naging pula na siguro ang kulay ng twalya nyo or t-shirt. kya tama na muna ang nosebleed moments, at ang pagtuunan ng pansin naman ay ang mismong 2005 as a whole, mga events which stood out, or had some impact on a lot of people in my immediate circle. ang review na ito ay nasa isang personal point of view at magkaka-comments ako madalas kya kung ndi nyo trip ay gumwa kyo sarili nyo! haha. so with no further ado and with not much flourish i present the year as i saw it:
sports
sports ay ndi gaanong importante sa akin, pero i find that it's the easiest topic to write about ehh. ndi ako nakasubaybay ng lahat ng sports events na gusto ko sana masundan, dahil wla namang telebisyon sa katipunan (haha dinidiin ko nanaman). i only really watch tennis, motogp, and formula1.. wla akong pake sa ibang sports sa totoo lang. tapos yang mga yan ay pinapanood ko lang pag pwde, miske nga local events like UAAP basket ay wla masyadong appeal.
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this year was a tremendous one for motogp world champion Valentino Rossi, who successfully retained last year's championship on the same team (Yamaha). what's interesting is that Yamaha is known for being an underpowered brand, |
| not having as much raw engine performance as the superior Honda motorcycles. despite this, rossi won the championship last year and successfully defended it this year. sadly he was not able to surpass the record of 13victories in a season. napantayan naman nya pero sayang ndi nya nalagpasan. he's possibly the greatest motorcycle rider of our time, relying more on skillful late braking on the corners rather than engine power on the straightaways | |
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he has one more year to go in motogp, and then he will shift to a new career in formula1. if he succeeds in auto racing as well, he will be the first ever to do it. rossi has been sighted within 2005 having his helmet signed by michael schumacher, and it looks like he's joining ferrari when he goes to f1 in 2007 |
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speaking of ferrari, formula1 and michael schumacher, this was not a good year for said team. formula1 fans were greeted with fresh surprises for this year's season of formula1 racing. a change of rules and restrictions tipped the scales against ferrari's superior engine and paved the way for bright young stars to emerge. |
| surprisingly michael schumacher (who has dominated formula1 since the 90s) was nowhere on the contender list, and the rivalry between renault's fernando alonso and mclaren's kimi raikkonen was the one to watch for this year. alonso won the championship. | |
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lance armstrong won his 7th tour de france this year, he says this is to be his last appearance in the world's premier endurance cycling event. still, "livestrong" wristbands were very popular until this year (immortalized by lance armstrong's foundation, after he recovered from treatment of testicular cancer) |
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the greatest comeback of the year in my opinion was justine henin-hardenne's explosive return to the tennis court during the french open. after winning the gold medal at the 2004 olympics she was struck with a blood virus which left her incapacitated, but she was able to win the french open this year after just a few months of training. she came within striking range of the #1 rank after her performance at roland-garros. |
| sadly her performance got worse and she was not able to perform well at wimbledon and the US Open. the wimbledon title was taken surprisingly by venus williams (which was also a surprise comeback for herself and for many) and not by defending champion maria sharapova, while belgian kim clijsters won the US Open. still, the french open was a very exciting event for both men and women's tennis, with rafael nadal defeating world #1 roger federer in the semifinals and going on to win the clay court grandslam event championship. federer himself had a good year, winning at both wimbledon and the US Open, as well as numerous other major and minor tournaments. | |
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local sports, specifically men's college basketball, was hit by a terrible scandal when the De La Salle University had to forfeit last year's uaap championship and this year's first runner-up titles when it uncovered ineligibility of not one but two of it's players on the basketball roster. |
| if you're looking for a different la salle scandal, ehh, ndi dis yr nangyari un! hahaha. in other sports: the san antonio spurs won the nba title by defeating defending champions detroit pistons, feu won the uaap title this year, and the philippines won the SEAGames (held here in our country) | |
music:
i can say that i am into the music that i enjoy, and that i'm very closed-minded concerning the music that i don't. this is why i find that i can't really write much about music, only those which i make an effort to be aware of
