Movie Review: AVATAR – Thank you, James Cameron

If ever you keep a list of things to do before you die, I must insist that you add one more entry –

Watch AVATAR on IMAX 3D.

And do it as specifically as the statement says. Forget the movie theater you usually frequent, ignore the hefty 400-peso price for an IMAX ticket, persist through the long lines and sold out screenings, and be ready to give up 2 hours and 42 minutes of your life.

You really cannot must not miss this movie.

Must-see in 3-D. Go. NOW.

Let me rephrase that. This is not a movie, this is an experience. And that is precisely why you are required to watch it, because you will not just be sitting back in your chair staring at moving pictures on a 50-foot screen – you will be immersing yourself in the most visually stunning movie and the most technologically-advanced filmmaking to ever grace any type of screen. It is revolutionary in that aspect; and in that aspect alone, viewing the film is mandatory.

But like all that is ordinary and mediocre in the world, take this review with a grain of salt.

The premise is ordinary, the soundtrack so-so, and the running time (162 minutes) seems draining. But these are nuances you might be willing to forgive once you come to understand what this movie has achieved in terms of pushing the envelope, and the level of patience, focus, imagination, and hard work James Cameron and his crew put into this film. Thus you might understand why I say that it must be view ONLY in 3D.

It takes that extra obligation to be able to appreciate what has been done here. The emotional stimulation one looks for in a movie (there is plenty you can choose from – environmentalism, capitalism, war, culture, love.) can only begin the moment you see the thousand-foot Hometree crashing down in extra-dimensional detail, or when you see the pain and anguish in the Navi’s expressions at that moment. These blue cat-like creatures seem less alien than we are – it is embarrassing that they can show more emotion than we can! – and we have James Cameron to thank for that. He INVENTED technology precisely for this movie (I literally cannot wait for the next video game or movie that makes use and does the same kind of justice to this technology!) to be filmed this way.

But it is not the perfect movie. How many people can hold their bladders for 162 minutes at a time? There are scenes I felt the movie could have done without (most especially the ones with people in it), and I think the antagonist could have been made more compelling and attached instead of slipping in and out of scenes and just be the prerequisite final boss standing at the movie’s climax. And I really think James Cameron needs to lighten up a bit. I am beginning to think the man does not have a sense of humor. But with his movies breaking records left and right, maybe he doesn’t need one.

As of this writing, Avatar is only $7 million away from breaking Titanic’s (another Cameron classic) all-time box-office records, and rightfully so. The world has been waiting for this kind of movie for the last decade, and who else but Cameron would go out and surpass his self-set standards. If you went out and endured the sappiest movie of all time in Titanic, take a flyer on Avatar on IMAX 3-D. It’s definitely better than a movie about a sinking boat.

And let me just add, I can’t believe I wrote this in less than a thousand words.

Daybreakers: Where The Movie Suddenly Falls Off A Cliff.

I saw the trailer for Daybreakers late last year, and along with the smattering of other interesting teasers for 2010 movies, this was a movie that I was willing to take a chance with. Solid casting (Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and a redneck-y Willem Dafoe) and a not-so-new plot of a world where vampires are the global population (Humans are hunted so they can spike their vampiric coffee with blood.) should make for an interesting movie.

The first few scenes actually make one sympathize with the bloodsucking, lifeless mother-effers. The movie is visually well thought out, as it drags you in and prevents you from seeing it from a fishbowl. It convinces you that this is still a familiar world, and yet you’ll notice that you’ll be so out of place – it bombards you with detail of a society that has moved on from being once human, and likes it better this way (Would you like some extra blood in your coffee, sir?). Life (or the lack of it – no one has a pulse, or a reflection) goes on.

Except, apparently, for one man. (This is, with all other movies with heroic plots, the golden standard. Somebody always doesn’t get with the program.) Edward (Ethan Hawke’s character) is simpatico to the humans, goes on a blood diet, and works to finding a substitute to human blood before humans are extinct and they are all left sucking on chicken’s necks (which they somehow left out of the story. Somebody needs to explain to me how this vampirism thing works. I might drink cow’s blood or something. Are vampires limited to human blood? I’d be a really lousy vampire. I need more information to make it in that world.)

At some point the movie starts to drag, and I realized that what kept me interested the whole time was the beautiful semi-dystopian world created in the movie.There are surprisingly few action sequences in the movie, and the ones that move the plot along are underwhelming (we’ll get to the final action sequence in another paragraph – undeservingly so.)

The movie had some characters that I felt were misused or understated. A couple of them threw me off – the vampire senator, and the girl who played Sam Neill’s daughter.I felt they could have had more significant roles (after a couple of scenes, the senator was never scene again, contributing nothing.) As for Sam’s daughter, he and Ethan had dialogue about her, setting me up with the expectation that she was going to be an important part of the plot. But when she did appear in her scenes, it was already too late into the movie that she almost felt like a prop. I felt more could have been done with her role. Plus she was the only pretty face in the movie. She did help the movie make an important transition towards the film’s climax, so she did her job.

If Willem Dafoe had just crossbowed Ethan Hawke's character right then, I wouldn't have had to suffer through the movie's ending.

The female protagonist was almost unimportant that she had to be kidnapped towards the end just to make sure that she was still in the movie until it finished. All in all a forgettable female lead. Talk about a damsel in distress – I was distressed every time she was on screen.

