back when ...

The evolution of some of our favorite superheroes.

back when "a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter" became a mantra

Another snip from Sesame Street.

back when musical mini-documentaries were shown on sesame street

I learned how to count, do simple math, speak English (and a bit of Spanish) and sing from watching Sesame Street as a preschooler.  My sponge-like little mind absorbed even more than the basics of Reading 'Riting and 'Rithmetic because of what I now call their "musical mini-documentaries".

back when kids played with other kids, and they weren't plagued with ADHD

It's like an epidemic lately. I've heard so many parents claim that their kids have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (a.k.a., ADHD), that I question whether all those kids were actually diagnosed by a bona fide mental health professional, or if parents just carelessly use medical terms to describe their child's behavior. I don't doubt that some of those children probably really have the disorder, but it makes me wonder if that many really do. I tend to think that saying "my kid has ADHD" is just a fashionable way of saying "my kid is undisciplined".

I've read some articles theorizing that the new generation's proneness to boredom, their aggression and their lack of focus is due to the high-speed bombardment of media now easily available to them. i.e., Due to quick-click entertainment and instantly accessible information, their minds have gotten used to being undisciplined. Yeah, blame the internet.

It makes me laugh to remember how when we were kids, our grandmothers sermonized on the evils of the boob tube. These days, the telly is comparatively harmless. A TV addiction almost sounds lame compared to pathological computer use.

While internet addiction plagues kids and adults alike, we "grown-ups" love to point out how uncanny it is for kids to be so dependent on their gadgets. It seems a little wrong or at least funny to us if a teen boy can't live without wi-fi for a day, or if a tween girl totes the latest cellphone to tweet her friends every ten seconds.

I guess it's because when we were kids, only rich businessmen had laptops and cellphones - youngsters using gadgets for fun was unheard of until fairly recently. I suppose we still hold this notion that children should have fun by playing with other children, and that playing means actual physical activity. Well, them youngsters believe that too, but they prefer to do things online. Their idea of physical activity may as well involve moving fingers over a keypad. If kids back in the day got scolded for spending too much time outside, kids nowadays practically need to be dragged to the sunny outdoors. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad; all I'm saying is it's their thing.

It gets bad if in their techno-dependence, they wouldn't know how to live without their electronics. A prolonged power failure would be like the end of the world - they can't play their games, can't download their music, can't update their status, can't do their homework, and worst - can't charge their batteries (I've witnessed some young relatives go through a painful withdrawal when we went on a family field-trip, and it was very unpleasant).

That picture triggers a bit of pride over my generation's ingenuity - we were often bored as children too, but we knew how to make our own "entertainment". We could generate fun from everyday objects like rubber bands and twigs. We used our imagination. A bunch of cardboard boxes can be a fort or a race car, a sidewalk can be a sparkling road to Rainbow land, and there were a hundred wonders we can do with soap and water.

When I was a kid, a power failure was a reason to go outside and play patintero under the stars; if it rained during a blackout, we stayed indoors and experimented on the effects of candle-flame on various objects (marshmallows, crayons, GI Joes), or collected molten candle-wax into balls. When we got tired of that, we made light shows on the ceilings with our flashlights.

We had our computer games, but we knew how to make friends - as in, face-to-face, flesh-and-blood friends, not digital representations. We didn't feel the need to tell them what we were doing every five seconds, because we spent time with them in the flesh.

We loved the television, but we also appreciated books. If we had homework that involved a little research, we knew how to use the library. We we didn't instantly transmit data electronically; we actually wrote notes, meaning we had to learn how to spell, conjugate and punctuate. We eventually learned the fancy shmancy software when they came into our lives later, but we first knew to draw, make models, draft blueprints, make movies and do everything by hand.

Oh, the pre-digital age wonder years. Those times weren't as convenient as today, but we certainly weren't unfortunate to live as children in them.

Kids today would make fun of all that and call us old school, but in spite of their chiding, it isn't so shameful to be so "old school". Because we didn't have the option to be impatient if things weren't available in one click, we're equipped with a little more patience, ingenuity and discipline. I personally sometimes feel the need to rub it in - i mean, these "admirable qualities rather scarce in today's youth" - whenever I hear a kid make ignorant remarks implying old is backward or irrelevant. But of course without sounding like my grandmother on a "When I was your age" sermon.

To be fair to the young ones: despite their propensity toward ADHD (genuine disorder or otherwise), they do have the tendency to be multitalented and the capacity to be more intelligent (* tendency and capacity - there is the potential; it is neither actual nor definite). I'm not writing their generation off the way older ones did ours by naming us "X". The ADHD batch might just bring a lot of good into the world in the not-so-distant future, we just haven't seen them in action yet.
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back when a "lamb chop" was a lovable puppet

Image from here.

My favorite celebrity sock puppet to date is a knitted wool sheep named Lamb Chop. She was so cute and sassy, and I just loved her name - Lamb Chop. My older brother thought the name was hilarious, seeing through the irony. At that time I didn't even show sheep were edible.

