Roy Tang

Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.

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All entries tagged Pop Culture.

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Mar 2005

  • Books: More Bob Ong

    A while back I blogged about Bob Ong’s first book. A short while after, I also picked up his next two books, Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro Ang Mga Pilipino? (Why Do Filipinos Read Backwards?) and Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas (Judas’ Favorite Book). “Bakit Baligtad” focuses on the Philippines, its people, its quirks and its problems. “Paboritong Libro” is a lot harder to classify, as it jumps across several topics, with the unifying theme being the chapters named after anagrams of the seven deadly sins.

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Feb 2005

  • Currently listening to “Boulevard of Broken Songs”, a neat mashup mainly of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. This and some other mashups here. (haven’t listened to the others though… ) Another interesting mashup that came out quite a while back was “This Is How You Remind Me Someday” , where Nickelback is caught basically reusing the same chords for two songs. Great stuff. Other songs/bands I’ve been listening to lately:

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  • Picked it up as an impulse buy from National Bookstore a couple of weeks ago. Anyone who grew up in the 80s will appreciate Bob Ong’s trip back to his elementary/high school/college days. His tales of school will ring true to anyone from around the same era; younger folk may not appreciate it so much. (My younger brother seems to have no idea what Spin-a-win is/was, although he is aware of SOS, Flames, etc.

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Nov 2004

  • The Waste Lands -- Found

    I went to the dentist yesterday (irrelevant), and at National Bookstore Shangri-la, I found a copy of The Waste Lands, a day after I blogged about looking for it! They also had a copy of the fourth book Wizard and Glass, but I only had enough cash for one. On a website note, if you’ll notice, I added entries from my del.icio.us account to the blog. It’s done using the excellent Feed2JS tool.

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    Posted by under post at #Books #Pop Culture #Meta
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  • I Like To Read

    Really. I’ll read most anything. Books, comics, magazines, newspapers, leaflets, articles, essays. Well, anything well-written at least. When I first got access to the Internet, I was overjoyed. “Wow! Lots of stuff to read!” And I read a lot online. I started mostly with anime fanfiction, but pretty soon I enjoyed reading discussions on mailing-lists, message boards, news sites, etc. The internet is a treasure trove for one who always strives for information.

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    Posted by under post at #Books #Pop Culture
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  • Interesting story about a guy who had to shell out 350 dollars to quote Radiohead lyrics in his book. Even though he was able to quote from many other bands, books, and even a separate Radiohead album for free. Even he had personally met the band before, and had freely let them quote his own works in their concerts. Gives a good idea of how fucked-up the worldwide copyright system is.

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    Posted by under post at #Music #Pop Culture
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  • The Alchemist

    The other day, while waiting to get a blood test at Clinica Manila, Megamall, I managed to finish about 2/3rds of Paolo Coellho’s best-seller The Alchemist. I finished the last 1/3rd during a 15-minute bathroom break back home. It was a short book. Lots of people have raved about how good it is. What do I think? It’s okay, but nothing overly special. Maybe I didn’t get too much of it because it didn’t have much new material for me.

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    Posted by under post at #Books #Pop Culture
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  • Cryptonomicon

    It’s 1:30 in the morning, and I plan on being at work by 8AM, so I’ll just throw out a quick book review before I buzz off to meet the sandman. Neil Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon is the only book I managed to finish out of the three I took with me to Bicol. And I actually started reading it about a month and a half earlier. In a word, the book is wordy.

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Oct 2004

  • The 48 Laws of Power

    Never Outshine the Master Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies Conceal Your Intentions Always Say Less Than Necessary So Much Depends On Reputation — Guard It With Your Life Court Attention At All Costs Get Others To Do The Work For You, But Always Take The Credit Make Other People Come To You — Use Bait If Necessary

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Jul 2004

  • Movies: Spiderman 2

    I suppose everyone and their mother has had a chance to voice their opinions on Spiderman 2 by now, so here’s mine: Some parts are hokey, some parts are cheesy, some parts are gratuitous Hollywood crap, it has quite a few inconsistencies and plot holes but overall, it’s a hell of a ride, and I found it considerably more ‘fun’ than the first one. That being said, I’m not entirely excited about the Goblin making an obvious comeback in Spiderman 3, but the only other Spidey nemesis worthy of being in a movie would be Venom… and bringing alien symbiotes in the equation would completely change the feel of the movies.

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Apr 2003

  • The Recruit

    Good plot twists you could see from a mile away. Unfortunately, we had arrived at the theater too late to catch the start of the last showing of Gangs of New York, so we had to settle with the second choice. The Recruit didn’t get as much critical acclaim as Gangs, but what the heck, Al Pacino in a spy thriller? How could I lose? The story is simple enough. Colin Farell plays James Clayton, a young man just out of MIT, recruited by CIA agent William Burke (Pacino).

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Sep 2002

  • The Bourne Identity A new action hero is Bourne I was a bit anxious to see this movie, as I had thoroughly enjoyed the book of the same name a long time ago, and I was hoping the movie would give me the same satisfaction. The Bourne Identity stars Matt Damon as rogue CIA agent/amnesiac Jason Bourne. In his quest to uncover his own identity, Jason travels all around Europe pursued by the CIA’s agents and dragging along an innocent gypsy girl who just happened to be his best shot for a ride to Paris.

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Jan 2002

  • 07 Jan 2002

    For some reason, I keep wanting to update this site. I’m actually doing this more often than studying for the board, studying game development, studying Japanese or writing anything else. I wonder why? Anyway, I added a humor page and a special “Who Am I?” page. Check ‘em out. Also the Anime ROMs site should be fully operational by now. So I went and saw Lord of the Rings last Friday.

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    Posted by under post at #Legacy Blog Posts #Movies #Pop Culture
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