The film winds down into a gory mess of vampire cops biting and killing and falling on top of each other, and then just stops. You could almost here the lead character’s thoughts – “Alright, we’ve killed all the bad guys. What the f— do we do now?” It was an unsatisfying and confusing ending, almost as if they literally ran out of bad guys to kill. It was one of the most disappointing movie climaxes I had ever seen. (At least Avatar had a potential iconic line in “I see you.”)

It’s easy for me to say that I was disappointed by the movie. I felt more could have been done with such a unique and intriguing premise. The beautiful depiction of this alternate reality by the talented Spierig brothers plus a few different choices here and there could have really realize the film’s potential. Anything would have been better than Ethan Hawke and company driving off into the sunset… or falling off a cliff.

Why We Make New Year Resolutions and Fail: A Half-Assed Attempt at Psychology to Understand What’s Really Behind This Dumb-Ass Ritual.

Alright, resolutions. First off, I have to complain. I will go on a short tirade before I pump out all the data. I am not fond of resolutions, yet I make them or think about doing them every single year. I guess it’s all well and necessary to set goals for myself at the start of every year, and then reflect at the end if I got stuff done, or if I’m any different or if I’m a better person. Why do we wait till a new year comes around to make self-promises? Why can’t we make them during some boring day in August (nothing ever happens in August), or on really ordinary days while we’re wasting time sitting on the crapper? Why romanticize and attach the idea of a fresh start to a fresh set of desk calendars? Why commit when the general average of resolutions getting done is 17%?

Are we really that fond of shooting ourselves in the foot that we’d do it annually?

I just find the whole idea weirdly fascinating.

Let’s try to get to the bottom of this… if there is a bottom to this.

—

Harris Interactive (www.harrisinteractive.com) conducted a survey commissioned by Dorthy.com (www.dorthy.com) that came up with some interesting and (ho-hum) expected numbers:

• Women (74%) are more likely to make New Year’s Resolutions than men (54%) among adults who have ever made resolutions;
• Men (22%) are more likely to keep their resolutions than women (14%)
• Out of 2,256 respondents, only 1,495 (66%) have ever made a New Year’s resolution.
• Out of the 1,495 resolution-makers, only 17% always or often keep them. That’s more or less 256 changed lives. (Remains to be seen if those were changed for the better. Let’s talk again in 2011.)

Seems bleak, no? Have I talked you out of losing all that extra weight yet? Hang on, we’re not done yet. FranklinCovey Products (www.franklinplanner.com) also came up with their own survey that yielded these wonderful statistics:

Top 10 resolutions from last year (2009):

1. Get out of debt or save money
2. Lose weight
3. Develop a healthy lifestyle or healthy habit (eat better, exercise)
4. Get organized
5. Spend more time with family and friends
6. Develop a new skill or talent
7. Work less, play more
8. Other
9. Break an unhealthy habit (smoking, drinking, overeating)
10. Change employment

FranklinCovey Products’ survey further dashes your hopes – 75% of the respondents broke their resolutions in 3 months, and around one-third break them by the end of January.

Sad stuff, really.

But wait; let’s put all these ball-busting stats in perspective. The success behind pulling off these self-commitments lies not in the numbers – there is only you. Yes, you get to be a hero.

Wait – I’m only getting to the perspective part. You being responsible to your success depend on a few things: Self-control or Self-Efficacy, awareness of Comfort and Control, and understanding Choice and Commitment.

Self-Control/Self-Efficacy

I shouldn’t even be talking about this, nor am I qualified, because I have so little of it. Yet with whatever little ounce of it I have, I can still proudly say that I’ve had some sort of success with most of the resolutions I made in the last three years. I’ve basically reinvented myself in the last three years. (Yet I cannot for the life of me figure out why I still write the same way.)

The point is this – It’s how you see yourself and how much you hold yourself capable. Resolutions are goals. You can treat your resolution of cutting back on the midnight ice cream binges the same way you commit to paying off your credit card bill on the 5^th of every month. These are all just data in the brain, but the way you deal with these things is what matters – they call it cognition or some other weird word, and let’s not get into that.

But what I’d do like to get into is this – our effectiveness in accomplishing any sort of goal is determined by our commitment to a choice. It’s a choice to keep paying our credit card bill on time so that we can keep a good credit rating, or so that we can maintain our nasty buying impulses. It is also a choice to double down on an ice cream pint when you promised yourself 20 scoops ago that you’d only have one. You made the choice to stuff your face rather than lose the pounds. So that’s basically how self-efficacy contributes to your success (or in the examples above, loser-level failure.)

Dr. John M. Grohol on his blog mentions it like this –

…individuals with high self-efficacy attribute failure to insufficient effort, while individuals with low self-efficacy attribute failure to deficient ability. Higher self-efficacy generally is correlated with a greater likelihood of achieving one’s goals.

So where does all this self-efficacy bullshit show up in life, anyway? I thought you’d never ask.

Comfort and Control

We are crazy creatures of habit. Why crazy? Because we are beings who hate being bored, hate the idea of sitting 2 hours in traffic, and just hate to sit still. And yet we go to the same coffee place, eat the same bad food, and walk the same routes to work. We continue to do the same boring shit day after day after day. I’m getting bored already just talking about it.