When I was in kindergarten, I watched her every weekday morning on The Shari Show.

Image from here.

The Shari Show was a children's program hosted by puppeteer and ventriloquist Shari Lewis. Shari and Lamb Chop worked at a TV station totally run by puppets. There was a lion named Lionel, another lion named Dandy Lion and a kangaroo named Captain Person. It wasn't quite as educational as the more popular Sesame Street, but it did have a lot of singing and good values.

Thank you Shari, for the Shari Show.

As a kid I'd wondered why her name was spelled "Shari" (I saw it on the hand-painted heart on the opening of each episode), but it was pronounced Sherry. It was then I began to realize that Americans pronounced their vowels differently, depending on how the rest of the word is spelled. I obsessed over the letter A for a while and observed how it differed in words like mango, car and Franchesca.

Thank you Shari, for showing me that Teacher was not really that good in teaching English .

Image from here.

I really missed the program it when it stopped running. I missed Lamb Chop most of all, and wondered if she did any more shows (Of course I knew she was a puppet! But I still adored her).

Thank you Shari, for sharing Lamb Chop with the world.

The next - and last - time I caught a glimpse of them was wen I was in third or fourth grade; Imagine my excitement. It was in a TV Christmas program of sorts with a segment featuring Lamb Chop and an older Shari. By that time, my brother had forgotten who Lamb Chop and Shari were, so I had to explain we used to watch them.

All grown up, none of my friends remember The Shari Show. I was beginning to think it might have all been figments of my imagination, so I Googled for proof. Voila! Lamb Chop really did exist!

I am also pleased to find that videos of Shari's programs are available at Amazon. Not that I intend to buy any of them, I just think it's nice to know.

I also found that Lamb Chop dolls are being sold. Now that's tempting, considering I've always coveted Lamb Chop whenever I saw her on screen. But instead of buying a ready-made doll, it might be more fun to acquire a Lamb Chop knitting pattern and try to make one myself.
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friday flick fix phantom tollbooth (1970)

To this day, every time I spell out the word February, I remember The Phantom Tollbooth. The VCR player inside my head instantly replays the prologue where Milo (the protagonist) told his friend of his frustration with the word February while slouched on the couch, as well as how he spelled F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y as he drove out of the Doldrums.

Speaking of the doldrums - I thought of reviewing this movie this week was because I'd been depressed last week and I found myself singing "Don't Say There's Nothing to Do In the Doooooldrums", a song from one of the scenes.

It was released way before I was born, but The Phantom Tollbooth (1970), seemed to me pretty current when I first watched it in the summer of 1986. It was a rented Betamax tape that quickly became an often re-watched favorite. It's based on a children's book. It starts out in live-action and switches to animation as Milo goes into "a world beyond". In the style of animated flicks in those days, it's also a musical with a moral lesson.

I was the kind of cartoon that didn't just entertain, it encouraged thought. More than educational, it was also quite philosophical. I learned a whole lot of vocabulary words from watching it and made me consider how important it was to be a thinker.

I enjoyed the play on words. And numbers. I loved the fascinating characters with pun-ny names, most of them were personifications of ideas.

Seeing a live boy turning into an animated version of himself made me wish a magic tollbooth would suddenly appear in my own room. Like Milo, I'd often complained of boredom that summer and fancied myself escaping into an adventure-filled animated world. Since I knew there wasn't any chance of me finding a magic tollbooth, I picked up a copy of Lewis Caroll's Alice In Wonderland from my grandfather's home library and read about another kid who got lost in another world beyond.

I still think Phantom Tollbooth is a gem. I still enjoyed watching it as an adult and It's something I'd like my kids to watch.

back when SLR photography was entirely manual

Today's hip new accessory is a chunky DSLR, and the hip cool hobby is digital photography.

Digital photography is so easy, anyone can be a "photographer" these days - even those who don't really know anything about photography or know what SLR means. Editing photos is even simpler with a handy-dandy software called Photoshop.

With the option of going digital , I'd personally never want to go back to the time-consuming, costly processes of traditional, manual, non-digital photography - though I'm glad I experienced it and learned a lot from it.

I learned to use a manual Single Lens Reflex camera in my freshman year at University; I was a Film Major. Film 100 - A Basic Photography class - was a prerequisite to higher Film subjects.

In a while, you'll see that "Basic Photography" was actually very complex.

I inherited a Canon A1 from my uncle, along with a zoom lens and a telephoto mirror lens.

I probably had one of the oldest cameras in class, and maybe the best-equipped one too. It came in a bag like travel luggage and was a major hassle to lug around.


1. Taking Photographs - the Non-Digital Way

Images mine.

Some of the remaining "successful" photos I took with my Manual SLR back in the '90s.

