I’m Here, Spike Jonze’s 30-minute short. Featuring robots, in love. Like the title of the post said. I feel like I’m being redundant here.

This is after the success of Where the Wild Things Are. It’s looking to be a good year for the director (if he follows it up with more films).

This short anecdote was shared to me by a friend over at RR. Perfect for my heavily-introspective mood lately. But really, who doesn’t like short nuggets of wisdom?

Enjoy.

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A battle is raging inside me … it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee replied: “The one you feed.”

I was fixing up my music collection earlier, and I forgot how much calm the cover of Morning View brings to me.

Then you follow it up with a round of Wish You Were Here, and suddenly you’re not in the city anymore.

I’m going there this March to go to my cousin’s wedding – and then Australia afterwards! To sum it up in a very understated manner, I’m very excited.

New Zealand, as you might know, is legendary for its beautiful and fantastical vistas which now only rarely exist elsewhere. Views like this…

…make me grateful that my eyesight wasn’t taken from me, as it could’ve been a couple of weeks ago.

Now I really need a camera, and know how to use it.

While the rest of the world drools/is decidedly lukewarm over the recently-announced Apple iPad, I’ve found myself wanting more and more, the Apple iPhone. Now that it’s gone through three generations, with each new generation adding more features and power to the devilishly beautiful device, and now that it’s backed up by more than 140,000 apps, and now that it has a sizeable market share that threatens Nokia and RIM, meaning better support, and well… you get the point.

I’ve been a bit of a journeyman over the years in the world of mobile phones, going from a Nokia 3210, then a Nokia 3310, then a Motorola clamshell design whose model number I can’t remember. After that came a Sony Ericsson, the Samsung E600, and finally the Nokia E51.

While the E51 is an excellent phone and one I would heartily recommend to anyone, I feel it’s time for me to go ahead and try an Apple product that’s responsible for my communication (all past experiences with Apple products have been solely for the purpose of hearing music).

I have a strong feeling I’m going to love it. Aside from the sweet design of the user interface, the rock solid iPhone OS, and its beguiling shine and chrome, it’s currently one of the most powerful smartphones currently out there. And who doesn’t love the feeling of having a powerful tiger, dressed up in a very nice package, all in their pants? Yes that’s right, no one.

I am aware of the caveats: poor battery life, exorbitant data transfer charges, and a few more. But some of these are manageable, most are avoidable with careful usage, and some I’m willing to undergo as necessary pains, because the device is that beautiful.

And I haven’t even started talking about jailbreaking it yet.

Made by illustrator Jim Tierney for his thesis project.

He speaks more about the actual creation process in this post. It’s pretty sweet to watch it unfold.

(via Boing Boing)

My favorite poem. Written by English poet William Ernest Henley in 1875.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Interesting how two different things come together to create a new, vibrant thing. In this case, a (for lack of a better adjective) sick track from Adam Freeland.

The Bene Gesserit Litany against Fear

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I feel so helpless against the recent destruction of much of Haiti by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, regarded as the most powerful one in the region for the last 200 years.

Being a recent victim of Typhoon Ondoy, I’m no longer a stranger to actually being caught in a disaster. We live in the Antipolo/Cainta area, one of the hardest hit by the typhoon. But even then, I can say what I went through was still better off than most people experienced. I still have a home. I’m still alive. There was nothing we lost that we couldn’t replace, nothing we couldn’t recover. No one I personally knew died, although many did lose something of value. I guess this makes me even more grateful to be alive.

But really, for one of the poorest countries in the world, how can you recover from an earthquake like this? As of today, and according to the headlines of the local newspaper, 500,000 people are feared dead.

Five hundred thousand.

The loss of one life is tragic. But the loss of five hundred thousand… it’s a catastrophe of the highest level.

Bodies are piling up on the streets, and they are being moved by the bulldozer. Local and foreign aid have already begun rescue efforts, but the magnitude of this event, I think, cannot and should not really be felt until Haiti can stand back up on its feet.

This is all probably sympathy and not empathy, and one may argue that writing about it solves nothing, and they are probably right. But even a moment of silence, a short prayer, or a kind thought is better than no thought at all.

God bless Haiti. God bless the world.

(pictures via The New York Times)

Heard a lot about this short just recently, which is a bit of a shame since it’s been finished for quite a while now. Dark and delicious.