We are all about comfort and control. (Alright, maybe not ALL about comfort and control. We’re mostly about it? 70%? 80? I don’t know. Somebody needs to come up with a survey.) We repeat our daily experiences because we want to be in control of the outcome, and we pre-empt acceptance of the outcome, good or bad. We visit our usual coffee place and drink the worst-tasting coffee there is and complain about it all day, but we go anyway because it’s the only coffee place you pass by on the way to work. At these moments, we’ve already made a choice and accepted our fate.

Yet in between these moments there are opportunities for change. They come in the form of life-altering events, or the New Year. They come in the form of epiphanies. They come in the form of odd-shaped coffee-latte swirls and potato chips. Don’t even get me started on cloud formations. You get to come up with the things that you want to do differently. They may be life-altering things, or they maybe something as simple as putting your pants on before your socks when you’ve always been a socks-before-pants kind of guy.

Choice and Commitment

How do we get things done, really? Most anything that we do is preempted by a choice. And we get them done when we commit to those choices. How do we commit? We find value in whatever it is that we are choosing to do. So lose weight because you want to get healthy, not because you’re getting too fat. Save money not because you want to pay off your debts, but because you want to be financially secure and responsible. Get more organized so you can be more efficient, not so that you can spend more hours drinking with friends. All these things will become available to you anyway as long you keep within the process.

And resolutions are a process. That is the most important part of this whole thing. I guess that’s why 75% fail at it is because they do not understand that. It is lather, rinse, repeat. You have to decide to commit to that change, and you have to form a plan around it, just like all the other routines we do in life. If you decide to quite smoking, you have to quit every day. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is then where all that self-efficacy weirdness comes into play. Let’s see how effective you are about it.

The moment you step out of that routine, the moment you let go of a little bit of that control, you are presented with an opportunity to do things differently. You make the choice. Add all this with a commitment to change and finding value in whatever it is you are doing, and I guarantee a way higher probability of success than 17%. If not, then I was wrong. I’m no psychologist, after all.

Resources:

Google.

Links to this article:

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/12/28/the-psychology-of-new-years-resolutions/

Business Wire: Dorthy.com New Year’s Resolutions Survey Findings:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081229005180&newsLang=en

http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20081218005288/en/7-Habits/FranklinCovey/FranklinCovey-Products

Movie Reaction: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Joseph Gordon-Levitt

G.I. Joe Theme Song

Yo Joe!
He’ll fight for freedom wherever there is trouble,
G.I. Joe is there!G.I. Joe…
A Real American Hero
G.I. Joe is there.Its G.I. Joe against Cobra and Destro,
Fighting to save the day.
He never gives up, he’s always there,
Fighting for freedom over land and air.G.I. Joe…
A Real American Hero
G.I. Joe is there.

(spoken)
G.I. Joe is the codename for America’s daring, highly trained, special mission force.
Its purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

He never gives up, he’ll stay till the fights won -
G.I. Joe will dare.

G.I. Joe…
A Real American Hero
G.I. Joe!

I posted the lyrics because I know you’re at least as dorky as me. And also because I want this song to stick in your head for the rest of the day.

If you asked me if I remembered the G.I. Joe cartoons of the 80′s, and if I was sitting down, I would’ve stood up and started singing the intro theme song, including the spoken narrative in the middle part of the song. This wouldn’t have been embarrassing to me at all. Kids now can sing their Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer themes when they get to be our age. We had Transformers, He-Man, and G.I. Joe (and Chip n’ Dale. I love those squirrels.) But I pity the kids who grow to be nerded up by Spongebob. Or Ben 10. (Though I don’t think Beavis and Butthead helped us out either.)

But enough about nerds and dorks (or as a friend of mine would say, “Enough about me.”) I’m still trying to wrap my head around the recent tragedies that have been happening lately — and I’m not talking about MJ’s and Tita Cory’s deaths. I am talking about the recent groanfests-for-movies Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, and the currently showing G.I. Joe movie.

Now, let me just go on record to say that I love blockbuster movies. I enjoyed Star Trek. Iron Man was golden. The first Transformers movie was passable (it was riveting to count how many times Shia Lebouf would shout “No no no!” in the movie. I counted 52. Someone even compiled it on video. I swear, sometimes you gotta do stuff like this at the movies.) They’re fun, fast-paced, and keep you occupied for a good couple hours. And some of the really good ones stand out because there’ll be something in the movie you’ll rehash or reenact with your friends for a good long time, maybe even some years down the road. Yes Man had the Jumper scene. The 40-Year-Old Virgin had the waxing scene. The Dark Knight had The Joker. Transformers had Megan Fox — and we can always talk about her. In fact, I can ditch this article and talk about her right now…

There’s a reason why I put up the lyrics of the G.I. Joe theme song up there — because I know that most of the people my age can relate to this cartoon, and usually it’s the theme song that does it. And it drives home the point of this article — the cartoon is more than 20 years old, and we can still remember the theme song. But G.I. Joe the Movie? I’m 99% sure there’s not a whole lot to remember there.I’m sitting here trying to recall one good thing about the movie, just one moment that stood out that would’ve defined the movie as rewatchable because of that scene alone, and I’ve sat here for the last 54 minutes and came up with nothing. I just ended up humming the theme song over and over in my head.

