before i fly free and limitless according to the great jonathan livingston seagull

Lately, I'm enjoying myself quite well.

Hanging out late nights at McCafe with Jong (why do I always pronounce that as McAfee? I wonder...) , or at StarMart East with Dondon, or at Piazza Sorrento with Alex - just breathing through the urban atmosphere and gazing at the cars and neon-lighted motorbikes passing by, while happy people around me celebrate their victories, whether little or major.

This is why I love Bacolod. Just calm, but vibrant. Being a true blue Bacoleño, my hometown is special and stimulating, especially with coffee, cigs and a sensible conversation. Giving me reasons to smile.

However, I know I'm leaving it all behind. I know I have to fly away, like the legendary Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I have to free myself and chase my dreams. And my heart tells me it's happening soon.

I ask Jong (much alike Richard Bach's enlightened bird named Chiang): "Where are we headed?" - a question which she, at her wisest, never really answers. Because truly, we can never tell. Every day we take a step forward, thinking we know where to go, then we always take a turn.

Saying this, I remember "Goal", a brilliant and inspiring movie about flying free and chasing dreams. The protagonist, Sebastian Munez, went for what he desired, taking steps backward as well as forward, taking sharp turns, sometimes pulling over, but always driving on. If Sebastian hesitated or lost courage, he would never have left his Mexican community in LA and would never achieve his ambition to play professional soccer in Europe. (There I go relating film to life, again. Can't help it!)

The time will come that I have have to say goodbye, without any idea when or how I'm coming back. I don't know if I will make it big in the film industry or whatever I'm dreaming about. But I know I will get there.

But right now, I'm just enjoying as much as I can, because I am happy with the decisions I have made. I quit college, breaking loose from academic boredom and creativity-constricting class monopolies. I took responsibility of my actions - got a job that paid the bills (although that job is another story) and braved the world of entrepreneurship.

Doubt and pessimism will certainly stand my way, and soon I will be facing my own fears and insecurities but the prospect of making dreams come true is much stronger than negativity.

Like the gull, I prepare myself for Level Flight, stretching my wings and bending my knees to start a jump... A jump that will launch me in the air and remind me that "a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and my whole body, from wingtip to wingtip is nothing more than my thought itself."

As I wait for that day I pack my bags and climb a cab, a cup of cappuccino is good company -and of course, friends (whose friendship goes beyond the limits of space or time, and) who speak of ancient truths in modern tongue.

No limits, Jonathan? Well then, the time's not distant when I'm going to appear out of thin air on your beach, and show you a thing or two about flying!

I thought, and I smiled.

dan brown week

Four bestsellers (aren't they all?) in one single week: two second-hand paperbacks and two ebooks. One author everybody knows.

Dan Brown.

You know who he is. The Da Vinci Code guy. The heretic, the anti-Christ, the malicious mind behind the faith-mocking tales.

I'm quite impressed by his work. It is a conspiracy buff's fantasy of weaving plots about real organizations like Opus Dei, USA'S National Reconaissance Office and NASA, even the United Nations, CERN, and the Swiss Guard of the Vatican.

I started with a 150-peso copy of Deception Point from BookSale at SM West Bridgeway.

I was surprised at first; Brown's writing style isn't that good. His plot structure seems suspicious--as if generic, and unoriginal. Yet Brown found courage and a helluva info regarding NASA, NRO, Space Frontier Foundation and the White House. And I mean a hell lot of information!

Written in as-a-matter-of-fact approach, I know there are loopholes in the scientific basis of Deception Point. But who cares? Everyone loves to read a good conspiracy. Nevertheless, Deception Point can be absurd that at some point it talked about extra-terrestrial life and inserting meteorites under ice shelves. That's how big time a hoax can be for Dan Brown. And I was shocked with the twist in the end of the novel. Not shocked like, "Gosh,it was him all along!" But shocked like, "Come on!"

And then I moved on to a downloaded ebook of Digital Fortress.

I was not prepared to discover that Dan Brown was a formulaic writer! He basically had the same structure with Deception Point! And the same shock that comes with the twist in the end! How can he get away with this? But Digital Fortress is a boo. I'm not even sure why I kept on reading. Maybe I'm just letting it rain because I already got wet.

Maybe because the background issue of the book is an issue that interests me. Information privacy. Email tracing, information security, password encyrption. That kind of stuff. I'm a geek and I am definitely pro-EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation); I believe in keeping some privacy on the internet.

However, I hated Digital Fortress. How stupid can the National Security Agency's Cryptology Department be? And duh, if you'll read it, you'll know what I mean. Stories like this make me despise the word -- Love. Eew. Hope that wil l discourage you enough and not make the same mistake I did by reading through Digital Fortress.

Now, Angels and Demons.

It's the talked-about prequel of The Da Vinci Code, the next Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon movie. And yes, my dear fellow bookworms, this guy Dan is surely a formulaic writer. You can almost predict the twists and exactly when they happen. Angels and Demons, though, is a good read. (Thanks GreyLib for the ebook).

It is surprisingly well-researched, although I know the antimatter concept is not that serious. CERN totally bashes Brown for the wrong science he presented in the novel. It's impossible to create antimatter bombs.

But the Vatican's maze of architecture and art, Church inside secrets and national security issues provide an exciting background for the fiction to take place. Brown's Vatican and Rome suddenly sprang up to life, and interests the reader to find pictures of the places he involves in the adventure, and for the richer readers, to go buy the ticket for the next plane to Italy.

The Papal election or the Conclave, an important event in the book and of course, in the real world, is also well-described that we can easily verify it as factual, witnessing what happened after Pope John Paul II's death. Matters of the Papal office are well-described that you swear what you're reading can be real.

What's not real is of course the big-time cinematic ending. "God!" That's all I can say. Ha! No pun intended. And to think that the novel's valediction includes humanity's renewed faith in the Catholic Church and the power of miracle... Not to mention Illuminati's nonexistence. So anti-orgasmic.

Lastly, The Da Vinci Code. The ever perpetual modern heresy.

Dan Brown should be burned at the stake. He's an Anti-Christ. Like a Priory of Sion Grand Master wearing nothing but an androgynous mask and leading an orgy. He's the draconian devil, the lame saint! Yeah right.

I liked The Da Vinci Code. I read it on paperback and can't stop turning the pages. It's an engrossing story, even though I already saw the movie and that I can recognize what exact lines are in the Hollywood adaptation.

Hey, I obviously will not make the mistake of arguing why the novel deserves praise and not condemnation. It's just one freakin' clever plot!

And as they say, it's just fiction! It's just a test of faith! It's not real!

Hello? Fiction or not, it will make you think. That's the point. It will make you question practices and doctrines passed on by tradition. It will challenge you, to what faith really is. Does that include religious zealotry? Talk about burning at the stake.

By the end of The Da Vinci Code, we already know how Dan Brown writes. Starts with a death, roll up a mystery, assign a sleuth, attempt to find who's responsible for the crime, and uncover the real big-deal conspiracy of all time. Glory for the conspiracy buffs!

Whew. Whatta week! And I'm blaming Dan Brown.