I’m glad that our entertainment centers are catching up with all the 3D hype. When I watched Avatar, actually on iMAX 3D, I realized that this technology isn’t going to go away. It may not become the standard in movie watching any time soon, first because it’s a lot more expensive and may not be to everybody’s taste, but to those who enjoy the 3D experience, it will never be enough to watch a 2D movie when you know it’s also available on 3D.

A couple of months ago, I joined a friend on her laptop hunting trip and ended up buying one for myself, way before she got hers. I already have a specific list of requirements in mind, and a price range as well. The stores we went to were all pretty straightforward; I didn’t even manage haggle for a price discount or substantial freebies. Not even an epson receipt printer. But I am pretty pleased with my purchase; my sister even named it “Delia” despite my aversion for it. It’s already been of much use to me already, so overall it was a good deal.

The tennis 2010 season is really shaping up to be a very exciting one. I remember last year that I couldn’t care less about the Open; I only knew Federer was in the finals the day before he and Rafael Nadal played, and then he lost that match (and infamously cried during the trophy ceremony). The women’s field back then was worse, with fresh-from-retirement Kim Clijsters taking away the U.S.  Open crown from the Williams sisters and every other one who has a claim to the top 10 ranking. But this year’s AO is filled with drama, epic & hard-fought matches, and a number of serious  contenders both in the men’s and the women’s draws.

But before I get carried away, forget my post topic and talk about auto insurance quotes instead, here are the big names that won on Sunday: Nadal, Murray, Roddick, and Cilic (defeated del Potro). For the ladies: Henin, Petrova, Zheng, and Kirilenko. What made these games big? Well, Roddick won in a tight five setter, Nadal fought of the tallest man on tour (Ivo Karlovic), Cilic won in five against another tall guy and the reigning U.S. Open champion, Petrova defeated Kuznetsova,  Safina retired against Kirilenko, and Henin continues her semi-fairy tale return.

I must say Wanted is one movie worth watching just for the fun of it. It was cool, wicked fun, and I’m not even one who usually line up for action flicks. I’m not sure if it’s fair for me to say that the movie has no substance whatsoever. I enjoyed the movie, although a few hours after watching, there’s nothing much to look back and get excited about anymore. Wanted is all action; it’s about the adrenaline rush, the Matrix-like scenarios, the impossible stunts; it’s about guns and knives, fast cars and trains; it’s about people beating each other up and killing in cold blood. The car-chase scenario at the beginning of the film is so improbable, as most of the stunts are, but it gets you to think that no matter how shiny and expensive those cars are, you won’t need to adorn them of anything, not pontiac accessories, not lexus accessories, and not even mitsubishi accessories. More than anything else, Wanted is about Angelina Jolie. I do like James McAvoy (loved him in Becoming Jane, liked him in Atonement) and he was a good fit for the character Wesley. Morgan Freeman is, well, Morgan Freeman. But it is Angelina Jolie who lights up the screen. She gives us another kick-ass heroine that is as believable as the choreographed fight scenes. But no matter how underdeveloped the character is (which doesn’t really matter because of the film’s very simple plot), you’ll pine for her. When I watched this film last year at the cinema, I swear I heard more than a few swoons when in one scene, the camera pans to Fox (Jolie) giving out an amused, condescending smile, head tilted and body all poised and confident. It is a testament to Jolie’s star power that in this film where anybody can die as fast as you can swat a fly, Fox cannot be killed, unless it’s by her own hands. I think people don’t really expect substance from this movie. But if you’re looking for some mindless fun, then watch it and enjoy the ride.

There’s this hugely popular Nickelodeon show called Avatar: The Last Airbender.  It’s coming to the big screen in 2010.

The show follows the adventures of Aang, a 12-year-old air bender who disappeared 100 years ago in the midst of a war because he is not yet ready to face his destiny as the new Avatar, master of four elements – air, water, earth, fire – and the only hope of mankind against an evil Fire Lord. He is joined by the brother and sister team of Katara and Sokka, descendants of the water people, and together they venture on a quest to help Aang master the other three elements that would enable him to finally face the Fire Lord who wants to rule the earth.

