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Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (movie)

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I blogged about reading The Lightning Thief last week, now here’s my take on the big screen version. Checkout the trailer:

This is one of those films that really followed their own take than stay true to the novel that was originally written for young kids. First I would like to say that I liked that movie and think that it is still worth watching. But I will also have to say that I like the book more. Okay, so we say that very often but this time is a bit different. I actually felt disappointed and a little let down. I guess I was expecting a lot from a Chris Columbus film.

Percy Jackson was supposed to be 12 years old when the series started. The actor looks nowhere like he was in sixth grade. He looks more like a highschool freshman or even older, and resembles Zac Efron of HighSchool Musical fame. He is cute though. 🙂 As for Athena’s daughter Annabeth, wasn’t she supposed to be blonde like her mom? I like her, she’s pretty and has personality, but she just didn’t fit the description. And where was her cap of invisibility?

Clarisse, daughter of Ares, was nowhere in the film. Now I wonder, if they ever come out with the sequel, how do they introduce her and her history with Percy? Oh, Ares was nowhere in the film too.  And come to think of it, was Kronos even mentioned? There was no Oracle too, and no quest.

I’m also not very happy about how they presented Camp Half-Blood Hill (Mr. D was missing too). It seemed so medieval. The boyfriend says it was very Spartan-like. The Camp was supposed to look like just any other camp, and the campers wearing shorts and t-shirts. No, in the movie they wore armors and they had old-school cabins. Chiron also knew beforehand who Percy’s dad was, instead of having to wait for it to be revealed. So that meant that Percy didn’t have to crash at the Hermes cabin at all.

There were other points of departure from the novel, and I probably won’t be able to name all of them now.

In terms of special effects, we felt like the movie didn’t do so well specially in the beginning of the film. Eventually though, you kinda started to appreciate it. So I guess it just wasn’t consistent? Medusa’s snakes looked great…

And Luke, he didn’t get much exposure even when he turned out to be the bad guy. They didn’t show him teaching Percy sword fighting. And he didn’t look like he had a scar on his face, it was flawless and didn’t look like he needed an acne scar cream, lol. Well okay I don’t think he had acne problems at all, but the scar he got from his earlier quest was, I think, an important facet of his personality…

Now I realize that all I’ve got to say are criticisms, aren’t we normally like that? If I didn’t read the book prior to seeing the movie, I might have appreciated it more.  All in all, it wasn’t a very memorable movie.

Since posting about this book and watching the movie, I have read books 2 and 3, and have liked them even more. There is more excitement in the next books. I just started with the fourth book today.

I ordered Ginger!

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I have put in an order for my very own Epiphanie bag, I’m going with Ginger, despite the bright attractive color of Lola. Hehe.  To remind you of how it looks like:

Ginger (click the picture and check her out at their shop)

 

To be honest, I was reluctant to place the order.

1. The site does not accept PayPal so I had to use my Credit Card.  It’s not the CC usage that got me worried; it’s just that I am supposed to be buying the bag using my online earnings.
It’s virtually free, really. Here’s why: the money I earn off my blog all goes to extra spending money. I don’t feel guilty spending it because it didn’t come from my regular salary. But, if I see the charge on my credit card bill, even if I end up withdrawing my PayPal money and use that to pay, I will feel the impact of the spending. 165 is a lot of money to spend on just one bag. Still, the boyfriend agrees with this purchase. I deserve this camera bag. Maxine deserves it. 🙂
 
2. The bag will be delivered to the hotel where my friends from work will be staying next week. They are travelling to Seattle for training and I grabbed the chance to save on shipping. But they’re not there yet, they leave on Sunday. Of course I had to place the order ahead of time because I can’t pay for next day shipping. I just hope all goes well with their trip (ie that it pushes through) otherwise, what will happen to my package?
 
But more than anything, I am excited! I can’t wait to have Ginger home in two and a half weeks! 🙂
 
I have more news to share. My weight loss adventures are here again. Hopefully this time I will actually shed some pounds. I didn’t end up taking any of these fat loss pills, but I am taking a meal replacement drink paired with health supplements. Today’s just the second day and unfortunately I have eaten some stuff I shouldn’t have. But I am still confident. 😉  This first stage takes five days and depending on the results, I’ll either extend it or to move on to another stage. I’d love to say more about this, but I gotta run. My eyes are droopy and I don’t want to pass off the chance to get to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

MIA

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MIA. That is me.

Let’s just say that I’ve enjoyed non-verabear.net related activities lately and they’re keeping me away from posting.

