Pack Your Bags

I wish I could do this with pictures, but I am too lazy to gather up the things. Maybe next time.

Anyways, I wish I could jump on a plane right now and fly off to somewhere. Wait, not even a plane. Going to Villa Maroc (Pranburi-Hua Hin, in Thailand) would suffice.

This is a list of what I would pack:

1) A few t-shirts from the Gap. I’m so happy the Gap finally has a store in Bangkok. I’ve been going crazy over their oversized ‘boyfriend’ tees. They are amazing. I currently have two (black and blue) but I plan to buy more (orange, purple, and green!)

2) Chanel’s Coromandel nailpolish. It’s the best red nailpolish (for my skintone) ever. Seriously.

3) My worn-in pair of Havaianas. I wish I could wear them to work, too.

4) Marc by Marc Jacobs sunglasses.

5) A bathing suit. Which reminds me, it’s about time I buy a new one.

6) Kiehl’s sunscreen. It’s non-sticky and absorbs easily.

7) Reading material: one or two airport thrillers, travelogues, and Vogue Paris.

8 ) A camera. Perhaps by the time I go I’d have bought a Canon G11!!!

That’s about it :]

Daybreakers, or: Spontaneous Combustion Never Sounded So Good

Ten reasons why I liked Daybreakers, or, at the very east, do not regret the 150 baht I spent on it.

1) It has Ethan Hawke

2) Moreover, it has WILLEM DAFOE

3) Who, in one scene, grins and says, “F*ck it, I love a good barbeque.”

4) It goes on to show that, as long as a vampire wears sunglasses and avoid direct contact with sunlight, daytime is actually bearable. I am no vampire, however, so I can not vouch for the validity of this act.

5) The humans survivors fight heavily-armed vampire soldiers with…crossbows. Some things can be so ridiculous it’s funny.

6) Ethan Hawke chain smokes throughout the movie, but, being undead his lungs probably do not function. How does he inhale the smoke? I do not know.

7) Did I mention the movie is so ridiculous it’s funny?

8 ) But in it’s defense, the climax of the story gave a new spin to the vampire mythos

9) Plus, there were no squealing teenage girls in the theater, which might have been caused by the blessed fact that…

10) THESE VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE

Ploy S – her limits

Inspired by Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlet,” Chapter 2

1. Knowledge of Literature – variable.

Knows the first and/or last to most classics, but then nil after that. Loves Shakespeare; refuses to read Austen; cannot comprehend Wuthering Heights; Greek tragedies are generally welcomed.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy – Practical

Knows the order of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, at the very least

3. Knowledge of Astronomy – Nil.
4. ” of Politics – Nil.
5. ” of Botany – Nil.
6. ” of Geography* – Profound, but unsystematic.

GoogleMap on my BlackBerry keeps locating me in the strangest of places, the latest of which was Herreruela, hitherto unheard of. As such, I am challenged daily to a game of ‘Where on Earth is this place?”

7. Knowledge of Chemistry – Accurate, but unsystematic.

8. Knowledge of Anatomy – Practical, but limited
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature – Immense

Not only literature, but also including ridiculous, over-the-top films and songs and other types of media.

10. Practices soccer-meditation; that is, while I watch soccer, my only focus is on the ball and the Apocalypse can be occuring and I would still be concentrated on the game.
11. Is an expert shopper
12. Good practical knowledge of Japanese. Understands French almost perfectly but refuses to speak (because I can’t pull the accent off to save my life.)

If I handed this in for my resume, the reffect should be interesting.

*Note: In the original text, this was actually ‘Geology’

energy.

I don’t affiliate myself with any specific religion. I respect them all, and I believe that essentially, every religion wants us to be ‘good.’ What differs is the definition of good and how things are interpreted.

But while I respect every one of them, I don’t believe in any one of them.

The only thing I truly believe in is energy. I think people give off energy. Have you ever noticed how if you stay around someone who’s pissed off, then you feel bad and awkward? But then there are some people whose presence just makes you smile? To me, this is a result of the energy those people exude. When you are sad, you give off negative energy. When you are happy, your energy is positive. It’s like the whole idea of aura. And I believe that there are auras. Ok, so those aura photos I don’t really care about, but I believe energy levels like that exist.