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the album of the year for me was Dream Theater's latest release, Octavarium. the all-berkeley graduate progressive rock act has brought together arguably the best concept album of the year. Octavarium is a set of 8 tracks (yes, 8 lang) with a harmony in them more suited to a play or an orchestra piece. each track shifts one note up in key, starting from the 1st cut, The Root of all Evil and ending one octave higher in the album's title track |
| i don't actually have the album (haha! poser ko!)(wla naman kacng kopya neto dito sa pinas eh) but after downloading the tracks (oh, poser na pirata pa!) and listening to them i was really impressed with the different sound of each track, but also the ties which bind each one to every other in the album. long-time listeners are by now used to dream theater's penchant for lengthy songs (evidenced prominently by 1995 track A Change of Seasons' astounding 23minute running time) and this is no exception (kaya nga 8tracks lang, some are long) but the tracks which stand out for me are the average-length ones such as Walk Beside You and Never Enough. I guess long-time fans of dream theater wouldn't like this album one bit since it caters to younger audiences and is world's apart from the band's first album When Dream and Day Unite way back in 1989. I started listening to Dream Theater in first year highschool with their 1997 album Falling into Infinity so maybe my perception of the music is biased in that i started listening in the middle of the band's life. But what's different in this from the last album Train of Thought is the fact that that album was very dark and heavy all throughout. This album takes you through a range of moods and concepts within 8tracks, with smooth transition between each track tied together by a central theme in music: the scale. All in all it's a great mix of melodic, heavy and trademark DTstyle prog-rock, and it's enough for me to consider Octavarium as the album of the year. | |
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the concert event of the year (pde ring gig of da yr) was manila symphony orchestra's Rockestra, which took place the 19th of August at the Folk Art's Theater (tanghalang Balagtas?! egh? folk art's lang yan!). the show featured MSO as well as six major rock bands of today: Silent Sanctuary, Cambio, Twisted Halo, Imago, Sugarfree and Sandwich. |
| the brainchild of Silent Sanctuary, Rockestra fused together the MSO's brand of classical music with the present sound of pinoy rock music. maganda ung event, ok ang seat ko nasa may gitna, kaso hassel ung babae sa harap namin pag nakikisabay kami sa beat ng tugtog (diba ry), eh ganun tlga kme ehh! it featured the hit songs of the 6 bands arranged in a way that MSO accompanied the band with an ensemble of strings, winds and percussion. it was all it promised to be: a fusion of classical and modern music. i even saw two of my batchmates from zobel: gian gonzales and la arquero, on the stage already as part of the MSO. the performances were great, sugarfree's bringing the most emotion to the crowd with a solo violin interlude in Burnout. and, imago was also there so ayus na ayus talaga!! hahaha! i was able to have my imago and sandwich cd booklets signed after the show. it was truly a spectacular event, even outshining the yearly glitz of fete de la musique. rockestra was a fresh new experience, in line with the rest of 2005's changes. | |
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the year was also a change for these two bands at the left, my chemical romance being dubbed the "success story
of the year" and typecast entering the mainstream (relatively, compared to before) scene. my chemical romance has been around for
some time but exploded into the consciousness of many and became this year's mainstream rock band of choice. their image and style
has also helped their popularity, as well as their fascination with corpses, caskets, burial and death. typecast on the other hand remains as a group of mysterious musicians to many people, but the energy in their songs, their focus on the instrumental parts rather than the vocal, and their sudden unpredictable bursts of syncopation and weird timing is a welcome change to the ordinary steady style of rythm prominent in most rock songs. |
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other noteworthy albums include Everything in Transit by Jack's Mannequin (in august) and Finch's Say
Hello to Sunshine (in june) i wouldn't even have known about jack's mannequin if not for ryan who had me leak him a copy of every song in the album. the band is the side project of the singer/songwriter of other emo band, something corporate. the songs are simple, angst-driven and very very emotional. Dark Blue, cut #5, is still on my playlist. after 3 years since their debut full-length album What it is to Burn, finch pushes its artistic limits with the release of this sophomore effort, Say Hello to Sunshine. there is a distinct difference from the songs in the previous album and it shows a maturity and a promise of even better things to come from finch. |
| other notable events for the year follow. Fallout Boy also burst into the mainstream scene. The All-American Rejects released a new album Move Along. blink-182 went on hiatus. Sandwich released Thanks to the Moon's Gravitational Pull early in the year. | |
