Not that I’m having fun in this particular time of year. But there are no classes and that makes it all better. Sigh. Finals. Urgh.
Meanwhile, my “screw-school” side decided to learn something new. A piece for the piano. I’m just glad I’m actually doing something instead of just sleeping, eating, sleeping, surfing the net, sleeping, watching movies, and sleeping. Oh, and did I mention sleeping? I’m turning out to be quite a sloth these days. Ew.
So, yeah. I learned to play Victor’s piano solo from the Corpse Bride. It sounds cool. Slightly haunting and gothic. Danny Elfman rocks. If you wanna try it yourself, you can download the sheet music here thanks to Desira at My Piano.
And then I watched Step Up, 300 and Hannibal Rising. Step Up has an extremely overused plot but was still funny at times. After having seen a lot of hiphop/modern dancing films, I’d say the choreography was average and I liked Miles the producer’s music [especially the violin riffs]. 300 was gory and brutal, as expected [but not as gory and brutal as I expected]. And it really reminds you that it was adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller [keyword: graphic and Frank Miller. Remember Sin City?]. Hannibal Rising made me wanna know more about the morbid life of Hannibal Lecter. The guy who plays Hannibal [found out his name is Gaspard Ulliel] looks like he could be a decent vampire. Sometimes, I couldn’t understand what the characters were saying, though, seeing as Li is Chinese and Gaspard is French [hello, accents?].

Here are the movies that I’m gonna be looking forward to this 2007. And of course, I want to see Spider-Man 3, but it’s not in the list because of a number thing [ugly number? ].
May 25, 2007 - Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End
I’m so excited about this movie. I mean, after seeing the second installment? Come on, the ending was a total cliff hanger. I need to see this if only to satisfy my curiosity. Plus, of course, there’s Johnny Depp. Even though he supposedly "died" in the second movie, we all know he’s coming back. I mean, what’s the point if there’s no [Captain] Jack Sparrow?
July 4, 2007 - Transformers
I’m not really into robots and stuff, but I found the trailer slightly interesting. And besides, it stars Josh Duhamel [Tad Hamilton in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton…;-)] and Shia LaBeouf [the kid in Holes, a movie adaptation of a book with the same title by Louis Sachar]. Might be worth checking out.
July 13, 2007 - Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Ehem…do I really have to explain this?
August 10, 2007 - Stardust
An adaptation of a novel by Neil Gaiman. I haven’t really read any of his books, but he seems to be a popular author. I’ve gotten the idea that his stories are more into the fantasy genre and sort of weird. Just my type. And the trailer looks really interesting, too.
December 7, 2007 - His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass
This is another adaptation of a novel [a trilogy, in fact. Just like Lord of the Rings. ] by Philip Pullman. I’ve read all three books in the trilogy and I loved it. I seriously couldn’t put it down even if it was ‘wordy‘ and ‘descriptive‘, if you know what I mean. The story is unique, too, in a way…and so are the characters. I recommend you read the novels. Or if you’re not the reading type, then just go and see the movie when it’s out.

If any of you have read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson [and liked it], then you should check the movie out: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, and Part 10 [thanks to MartynaG for uploading the movie in YouTube]. It’s good.

I’ve finally found a way to get my occasional fix of TV episodes: torrent downloads! It’s especially handy when you don’t have television at home. Like me.
And being a newbie, I had to familiarize myself with all this torrent stuff. I don’t know exactly how it works, but as long as I get my TV…who cares?

Okay. So first things first. Before you download any torrent file, you first have to get a BitTorrent client. I use uTorrent (and sometimes BitTorrent). You can download uTorrent here: uTorrent 1.6 Standalone (170 kB) or uTorrent 1.6 Installation Program (597 kB). Once you’ve installed your BitTorrent client, you’re ready to download torrent files. These are small files that you open in your BitTorrent client so you can start downloading media. There are lots of sources of torrent files in the web. I use Torrentz as my torrent search engine.
When choosing which torrent files to download, keep these in mind:
» If comments are available, read them and find out if the torrent is good
» Make sure the torrent health status beside the filename is green (or high)
» If you want good quality videos, choose those with HDTV in their filenames
» Choose torrents with more peers and seeds than leeches
After you’ve downloaded your torrent file, open it in your BitTorrent client and it will start to download. Here’s a good time to be patient. Click here for tips on how to make downloads faster in uTorrent.
When you’re download has finally reached 100%, it’s time for you to open the file and check it if it really works.
To play icm.xvid files in RealPlayer, just download and install this.
For files ending in .rar, .r00, .r01, etc., you need WinRAR to extract them. Get the trial version here.
Well, I think that’s it. So, enjoy watching!

UPDATE:
There are fake torrents that have been going around lately. They ask for a password when you try to extract the files. In order to get the password, you are told to download a program. DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING. There is no password. The file is a fake. You can avoid these fake torrents by not downloading .rar files. If you have to download .rar files, make sure the torrent has a lot of .rar archives in its list of files and not just one. Also check if the torrent includes a sample folder. These are usually the ones that are not fake.

Seems like I’ve forgotten about blogging for a while. Would you believe me if I said I was just really busy? Does it matter? Not really. Okay, that’s settled. Time for me to rant.
LOST. I just discovered that wonderful TV series this year. I don’t have to write a synopsis because you probably know what the show’s all about, but if you don’t, there’s always Google.
The pilot. Good scene sequence. Showing the airplane scenes in the later episodes adds a puzzle effect and little details become relevant because the scenes and episodes are connected together. They are weaved into one big, exciting series about survival in different aspects. There are suprises. (And we shouldn’t be surprised about that.) Seems that every person (of the 14 main characters in the first season plus second season-ers, too) has problems and regrets shown to us through flashbacks in almost every episode. They should think about variety on that one. Flashbacks per episode are a little monotonous. (Read: Tiresome.) The show is sprinkled with thrills and issues, enhanced by well-defined characters and many different schemes to add more mystery to the already mystery-laden island. It’s like a big puzzle and every episode adds a piece to this big puzzle that we desperately want to finish. But not too soon, of course. Give it a few more seasons.
About the characters. My faves: Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Boone.

Jack. I didn’t give much credit to this guy in the first few episodes. He seemed a little boring. You know, the typical reluctant-hero type. But he grows on you and add season two of Dr. House to the mix and you’ve got me wondering why I didn’t take up LIA-COM so I could both be a doctor and a lawyer. Sorry. Off-topic. Let’s go back.

Sawyer. At first I thought he was Martin Henderson of The Ring and Torque (and Britney’s Toxic). After a few close-ups, however, it was clear that it was another guy. There are times when he’s just plain annoying and times when he’s just plain adorable. Sawyer/Kate shipper.

Kate. Found out she’s younger than she looks (No wonder Evangeline and Ian are so buddy-buddy in pictures, but I heard she’s with Dominic. Whatever. Nuff goss.) Although a little irritating at times, she’s cool. I read somewhere that she visited the Philippines to hike or somin’. Okay-est girl in the island, I think.

Boone. I recognized this guy from Smallville. Lana’s bleeding supposed-to-be-dead(?) boyfriend with the extreme eyes and eyebrows. How could I forget? Seems like he’s the youngest guy in the cast ‘cept for Walt, o’ course. Too bad he died.  It was heartbreaking.

This is one TV series you should get hooked on. I can’t wait for season three.
.:I honestly think they should stop calling The Others The Others. Seriously. It sounds like something from a children’s horror/fantasy story:.