Back in the day when SLRs didn't have the D prefix, I found photography more challenging than exciting. Don't get me wrong - it was fun; producing pretty pictures was rewarding, but the actual process of taking them took a whole lot of hard work. Aside from needing a keen eye and steady hands, it required patience, discipline and a good imagination - things that a lot of today's young digital "photographers" can afford to cut corners on.

Non-digital SLRs didn't normally come with autofocus (later models did, but most didn't). The focus area was fixed at the center of the field; there was no moving it around if you wanted to put your subject off-center.

Those cams had lot of knobs and buttons, and there were no idiot-friendly menus that appeared on an LCD screen to assist you if you didn't know what they were for. You couldn't Google for tutorials. You had to find books, read and memorize.

SLRs didn't have LCD displays, and there was no way to view your images until after they were printed. You pretty much had to trust your camera, your logic and your imagination. You waited until printing. If you were a novice, you waited tensely and hoped it turned out alright.

You had to use up a whole roll of film too.

It wasn't enough to find or create a good composition. You had to do a lot of estimating and metering to make sure you captured a visually pleasant proportion of light, shade and contrast. You couldn't view your image right then and there to check it was overexposed /underexposed. You really had to do bracketing - taking several shots of the same thing using different settings.

Speaking of settings, you had to write notes about which ones you used if you wanted to remember them. There was no instant digital recording of your stops and speeds.

You had to buy different rolls of film with various sensitivities, go through the hassle of unloading and reloading them as needed, and then adjust the ISO settings. You actually had to know what ISO was for. With a DSLR, the ISO-equivalent is easily simulated by the push of a button or the turn of a dial; if you don't know what it's for, you can set your cam on automatic and just wing it.

There were no push-button "instant filter effects" or "instant color settings". You invested in attachment filters and lenses, and learned techniques to produce the effects you wanted. You couldn't "just photoshop them in" later either. You experimented with the effects of amber filters on black-and-white photography, in color photos of people, the sky or a landscape. You observed the different effects created by daylight and artificial light, tungsten bulbs and fluorescent lamps; morning, noon, afternoon, evening. You had to know when shadows were harsh, when to diffuse light, when to add a light source. You practiced various ways of panning, various exposure times under different weather conditions.

And again, you had to wait until printing to see how your experiments turned out.


2. Processing

I always found this step so tedious and messy. I'm thoroughly glad that digital photography skips this entire process altogether.

First of all there was the tricky step of rolling the film into the coil canister. This had to be done entirely in a dark box - you put your materials in, stuck your arms into the garterized provisions and did everything by feel. You had to pry the canister open with a pair of pliers, careful not to nick the film or put any fingerprints on it. You secured the end onto the coil and went on to wind the entire length of film gently into it, fingertips gingerly tracing the edges. You had to keep the film from kinking or puckering or you would get unwanted streaks that made your frames unusable:

"Sticky" streaked negatives due to improper coiling.

This business of winding had to be perfected before you did it in the darkbox with actual film; you didn't want to gamble your precious photos. Pros can do it in a matter of seconds, but students took a much longer time at it. In Photography class, each of us spent blocks of time rolling dummy film into coils first, until we were confident enough we wouldn't botch it with actual film.

After that business of winding, you put the coiled film - all still in the darkbox - into a developing tank. With your film in the light-tight tank, you could finally take it out of the dark box for the actual developing. The process involved a cycle of filling the tank with rancid-smelling chemicals, calculated shaking (called "agitating") and slamming and shaking and slamming the tank- all by hand, of course - then draining, and then repeating the process with another chemical. The slamming was supposed to eliminate the formation of bubbles that made unwanted spots on your negatives. It also sometimes resulted in chipped tiles on the counter.

You'd take your processed film - which would by then be called negatives - uncurl it and hang it to dry. You'd squeegee off the fluid, at the same time inspect the strip for any damage possibly caused by kinks, sticks and bubbles.

You held the negative strip to the light to see if your frames were good. If they were mostly dark, they were overexposed (too much light while capturing the photo).


If they look washed out, they were underexposed (not enough light while capturing).

too transparent = underdeveloped
near-opaque = overprocessed
entirely transparent = incorrect loading of film into camera
completely dark = exposed to light before or during processing

Any of the above fiascoes required re-shoots.


3. Printing - in the Dark Room:

If you were a serious hobbyist, you might have wanted to invest several thousand bucks converting an extra room in your house into a darkroom. You needed to consider panels, lighting, electricals, plumbing, fireproofing ... enlargers tables pans chemicals canisters darkboxes curtains equipment et al.

Back at University, we had to schedule our time in the darkroom because there were so many students who needed to use it. Each of us had only three hours per day, only two days a week. If we weren't too happy with the results and wanted to redo (which often happened to us novices), we had to find another sked or another darkroom.

To print your photos, you had to be well-acquainted with the enlarger (It's like a downward-pointed old-school slide projector that burned your image onto the photo paper ). It had a couple of knobs and levers, all of which you had to know, to make sure your photo turned out right.

