cover for HP book 7

 here it is — the cover for the last book of the Harry Potter series — HP and the Death Hallows.

another cover (probably for the US market) 

sickbed blues

i'm sick. and i'm sick of being sick. what started out as a niggling sore throat last friday night turned into a full-blown headache accompanied by body pains a day later. i had the 'shakes' in the office later that night, and by sunday i was totally horizontal. to add insult to injury, my tonsils became inflamed.

despite the loss of taste and appetite, i struggled to finish a single pandesal, generously dipped in coffee (to alleviate its passage down my swollen throat as i rammed it in with a glass of water), just so i could take my medication. the headache i could deal with, but the pain in my throat worsened; even the simple act of swallowing became excruciatingly painful.

fortunately, my sister, who had been on this road so many times before, advised me to take a heavy dose of antibiotics. by monday afternoon i had my first solid meal (and what a relief that was) although my taste buds were still a little rusty. it encouraged me to move around and i actually began to take interest in my surroundings.

the thing that i hate most about being sick is that makes me apathetic and listless; it dulls away my enthusiasm for many things. the whole set-up — you lying helplessly in bed and too wrapped up in your pain to think of anything else — is enough to make you despair. i was wondering what to do to motivate myself to actually report for work the next day — when suddenly my celfon buzzed.

Message (from our SUPV): "ok ur excused 2day but try 2 report 4 work tom bcoz ur work is piling up. i cant assign it to somebody else bcoz theyre all busy too."

how's that for motivation?

i was inclined to be huffy at first, until i realized that it was exactly what i needed to perk up my flagging spirits: it would crank me up to function near my usual level, and it would stop me from moping around and getting too caught up on my sorry state of health. and frankly, i'm getting sick (pardon the pun) and tired of staring at the same 4 walls.

love my zvm

after months of anticipation, the shipment my sister promised arrived at my doorstep last week. it contained several things including stuff i’ve recently ordered online — books, DVDs, etc. after throwing things haphazardly in all directions, i finally dug out the item i’d been waiting for all this time: my new 60-gb zen vision m. yeah!

this isn’t my first Creative

mp3 player

. last year, my sister gave me this (my first) shiny, black 30-gb

Creative ZVM

, which tickled me no end. it took a me few days to figure things out (i had to learn an awful lot of things in a hurry) but it was worth all the aggravations i went through. what really clicked for me was its video capability, which was far, far better than the

iPod’s

, and the fact that it was compatible with more formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV9, Motion-MPEG), which is great time saver because it means i didn’t have to convert my video files in order to view them. plus it had a gorgeous 262k color screen (as compared to iPod’s 64k screen) and an FM tuner to boot.

i loved that device. so you can imagine my horror when i accidentally dropped it last christmas as i was clearing the table. recovering from shock, i frantically checked if it was still working. the glaring crack at its side was disheartening but i kept at it for hours, with zero results.

it finally came to life the next day, and i thought for a while that it was still possible to nurse it back to health. 5 days later it blinked for the last time and it was like i had lost a friend. i couldn’t face the thought of settling for an iPod, so i placed my order for another ZVM, this time for a 60-gb unit (it’s cheaper to order online).

and here it is. although it comes in a smaller box, it’s definitely bigger and heavier than the 30-gb variant. it has a similar set of controls, with a slightly longer battery life than the 30-gb unit (4 vs. 5 hours for video; 14 vs. 16 hours for audio). the box also includes an installation cd for windows media player 11. the only major downer for me (aside from the ZVM’s bulky size) was the glaring lack of an AC adaptor, which you need to purchase separately. fortunately, i still have the old charger that was provided in the 30-gb version. the transfer of music, videos and images was quick, smooth and easy. all in all, it’s like my old mp3 player has never left.

for those who are interested, here are a few more details about this player (price, capacity, feaures, etc.)

here’s a cute sample video from the player, which i downloaded from youtube. enjoy…

discontentment… and confronting the impossible

weekend at the movies

i finally caught up with 300 this weekend. the film (based on frank miller's graphic novel), in all its blue-screen glory, is good, crackling fun. no wonder it's been scoring so well in the box office these past 2 weeks.

with its highly stylized visuals and prodigious use of slow-motion sequences, 300 goes for the jugular to attain maximum sensory impact. the battle scenes, despite the gory details, look strangely graceful and stirring — must be those billowing red robes that the spartans wear. what other movie have you seen this year that features so many buff men with glistening turtle shell abs and bulging biceps as they hack, slice and pierce their way through their enemies?

gerard butler makes a rip-roaring Leonidas. i half-expected him to annihilate the persians by his voice alone. i was also pleasantly surprised to see david wenham (LOTR's faramir) in a pivotal role in this movie.

remember bruce almighty? you know, the film where jim carrey got his wish to play God (morgan freeman) and got his fingers nicely burned? well, it has a sequel of sorts… this time it's evan (steve carrell) — the newscaster guy that bruce caused to embarrass himself during a live broadcast (nyahaha) — who gets to play the Almighty.

the trailer looks good. evan, who strangely enough gets elected to the congress, is given divine powers and instructions to build an ark! steve carrell is a blast in whatever role he chooses to portray, and i'm sure this time it'll be no different. yay! 

evan almighty is set to hit the theaters in june 2007.