The Carver's House

'Nuff Said

Everything, Even The Kitchen Sink Those familiar with fantasy role-playing games would be familiar with the bag of holding, that small sack that can hold tons of your stuff in a pocket dimension, much like Mary Poppins impossibly spacious bag. The Scottevest is a real-world version of the bag of holding, a normal garmet that’s blessed with over 30 pockets, some of which can be combined to create larger ones. With technology miniaturization in fever-pitch mode, this spacious article (over 2,000 square inches of pocket space) can hold your PDA, celphone, CDs, and more. And it’s got “wiring,” too, as Leander Kahnet reports for Wired news: “All the pockets on the jacket have little holes, some of which are connected to several "conduits" for running wires, like a cell phone earpiece that comes up from a pocket toward the wearer's ear. At the collar, a pair of elastic loops hold the earpiece wire in place, and the ear buds can be put away in a tiny pocket. Si...

Internal Affairs After lunch today, I bumped into one of the guys I used to hang out with in Malate. It was such a delight to see him again after so long. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, I asked him about his mom, who had recently been operated on – one of her thyroid glands was infected and needed to be removed. I was stunned at his news. The doctors had mistakenly removed the uninfected gland, leaving the infected one all snug and secure in his mom’s neck area. Realizing their mistake, the doctors had her take appropriate medication for some time before a scheduled radiation treatment. On the day of the treatment, another surprise sprung from the box. The folks who were supposed to administer the radiation treatment had the session postponed. The reason: my friend’s mother wasn’t supposed to take the aforementioned medication because it would nullify the benefits of the treatment. This "case of mistaken thyroid identity" illustrates one of the higher h...

Art Will Not Save You I’ve been deluding myself. Some of the graphic novels and trades in my collection had been bought on impulse, and I point my accusing finger at the artists whose work I’ve revered or at least admired. Since I’m not familiar with a lot of comics writers save Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Claremont, Byrne, Waid, and other household names, it’s the art that catches my fancy first, unless the book comes highly recommended. Sadly, the fantastic art gets overshadowed by unforgiveably horrid writing, making what should be an enjoyable comics reading experience into a head-splitting chore. The latest culprit is Batman: Hongkong . The art of Tony Wong definitely took my breath away (though I’m more partial to Wing Shing Ma’s stuff), but Doug Moench’s writing asphyxiated me to delirium. (I haven’t finished reading this medusa; any more reading might turn me to stone.) And it’s a purchase that ranks up there among the most regretted buys. Sorry, Tony, but your art did not ...

Blankets Craig Thompson Top Shelf Productions When I was a kid, I was visited by my cousin the night before she was buried. (She died after a brain tumor operation.) Her silhouette stood in the darkness of my room, framed by the window, right beside my bed. Instinctively, I reached for my blanket. It was beyond reach. So I closed my eyes, taking quick peeks to see if she was still there (and indeed, she was), relinquishing all hope that my blanket won’t be there to protect me. Craig Thompson’s follow up to his critically-acclaimed Goodbye Chunky Rice takes the common blanket as an allegory to our never-ending quest for protection. While, as children, our blankets served as shelter against the perceived evils of the night, we weave our own psychological and emotional blankets as we go through other stages of our lives, and these blankets take the form of our religions, our romances, our friendships and even our hopes for the future. And as each stage comes to pass, we’re oblig...

Keka Starring: Katya Santos, Wendell Ramos, Vhong Navarro, Bobby Andrews, Ryan Eigenmann, Jordan Herrera, etc. Written and Directed by: Quark Henares Viva Films Keka is a young 20-something whose boyfriend (Jordan Herrera) gets offed by some fratters. Over the next five years, she returns the favor by killing them one by one. Meanwhile, Wendell Ramos’ cop character tries to solve the mystery behind the murders, only to discover later that the perpetrator is the girl he’s fallen in love with. Suspension of disbelief is required in Quark Henares’ latest feature film. Keka doesn’t overtly seek to justify murderous vengeance; it doesn’t even appear to have a deeply-rooted social agenda. The characters and the film simply tell it like it is, and one isn’t really called in to care for them, at least in the emotional department. This may not sit well with many movie goers (like me), especially given that the amount of exposed skin is indirectly proportional to Katya’s breast size....

Long Weekend My Friday officially began in the afternoon. Teeth day, after ten thousand years of not setting foot in dentist’s clinic. There was something amiss about my pearlies that I needed to have them checked, and thankfully the good dentist told me that all I needed was five caps that could all be dealt with over the next two or three weekends. But the best part of it all was having the luxury of walking to the clinic from home. Just around the corner, a minute away. After getting my teeth cleaned, I hurried to the cinemas to catch Quark Henares’ dark comedy Keka , starring Katya Santos and Wendell Ramos. Not a total waste of life, that film, and cleanly-executed for the most part. After the movie, it was a cup of caffeine at Mocha Blends, where I finished reading Craig Thompson’s innocently-honest coming-of-age graphic novel Blankets . A good and touching read, which should have been, given its ridiculous price. I proceeded to Music 21 - Timog Avenue for a singing eng...