I am open for argument right here. Where shall we start? The accelerator suits? The female leads in tight black outfits? Snake Eye’s creepy mask with pouty lips chiseled in? (This ranks right up there with George Clooney’s Bat Nipples.)

George Clooney's blue eyes cannot avert our attention enough from those rubber nubbins.

Channing Tatum’s “I’m already unhappy!” face? (When will he ever come up with a different facial expression? Is Keanu Reeves the actor he most looks up to?) Tyrese Gibson for the comedy relief (Oh wait, that was Marlon Wayans! I got my token black guys all confused.) Is there anything original about this movie at all? They should have just changed the movie title to G.I. Joe: Rise Of The Stereotypes so that we wouldn’t get all confused. (Though in the movie’s defense, the cartoon was guilty of this same problem. In fact, those 80s cartoons were filled with all kinds of innuendo and social propaganda.)

But then again, maybe I was approaching this with totally unfair expectations. But maybe I have a right to them because this was one of the definitive good-guy/bad-guy cartoons of my generation. It helped put a lot of things in perspective with regards to war and crime, and the difference between bad and good, as opposed to watching the news, which was of course too complex for 7-year olds. These cartoons made us understand that there were bad people around and that bad things happen, but at the end of the day, the good guys always come out on top.

As the movie wrapped up, that’s still the message we essentially get, albeit wrapped in a very weak package embellished with car crashes and the destruction of the Eiffel Tower (It had it coming. They’ll be blowing up the rest of the world’s landmarks in the upcoming disaster movie 2012). Maybe a little more effort should have been shown to please us Gen-Xers rather than today’s teenagers. I noticed a lot of people in the theater were enjoying the movie. I could have gotten a haircut instead during that time and at least felt good about it after.

Though there is one single small victory for the movie that I enjoyed for the entirely wrong reasons — SPOILER ALERT — I got to see Joseph Gordon Levitt amuse with his Rex Ryan/The Doctor/Cobra Commander (with the James Earl Jones evil voice) roles. I totally bought into his role as the awkward Rex Ryan, but his villain portrayals reminded me of Dr. Evil, and that whole time I was totally waiting for him to put his pinkie finger to the corner of his mouth. Needless to say, I enjoyed his scenes.

Maybe I should have watched Public Enemies instead.

10 Things Guys Want From Girls

@iconpool

From a comedian: “Men only want 3 things from a woman: Food, Sex, and Silence.”
5:19 PM Jul 24th from web

My friends and I were arguing over this over Twitter, with me valiantly trying to defend the shallow needs of mankind by declaring an end-all argument — claiming that I could come up with 10.

The things I get myself into.

Now I have to come up with this article because I could not do justice to the sentiment in a 140-character tweet. I mean, look at that quote. Are us men really that simple to predict and so easy to accurately describe? Really? 12 words? Is the line so thin between being a man and a dog?

Of course, I say — it’s not that simple. So in behalf of all men — real, self-admitted, and secure — I lay down on the tracks of the oncoming train of controversy the writing of this article is going to bring. Honestly, I should be writing my will first, as this might be too life-altering. But all you’d get anyway are a bunch of clothes and books.

So screw the will. Here are the 10 things instead:

1. Sex.

Is there any question why this is first on the list? It is the responsibility of every man to keep to the go-forth-and-multiply mission. In fact, can we just say that we are overburdened by this? Is there any other way to oversimplify this statement? There are no lines in between to be read. Yet I know that this is going to get rehashed and misinterpreted somehow. I can’t win.

But let me take off my laconic and insensitive hat for a moment. I do believe that sexual compatibility is crucial to a relationship. Sexual attraction gets you through the first few years (You’ll have sex like it’s going out of style.) as a couple. Maybe it’s hormones. Or maybe it just feels good. Or just maybe a lot of us went to Catholic school.

And I’m not going to play the morality card. This is about what guys want right? Guys want sex. It doesn’t necessarily have to happen (and believe me, it doesn’t happen for a LOT of guys — minority by choice, majority by other more dubious factors.). It’s just the truth. Some guys just want it more than others, and some guys just want it more obviously than others, and some guys are just really good at keeping it together, like they recite some mantra or something. I can talk about this all day long, but I have to explain the other 9.

And can I just say that I wasted 3 paragraphs without making a point. It’s sex. That thing is pointed enough by itself.

1. Food.

People don’t go coming up with quotes like “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” unless there was some truth to it. So are you ready for the shocking truth? There is some truth to it.

You cannot underestimate how emotional a man can get when he is unable to satisfy his needs. If a man is hungry, he needs to eat.

The best example/analogy I can come up with here is Joey Tribianni. If you don’t know him, I am willing to lend you my 12-box DVD set of Friends, wait for you to blitz through the 10 seasons, blooper reels, and special features, then come back to this article. Ready? Done? Alright. We can move on, yes?

In fact, Joey is the perfect set-up man for Nos. 1 and 2. The Joey character stereotypes that the normal guy should be oversexed and overeating, and that everyone not the type was questionably gay. (Yes, I’m of the opinion that Joey is the most “normal” among the male characters in Friends. We may differ here, but this is my article, not yours.) (And I have no problems with gay people. I have gay friends. The “gay” reference is for when Joey meet Chandler for the first time, he thought Chandler was gay. Go watch the DVDs again!)