movies:
ndi ako sobrang mahilig manood ng sine, at konti lang ung oras ko na makapunta sa sinehan dahil sa kolehiyo, pero pumupunta naman ako at nanonood pamya't-mya. marami din ang magaganda ngayong taon, at dahil hindi ako nakapanood ng maraming sine nachambahan ko na rin na ang mga pinanood ko talaga lahat ay maaayus na mga palabas. it's next to impossible to list down every international movie which came out this year, and it would take up so much time and effort, that's why this is a personal review of the year
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the continuation of two popular film series' gave their next installments this 2005. The last(?) episode in the
epic Star Wars saga was released in the summer. the 4th episode of the Harry Potter series came out around october. the star wars film was very fast paced as expected, since the 2 preceeding prequels did little to advance the storyline of anakin before he became the dark lord vader. this resulted in the 3rd film having to cover a lot of events, most importantly how the young jedi turned to the dark side of the force, as well as the death of the jedi order and the start of the galactic empire. as a result of having to depict all of these events at once, the film doesn't delve deeply into the details of each. still, it is enough. i did not watch the harry potter film, because i was busy elsewhere during the month-long sembreak. however, my friends say that the book contains a lot of details and nuances which were not properly squeezed into the running time of the movie, since the story was very long. |
| all in all these two films were similar in feel, they were not able to give as much story as was obviously expected by readers, and diehard fans. good for the harry potter series though, they have 3 more films to redeem themselves. | |
 
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more than any, 2005 was a year for comedy movies and the 3 films to the left exemplify this, as they are all
top grossers for the year. hitch had a more grown-up sense of humor which was handled well by both the writers and the actors. it succeeded in having a light fun atmosphere while watching and at the same time requiring people to think to get the punch line of some situations. this was released early this 2005, before graduation came around madagascar yung pacute na animated film for the year. these kinds of films are made for children but are more enjoyed by adults (finding nemo and monster's, inc. also fall into this category). i didn't watch this but everyone i asked (who watched) enjoyed it, so i guess it really was a fun movie. this was released in summer the longest yard was the street humor movie of the year. the film was about football, and featured appearances by several wrestling entertainment professionals. expect typical adam sandler humor in the film, kya may mga babuy na hirit at mga "below da belt". this was released around august-september other comedy movies include prime, the 40yr old virgin and the wedding crashers. sama mo na ang charlie and the chocolate factory, a follow-up to willy wonka and the chocolate factory from my childhood days |
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the action film of the year was mr. and mrs. smith, the story of a married couple, both of them assassins for hire, who were sent on separate missions to kill each other. it was a simple story but handled well by pitt and jolie. and, nagkachismis pa sa 2005 dahil sa sineng ito (amp, naging showbiz chismoso na ako amp) |
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these two films were the year-enders and they are still very popular as of the writing time of this article.
the exorcism of emily rose was a scary movie, although if you've seen the original exorcist movie you would say that the film falls short in terms of the sheer creepiness level. the movie, based on a true story, recounts how a young girl played host to about a dozen evil souls, also proving that films dealing with the devil and religion tend to scare us easily, since these stories are real in the sense that we believe in God and these evil forces are in fact working around us the classic tale of a giant primate named king kong, being brought to the city and then wreaking havoc there has been remade, with all the digital advances since the original film. most of us watched mighty joe young instead of the original king kong, which was a very old film. actually the stories are quite similar, but king kong took advantage of today's graphical technology, and the movie looks really good. |
| other films for this year include: War of the Worlds, Batman Begins, Stealth, The Great Raid, and The Legend of Zorro, among many many others. Some films were scheduled for release in the christmas season but we don't get to see these films to make room for the Metro Manila Film Festival. Examples are Aeon Flux and Memoirs of a Geisha | |
news:
these are some of the big stories of the year
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Pope John Paul II died beginning of summer at 84 years old, after 26 years of being a champion of the people
and an advocate of peace. most of us (in fact, everyone under 26) have only known one pope our whole lives, pope john paul ii. he