Contact Prints. You first made contact prints - they're like thumbnail images - to choose which frame you want to enlarge.

Image mine

Test Strips. And then you cut a piece of fresh photo paper onto which you varied the exposures, to know how many seconds you needed for your image.

5 second exposure - 10 seconds - 15 - 20 - and so on
Image mine

Brightness and Contrast. Depending on how you wanted your image to look, an exposure could take from 5 seconds to 5 hours (darker negatives needed smaller apertures and longer exposures). There was no easy formula, since each frame would've been unique; you really had to experience a lot of trial-and-error; your patience was tested too. For students under a strict time limit, that was kinda stressful.

Choosing photo paper was also a matter of great consequence; varying grades produced varying contrasts. Grade could be the difference between a good photo and an unsuccessful one, so you sometimes made test strips on several kinds of paper.

Printing. You then projected an enlargement of your frame of choice onto the baseboard. You adjusted the size and focus until sharp. If no amount of adjusting made the lines of your subject defined, that meant the capture was out of focus to begin with - you either had to choose another frame or re-shoot.

You marked the baseboard precisely to know where to position your photo-paper. You put your paper in place - all edges had to be completely parallel and perpendicular - switched on the bulb, and timed your preferred exposure. Everything was freaking meticulous.

Borders and Watermarks. If you wanted to put a white frame around your image, you fit a piece of cardboard with a precisely-measured, cleanly-cut rectangle over your photo paper while you exposed it under the enlarger, like so:


Primitive, right? If you wanted to place a watermark, you laid a slip of acetate with your name / logo on it.

Dodge and Burn "Tools". You dodged dark areas and burned light ones by jigling another piece of cardboard over the dark while giving the light spots a bit more exposure (This needed a bit of trial-and-error too, so if you were under time pressure, just forget about doing it and choose another frame). This was the manual equivalent and origin of the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop.

Print-processing. Immediately following the whole ordeal with the enlarger, you made contact with some more sour-odored chemicals. X number of minutes in this one, X number of seconds in that one; everything had to be carefully timed, or your photos failed. It was fun watching the positive images appear on the white paper like magic - or at least, see what you could see in the dark.

Today's digital "darkroom" is so much more convenient: Plug cable to USB port and download. Open Photoshop. No costly darkroom trappings. Contrast and color correction is a piece of cake. It's so easy to "make" good photos, adding or removing what you wish. When you want to create a special effect on your capture, you don't need to waste time and expensive photo paper experimenting; you can just click around, then easily undo if it isn't quite what you want.

Printing digital photos is just a few clicks of a mouse. Just install your photo-quality paper of choice into a good printer, click here, click there, and voila! For that matter, you don't even need to make prints anymore. You can easily share your photos by uploading them on your site or FB account.

The "digitalization" of photography is i.m.h.o., one of the best things that happened in relatively-recent history. Aside from cutting down the grueling processes, photography is now more practical and accessible - even much more enjoyable and relaxing. The downside though is that a lot of wannabes and posers can afford to do it now too, blowing bucks on ginormous DSLRs constantly set to automatic, and spamming cyberspace with their crappy "art".

friday flick fix: dazed and confused (1993)

Really sorry I can't credit the photos.

I nicked them some time ago.

A huge '70s revival went on back in the 1990's. Bell bottoms and platforms made a comeback, disco music was covered by showbands at clubs and That '70s Show was a top-rating sitcom. Here and there were movies set in the 1970s.

Dazed and Confused was set in 1976. It shows a day in the lives of some high-schoolers - the last day of school to be exact. It doesn't really follow the story of any one of them, but shows bits and pieces about the incoming seniors and incoming freshmen.

It's supposedly rife with '70s cliches - as in, actual people from back then are supposed to be reminded of actual people who were like the characters. I heard that to fully appreciate this flick, you had to be a teenager in 1976. I wasn't even born then yet.

Cliches in a teen movie definitely mean stereotypes, so here we go ...

There were the football-playing, pot-smoking jocks:

At left is the cute one (Jason London), at right is the brawny one.

The nervous incoming freshmen, straight from their last day of middle school:

The queen bee:

A cute Parker Posey in shoulder pads and super-short, ratty denim cutoffs.
A couple of years ago she played Lex Luther's girlfriend Kitty in Superman Returns.

I think it was the fashion for girls in the late '70s to cut their old jeans so short that the pockets stuck out. I once heard a story of how girls used to sew their clothes themselves, and some daring ones made skirts the length of their hand-span.

The nice bitch / popular jock's steady girl:

Joey Lauren Adams. She was in a few other '90s teen movies after this.
Her most recent notable role was as Jennifer Aniston's character's friend in The Break-Up.

A silent, pot-smoking, hippie-chick girlfriend:

She's so gorgeous, you noticed her presence even if she hardly said a thing.
This is model/actress Milla Jovovich, before she was famous. We know her today as Resident Evil action hero Alice.