Again, I’m trying to oversimplify so that there won’t be room for argument. I used a Friends reference. Shouldn’t that help you get it?

1. Silence.

Ever wonder how two guy friends can go to a bar and just drink beer in silence? Really, sometimes we just need a minute or two. In fact don’t girls need some moments of silence too? Though, using the analogy above, I’ve never seen two girls sitting in a bar with blank stares while sipping on cosmopolitans. Or are there girl bars where these things happen? It would be helpful if we guys know these things.

Men brood. It adds to our mystique. We can go for long periods without saying a word, even among friends or partners. Sometimes people take this the wrong way and think that we’re either pissed or borderline murderous. That’s not the case. The moments of silence are therapy. The world can be a really noisy place sometimes. So look out for those times when the guy’s eyes glaze over, he sees right through the TV, and think, “Maybe he just needs some quiet time.”

1. Listening.

When a guy declares that he needs to say something, it can only go two ways – either you’re about to hear something really profound, funny, or intelligent, or you are about to witness something potentially disastrous.

Now isn’t that compelling enough for you to tune in?

So how do you know when it’s time to listen? Remember all those cheesy movies John Cusack used to make? He’d belt out those one-line all-timers that either sink the movie or take it to cult status. And he’d usually start those lines with these to catch the unsuspecting woman’s attention:

There’s something I have to tell you… Ultimate cliffhanger of a statement. This line will just make your heart stop because 99% of all bad news started with versions of “There’s something I have to tell you…” (Other versions include “We need to talk…” and “I’ve been meaning to tell you this…”, with the former eliciting the same reaction as the original). But do you end up running away the moment you hear it? No! You are compelled to stay for the potential axe to drop because you know it can go either way – you strike gold or you get a slap in the face.

You know what? I’ve been thinking… He’s been thinking! At this moment you’ll have to stop painting your nails and listen. Guys think a lot. But it’s a rare thing for guys to share exactly what he was thinking about. And as usual, you may get something really meaningful, or he’d say “You know what? I’ve been thinking… Our sofa set is still covered in plastic. That’s weird.”

The point being? If a guy declares he has to say something, you gotta tune in. Let it pass and you lose him for good. You don’t know how crucial it is for us to have an audience.

1. Relevant Gifts.

This takes talent and commitment. And a little FBI training. So many girlfriends and wives get this part wrong.

Buying gifts that you think your partner will look good in? Frowned upon. Gifts you think would jumpstart a new hobby or interest? Nope. Gifts that will make our bathrooms smell nice? Do they really smell that bad?

I hope you’re all catching on to the idea.

Think of a dog, and you just gave it a porkchop. It would be the happiest dog on earth. Why? Because you gave it what it wanted. (I hate making man/dog analogies. It’s too easy and we’re too similar. But it’s necessary to simplify my point.) But if you gave the same dog a heaping plate of broccoli, celery sticks, and croutons, he’s gonna start at it for a few seconds, hesitate, smell it, and make a face of doggy disgust and then move along. You can’t turn a dog into a vegetarian. Nor can you turn your boyfriend into a philatelist by giving him a framed collection of rare stamps on your anniversary.

We’ll appreciate the gift of course. There was a lot of thought put into into it… just not the right kind. Seriously, if I had a penny for every WTF uttered because of an unexpected gift…

1. Laughter.

Every guy thinks he’s funny and smart. Part of the blame goes to the women who look for guys who are “witty” and have a “sense of humor.” And how do we quantify that? It depends on what you’ve been watching. Some find Willy Revillame funny, so they wish their next boyfriend has that same… uh… quality.  Let us now pause for a moment and pray for these women and our country in particular.

The point being? You get what you ask for.

So if your boyfriend makes a joke that you know he’s been saving for the right moment, (re)act accordingly. Even if he makes a total ass of himself. (maybe it was part of the joke.) If the appropriate reaction is you laughing at him, let it rip. You’ll have to figure out how to explain to him that he was being corny, but you found his overall performance cute. But don’t say that. That’s mine.

Be careful about guys with heightened senses of humor though. They will expect you to keep up with them. If you can’t, they can be condescending and bore of you easily. So do your research and run his routes. It’s hard work, but so is making people laugh.

1. Be Relevant.

Us guys can be so useless sometimes, and we need you to pick us up during those rare moments.

I hate the trophy girlfriend syndrome. Some guys go for the Hiltons and the Kardashians or the Riveras of the world because it will make them look like the handsomest, richest, most well-endowed guys on the planet. (These are the guys who have limited their criteria to the first three.) But when he has to go around introducing her around and deal with small-talk, his stock will fall faster than Goldman Sachs. Everyone will be on to him. Everyone can see right through him. He’s the guy comedians joke about.

But if the girl was interesting and relevant, say, a doctor who had just saved your life by pumping your heart with her bare hands, now that’s interesting.

I’m telling you, it’s not always about the sex.

1. Compliments.

This is almost similar to the laugh card, except that it’s not. Compliments can be a form of deflection. And trust me, we guys aren’t trained to see through them. We’d eat them up, including the backhanded ones. We’d be like “Awwww thanks!”, pause for a good 10 seconds and then go, “wait… what?” It happens to me all the time. We men are suspicious creatures with egos bigger than our heads. Compliments feed both those needs. They keep us on our toes, wary that we’re being made fun of, at the same time we’re thinking “She just said I had Brad Pitt’s eyes!”