I didn’t know about this show because I didn’t have a cable subscription like Direct TV up until the last couple of months, but I’m sure glad that I was able to watch it anyway. It’s funny and touching in a way that only children’s tales can be. So if you already have Directtv, make sure to switch channels to see if you can find this awesome anime, and watch it before the movie is shown in summer of 2010.

Now, this is one great thing about having a Direct TV service. Another good thing is that even if you have to change locations and move to another state, there won’t be a problem with discontinuing your service. For example, you’re moving to the Big Apple, you’ll still have Direct TV in New York. No worries. So look for Avatar and enjoy watching.

I’m sure you have a few funny cab-riding experiences, but I had this one just a few days ago.  I was running late for work, and starting to feel grumpy,  so I decided to take the first cab I saw. By then, however, I decided that I’d just ask for a change in work schedule because I figured I won’t arrive on time anyway, so I got a little bit more relaxed even when the driver suddenly turned for the gas station without warning.  While filling up his car’s gas tank, he asked me: “Are you in a hurry, Ma’am?” I smiled and said, “Not so much.”  He smiled back, “Well, I am.”  I almost laughed at him but decided against it. Having sparked a conversation, he then proceeded to tell me stories as we went along, from his jealous wife, to his ex-girlfriend, to his previous passengers, and later even about affordable term life insurance rates (the amazing thing is, he’s not even an agent). You’d think we were traveling for hours  with the bulk of stories he shared. Truth is, it hardly took 20 minutes. For what it’s worth, I was terribly amused.

I’m on my new host, Lunarpages. Weee! Allow me a few moments to babble on this.

I just said in my previous post that I do learn things by “loitering” in the world wide web. I’m definitely no expert in computers and all of those technical programming language stuff. But I do surprise myself at times by the risk I’m taking just to see if I can make things work even if I don’t truly understand them. By risk, I mean shelling out more than a few bucks for something that may or may not turn out right for me. Specifically for this post, blogging on a personal domain and on a paid host. The first time I set up this blog, it took me more than two weeks of Wordpress installation and re-installations before I was able to have a fully functional site. What I learned is that it requires a great deal of perseverance to achieve your goal by trying to do something you are practically ignorant about; you also need to have an ardent desire to go with it. Lucky for me, I relished the trial and error process even if it robbed me of hours and hours of sleep.

I also announced here that I may have to go offline when I change hosts because I’ll have to reassign the domain nameservers and I’m not really sure if the process will be instant. Without dwelling too much on it, it turned out the site stayed online after all. Which made me happy. Actually, that’s all I really want to say. I’m happy because I now have unlimited server space and bandwidth (this one I don’t think I’ll need), at least for the next two years. Brace yourself for unlimited gibberish from yours truly. (Well, at least if you’re still with me by this point.)

I.ph is back online. Last time I checked, not every blog is back up, but mine, fortunately, got to be among the first restored. Now I can move on to manipulating this domain name to point to the new Web host. 

When I first got the domain [blog-of-z (dot) com], I heed the advice of some people in the forums to register the domain in one company and then get the Web hosting space from another. I’m pretty sure this has an advantage (I don’t really have data to back it up right now) but the only thing I regret is that it seems I won’t be able to use the free 1 year domain registration in my new Web host. Not that it isn’t possible. But the process would require me to provide credit card details, including the critical last three numbers on the back of the credit card. I’m not really up for that. It’s more than just me feeling paranoid at the grocery that my items will get swiped twice under the barcode scanner. I just wouldn’t be comfortable giving away that piece of information. I use PayPal as much as possible for online transactions. Not that you won’t give away credit card details on PayPal but I guess that’s another story.

Anyway, I just hope that I’ll do everything right and not mess up this site. Ok, the first part may be too much to ask but I’m sticking with the last.

I know I said I’m going offline. But my other blog is down since yesterday and I want to have at least one of these thingamajigs visible. For myself. Because I like myself too much.

Just kidding. I like myself just the right amount.

Some time between today and Friday, I’ll be completely transferring this blog to another Web host. That means a downtime of possibly 48 to 72 hours. I’ve been tinkering with the files and databases and have transferred most of them. It looks OK for now (although I’m not yet sure if I’ll have everything that’s showing here: comments, widgets, links, etc.) but I’m a little worried that transferring the domain will mess everything up. We’ll see. Ta-ta for now.

In the meantime, you can find me here.