That’s why I live my life like, well, this. I don’t go read horoscopes or go to psychics because I believe that if I can control my energy flow, I can control the good and bads of my life. If I’m happy, then no one can make me sad. And even if someone does make me sad, well, it’s still in my own power to make myself happy again, right?

To a certain extent, I do believe in psychics. Maybe there are some people out there who feel other people’s energies and are able to follow that energy into a hazy interpretation of the future. (Holy, but I sound so New Age!) However, since energy is always changing, that predicted future can always change. As in, the prediction is based on the current situation and the current you. But if you chance, then the prediction doesn’t hold anymore.

So I don’t like to know about the future, because frankly, I really, really don’t care what’s going to happen a week or a month or a year from now. Tomorrow, maybe. But a week is too far ahead to plan. Some people may say it’s better to be cautious, but for me, I thing “Bring it on!”

I believe bad things never happen to good people. Look, even if something bad happens, it only serves to make you stronger, so essentially, it’s a good thing, ne c’est pas?

I believe in God, but my God is not the Christian God, the Muslim Allah, or the Jewish Jehova. For me, God is a character that combines luck, hope, strength, and more. I don’t ask my God for anything, I don’t rely of my God for anything…but just the fact that God is there makes me feel safe, secure, and strong.

Strength and energy, that’s what I believe in. It’s a way of thinking that has kept me happy for almost a decade, and I know it’ll keep me happy for the rest of my life.

Frozen Flower, or: On Sex in Motion (Pictures)

During lunch this Monday, my good friends B, G, and KK brought up the topic of “Frozen Flower,” a Korean movie (South, of course. If the North ever made a movie, it would be called “Hail Our Great Leader And His Wonderful Haircut”.) From their description of it, I was intrigued. Well, who wouldn’t be with a summary that included the words “nudity”, “explicit sex”, “boobs”, and “gay men”?

So yesterday night, after having watched numerous performances of ‘Gee’ and concluding that at least 2 out of the 9 girls in Girls’ Generation can actually sing (because honestly, I’ve never had much faith in Korean girl groups ever since S.E.S. broke up,) I was in the mood for more Korean-y stuff. Then “Frozen Flower” popped into my head. So, thinking “Here goes,” I searched for it and launched myself right into the 3rd clip. Because I suspect the first twenty minutes would’ve been just talk, talk, talk…and I wanted the action.

And wow. I got action. (That’s in italics, mind you. Anything in italics is, as a rule, special.)

The king and his bodyguard were in action. I have nothing against the idea of that. Directly nicely, acted out convincingly, it could have and quite possibly would have been a good scene. But it wasn’t. They looked like they were trying to take a bite of each other’s neck. In a rabid way. Not in a sexy way. It looked forced. Later, I scrolled down to the comments and someone wrote “They should’ve gotten the actors drunk first,” or something in that vein, and I agreed. I actually laughed.

But onwards I continued, because later, said bodyguard gets into action with the queen. It’s a love story of two men and one women, set against a political backdrop; but unlike your typical story, here the two men are in love and the women comes between them. The conflict that runs parallel to this is that the more powerful neighboring kingdom (where the queen is from) demands that they produce an heir, or it will forcibly install a crown prince. The king realizes that in that scenario, he’ll just be a figurehead. He needs an heir. But he can’t bring himself to sleep with a woman.

So he orders his bodyguard to sleep with his queen (and that’s where we were before I went on tangential-flashbacky on you.) The first time the bodyguard tries to sleep with her, it was a rather touching scene. The king comes to see her in the bedroom, gives her a kiss (which is probably the most intimacy – physical or emotional – that he’ll ever show her) and leaves to call the bodyguard in. The bodyguard enters, looking awkward and troubled, but attempts to do his task. The queen just lies still, but then tears start to fall. And he realizes he can’t do it.