1. Friendship.

You know who the best girlfriend is? The one who’s also your friend.

Guys keep a really tight circle of friends, and the ultimate compliment he can pay a girl is when he considers making her part of that circle. I know a lot of guys who have friends who have never even met their girlfriends because she doesn’t like hanging out at bars where there are LaSallites. (Relax. It’s just an example.)

But this is a touchy subject, because some guys prefer keeping their love life separate from their social life. But if you’re the type of girl who gets checkmarks for every other criteria, you could be the one who’ll build the bridge over that chasm. We’re talking about potential “She’s a keeper!” status here.

It’s here where the compatibility thing might play a role. If your guy is a basketball fanatic and watches live games, it might not work out if the girl goes with him because she likes going to places with bright lights and rowdy crowds. It’s not also enough if she likes going to the beach because she likes the feeling of sand between her toes, and he goes there purely to surf.

This is where you the girl needs to make you mark with the things you have in common.

I can’t believe this is turning out like a murderous Doctor Love column. It’s almost like I’m single-handedly killing every girl’s portrait of a dream guy by twisting his neck.

1. Trust.

Because. We guys can be idiots sometimes. We are clumsy, dense goofs who don’t know the difference between girls hitting on us and the Starbucks barista who’s always been super nice and remembers your name and usual order. We only snap to our senses when things get dicey. (Hate to do it, but here’s the dog comparison again) It’s like dogs, we always love it when our belly gets rubbed, no matter who’s rubbing it.

The thing is, if you’ve checked off the first 9 criteria (criteriae? criterium?), then your guy is in a much better place. (Again with the dog comparisons!) You train your dog to eat only from your hand, and he’ll only eat the porkchop that you throw at him.

I almost played the “dogs are loyal, and so are men” card here, except that there are truer things in life than that statement.

The bottom line is that guys need the trust, else we don’t function. The whole checklist becomes immaterial. It’s like your Dad gives you a Ferrari, except that it comes with an MMDA enforcer in the passenger seat who’ll ride with you wherever you go. It’s beside the point.

At the end of the day, everything is based on trust.

And sex.

These are all easily disputable. Honestly, I was just trying to prove that I could come up with 10 things. It’s not like there’s a guy handbook out there where I copied this off from.  Go ahead, let’s all argue about this. Let me just bend over then we can get started.

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1. Sex.

Is there any question why this is first on the list? It is the responsibility of every man to keep to the go-forth-and-multiply mission. In fact, can we just say that we are overburdened by this? (I am a prick.) Is there any other way to oversimplify this statement? There are no lines in between to be read. Yet I know that this is going to get rehashed and misinterpreted somehow. I can’t win.

But let me take off my laconic and insensitive hat for a moment. I do believe that sexual compatibility is crucial to a relationship. Sexual attraction gets you through the first few years (You’ll have sex like it’s going out of style.) as a couple. Maybe it’s hormones. Or maybe it just feels good. Or just maybe a lot of us went to Catholic school.

And I’m not going to play the morality card. This is about what guys want right? Guys want sex. It doesn’t necessarily have to happen (and believe me, it doesn’t happen for a LOT of guys — minority by choice, majority by other more dubious factors.). It’s just the truth. Some guys just want it more than others, and some guys just want it more obviously than others, and some guys are just really good at keeping it together, like they recite some mantra or something. I can talk about this all day long, but I have to explain the other 9.

And can I just say that I wasted 3 paragraphs without making a point. It’s sex. That thing is pointed enough by itself.

1. Food.

People don’t go coming up with quotes like “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” unless there was some truth to it. So are you ready for the shocking truth? There is some truth to it.

You cannot underestimate how emotional a man can get when he is unable to satisfy his needs. If a man is hungry, he needs to eat.

The best example/analogy I can come up with here is Joey Tribianni. If you don’t know him, I am willing to lend you my 12-box DVD set of Friends, wait for you to blitz through the 10 seasons, blooper reels, and special features, then come back to this article. Ready? Done? Alright. We can move on, yes?

In fact, Joey is the perfect set-up man for Nos. 1 and 2. The Joey character stereotypes that the normal guy should be oversexed and overeating, and that everyone not the type was questionable gay. (Yes, I’m of the opinion that Joey is the most “normal” among the male characters in Friends. We may differ here, but this is my article, not yours.) (And I have no problems with gay people. I have gay friends. The “gay” reference is for when Joey meet Chandler for the first time, he thought Chandler was gay. Go watch the DVDs again!)

Again, I’m trying to oversimplify so that there won’t be room for argument. I used a Friends reference. Shouldn’t that help you get it?

1. Silence.

Ever wonder how two guy friends can go to a bar and just drink beer in silence? Really, sometimes we just need a minute or two. In fact don’t girls need some moments of silence too? Though, using the analogy above, I’ve never seen two girls sitting in a bar with blank stares while sipping on cosmopolitans. Or are there girl bars where these things happen? It would be helpful if we guys know these things.

Men brood. It adds to our mystique. We can go for long periods without saying a word, even among friends or partners. Sometimes people take this the wrong way and think that we’re either pissed or borderline murderous. That’s not the case. The moments of silence are therapy. The world can be a really noisy place sometimes. So look out for those times when the guy’s eyes glaze over, he sees right through the TV, and think, “Maybe he just needs some quiet time.”