was a very well traveled pope, and my dad has told me stories of the time when he came here to our country. he was also a very
conservative pope, and maintained his strict stand regarding gay marriages, contraception, and premarital sex. he was truly a great
leader of the church and i know he will be remembered as one of the very best the new pope is one of his very close friends, the former cardinal joseph ratzinger. taking the name of benedict xvi, |
| he was appointed after seventeen days of deliberation by the college of cardinals. some people have termed him too conservative, but i think it's a good thing. that's how the church is supposed to be anyway | |
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and let's not forget that this year our government was wracked by political scandal (as always) and the sound of people's cries for "justice" |
| there is actually quite a lot to be said about this, but i'll just keep it to myself. after all we are supposed to be educated enough to know what is right for our country and our people. herein lies the big question, with no apparent solution. our situation is a vicious cycle. still, after two successful edsa revolutions, for a change, this year's did not work, with president arroyo maintaining her hold on the presidency. | |
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even marvel comics had some comeback plots for their readers. phoenix: endsong dealt with the return of jean
grey and also the phoenix force (jean grey died late in 2004) and it was very nostalgic for fans of the old plotlines with dark
phoenix and all the other things associated with it. the x-men also gave the whole marvel universe another big problem as the scarlet witch warped all of reality with the company-wide crossover house of m. repercussions of this warped reality appeared in all the marvel comic books (x titles, avengers, solo titles like hulk and spiderman, etc) and concluded with the depowering of all the mutants. the last time a crossover this big happened was when professor x transformed into onslaught (that was the central story of the 90s). |
batch2005 graduated this year, at hanggang graduation ba naman ay nahanapan parin ng isyu. hahaha. pero ayus lang kac ok lang naman un ehh, ganyan naman tlga. this year was also debut year, kya ang daming party at mga pagkakataon na magkitakita ang mga magkaka- highschool. kaht na hindi ako kabilang sa (select few) na nagkumpleto ng lahat ng debut ng mga kabatch, ehh, nung tinandaan ko lahat kanina ay ang dami ko palang pinuntahan. syet, sabik. hahaha. pero ayus lang, karamihan naman ay maaayus na mga debut, at wla naman mga nangyaring masasama.
it was also a good year for my band, 1o8, since we were able to pull off playing in front of people, even if we don't really practice. the first for this year was on valentine's day in the canteen (i was not around because i had an interview for scholarship at DLSU that day, and saw this chikk barkada. hahahaha!) (halata namang bagsak ako sa interbyu dba? ndi naman ako nagaaral sa maynila ngayon ehh). the major performance for 1o8 came during the gradball, where we played during dinner time. hindi pa nga kami nabubusog nun, pero ayus lang din. tyka may mga tinugtog nga kmi dun na wla actually sa listahan ng tutugtugin. ang astig din ay nakagawa kami ng dalawang original na kanta, and one of them was played during the gradball. then it was off to a bar in pasay kung saan unang beses kami nag-gig sa isang public na lugar (as in public talaga, bar nga eh) and it was surprisingly very good kaht nakalusot lang kmi tlga nun tyka syempre nahihiya kmi nun. laftrip pa todo ung pagatapos nun! sa manila diamond hotel nangyari lahat ng laftrip! not much happened after that, since we went to college. all info can be found at the 1o8 website
good year for eLeS also, which i joined in january. maraming bagong nadagdag, at meron din (yata) mga ayaw nang nasa eLeS hahahaha, pero ayus din, nagkaroon ng jacket (actually december2004 yun pero nakuha ko akin dis yr), t-shirt (ngayong dec2005), at on the way din ang isa pang jacket. umasenso rin dahil nakapag out-of-town ang barkada sa pansol at semi-tumbling lang ang ginawa pagpunta dun nung nobyembre. nagpaparty din eLeS sa rgm rooftop para sa batch2005 twice. at dahil dun ay naadvertise din ang rgm, na bldg ng lolo ko. halos lahat nasa taft pero ayus lang, ganun parin kakulit lahat.
yes 2005 was a year for changes and comebacks, and all these contributed to the year2005 being a unique one, set apart from every other year. this was the year of havaianas, paris hilton, and chikk professors (that last one, cguro ako lang un). this was a year where christmas was different, much better than before. commuting is in, and knowing your way around the streets of the metro was suddenly a necessity. also i was introduced to up culture and life in the state university. this year i was confused for a long time but i only realized it when things became clear. (iniisip ko dati na claro ang mga bagay, pero ngayon nakikita ko na eto lang ang clarong panahon ngayong taon). daming nangyaring mga bago, tyka as usual ang daming problema na thankfully naayus din naman agad.
tara 2006!