05/25/09 Binhi/Kadiwa Night! Gemnet extravaganza!

Today was a VERY long and VERY satisfying day for me. To sum it up, it started with WIN and ended in WIN!

For starters, I woke up today at 10AM because I went to sleep at like 1 or 2AM last night. When I woke up I right away started on the BBQ we would eat for lunch! There was ribs, short ribs, fish, and STEAK! LOL! It was fun doing that, however, the blazing sun was unforgiving today. It was hot! I did it in the shade but it was still hot. I'm actually getting pretty pro at doing the bbq, before I would have trouble but not anymore. I started on the ribs/short ribs and fish. Later on I did the Steaks one by one. That was the fun part, doing the steaks. I got to figure out how to do medium and medium well, no well done today please! I then moved on to do the vegetables like mushrooms and asparagus. When I finished the steak I let my mom do some bbqing so I could eat my steak and some bbq too, I then took over when I finished and finished doing the rest of the bbq! It was quite enjoyable! I then went on to take a shower.

After I was done taking a shower, I then played some MGS4 for a while, man MGS4 is so fricken addicting! Anyways, I played for a while then went on facebook to finalize some things with Chuck. Like the script and stuff like that. I then went on myspace to look around then took a nap! When I woke up I got ready for the binhi kadiwa night! While I was waiting for Arvin to pick me and my sister up, I practiced the guitar I borrowed from Jerome, I got some what better in that short time. The time now was 7:50PMish. He then came and we went off to Westin hotel for the Binhi/Kadiwa night!

On our way there, nothing particularly happened, when we got there , however, the story is a little different. At the door we met up with Anne, that one girl, and Hector! It was pretty cool, we talked and a while later Von came through the door and we talked for a little bit and that was cool. When everyone (Chuck, Almie, Eron?, Jerome, Mark, and Gary) came in then the action kicked up a notch. We headed downstairs to the place where the bin/kad night was held.

I want to quickly point out the architecture of the building. It was as if they designed it on the sole purpose to make you dizzy. I mean it, it was built pretty vertically, if you were in the lobby and looked up, it looks as if it would stretch upwards forever. It was pretty cool actually but kinda creepy at the same time. Another weird feature of the building was that the lobby was actually the 4th or was it 6th floor?! If you were to go to the 3rd floor it would actually go downwards. Interesting!


When we got to the place at the 3rd floor, we scouted it out a little and talked to the kids at the Apra Heights table. It was pretty cool seeing everyone again. It was weird cause they keep getting taller every time! After a little bit, Chuck gathered everyone together and we prayed for our GEMNET activity. Today I was given photographer duty! It was really really REALLY fun! I want that duty at every formal gathering thingy! It was quite cool! Anyways after our prayer, we went off to do our stuff. I teamed up with Arvin so that we can take pictures of everyone's table. I let Arvin do the talking while I got the pictures down! At first the 2nd picture we took didn't show up cause I realized that I was not pressing the button down hard enough. But I'm glad I caught that mistake early!

With the amature mistakes behind, and all the table pictures taken care of. The freedom to take pictures of everything was amazing! IDK, something about photography was cool! IDK, it was very neat. I took a good a mount of pictures of the room as a whole so that was neat and of the outside too! We were then actually invited by a brother to actually eat! We were planning on not eating and going somewhere after but OK! That was a very cool thing of the brother to do. When I got my foodz, I heard of a game that was going on where anyone could join. So I got some friends (Geonard, Carlo, Denzel, and DJ) and we went on. It was like a question and answer game. Wait, I just realized it was from that one filipino game show where people would line up at one of the multiple choice answers. It was pretty interesting, I wasn't too serious but for some reason I got like to the final round too. LOL! Anyways, after that I got pretty tense for some reason. I then ate my foodz with Arvin and Anne Marie at the outside place since we couldn't get inside. After that I then checked out the next activity which was this dating game thing. It was pretty awkward, but it was interesting to see Arjay's replies! Anyways, after that we then set up for the first interview.

We packed up the cams and stuff and moved to the far side of the room to take the interviews near some portraits, I helped set up a little then went out to check up on things. I bumped into Resley and this one girl. I was actually talking to Resley and got introduced to Zhalen. She was pretty cool. We conversed for a while and I got to introduce some people to her and such. I let Hannah man the camera for a little while then when Zhalen, Reslyn, and Resty went on their way I manned it again for the rest of the time.

