Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Hobbit, new movie

I had heard that the second movie would be the eighty or so years between the books, and this is what's getting me just a little worried about how it's going to turn out. I'm not sure Guillermo de Toro is going to keep to the canon that Tolkien set up, especially since I still think Peter Jackson should have let certain details alone (*cough* Arwen*cough*).

There really isn't that much information about the time gap, so they are going to have to make up a lot of information about it for the story. I heard that it could involve The Story of Arwen and Aragorn, from the appendices, which would make sense to me, since that's when it happened.

I am looking forward to the battle with the spiders. That's just going to be fantastic. At any rate, it's got to be better than Bakshi.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Musical instrument

I love to listen to just about any resonant instrument, like guitars or violins, although the wind instruments have to be my favorite, especially clarinet and other reed instruments. I'm learning to play the fife, but I've been playing the penny whistle for about three and a half years now. I'm not the best at it, but I'd say I'm pretty good.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

May our tribe of writers increase.

Writing is a kind of relief valve for pent up emotions. Way before the internet or even computers, people used to write diaries, jotting down their day to day experiences and sometimes to the last minute detail. These were mostly people who could not give voice to their thoughts but they found they could give form to their feelings by way of words. Then again some found it was nice to write poetry on something that caught their fancy. There are guys like me for whom writing is a passion. I remember thinking of something nice to write on my way only to find myself having forgotten what I wanted to write. That gave birth to my jotting down points or a profound observation or sometimes a whole poem on a bus ticket or a paper napkin from a restaurant or any small bit of paper torn out of some odd newspaper.

I used to convert these into small stories or poems or just make a small paragraph and then use it in some other works where a situation warrants. I used to consider myself some kind of a maverick to be doing all this till I came across the computer. And now we have the internet and I find that I am just a mere speck in this vast ocean of word peddlers, and like we all agreed we get paid to put words to our thoughts.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

I can't go a day without writing

Writing is more than a hobby, but a life defining aspect of my personality. I can't go a day without writing something, no matter how small, without having a problem. I have issues that I have never really learned how to deal with properly, but writing helps me do just that. A day I go without writing is a day that I go without growing. Even if it's just a little snippet of poetry that I scribble down on a napkin, I have to write something everyday.

I get so many ideas for stories based on things I see, hear or experience. Some of my characters are based so directly on the people in my life that I have to actively change the reason for their motivations and their personalities to keep the same feeling associated with them, but to make it less obvious who the person is. I never really got into the habit of journaling, which has derailed every attempt I've made at blogging, because I always get the feeling that my daily life is kind of boring, even to me. I suppose if I did it more, then I may change my mind. Right now, I'm working the writing bug by posting here on my blog.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

What kind of tea do you REALLY like?

I don't really have the money to afford to buy tea, so I tend to get what I can. If there's black tea available, I have that, especially if it's Earl Grey. That stuff's just amazing. I've sometimes done things like put poppy seeds or chai spices in simple black tea. If it's green tea that I can get, I leave it alone. Otherwise, I use what I get. Just last night, I found out that the mint plant in our backyard was still alive (I had thought it was killed by the fennel nearby) and made a tea with mint, half the skin of a small orange and a sprig of rosemary. I had two pots of it. Delicious.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Do you have "a" most visited website?

I don't really have "a" most visited website, but I have a few of them. Wikipedia is the page that I've set as my homepage. Even though it's rightfully notorious for having not-so-accurate information (at best), it's still a good way to get information on things ranging from historical people to religious philosophies (tread carefully there) to spoilers on books and movies. After that, I check my email on Gmail quite often, and go on Facebook only slightly less often. I mostly just go on Facebook to see people's notes and play go with a few friends of mine. After that, there are Youtube and tvtropes.org. The second one is a wiki about the motifs you find in television, movies and books. That said, I usually have Pandora playing in the background. Other than that, I just started on blog, so I can't really say I visit that often...yet.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

This Book Changed My Life

When I was a kid, I saw the Ralph Bakshi animated adaptation of "The Hobbit." It was so fun, so exciting and melancholy at the same time. That prompted me to read the book. I loved it even more than the movie. If they had only added the character of Beorn to the movie, but I can see why they didn't due to time. The fight with the spiders caught my imagination and the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" really hooked me to the point where I was trying to write my own riddles.

After that, a friend of my father, who was also a fan of Tolkien, talked to me about the books and realized how much I loved them. Soon after that, he died of a heart attack and his wife gave us all his books, including his Tolkien collection. I read through the Lord of the Rings and was amazed by the attention to detail that Tolkien put into it. That prompted me to write my own fantasy.

At first, my fiction was garbage. I mean Ed Wood bad. Bad DeviantArt fanfiction bad. As I grew up, I read the books a few more times, seeing quality before me and learning how to do my own quality writing. Then, when I went to college, I was talking to a girl I had just met and found out she liked the movies. When I asked if she'd read the books, she answered with a smile and "74 times." I was hooked even more as we talked for the next three hours about the books.

Now, we're still together after five years and working toward a place where we can get married. What I want to know is whether or not the books have affected people's lives like they did mine. Have you been prompted toward being a writer by reading them, or perhaps even pushed toward another book that affected you even more? Have you seen something in the books that affected the way you view life, or have you even met someone the way I met my fiancee?

Friday, July 17, 2009

Contact Me

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About Me

This Site is Developed and Authored by me, Jay Philips.

gender: male
age: 26
location: davao city
country: philippines

For me. Blogging is more than a hobby, but a life defining aspect of my personality. I can't go a day without blogging something, no matter how small, without having a problem. I have issues that I have never really learned how to deal with properly, but blogging helps me do just that. A day I go without blogging is a day that I go without growing. Even if it's just a little snippet of poetry that I scribble down on a napkin, I have to write something everyday.

Well, There's not much to say about me. I am just a simple blogger that loves to blog.