Saturday, April 25, 2009

NBA Chess



The playoffs are on. For those of you who know me well enough, you will know that I am a Spurs fan. No, I do not support Tottenham Hotspurs and don't try to talk trash to me about their 5-2 defeat at the hands of the lucker team (also the worst team on the planet).

In the NBA, the Spurs refer to the San Antonio Spurs. I think the video is very well made in many ways. The narration suits the on-screen events. Nonetheless, to the amateur eye, the kings of basketball may appear to be masters of the black and white jungle. But to the trained eye (like mine), they are so amateurish. One glance at the way these ballers hold the chess pieces tells me that they probably have never played chess in their lives.

You're probably thinking that I am taking this too seriously, but you are the one who is taking it too seriously. I just meant it as a joke. The late Eduard Gufeld would have said that their basketball is better than my chess.

Anyhow, as to how I obtained the video, I use some backdoor software to rip it off the Chessbase website. I don't believe I am infringing copyright laws as this video is made for advertizing purposes and I am merely serving the same purpose.

P/S: I am disappointed they did not include Tim Duncan.

Friday, April 24, 2009

He's Just Not That Into You


Disclaimer: I reserve the right to spoil your movie experience should you choose to read this without having watched the movie. For those of you who have already decided not to watch it, please proceed without caution. I also reserve the right to spoil your blog-reading experience taking into full consideration of your kindness and generosity in visiting my blog. I also reserve the right to deny you the privilege of enjoying the contents of my mind-blowing piece of work. Last but not least, I hope you will run to the cinema or download the pirated version or do whatever it takes to watch the movie really soon so as to not disrupt your blog-reading experience in this site. I thank you for coming and hope to see you again soon.







When I watched this movie yesterday, I find it inevitable to think that if what happens in the movie really applies to myself, and to the people around me. Maybe to a certain extent it's true. I have not been involved in the dating scene for a really long time now and I don't really recall what it feels like to wait for someone to call you back.

But the movie certainly points in the direction of what I wrote about women in "Empty Promises". When you like someone, it's so hard to not think about them. Even when you try not to think about them, you're still thinking about them. Do you find yourself pacing around waiting for your date to call you? Do you check your phone every 15 minutes for your special someone to call you back or text you?

With the vastness of the world being squeezed by the tight electronic net, more and more relationships are e-based. People dwell on actions like, "Oh my gosh, he superpoked me, does it mean he likes me?" or "He didn't reply my wall message for him, what's taking him so long?" or "Why hasn't he uploaded that picture we took together? He promised to do it as soon as he got back home." and 1001 many other things you can imagine yourself thinking with regards to facebook (apparently the new "in" thing).

Anyhow, I wouldn't classify this as the best movie ever, but for those of you who enjoyed "Love Actually" will enjoy this as well. The chemistry between the comical star-studded cast is pretty amazing. The movie contains many of my favorite actors and actresses and they played their role well. There wasn't any head of the cast or anything like that. All of the co-stars blended in and didn't exaggerate the motive of the film which made the ideas completely accessible and easy to relate to. Nothing was made to be more than what it seems.

At the end, all I could say is that I tried to express the same ideas, but they simply did it better. Kudos to the makers.