Old Moon

I recently saw New Moon (almost against my will) and I have come to the conclusion that Stephanie Meyer's vampires are immortal. It seems that the huge success of Twilight made them immune to criticism and now they have grown back, smelling of garlic, tied to an argument as poor as one of that Danielle Steele’s clone roses novels. "Why do I have to bother with having an affair with a single race of monsters?" thinks Bella (Kristin Stewart), having on hand a group of hot men -hot werewolves in fact- to help her to overcome the break with a bloodsucker. I could count one, two, three…until eight guys who are shirtless (and perfectly waxed and tanned) for no apparent reason!! Yeahhh girls, enjoy it!! It seems that it’s not enough for our dear leading actress, because she wanders about around the wood during an eternal lapse of time, whining about her beloved vampire, who has broken with her.

In my opinion, this Chris Weitz’s mediocre film has a couple of decent things: its Soundtrack and its Photography. Everything else is mediocre. The greatest virtue of "New Moon" is that it NOT penalizes sleep attacks: you could take a nap in the first minute and may re-enlist into the plot without making impertinent questions, because… it doesn’t happen practically anything! Except for a ridiculous flash, with light and little efforts, when the film becomes transcendent: "I leave because I love you", "I break because I don’t want to hurt us," and continues with some other stupid hoaxes like these that are even older than Vlad Tepper himself. It's incredible, I know, but a stale argument like this is enough to empathize with millions of teenagers. Well, we have that and the good appearance of Rober Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. They all can be hot, but as for act, really act, it seems to me that they do not act... Robert Pattinson interpretation can be summarized in two gestures: the very heartfelt and the very heartfelt squared version.

In short, "New Moon" is an equilateral love triangle which some attempts of genre films, werewolves, vampires and naked trunks that wallow in a mud declaiming a sort of "Romeo and Juliet" on teen Tuenti mode. To avoid panic attacks, and to prevent the unnecessary suffering of the tenderest hearts, Stephanie Meyer corrects Shakespeare, it is logical to don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs with the murder of any important character.


In closing, I would like to add some extra contents with no extra charge. I was told about that unique and talented piece of marketing by my classmate Javi.

Note: In Spanish, the word “elije” (choose) is written with G!

Changing my interior decoration... and so on

Today I was thinking about something to write on my blog, so I entered into it and then... I realized. Shame on me... my blog had such a creepy web template that even I was scared to enter into my own blog. I was fed up with seing gravestones and dead trees around my posts, so I decided to change it. And then my troubles started, because I could not find any template wich satisfy some conditions. Some conditions like a good contrast between characters and the background, or a cool but discreet combination of pictures, colours and shapes. In fact, I would be content with a less gloomy backround, since my lack of aesthetic taste hinders me to choose the nicest template ever seen. By now, I'll keep some kind of dark (but coloured) palette, while I search for the perfect one.
By now, the only thing I can say is: tomorrow I will try to talk about something with much more sense than today's. I promise.

Mr. Pyrotechnic, you may commence the Mascletà!!

Well, just after the holidays of the Magdalena and the Falles, the truth is I have to say that neither of them is among my favourite festive seasons. Don’t misunderstand, I like the smell of gunpowder and fritters, but I think the week of Falles is the best week to leave Valencia or Carcaixent (this is my hometown, it’s located 40km away from Valencia, but we also celebrate the Falles). No matter where it is: it is true that in Valencia this situation occurs at a larger scale, but the fact is that whatever you do, to me it's better not to live there during the festive season. It is said (and I think so) that the Falles party is for the fallers; that’s it, that only they really enjoy the party, while any other people which make a life with responsibilities (whatever they are) suffer the city as an impassable hell. The streets are cut, processions, street parades, street music blaring until odd hours of the morning, “despertàs” at 7 or 8 in the morning, very powerful firecrackers thrown from the crowd by surprise and lots of people in everywhere. I lived for 3 years in Valencia during another stage of my student life and the truth is that I always waited with dread the week that you could not get on the subway or to go through the downtown without being crushed to death.

Having said that, it only helped me to unburden myself a little, I was thinking in my spare time (yes, I didn’t die trying) and my curiosity led me to become interested in how would these parties from the Anglophone abroad point of view. Do not know why but I felt it would be quite ridiculous and funny to see this explained in English, so I searched the Internet: unfortunately I don't found an article in the Wikipedia or other similar source refers to the feasts of Magdalena but only about the Falles. That fact is a shame because I know well the meaning of the Feast of the Magdalene and I can not say the same thing as failure, for two reasons mainly:

1. They share similarities in costumes, mascletàs, noise, street parades, but that is that. The religious references are different, they have not Falles, but Gaiates (and not, you should not ask them "and when do you burn them?").
2. Very often people of Castelló complains that their Feasts are ignored by public television (other day talk about "that damn freak TV” that is Canal 9) and the rest of the people outside of Castelló itself, so to compare the Falles with Magdalena in importance and quality will make them very, very angry.

As a final thing, these are some of the funny definitions that the Wikipedia gives to the various events of Falles. Making corrections is not my cup of tea, but… I can't keep from biting my nails! I wonder to myself ... who has written this?:

• La Despertà: Each day of Falles begins at 8am with la despertà ("the wake-up call").
• La Mascletà: The Mascletà, an explosive display of the concussive effects of co-ordinated firecracker and fireworks barrages, it takes place in each neighbourhood at 2 pm every day of the festival; the main event is the municipal Mascletà in the Plaça de l'Ajuntament where the pyrotechnicians compete for the honour of providing the final Mascletà of the fiestas (on March 19th). At 2pm the clock chimes and the Fallera Major (dressed in her fallera finery) will call from the balcony of the City Hall, Senyor pirotècnic, pot començar la "mascletà"! ("Mr. Pyrotechnic, you may commence the Mascletà!"), and the Mascletà begins. There are two HUUUUGE mistakes! Neither the pyrotechnicians don’t compete for the honour of providing the final Mascletà, nor the Mascletà takes place in each neighbourhood at 2pm every day of the festival.
• La Plantà: The day of the 15th all of the falles infantils are to be finished being constructed and later that night all of the falles mayores are to be completed. If not, they face disqualification. This is not correct, they MUST be finished being constructed and ASSEMBLED in the street.
• La Cremà: On the final night of Falles, around midnight on March 19th, these falles are burnt as huge bonfires. This is known as the cremà, i.e. "the burning", and this is of course the climax of the whole event, and the reason why the constructions are called falles ("torches"). As Wikipedia says, the Latin word derivation is probably like this: fax (torch) > falla, but actually, Falla means “bonfire”, and not “torch”.

Away from the falles, there are people going crazy through the streets, with the city resembling an open-air nightclub, except that instead of music there is the occasionally deafening sound of people throwing fireworks and bangers around randomly. There are stalls selling products such as the typical fried snacks porres, xurros and bunyols, as well as roast chestnuts or various trinkets.