1. Listen.

When a guy declares that he needs to say something, it can only two ways – either you’re about to hear something really profound, funny, or intelligent, or you are about to witness something potentially disastrous.

Now isn’t that compelling enough for you to tune in?

So how do you know when it’s time to listen? Remember all those cheesy movies John Cusack used to make? He’d belt out those one-line all-timers that either sink the movie or take it to cult status. And he’d usually start those lines with these to catch the unsuspecting woman’s attention:

There’s something I have to tell you… Ultimate cliffhanger of a statement. This line will just make your heart stop because 99% of all bad news started with versions of “There’s something I have to tell you…” (Other versions include “We need to talk…” and “I’ve been meaning to tell you this…”, with the former eliciting the same reaction as the original). But do you end up running away the moment you hear it? No! You are compelled to stay for the potential axe to drop because you know it can go either way – you strike gold or a slap in the face.

You know what? I’ve been thinking… He’s been thinking! At this moment you’ll have to stop painting your nails and listen. Guys think a lot. But it’s a rare thing for guys to share exactly what he was thinking about. And as usual, you may get something really meaningful, or he’d say “You know what? I’ve been thinking… Our sofa set is still covered in plastic. That’s weird.”

The point being? If a guy declares he has to say something, you gotta tune in. Let it pass and you lose him for good. You don’t know how crucial it is for us to have an audience.

1. Relevant Gifts.

This takes talent and commitment. And a little FBI training. So many girlfriends and wives get this part wrong.

Buying gifts that you think your partner will look good in? Frowned upon. Gifts you think would jumpstart a new hobby or interest? Nope. Gifts that will make our bathrooms smell nice? Do they really smell that bad?

I hope you’re all catching on to the idea.

Think of a dog, and you just gave it a porkchop. It would be the happiest dog on earth. Why? Coz you gave it what it wanted. (I hate making man/dog analogies. It’s too easy and we’re too similar. But it’s necessary to simplify my point.) But if you gave the same dog a heaping plate of broccoli, celery sticks, and croutons, he’s gonna start at it for a few seconds, hestitate, smell it, and make a face of doggy disgust and then move along. You can’t turn a dog into a vegetarian. Nor can you turn your boyfriend into a philatelist by giving him a framed collection of rare stamps on your anniversary.

We’ll appreciate the gift of course. There was a lot of thought put into into it… just not the right kind. Seriously, if I had a penny for every WTF uttered because of an unexpected gift…

1. Laugh.

Every guy thinks he’s funny and smart. Part of the blame goes to the women who look for guys who are “witty” and have a “sense of humor.” And how do we quantify that? It depends on what you’ve been watching. Some find Willy Revillame funny, so the wish their next boyfriend has that same… uh… quality. (Let us now pause for a moment and pray for these women and our country in particular.)

The point being? You get what you ask for.

So if your boyfriend makes a joke that you know he’s been saving for the right moment, (re)act accordingly. Even if he makes a total ass of himself. (maybe it was part of the joke.) If the appropriate reaction is you laughing at him, let it rip. You’ll have to figure out how to explain to him that he was being corny, but you found his overall performance cute. But don’t say that. That’s mine.

Be careful about guys with heightened senses of humor though. They will expect you to keep up with them. If you can’t, they can be condescending and bore of you easily. So do your research and run his routes. It’s hard work, but so is making people laugh.

1. Be Relevant.

Us guys can be so useless sometimes, and we need you to pick us up during those rare moments.

I hate the trophy girlfriend syndrome. Some guys go for the Hiltons and the Kardashians or the Riveras of the world coz they look like the handsomest, richest, most well-endowed guys on the planet. (These are the guys who have limited their criteria to Nos. 1 through 3.) But when he has to go around introducing her around and deal with small-talk, his stock will fall because everyone will be on to him. He’s the guy comedians joke about.

But if the girl was interesting and relevant, say, a doctor who had just saved your life by pumping your heart with her bare hands, now that’s interesting.

I’m telling you, it’s not always about the sex.

1. Compliment.

This is almost similar to the laugh card, except that it’s not. Compliments can be a form of deflection. And trust me, we guys aren’t trained to see through them. We’d eat them up, including the backhanded ones. We’d be like “Awwww thanks!”, pause for a good 10 seconds and then go, “wait… what?” It happens to me all the time. We men are suspicious creatures with egos bigger than our heads. Compliments feed both those needs. They keep us on our toes, wary that we’re being made fun of, at the same time we’re thinking “She just said I had Brad Pitt’s eyes!”

1. Friendship.

You know who the best girlfriend is? The one who’s also your friend.

Guys keep a really tight circle of friends, and the ultimate compliment he can pay a girl is when he considers making her part of that circle. I know a lot of guys who have friends who have never even met their girlfriends because she doesn’t like hanging out at bars where there are LaSallistas. (Relax. It’s just an example.)

But this is a touchy subject, because some guys prefer keeping their love life separate from their social life. But if you’re the type of girl who gets checkmarks for Nos. 1-9, you could be the one who’ll build the bridge to that chasm. We’re talking about potential “She’s a keeper!” status here.