We should be back to regular programming sooooooon. 😉

Oh by the way, I have subscribed to my own feeds to receive an email for each post I publish. Doing so made me realize that my photos are not showing up in my feeds. I figured that it’s because I never did disable hotlinking to my images.

Problem is, I need to edit my htaccess file, and I can’t find it even when I’m logged in via FTP. Grr.

The Lightning Thief

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My blog looks sad. The first page is completely devoid of photos. None of my five recent posts have any pictures included. It reflects the sad fact that I haven’t been spending a lot of time taking photos, again. I haven’t even caught up with my Project 365, my albums in Facebook and Flickr are probably gathering dust by now… It doesn’t help any that my weekends are turning out really bad too. I was down with headache again the past 36 hours. 🙁

There is one good thing that came out of this weekend though. I finished Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief!

I haven’t seen the movie, but we’ve had the book for probably over a year. Alfred read a review of the book on the paper so we went ahead and found a copy. Kaya lang, I never got the chance to read it until now.

It’s really a book for children, it’s pretty much straight to the point. There’s no long description of the setting or the characters, so they’re not giving you much time to get bored. On the downside, there’s really not much room to let your imagination roam either. Oh they did take a few lines describing Hades’ realm, and then briefly Olympus.

I don’t know how I feel about this series yet, it is an award-winning novel after all. I’m not sure if I like it enough to read all the books, though I’ve already got them from a book sale in the office. It’s a good read yes, and I would recommend my nieces to read it, and even share it with my nephews. It would actually be nice to turn it into a picture book. 🙂

It did kind of force me to think about mythology, a subject that I haven’t thought much about since reading my brother’s high school book of mythology when I was a lot younger. Here in the Philippines, Greek and Roman mythology is discussed in third or fourth year high school, but our English curriculum didn’t seem to have adhered to that. We tackled only a few stories, if I remember correctly. So I’ve forgotten much about mythology, and Percy Jackson is a good review. If you want your kids interested in mythology, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a good way to start.

Click on the image above to read some reader reviews and even an interview with the author, from Amazon.com.

World Taxi

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I go to work after midnight, and I don’t drive. So for about four/five years, I have had to wait around for cabs to pass thru and because it’s late, there isn’t always one available right when you need it. Our house is located along inner streets and public transportation is a good 15-minute walk away, so even when I was on the day shift I would rather wait for a cab than walk under the sun. Okay I don’t always have to wait around, very rarely I am able to convince my dad to drive me to work. 🙂 So anyway, around September last year I started reporting to work around 1-2 in the morning. There aren’t that many cabs passing thru our area at that time but I would just stand there at the bridge and wait until one came along. I was fortunate enough to hail a cab with the franchise called World. The nice driver gave me their contact numbers and advised me to give them a call so I wouldn’t have to wait around late at night. Of course, I didn’t take his advice.

Then it was the boyfriend’s turn to get on another World taxi and he was told the same thing. That was the only time I actually decided to give them a try. True enough, every time I call, they would send a cab within 3 to 10 minutes. And I have yet to meet a driver who was rude or would take advantage. Their meters are calibrated too. I always pay 50 pesos. The boyfriend who works in Makati has had the chance to compare a World taxi meter with those from other cab companies and World was very consistent, and turned out cheaper.

One time, I didn’t have 50 pesos on me, just a 20 peso bill and a 500 bill. The driver (we call him Good Morning because he always greets me and wouldn’t stop until I greet him back, in a nice and not annoying way), was nice enough to accept my 20 pesos and say that I can just pay him back next time.

When we attended Tengkie’s wedding last month, we were able to hail a World Taxi from the Malate church. This was a cab we don’t remember being on before, and the cabbie wasn’t familiar with us, at least not until we were in our area an hour later. It was an interesting ride because he told us about the company and how good the owners were to their drivers. They have benefits that other cab companies don’t offer their drivers. No wonder the cabbies were nice and decent, they didn’t have to engage in shady business to earn an extra buck.

The only downside really is that their units aren’t new so from the outside they look shabby and you would think that they probably have bad air conditioning. That’s not true though. Sometimes it can even be cold inside, lol. They also don’t have a receipt printer on their meters like some other companies do. Good news though is that they will be upgrading their units this year with Toyota Altis ones.

So if you’re ever in need of cab services, give World Taxi a call at 4109708. Their garage is at Roces Ave, Quezon City, but they can be all over the Metro, just tell them where you are and they will tell you if they can pick you up or not.

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