The expressions on their faces…I actually felt a pain for the three of them in that scene. She looked resigned and so hopeless. Bodyguard looked like he would rather just disappear, not because she was repulsive, but because he’d slept with her husband and now he’d had to sleep with her. And the king, who I’d hated up until that point for being such an unemotional prick, I actually felt sympathy; he kissed his wife, showing her at least a modicum of kindness. He couldn’t have been that pricky, then.

But things took a turn on the second night. In the first night, the queen had her nightgown on. In the second, she took it off, which threw me off: Why agree all of the sudden? Maybe she realized the dire consequences if this didn’t happen. but still, wasn’t it too easy? Ok, whatever. I continued watching. Things got graphic. To me it was pointlessly graphic. Good news was..in the second night, mission was completed. But then somehow, queen and bodyguard fell in love…and they went at it every night, it seemed. Like, it seemed like an entire eternity went by with them going at it like Leporids…in all positions. Fine. You love each other. You lust after each other. You are passionate for each other, even though you know you’re doomed. Fine. I get it. Would you stop now? Please?

Alas, it went on.

At which point I found B on MSN and typed “NIGHTMARE…NIGHTMARE!!”

The nightmare wasn’t the sex itself. It’s the pointlessness of the sex. In the case of Frozen Flower, I felt like I was watching a sex tape/porn. Why include so much sex? Why show so much skin? WHAT IS YOUR POINT, DIRECTOR? Your leading actors have great abs. I can see. I drooled, all right? Your female lead is petite and cute, and yes she does have a great body, not to mention I covet her skin. But Jesus…WHAT IS YOUR PLOT? STAR-CROSSED LOVERS? Shakespeare wrote one hundreds of years back and no one needed to see Romeo getting it on with Juliet to cry at the end.

Sex with a point is good. (I did not mean to suggests anything. You shouldn’t even be thinking that I am suggesting anything. I would like to keep my blog PG-13, thank you very much.)

You see, in 300 there was this sex scene between Gorgo and Leonidas, and I thought that it was beautiful. And this may sound weird, but to me, it was choreographed well. You could actually sense that those two people loved each other. And there was one scene in the entire movie, but you realize the ties that bind these two people, which made the end even sadder. If you haven’t watched 300, go watch it. And if you have, then go watch a scene from Frozen Flower. And then…well, compare.

Excessive sex is boring, it becomes pointless. It doesn’t add anything to the storyline. When a movie has ‘excessive sex’, it essentially crosses over into porn category. Honestly, this felt like porn with a historical twist. Minus points also to the fact that the sex seemed forced. Seriously, booze would’ve helped, not just the king-bodyguard couple, but also the bodyguard-queen couple. And if in the story, the king had gotten himself drunk enough to sleep with his wife…maybe no one would’ve had to die in the end. *Sighs* But then we wouldn’t have had a movie.

On the bright side, the scenery and costumes were pretty, so kudos for that. The lady who played the queen was a pretty good actress; her face could possibly convey a thousand emotions, so she gets props. But then the props get taken away because I got so sick of seeing her breasts.

Oh, well. Next target: Terminator 4!

First Things First

Let’s set up some ground rules/facts here:

1) There is no coherent theme to this blog. This is not a “Food Blog” or a “Fashion Blog” or a “Beauty Blog”. It is a “Random Blog”

2) Topics usually will be drawn from my daily life experiences; however, if you prefer to view my opinion on something specific, say, bungee jumping, do not hesistate to tell me, and I will try to accomodate you. (This accomodation process will go very smoothly if you provide me with the funds needed to do the specific something.)

3) While the language in this blog will usually be mild and safe for the wee ones, I blaspheme quite often, and a string of curses can and will appear when I am extremely angry.

4) I don’t post on a daily basis. Really, what is there to write on days when nothing happens? As exciting as my life is, surely, it does not rain chickens everyday.

5) The name of this blog was thought up by Chaitee T. He told me that perhaps I should compile my notes into a book called “The World According to Ploy”. Today, I’ve had quite a few people suggest that I start a blog, so I took it as a sign from above, and here we are, and that name I chose. You must admit it is waaaaaaaaaay chic-er than “Ploy’s Blog”, less lame than “Ployosophy”, and much more sane than “PLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOYPLOY”. Thanks again for the name!