I then went inside to check out what's going down and saw they were up to a new game. I took some pics of that and then brother Joe did the closing remarks! We then did some of the coverage of the prayer so that was neat! When everyone was leaving we took some shots of that so that was pretty cool! We then helped get the camera unsetupped and stuff. We took a couple group pictures for remembrance so that was cool! We then went on our seperate ways.

We actually stopped by Outrigger cause we were supposed to meet there but everyone had to bail today. After that though we went on our way home. Nothing in particularly interesting happened on the way home. When I got home I put the garbage out side and now I am going to get ready to sleep. LOL!

Sorry if this wasn't that detailed. I'm tired from too much win! And have more things to do tomorrow! Hopefully I can come back and retouch this with more detail later.

05/17/09! Gem Net day.

Words could hardly describe this day, but I'll try my best.

Today started out just like any other sunday for me. Take a bath then eat breakfast then go to church. There was some differences, however, for breakfast I ate poptarts and today we took the Carolla to church instead of the Sentra since the Sentra was not working. At church it was practically the same. First warm up then worship service then CWS then home. Today on the way home we got some KFC so that was good. It was a 10 or so piece crunchy chicken meal with thr33 sides (Mac,cole, and mash). When we got home then I believe I took a nap. I woke up at about 2PMish then ate the chicken and played a little bit of MGS4 on hard which was the shiz. Afterwards, I like waited for any news about the things we were supposed to do for GEM from anyone. I went on myspace and found Jerome online and asked him about the stuff happening, I later recieved a call from Arvin updating me on stuff and so I got ready to go. When Arvin got to my house we then went off to Tokyo Mart near GPO, for, I heard legendary stories about Gatsby Hairwax being there from Jerome and Von. When we got to said store, me and Arvin looked around for some of the good stuff. When we finally found said good stuff it was only one color ;__; I wanted the red one. But I will settle for the white since it seemed to have worked as good anyways. So anyways, we got some cheap $2 bentos and Arizona tea. Arvin ate his, me on the other hand, did not. It was a good thing I didn't too and I'll tell you in a minute. Afterwards, we headed back to Yigo church to see what everyone is up to for the GEM net thing. When we got there no one was there besides a few people who owned other parts of the building. Interesting, we then called Jerome to check what's up and he said that they were at Mark's house wrapping up the interview. We then asked for directions to Mark's house and when we got there it was finished and we all headed back to the church. When we got back we all then got carpools to sister Claudia's house (Inarajan). It was quite the carpool ride LOL! We rode with brother Gary and saw some pretty interesting sights on the way thur. There was a mega fiesta down at Merizo! It looked hecka cool and reminded me of when we lived in Apra Heights, the whole atmosphere down there was different from the north side of Guam, you can only tell the difference when you are gone from the South for quite some time. Anyways, it took us a while to actually reach sister Claudia's house. When we got there we ate some Fiesta (Fee!-Aye!-Sta!) food and got ready to do sister Claudia and her brother's interview. It was quite the experience to me and everyone else there. Getting to man the audio system was quite a challenge actually,I would go even as far to say that it is intense doing it. I found it intense because you have to be very picky on the sounds around you like little hums and what not. I'm glad Arvin gave me his responsibility of the audio checking LOL! Anyways, it was something else, like actually being there to see the interview done live in real time. It found it to be a humbling experience which I will remember for a life time! After her brother finished his interview, we took a small little break so we switched around places so we all got a try at something. Sister Claudia's interview was quite something, it made me realized that I should strive harder to actually get some people to join the church. Chuck then got to say some positive stuffs about sister Claudia kinda like proof of how dedicated she is. We then got together to do some feedback time for the GEM-NET people. That part was quite fun too since we all put in our feedback to the whole entire thing like the work shop etc. The most interesting part was that Arvin out of all of us probably said the most intelligent and logical thing LOL! I talked about how writing lines for scripts was hard and how interesting the workshop was. We then took some group pictures and we all took our separate ways that evening. We actually stayed there till like 11PMish! It was crazy! Before we left the place, I realized something. Something I never realized till today. That the stars are almost only visible down south! Up here in the north you almost never see them, I then realized how wonderful stars where. Interestingly enough the ride back to Yigo was quite something too. Anyways, today's Gem Net experience was quite something else! I really do hope that the future of Gem Net on Guam will persistently be a fun experience like it was today. With Chuck leaving at the end of the year, it is very hard to see what really is the future of Guam Gem Net. My predictions are pretty bleak, since I have the faintest clue of who will take charge when Chuck leaves. Hopefully things will be for the better though and that I am wrong.