A soup-brained pothead:

If you're a fan of CSI: Miami, you may recognize Rory Cochrane as Speedle (the agent who died). He was also in 24.

A dumb bully who will be repeating his senior year with the incoming batch:

Recognize this actor?
This is Ben Affleck, in his pre-Good Will Hunting, pre-stardom days.

One of the other dudes intent on paddling the freshmen:

After graduating from teen roles, Cole Hauser was later in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Tears of the Sun, and The Break-Up.

A sleazy older guy who won't relinquish his high school glory days:

Matthew McConaughey, with the pedophile mustache.

Apparently male fashion included ultratight pants and ultratight shirts with folded sleeves. Men sometimes stuffed a packet of cigarettes into one of the folded sleeves - see McConaughey above. I remember my uncle used to do that up until the early '80s.

The not-so-popular kids:

Adam Goldberg at left.
You may have noticed him from Friends or Saving Private Ryan.

At right is Anthony Rapp. He's Mark in both the theater and film versions of Rent.

The not-so-popular readhead was played by Marisa Ribisi.
Today she's mostly known as Giovanni Ribisi's twin sister, or Beck's significant other.

And the various background people:

You probably didn't spot her, but that's a chubby Renee Zellweger in an obscure role.

This flick was cool stuff when I was a teenager - I don't remember exactly why though. I recently watched it as an adult and went, What the heck was that all about again? There were funny and/or interesting scenes in there, but as the credits rolled I realized that the whole movie was just a series of funny and/or interesting scenes that don't make up much of a story - which isn't really a bad thing, especially since the movie title includes the words dazed and confused.

back when cylons were metallic and starbuck was male

Images from Battlestar Wiki.
[Spoilers up ahead]

When I was a kid, I watched Battlestar Galactica reruns every Tuesday night on Channel 4. It was wholesome sci-fi series for the whole family.

Though I have a vague recollection of the original BSG (now referred to as "The Original Series", or T.O.S.), I remember enjoying it. I recall there was a mothership of sorts called a battlestar and it was named the Galactica. There were two male lead pilots; their aircraft were called Vipers which came in Viper Squadrons. I remember Apollo, Starbuck, Adama, Dillon, Troy and Boomer. There was a kid named Boxey and his robot bear/dog. The bad guys were walking metallic beings called Cylons with cool, moving red-light eye visors; the humans called them "toasters". I remember that the survivors from Caprica eventually made it to Earth and interacted with modern-day earthlings.

In 2003 I heard about a remake of Battlestar and I was thrilled; I hoped whoever was working on it didn't botch it. At that time we didn't have cable or satellite TV at our place so we had to wait for a (pirated) DVD.

Well it wasn't a botched job at all; it turned out to be spectacular and stimulating. Really good stuff.

But I lost interest halfway through the second season, around the time they had a squalid settlement in New Caprica.

Though it was an amazing series, I felt like it was too far a stretch from the original Battlestar Galactica that it shoudn't have used that same title. I felt duped into thinking it was a remake; it kinda just used the same title to trick people familiar with the original series into watching it. All the original names and terminology were in there, but it was a whole different reconstruction.

Later I heard that the new BSG was called Re-imagined. It's not a remake.

And by the way - I noted it was no longer entirely wholesome family viewing; there were a lot of bits in there that weren't exactly for kids.

I couldn't entirely enjoy it at first, since I struggled to wrap my mind around the re-imagining that the characters they called Starbuck and Boomer were female, that Baltar was an awkward but cute scientist-politician, and that Cylons were sexy, cell-based organisms, one of whom had a romantic psychic connection with Dr. Baltar. Periodically I would ask questions in my head such as, To what purpose do these Cylons have to be smoldering eye-candy?, Who are all these unfamiliar characters?, and, Where is Boxey and his robotic bear/dog?

The Hubby does not remember the original BSG series at all, so he wasn't obsessively making mental references to it in his head, so he truly, thoroughly enjoyed this new BSG without being distracted by the deconstruction of childhood memories.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I managed to forgive the new BSG for betraying me, and I joined the Hubby in a Season 1 to 4 marathon.

Uh, well, not exactly. The Hubby watched all four seasons while I sat in to point out how it misused the original title.

But I must admit, it's great stuff - it still really got me curious and entertained. I just had to shut down all the fond memories of the original BSG and embrace the re-imagined series. I had to constantly remind myself it's a re-imagining.

Okay, it's a re-imagining, that makes sense.

The hot, humanoid Cylons were actually a good idea.

Those humanoid Cylons create more depth and complexity to the story - so it's forgivable. But then there was too much complexity and subplots than I could care for (It's not that I couldn't follow; I guess I still kept looking for echoes of the original plot - which would have been crap now, I realize).

I just missed seeing those vintage metallic Cylons; they're like BSG icons. Memories of BSG TOS often conjured up images of those walking trash cans that lit up like Knight Rider's car.

