunkard, Noynoy looks like homer simpson.Ok what was I saying again? Oh personality.

Most of the people prefer to just know about a candidate's personality rather than his resume. Maybe we think that if he has a good enough personality he'll be a good enough politician. I'm sorry but I just don't agree. He maybe nice, smart and bald but I'd rather have go for the one who knows what's he doing.

Analogy time! Who would you rather choose to help you with your car trouble? Your close friend who doesn't know shit about cars but is nice enough to give time to help you or a certified professional who knows every single detail on how a car works. Most of us (I hope) would choose a professional.

Why can't it be the same with voting? I have nothing against Senator Bong Revilla, Lito Lapid, the other Estrada etc. but seriously. I can't remember them doing much. Let's see. I remember Bong Revilla in the Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho scandal for doing... what did he do again? Same goes with Lito Lapid. I remember a few of the candidates Miriam Santiago doing a lot of stuff, even those who rally like i think Satur Ocampo was the name have been more present in doing stuff that people care about. Oh I remember Bong Revilla being in panday, is that good?

Image courtesy
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L4oCn4INF0Q/S69hJPxww2I/AAAAAAAAB0w/-9I1qEqRld0/s1600/panday2009movieposter.jpg

3. It's All in the Name
For better or worse, we are familiar with names and we prefer it. The twelve senators are mostly all oldies in the senate. You people complain that we have the same government over and over then you vote for the same kind of people. It's just mind boggling stuff. Really I mean, even the drunkard from across the street complains the the government is this and that but wouldn't go out and vote for "new" roster for the government. Can't we give other people a try?

Just an interesting note on that. Senator Enrile (his ad Manong Johhny To sounds like Manong Janitor lol) has more years in the senate than me living in this world. Seriously can you please retire already? That goes to the guy in the supreme court Gonzales ba un. Whatever I forgot.

4. Dynasties Don't Die
Estrada, Binay, hell even Marcos are names we associate with politics because their names has been with politics since forever. Interestingly enough, it seems that if your born into a family of politicians, your already guaranteed to run after finishing your degree in acting.

Again, we don't like it but it seems we keep voting for it.

5. We Fixed the Technology But not the System
A little background: As a computer science student, we study system analysis. What's that you say? In a brief answer we study how a company works then we improve their system. Which leads me to number 5.

Improving a system is not just about having better technology, better fancy-pants equipment, etc. it's about fixing what's wrong. We got PCOS machines, fast data transfer and all those cool sounding stuff but there was still a long inconvenient sweat filled lines in every presinct. What went wrong you say? Well they probably didn't create a good system. I imagined the meeting wen something like "OK here's a machine for this people, show them pretty pictures, show them a manual, line them up, the end meeting over lets get some food".

How do we fix this? I don't know but there are a few creative and weird ideas that seems to pop out of my head. Why can't we vote online? Seriously. You input voter id, then put bunch of sss or tin ID for confirmation or something. Why don't we have a batch for voting? Batch 1 (for example) with names A-B would be at 7-8, etc. See these may not be the best solutions (far from it) but I'm sure there is one or more better ideas.

Wouldn't it be cool if we exercised our right to vote CONVENIENTLY?

6. There is No WikiCandidates
Since there seems to be a wiki for anything. Why didn't we have one? Oh a wiki is a form of place where we can put information about something and someone else can edit it. I'm not exactly saying that its the best thing to have since we'll probably see a posts of a bunch of "I hate this candidate, ROFL" or worse a jEjE post.

Still it would be nice if in a nice and orderly manner, we can see what all these candidate did and will do without having to watch a freakin show about it.

Note: Yes there's wikipedia but it would be nice if there was one specifically for elections. FYI there's a wiki for a lot of stuff like game strategies, music lyrics, hell there's even one of star wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis

7. Comelec Fails if It Was a Student
Maybe a tad bit more relevant to IT students, before you go out and defend your thesis program (for example) you just HAD to test it complety a zillion times. If you didn't you will most probably see an error out of no where that you have no clue what was it about.

UST has taught me to test my programs a bajillion times days before even thinking about showing it. It taught me to get things straight before even making the program itself. Oh and it wouldn't hurt if you already decided what to use and what you need to do. In my observation, it was kind of strange that just months before the election we just got the bidding over. After a month or so, we got the machines, found the problems and just DAYS before the election we installed the modified programs.

It would have been nice if: They actually had the machines at least a year before the election. They choose a bidder with a program already certified. They trained the people a bunch of times months before. If they had a sample machine for them to use months before (and not just pictures and videos). It would have been cool if they had a demonstration in malls, city halls, etc.

(Note: Did you know that there were 9,888 problems with the initial program from SmartMatic, I guess we should rename it to just Matic. Kidding. http://www.gmanews.tv/story/190114/comelec-was-warned-about-ballot-production-software)

Anyway, I don't really know. I'm not a comelec commissioner.

8. A PCOS Machine is funny











(image http://twitpic.com/1obxg4)
See for yourself :)

9. People Will Cheat Because They Can
Fortunately, not everyone is a programmer. If they were then they would have found a way to hack into the comelec or something. Still, people did cheat. Most of the cheats was vote buying, fear and clientrace 99999 (Haha if you understood the last one then you are a certified tambay sa computer shop.)

Getting back to the topic, people will find a way to cheat. We may have cut off one cheat but there's still a lot more to eliminate.

10. Political Posters Still Looks Like Crap
They still look like the generic ugly-ms-paint piece of mess. If I was making an election poster, I'd make it different. I'd make it look like a Kobe/Lebron Nike ad. That would be just win :)

11. It's Still Easier to Apply for Presidency than to Apply for a Job Being a Janitor
Seriously what's up with the constitution? They say to apply for a job being a janitor (I have nothing against them , I thank them for keeping our bldgs clean and neat) you have a have a college degree and a lot of other stuff. To be a president, you need to be at least 40 and a citizen of the Philippines. Not much eh? How about we actually fix them? I mean. Right now.

Note: Ok so in this elections, all of the presidential candidates (except one. You don't even need a clue to get an idea of who he is) did have a degree in economics or law so I guess that's good.

12. What About Doing Your Job
Ok so this isn't as related to the actual elections but rather after it. We have a boxing champion as a congressman (Tama ba?) and an immeasurably amount of actors and actresses as political figures. I have nothing against them but if your running for a position it would be nice if you focused on your job. What am I talking about? HINT! There's a senator who still stars in movies.

Oh and I heard an interview this morning about a newly elected actor saying that he still loves acting and will do a few projects soon. See my point?

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I'm seriously considering getting into starstruck first before running for a position in the election.

Just because I don't like top 10 lists, I made this 12 :D

You Should See This: Micheal V. Spoofs Lady Gaga

Since it's 12:30 am and I'm sleepy, I'm just going to show you a cool spoof. Micheal V does Lady Gaga. It doesn't need anymore introduction. So here it is

Micheal V spoofs Lady Gaga

Some of my other favorites from Micheal V spoofs:

Micheal V spoofs Kamikaze


Micheal V with Rey Valera


Since you all love cueshe, here's ULAM :)