General

General

Acuatico Beach Resort, Laiya, San Juan, Batangas

By on Thursday, July 2, 2009

Just came back from a rather short honeymoon at Acuatico Beach Resort in Laiya, San Juan, Batangas. The resort wasn’t bad. The problem is we ended up with a room that was so cramped! I wasn’t able to snap a photo but the bathroom was like just the shower here, the bowl beside it, and then the washbasin beside it. The bedroom was similarly cramped. We stayed the night because we got there late already and we had no more time to look for alternate resorts.

But everything else was good. They got a really awesome infinity pool with a bar in the middle, good facilities, beach, and food. The resident manager and the staff were also nice and friendly. I didn’t see the other room-type but, even though expensive, it just might have ended up to be  better experience and worth it.

Getting There: Getting there is a long process (a detailed map is available here). From Metro Manila, you need to go through the full length of SLEX, exit towards Batangas, take the Star Tollway, exit towards Lipa, then to either Padre Garcia or Rosario, then to San Juan, and finally to Laiya and a long stretch of resorts accessible via a mixed gravel and concrete road. Cars can navigate the road but you’ll need to moderate your speed. Total travel time is around 3 to 4 hours.

Rooms: Room rates are P5.5k for the cramped room, and P7.5k for the bigger room. All rooms with hot water, air conditioning, and wide-screen LCD TVs with cable. WiFi is available and the signal is very strong in the room.

Food and Beverage: The room is inclusive of breakfast for two. Your choice American or Filipino breakfast. Food at the in-house restaurant is about P100 to P300 per and drinks at less than P100 per.

Facilities: They have an awesome infinity pool, a good beach,  kayaks (that you can row to nowhere really), and they can arrange for jet skis and snorkeling trips.

Rating: 3/5

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General

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

By on Wednesday, June 24, 2009

transformersrevengeofthefallenI’ll have to say that I’ve been waiting for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I also have to say I’m a bit disappointed. But then what do you expect from sequels, right?

Story? Not much there. It’s not well thought out and things at times seemed pointless. Revenge of the Fallen, started off where the previous Transformers movie left off. Megatron and his robots have been destroyed but Decepticon incursions remain a part of daily life. Responsible for countering these attacks is a combined unit of  Autobots, old and new, and up-armed Earth special forces.

Apparently, the Decepticons were trying to locate a fragment of the “allspark” to be used to revive Megatron. The good guys , on the other hand, had to revive Optimus Prime, who was conveniently killed by the revived Megatron, and stop the Decepticons from activating a star-destroying superweapon.

All these happened in an overly long, LOUD, action-packed sequence that tended to be confusingly fast and yet managed to be dragging at the same time.

The titular The Fallen was totally unnecessary and was onscreen only a few minutes. He didn’t even last long in the final fight considering so much time allocated to battle scenes.

Rating: 3/5

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General

Terminator: Salvation

By on Monday, June 1, 2009

terminatorsalvationTerminator and Terminator 2 were pretty good science fiction movies. At the time of their release, the concepts were still pretty far fetched. But things are different 20 years ago. Robots are here and very much active. In Afghanistan, unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs which are essentially flying robots are busy assassinating suspected terrorists. In Iraq, small robots called TALONs are doing highly-dangerous bomb disposal. And the US army are thinking of arming the TALON and converting them into SWORDs. Terminator still far fetched? Definitely not.

And so the newest Terminator movie, Terminator: Salvation, is less of a science fiction movie and more of an action movie. This nature is further reinforced by the use of some current day weapons and vehicles. The action is nothing special but at least it has an epic storyline that ties up neatly with the previous Terminator movies.

Rating: 4/5

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General

Star Trek vs Star Wars

By on Thursday, May 21, 2009

startrekStar Trek vs Star Wars. This has been a long running debate. But regardless of the arguments Star Trek has always been the more scientific and, I dare say, more intellectual series. In short, more mature. Star Wars has always been more kid-oriented. Every succeeding release sees more and more characters destined for the toy store. Still, a lot of people, including yours truly, watched it because of the action. Mindless action but, hey, it’s fun!

With the latest Star Trek movie, they reinvented and modernized Star Trek.  They added flash and bang demanded by the new generation of viewers. But the best thing is that they managed to do this without dumbing it down… too much. And guess what? It’s all good.

Star Trek is a restart. The movie takes us back to when the USS Enterprise and its intrepid crew were just starting off. Of course, to put continuity into things, there is a link to the previous Star Trek movies and TV shows, which in this case is not really previous but from the future.

And since this involves time travel, as you have guessed, everything got mucked up good. A peace-loving turned vengeful Romulan villain got warped into the past and in an instant almost aborts Kirk. But Star Trek won’t be the same without Kirk so he was allowed to escape impending doom.

Soon after, a geriatric Spock arrives, also from the future, and was instantly captured the the waiting Romulans who then use the technology in his ship to destroy, of all planets, Vulcan. Star Trek without Vulcan?!? I guess Star Trek is still Star Trek without it. But what about the younger Spock?

Thankfully, Spock is already by then at Star Fleet where he embarks with Kirk and the rest of the gang on the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Their first mission was to stop the Romulans and, as expected, they did. How they did, is a really good watch ;)

Rating: 4/5

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