The first time I watched the re-imagines series a few years ago, I started to brew the dislike when it was suggested that Boomer was one of the toaster baddies. I trusted that the story would redeem itself, so I watched on.

Watching on, I found that the words" toaster" and "baddie" didn't really fit, since she was neither made of metal, nor such a baddie.

T.O.S. Boomer was a dude; he was one of the main viper pilots with easy-recall names.

The new Boomer is a pretty Asian chick with multiple copies.

Well, let's face it - nowadays the name "Boomer" is hardly fitting for a badass male fighter pilot since it's been used on dogs a lot, so might as well make it a lady's call sign.

I could take that the new Boomer was a pretty Asian chick. I was just always distracted whenever her face came on screen because she had certain angles that made her look ugly, and I kept trying to find the angle that made her look really cute. So imagine my horror when several of her appeared at the same time.

Anyway.

In the big picture, the story seemed to of revolve more around Cylons; the human survival part was more like a subplot. Which isn't so bad, really.

And heh, Commander Tigh turned out to be a Cylon too. I didn't like that either, but I watched on.

Well, I guess a Cylon XO is not as bad as the suggestion that Starbuck was this mysterious otherworldy creature who happened to be married to another cylon. That kinda felt like a convenient copout resolution

About Starbuck. I actually liked that the Starbuck character was a woman. That was brilliant - placing strong women characters in an originally male-dominated story. The top gun happened to be a cocky, attractive blonde woman with flat hair.

I just thought that Kara Thrace's awkward "thing" with Apollo was cliche-ic and near-revolting. Ah, well. At least they weren't both male.

The original BSG's Starbuck was played by the guy who played Faceman in The A-Team, a.k.a. Dirk Benedict.

Yes, Starbuck was a man - a cocky, attractive, blonde womanizer. A very straight man by the way, and he did not have a thing for his best friend Apollo.

BSG 1978 centered on the adventures of Starbuck and Apollo. BSG 1980 centered on two other pilots, Dillon and Troy (Troy was the grown-up Boxey), but Starbuck was still in the story.

I like the new Apollo, a.k.a. Lee Adama, mostly because he's gorgeous.

The original Apollo wasn't so bad though.

The actor who played Apollo in the 1978-79 BSG, Richard Hatch, also happens to play a new character, Tom Zarek in the re-imagined series. Nice touch.

And well, there was a character in the re-imagined series named Boxey , though he was only in one episode, and he didn't have a pet robot bear-dog.

I also tried watching Caprica, an offshoot / precursor of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. I ... really ... can't say I enjoyed it. I fell asleep seeing the Pilot episode and simply refuse to follow it through.
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happy birthday, john lennon

I love it when Google dresses up its logo to commemorate some event or another. Today it celebrates John Lennon's 70th birthday with a very cute and inspirational animation clip.




I know John Lennon isn't exactly Gen-X territory, but he isn't strictly just for the Baby Boomers either, since shockwaves of his life, work and death reverberate long after his passing. Alas, I was three years old when he died, too young to remember any actual memory of him, so I don't have much to write that hasn't already been written by someone else.

monday music fix: can you read my mind? MAUREE MC GOVERN

Can You Read My Mind? was the love theme from the first Superman movie that came out in 1978. It was the background music in the memorable flying-over-the-city date scene between Superman (Christopher Reeve) and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder). The scene was somewhat echoed by Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth in the more recent Superman Returns (2006) but it's not quite as romantic. The song was composed by the acclaimed John Williams, who is also known for the themes of other big movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.

I found this montage on You Tube with scenes from Superman I, Superman Returns and the '90s TV series Lois and Clark. The person who put this together must be a fan of the Clark-Lois love affair.
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back when he raised the horned hand

I just learned that Dio died a few days ago (May 30, 2010) of stomach cancer at age 67.

Image nicked from this blog.

Ronnie James Dio is a rock icon, one of the (grand)fathers of heavy metal. He was the guy who replaced Ozzy Osborne as frontman of Black Sabbath and is heralded as one of the greatest heavy metal vocalists of all time.

A younger Dio
Image from MarkBult.com

Yes, I used to listen to Black Sabbath, and I'm not ashamed of that. Well, I listened though I was taught in church that rock is demonic and those metal lords are devil-worshippers, and I learned about all those Anti-Christ / Satanic worship symbols hidden in their album covers and lyrics. :p I didn't want to burn in hell of course - but that didn't stop me from listening to more "acceptable" forms of rock. xp

Speaking of "demonic symbols" - ever wonder why this hand-gesture is fashionable among rockers, metalheads and wannabes? IT'S BECAUSE OF DIO!


Dio is among those who popularized the cornato or "horned hand" (also called the devil's horns). He was one of the first - if not the first - to use them at performances, permanently relating the gesture to rock music. I don't think he intended to promote Satanic worship with it though - at least, not originally (that could've just come later, haha) - especially since he got it from his religious grandmother who believed it warded off evil. As far as I know, he just wanted to create a statement pogi pose that was different from Ozzy's.