Star Trek The Movie Review! 05/09/09

Anyways before I begin I want to make it clear that I have not watched the original series but fear not for I has watched some of The Next Generation series. Before I watched it I was wondering if I was going to be confused at any moment since I didn't get to watch the original series. I was lucky to be relieved that it actually didn't matter since the movie itself was in canon to the original series. Anyways heres the main storyline which I had no idea of before I watched.

Set in an alternate universe, a Romulan space ship travels back in time, not on purpose, but in accident. When they did, they basically attacked a federation ship with Kirk and his family in it. This is where things go in canon since Kirk's father dies when he was born and events turn out quite differently. Anyways the story is then of Kirk going to join the space fleet and of Spock also joining the fleet. They then have to work together to defeat the Romulan threat. But they have a hard time working together while they are at it. Oh and the guy from Shaun of the Dead was there.

The sweet thing about this movie was the special effects, it was gorgeously done and pretty much features the best effects ever! period! Unlike Star Wars where technology seems to advance with every movie even if it was a prequel, in Star Trek the technology was more to their standards in their time and not better than what the latest star trek series would be, so the tech level was logical. To be honest, I am not too sure if the actors portrayed the original characters correctly. But one things for sure, the characters are fricken colorful and unique. You have the Russian guy with the hilariously deep accent. The asian guy and even the guy from Shaun of the Dead. The guy from Shaun of the Dead did a fricken awesome job, a funny one too.

The storyline as a whole was not complicated and easily accessible for anyone in the family to fully enjoy. Not really a deep meaning, it won't answer your question for the search of identity or the meaning of life. The only thing I noticed in the film was the pretty sophisticated vocabulary of the Vulcan race. I was also questioning myself "Why do the Vulcans and Romulans speak english? And even better than the humans?" Well that didn't matter, it was better than reading really big words in subtitle. I did find the storyline to be as compelling as it was awesome, so that really did make up for the no deep meaning part. It had equal parts sad as it does funny. Dang Simon Pegg was a good choice for his role! The tear jerkin parts were pretty cool and the funny parts were stupidly (good) funny!

One small complaint that can be made is that it didn't show much different species. It would have been cool to see a Klingon. The enemy choice was good. I'm actually glad they used Romulans since Borgs would have been too obvious. Well Borgs are still cool and scary and stuff but the Romulan spacecraft was way awesome and beats a cube anyday LOL! Oh yeah, the bad guy was pretty cool, he did his part as good as he had to with emphasis on awesome!!!

This has definitely got to be the best Star Trek movie created ever! Heck it even beats the Star Wars movies! Eat that Star Wars geeks. Anyways, yeah, I did watch Nemesis before, it was pretty cool but still felt kinda low budget. Star Trek, however, went all out. Man I can't explain how awesome the effects like the super novas and creation of black holes and stuff like that looked! It's crazy. The CGs for the animals on that ice world were hella wonderfully done and looked way too real. They were designed very well, they were fierce and creepy looking. They are possibly the most realistic creatures I have ever scene in a movie. The Transformers 2 trailer was actually shown and the CGs for those creatures made the transformers look hecka fake and noticeably computer generated.

As far as the actual sound went, It was orchestrated very well and did it's part. The ending was rad, it had the famous monologue and ended with the famous Star Trek theme redone! Sweet! I'm pretty sure there was hecka eye candy for the original Star Trek fans out there since they actually had the original Spock. There was a good amount of reference to the original series so I thought that was pretty neat.

Yup! This movie is pretty much the best of it's genre which is awesome genre. This IS the BEST movie out so far this year, second would be Slumdog Millionaire. Anyways a 4.75/5