Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 78

One cat’s campaign to get adopted

Kitten, UP College of Fine Arts, photo by RickyV His plan is simple: sneak into the target human’s bag and stay out of sight until the human gets home. Then ingratiate yourself with the human and his cohorts until you become part of the household before they even notice. * * * * * From […]

The Martian outtake: The Chem Cam

via io9 If everything in the book made it onscreen, the movie would be 5 hours long.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Screwball comedy for the 21st century

Fourteen-year-old Kimmy is abducted in front of her house by a cult leader. She spends the next 15 years in an underground bunker with the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne and three other women, believing that the world has ended and they’re the only survivors. One day the “Mole Women” are rescued, and Kimmy has […]

“Badil” is everything we need to know about Philippine elections. Why isn’t it showing?

Badil, the political thriller directed by Chito Rono from a screenplay by Rody Vera, was screened at the Film Development Council of the Philippines’s (FDCP) Sineng Pambansa festival in 2013. One of the finest Filipino movies of the decade, it tells us why elections in this country are so screwed up. After the sparsely-attended festival, […]

Another Westeros book to tide us over until The Winds of Winter comes out

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, hardcover, illustrated, Php1199 at National Bookstores Another quarter, another Westeros book from George R.R. Martin. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a collection of the Dunk and Egg stories which have appeared in previous anthologies. Therefore we cannot say that this book is extending the wait for Winds […]

Fall off a cliff or step on a viper: The Erdos discrepancy problem solved

Imagine that you are imprisoned in a tunnel that opens out onto a precipice two paces to your left, and a pit of vipers two paces to your right. To torment you, your evil captor forces you to take a series of steps to the left and right. You need to devise a series that […]

Living by your wits: no security, but less stress

Saffy had dental surgery two weeks ago. We noticed that she’d been swatting her face and snarling, and figured she had a toothache. The excellent vets at Makati Dog and Cat Hospital extracted five rotten teeth (Saffy is 15 and has never brushed her teeth in her life, being a cat). Saffy has recovered completely […]

Mar on Mar: The candidate answers our questions, then we SWOT them

Before I proceed, I should mention that I worked with Roxas briefly, when he was guest co-host on this TV talk show I used to host. One day, while waiting for the show to begin, I heard him singing to himself. “And so you’re back,” he sang tonelessly, “from outer space…” “That’s a gay anthem,” […]

NASA fact-checks The Martian

Watch this on The Scene. After you watch The Martian, impress everyone by science-ing the shit out of it, from topography to hacking the rover. via Wired.

You’re the Worst is the romantic comedy for people who loathe romantic comedies

This is the least NSFW scene we could find. The first time we see Jimmy Shive-Overly, he is taking pictures of his genitals with those cute disposable “Help us make memories” cameras at the wedding reception of his ex-girlfriend. (Hire a photographer, people. It’s bad enough that we have to sit through your boring two-hour […]