If you've ever seen Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006), he stars in the kickarse opening sequence as himself - or rather, his younger, early-'80s self with a bit of a receding hairline.






From the time he started in the 1970s, he never retired and just kept on rocking. In fact the news says he was working on a Black Sabbath project just before he passed away.
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friday film fix: kramer vs. kramer

Every Friday beginning today, I thought I'd look back on a movie from my growing-up years (or maybe earlier) - maybe re-watch something and write an entry for this blog (That is, if/when I won't be too occupied elsewhere :p ). It's not going to be a review. It's just going to be a bunch of thoughts and reminiscing.

I thought I'd begin with Kramer vs. Kramer.

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Dustin Hoffman * Merryl Streep
Directed by Robert Benton
5 Oscars - Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Writing

I first watched it on television as a kid (obviously years after it was released); I remember thinking that it was a really good movie though it left a heavy feeling and I wasn't sure I understood everything.

It's pretty significant to me because I learned how to make french toast from seeing it.


I just re-watched recently it and I still think it's awesome, and I still think it leaves a heavy feeling.

It's about career-driven Ted and his wife Joanna, and their divorce. Their separation affected not only each other, but their child. I think that child-in-the-middle element really rocked it. Without that, it would have been just another war of the exes.

The dialogues were simple but loaded. I love the camera angles. The acting was no-wonder-they-both-won-Oscars wow. I liked that it didn't have too much drama - no screaming and ostentatious weeping, but the story was piercing nonetheless.

And I couldn't help noticing that Meryl Streep was so beautiful.

monday music: video killed the radio star [THE BUGGLES]

Video Killed the Radio Star is a 1979 song by the Brit-Pop group the Buggles. It has a light sound to it but it actually mourns the demise of old-fashioned radio at the dawn of an era of electronic media. It's a cultural marker of sorts, right smack when televisions became very affordable and music videos were on the rise.




This music video in fact was the first ever to be shown on MTV - that was back in August of 1981.

In February of 2000, it was also the one-millionth video on MTV. If I remember correctly, I happened to catch that airing and that's when I found out that Video Killed the Radio Star was the first ever shown on the music television channel.

Eventually the popularity of music videos waned too. This generation seems more interested in reality TV than MTV. It also seems like new artists are more concerned about producing other forms of media aside from music videos.

I have this theory that the only people who search for music videos on the 'net are mostly grown-up Gen-Xers nostalgic for the past. :p

In this country, MTV totally died out - and the final video played on MTV Philippines was - guess what - Video Killed the Radio Star.
There is now a question looming in my mind: What killed the MTV star?
The suspects: The internet. mp3. Live performance streaming.
We're right now pretty much where the Buggles were back then - witnessing the demise of an era and the dawn of a new one.
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back when annabelle rama was a sexy star

(It isn't exactly Gen-X, but it's nostalgic nonetheless)

Annabelle Rama as we know her today.
Image from igma.tv

I sort of remember someone telling me (it must have been my Dad or one of my in-laws) that Annabelle Rama used to be a starlet of sorts before she got hitched to Eddie Gutierrez and had kids with him. I got curious about that and did a quick Google search. And guess what I found! --

But before that, this: According to imdb, she did three movies in the early seventies; back then she was known only as "Annabelle". Ooh, one of those girls with no surname. With titles like Hidhid, Hayok and Uhaw, they seem like grindhouse-type soft-porn B-movies that proliferated in the '70s.

Anyway, this is what I found on the first page of the Google search (sans the blurring, FYI):

Anabelle in the early '70s.

She apparently was a sexy star back then. And obviously, she didn't just do sexy; she did nekkid.

I started wondering how it must feel like for her adult sons to know that their mom was a porn star. Or to know that nude pictures of their mom have been circulating on the 'net.

In fairness, Annabelle was actually pretty when she was young. You could even see hints of her daughter, model / actress / beauty-queen Ruffa, in her face.

I just can't imagine how she managed to act sexy - even if I look at the above softandsexy photo, Her thick waray accent and argumentative demeanor keep popping in my head. I mean, who would want to watch that? I wonder how she pulled it off (no pun intended).
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to-be-recycled fashion trends (according to "the experts")

So. The first post for 2010.

In every year's "new year phase" (I mean that unmarked period that occurs annually, which starts a few days after Christmas and lasts until the end of January), media are full of yearenders, retrospectives, forecasts, advice and a lot of useless but entertaining crap that have to do with a turning over a new leaf of sorts. Retrospectives are quite practical - summarized highlights of the past 12 months served in palatable, bite-sized portions for people to look back on and possibly learn from. Forecasts on the other hand - I'm not talking about the psychic kind - though bordering on useless entertainment, could have some value sometimes.

It's kinda baffling how forecasts are always said to have come from "the experts". I often wonder about who those "experts" are, what are the bases for their extrapolations and what gives them the authority to dictate what's going to happen. "The experts" have often been wrong of course.