It’s here where the compatibility thing might play a role. If your guy is a basketball fanatic and watches live games, it might not work out if the girl goes with him because she likes going to places with bright lights and rowdy crowds. It’s not also enough if she likes going to the beach coz she likes the feeling of sand between her toes, and he goes there purely to surf.

This is where you the girl needs to make you mark with the things you have in common.

I can’t believe this is turning out like a murderous Doctor Love column. It’s almost like I’m single-handedly killing every girl’s portrait of a dream guy by twisting his neck.

1. Trust.

Because. We guys can be idiots sometimes. We are clumsy, dense goofs who don’t know the difference between girls hitting on us and the Starbucks barista who’s always been super nice and remembers your name and usual order. We only snap to our senses when things get dicey. (Hate to do it, but here’s the dog comparison again) It’s like dogs, we always love it when our tummies get rubbed, no matter who’s rubbing it.

The thing is, if you’ve checked off Nos. 1 to 9, then your guy is in a much better place. (Again with the dog comparisons!) You train your dog to eat only from your hand, and he’ll only eat the porkchop that you throw at him.

I almost played the “dogs are loyal, and so are men” card here, except that there are truer things in life than that statement.

The bottom line is that guys need the trust, else we don’t function. The whole checklist becomes immaterial. It’s like your Dad gives you a Ferrari, except that it comes with an MMDA enforcer in the passenger seat who’ll ride with you everywhere. It’s beside the point. At the end of the day, everything is based on trust.

And sex.

Blog Link – Guttervomit: The Mechanics of Kissing

There has not been much activity going on in this blog, so I’m sure this comes as a shock. Heck, even I’m a little dazed. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share Luis’ take on osculation, or what us common folk refer to as Kissing.

He had a rather interesting take on the matter of saliva exchange –

For guys, kissing is generally the first step towards sex, hence the use of “bases” to denote how far you’ve gone with a girl. (We’d lose track otherwise.) Droll sports analogies aside, this is an important consideration if you’re a female because it’s usually rare that a guy will just sit there and kiss you for hours without expecting to hit a home run at some point.

It’s different for girls though. Instead of being merely a stepping stone, kissing is symbolic of the act of sex itself. If you’re kissing a girl and the only thing going through your mind is, “Can I put my hand on her boob yet” then it’s possible that you’re disconnecting with your partner a little bit. Generally speaking, although a guy will still sleep a girl who happens to really suck at kissing, the reverse is not true.

He makes a few more interesting points that I found myself unconsciously nodding my head in agreement to. Go see if you do the same. Check out more of Luis’ blog here.

Happy Valentine’s day, all you star-crossed lovers!

Sweet New Toys from Canon (50D) and Nikon (D90)

Photokina 2008 is barely a month away, and camera giants Nikon and Canon (or Canon and Nikon, for my latter-biased friends ) have started pumping out new babies to hungry photography enthusiasts the world over.

Canon is said to be releasing the EOS 50D, a sister model of last year’s popular release, the 40D. Nikon, on the other hand, is set to release the D90, the world’s first DSLR with Movie Mode (at a sweet 720p HDTV quality, albeit forgettable Mono sound quality, so that they can still say, “hey, at least we still bothered.”).

I’m a Nikon user, and I love my D70s (which is now in danger of being replaced and moved into a DSLR nursing home if there ever was one), but I can appreciate what both brands have to offer.  If I had assimilated myself into the Canon family first, I would probably still be using the brand until now. I’ll let other people defend their brand advocacies and just nod along to each argument.

So here’s a quick look at some readily comparable features available in the upcoming Canon 50D and Nikon D90:

	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D
Effective pixels	12.2 mp	15.1mp
AF Points	11 points	9 points
LCD Monitor	3.0″ TFT LCD	3.0″ TFT LCD
ISO	ISO 200 to 3200	ISO 100 to 1600
Continuous Shooting	4.5 fps	6.3 / 3.0 fps, 60/90 frames
Damage to Bank Account	$1299 with 18-105 VR kit lens (or roughly around Php 60k)	$1599 with 18-200 IS lens (or roughly around Php 72k)

If you need more facts and specs so you can brag about how great the new Nikon is to your Canon-toting friends (or vice-versa), visit both hands-on previews at the ever-reliable Dpreview website (Or straight here for the EOS 50D review, and here for the Nikon D90 review).

There Are No Accidents…

… but there is this photoblog. Hi! My name is Don Manganar, and I am a freelance photographer and writer. This here is my first photoblogproject. I have blogged before, and have been shooting for 2 years, so I can’t really say that this is something new to me, but I can tell you for sure that I am very excited about this project. Let’s just say that I’ve made a commitment with myself to keep being immersed in the very things that I love doing — writing, photography, and the Internets.

The challenge in the past has always been to keep the blog interesting and updated, but now most of my excitement comes from the fact that I have lots of photos that I want to share with you, both old, current, and new (wait, I said both. Sorry.) No use for all my pictures to lay wasted in my hard drive. Might as well post them, and maybe you can tell me how the heck I got the shot to come out like it did.

I really hope to make the site user-friendly, interactive, and fun. I hope to see lots of discussion, criticism (constructive or otherwise), and advice, that will help me, and all other photographers or writers out there. So expect this site to be constantly evolving, as I also hope to evolve into a better photographer-slash-writer through our interactions.

I’m really looking forward to this! And I hope you are too See you in the next post!

Cheers,

Don