Excitement over the forthcoming "Hobbit" is starting to gain momentum and if you can't contain your excitement, head on over to the Hunt for Gollum website for some appetizer.
The site is a movie site "made by fans for fans" and the idea behind the site is a creation of a movie (for online release only) that will last about 45 minutes. The movie will revolve around that chapter in Tolkien's Middle-Earth between "The Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" storyline, specifically Aragorn's search for the creature Gollum. Low-budget yet quite interesting, this should be a good enough filler until the Guillermo del Toro-helmed Tolkien flick comes to town next year.
The site has got a full trailer and a couple of teasers online so head on over there.
sleeping with turin turambar
Before taking 40 winks for the past few nights alongside my cute but uberly kulit daughter (her mama has been on graveyard duties the past couple of weeks), I've had a chance to re-do a habit of mine -- reading to sleep. Although the problem is that instead of being lulled to sleep, my mind and imagination is awakened with the book I am reading -- The Children of Hurin.The book, a hardcover US edition, is a personal gift of my sister, Rochelle, and was part of the balikbayan package she sent last month (along with a couple of cook books for diabetics). For non-Tolkien fanatics, the books is not your Lord of the Rings type -- it's more likened to reading Homer's Iliad or Odyssey (or critics likened it to Finnish folklore legend/hero Sigmund) so it's not that easy a read. Think of it along the lines of our own Filipino legends -- Ibong Adarna or Florante at Laura -- but in the case of The Children of Hurin, it's a tragedy (like Oedipus Rex). Unlike Ibong Adarna or Florante at Laura, the book ends in sadness.
The book harkens back to the earlier Ages of Middle-Earth, some 6,000 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings, back when Men were just newly-awakened and the Elves were the dominant race. Sauron was just a henchman of the original Lord of Darkness Melkor aka Morgoth.
If you've read The Silmarillion and liked the book, then you'll like The Children of Hurin. If you didn't like it, maybe wait for the movie version because I've heard and read that there are plans of turning it into a movie as well one of these years.
w388
I've switched phones.
But don't get me wrong -- I remain loyal and very much attached to my Nokia 6680 and in all likelihood I will return to using that phone as soon as my "trial" period with this Motorola W388 is over.
Rather than let it rot in the corner of my drawer, I'm temporarily using this Motorola W388 unit which I won from the company Christmas Party last December. And after more than a month in repair (it had an LCD problem), I finally got it back late February and have been using it as my main phone for about two weeks now. Incidentally, my 6680 is the one currently rotting in the aforementioned drawer.
After sporting the gadget for the said period, I am now ready to assess it -- I'm sticking with my ole trusty Nokia but keep this one as a back-up.
The only good mark on the W388 on my personal benchmark is its music -- it is after all, a music phone. Great speakers and an FM radio are the plus marks it gets. But then again, I want more out of my phone than an FM radio. I miss the Bluetooth capability, there's no video or voice recording on this one, no notes, and the camera sucks at a dismal 640x320 pixels and that's already high!
Texting is also another matter because the response time of the phone is slower and erratic. Hitting the key twice to generate the needed letter or punctuation is not guarantee you'll get the correct one. This makes texting on the W388 twice as long.
But this one will serve well as a back-up and can be used as an entertainment device when doing my "walk"-xercise. Who needs an MP3 player or an iPod when I have this on hand? And anyway, it's quite norm nowadays to carry at least two phones (to compliment your netbook, iPod, PDA, and nifty lazer gun).
writing venues
Thanks to Bibliophile Stalker and Philippine Genre Stories, new writing venues have been discovered:
Crossed Genres - now accepting Western-themed SF; but with a March 31st deadline it looks like I'm going to miss this one especially since I've learned about it only today. If you think you can beat the deadline, read the guidelines here.
Here's one with a longer deadline:
Catastrophia, a planned anthology - open call for submissions (started September 9th last year) for catastrophe and disaster short stories. Think War of the Worlds, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Jericho (TV Series), and now condense them into at most 8,000 words. Deadline is on May 31. Rules can be found here.
Plus, be reminded of other calls for submissions -- Farthest Shore on April 15 (to get some out-of-this-world spec fic done during the Holy Week alongside religious obligations, of course), and Destination: Future on June 30 for SF writers out there.
free starbucks
Ever had a free Starbucks beverage before?
I had one last December and another due soon just as soon as I step inside a Starbucks outlet.
And all it takes is just a series of clicks, and, oh yes, internet connection.
Starbucks it seems is still doing a global customer satisfaction survey and if you’re a lucky SB addict, the receipt you get from your latest purchase of a frap or hot coffee might be one that asks you to take their online survey over at www.MyStarbucksVisit-ph.com. If you complete the survey, you get a Beverage ID and you use this ID (along with the complete receipt, of course) to claim a free drink!
Here’s a screenshot I took of the complimentary beverage ID I received just about after I completed the survey. Just so nobody claims my free SB, I blotted out the actual ID number :P.