Since I am not right now interested in socio-political and economic hypotheses, lemme just start the year with something light and brainless.

I came across this spread in the newspaper entirely dedicated to a fashion forecast for 2010 (much of which I didn't agree with, but yeah, it kept me entertained). A couple of news programs and websites also claim to know what will be hot and what not this year - according to "the experts", naturally. The mouse potato that I am has pretty much gleaned that 2010 fashion will be an updated rehash of mid '80s to early '90s elements. Some of the supposedly up-and-coming trends may not actually catch on, but it's noticeable that the said sources agree on a lot of things:


It seems like they're back:

Shoulder PadsOh, please no ... those and granny jeans have got to be the worst fashion fowlups of the '80s.

Dirty denim
'80s-style dirty denim has been back since mid-2009, and it looks like it'll be here to stay for a while. From acid washed to ripped and /or patched, to frayed-hem cutoffs. Just when I got to believing they were ugly things of catalogues past, they return and I have to convince myself all over again that they're cool.

When you see it on Victoria Beckham, it's likely a fashion do.

Photo from this blog.

Variation: Ripped Tights / Stockings
That is sooo '80s rock. I never thought that look would reemerge. I laughed when The Wedding Singer came out in 1995 and poked fun at all things 1985, but it looks like no one's laughing at distressed tights now.
Boyfriend blazers
That means slightly oversized blazers that look like they were borrowed from your boyfriend, shoulder pads optional. I still have this early-'90s image of Sharon Stone wearing that sort of blazer. Only back then it wasn't called a boyfriend anything; it was just called a blazer. That was before baby tees and fitted jackets were all the rage, so it just has to be given a cute new nickname to differentiate.
Knee boots and knee socks
Knee boots were hot in the '70s and had a variation in the'9os, though before now they spent some time in the fashion don'ts list.

Knee boots I get, especially for people living in cold climates. Ladies in this tropical country are trying to rock it, but it only works for certain lifestyles.
Spotted in recent runway show were various schoolgirl-chic knee socks. Blame Gossip Girl. Or those K-pop and J-pop girls.

Photo from this blog.
I must admit it looks cute on skinny waifs, but...

Okay, I used to wear colored knee socks as a kid, but nothing is going to make me wear them again at my age, not even if Prada says it's cool, not even if women over 30 are already doing it. I just shudder at the thought.
Besides, i.m.h.o., stockings are so last last year.

Bold prints
Department stores have just restocked with those shirts and tunics with pop-art print. Printed pants are also said to be making a comeback. The bolder, the better, they say.

And by the way, color-block is so last year.
Warrior-princess-inspired look
I've seen this look in a lot of '80s videos, haven't I? Leathers and metallics and rips and fringes and Van Halen type ripped tights - stuff that might have had Xena and Pat Benatar as a pegs, but more streamlined, futuristic, soft and feminine, less shabby (maybe even Lady Gaga, but when she's not trying too hard). This also includes military details, boots and tribal-inspired accessories.

Flamboyant hair accessories
Just some time ago, an old classmate from sixth grade and I laughed at how we used to wear oversized headbands, large bows and scarf headbands back in the '80s. But then I guess we should have saved our old hair-props from our schooldays because they're high fashion again. '30s-style lacey things and feathery things, big '80s-ish bands and bows - I've read that a girl should go the extra mile and dress up her tresses loudly this year.

Fashon-forward Madonna in uber-expensive Louis Vuitton bunny ears.
I'm a bit iffy about this fad, though I'm sure there will be numerous knockoffs.
Photo from this blog.

Wide headbands make a comeback with a glammed-up twist.
Photo mine, see my shop-site.

The statement necklace
When I was a little girl, my mom was into exports, particularly fashion accessories. In those days, the in bling were chunky, brightly-colored plastic, wood or native-material beads. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a lot of the necklaces I see these days are almost exactly like the ones that were popular in the mid-'80s.
Platform shoes
Really? If this were true, it'd something I'd be happy about. I bought into the '70s retro thing in the '90s, and now that platform shoes are allegedly back, I'd be proud to wear them again (uh, actually, I've already been wearing them for the past year). They not only make me look taller and my legs longer; they sort of balance out the chunkiness of my hips.
Big hair?
No. Freaking. Way. The very reason why women hide their girlhood pictures that happen to be evidence of their contribution to the Ozone hole. I can't believe it. I don't think hairspray will make a comeback though.


That was fun. Save for the platform shoes, statement necklace and less-gaudy hair accessories, I probably won't be seen wearing those mentioned above. Okay, the dirty denim maybe. But far be it from me to commit a faux-pas by adding bulk to my already meaty frame with knee boots and boyfriend blazers. We who don't have celebrity status and who were first-hand witnesses to ostentatious '80s fashion will probably swear not to wear that stuff again. Though the kids who were born in the '90s or later will probably think all this '80s stuff is cool. 
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