friends, romans and countrymen --
where did that come from? i have no idea.
i'm on my second day of my vacation here in the philippines. i'll be updating this blog as soon as i can. right now, the most i can do is this: a simple greeting from the islands. hah!
i have something like a blow-by-blow account of what transpired from the moment i left my apartment to the point when the plane touched down at the ninoy aquino international airport.
everything that has happened from the apoint at the airport up to now has been a blur though. i think i have officially tried not sleeping for 36 hours straight. for a nurse, that was an achievement. i have a slight jetlag. i was so sleepy a few hours ago (i was flipping my channels between ASAP Mania and SOP Rules) especially around 2:00 pm. i counted the hours and realized that that is usually the time when i sleep (1:00 am). are my computations right? i am lost.
okay, this is all for now. to all my friends who are in manila, i hope to see all of you. [i also hope you got the email i sent about my fone not being friendly enough to me that i cannot use it here. i saved all contact numbers there because i knew that i would be able to use it. apparently not.]
ciao!
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Thursday, February 10, 2005
pilipinas, game ka na ba?
siyam na oras na lamang at papaimbulog na sa himpapawid ang eroplanong sasakyan ko pauwi ng pilipinas. labinlimang minuto bago mag alas tres ng maaling araw at ang diwa ko ay gising na gising pa. hindi naman siguro ito dahil sa isang mataas na tasa ng kapeng ininom ko kaninang hapon. ang gulo gulo na ng utak ko. pakiramdam ko'y may makakalimutan ako. huwag naman sanang mahalaga yun.
pilipinas, handa ka na ba?
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
welcome to hollywood...not!
i should have blogged about this before but i did not find time, and the timing was just not right. anyway, here's my beef.
why the hell to these clowns from american idol say 'welcome to hollywood' to the blessed few when they know for a fact that they are not bringing them to hollywood? am i just being technical? am i just nit-picking? maybe.
the previous seasons, they held the 'hollywood' auditions in pasadena. yes, pasadena, not hollywood. this year, they decided to hold it at the orpheum theater in downtown los angeles (yes, the one near the former-skid-row-and-n0w-home-to-yuppies-who-live-in-lofts).
why don't they just say, 'welcome to los angeles!' what is wrong with that? maybe they are part of the movers behind the plan for 'hollywood' to secede from los angeles? technically, there is no city/town called hollywood, california. there's a west hollywood, but that's an entirely different story. and yes, there's north hollywood too, how could i forget. a block from where i live, there's this street sign that says 'East Hollywood Neighworhood Watch' which means that...well, i do not know what it means. maybe i had too much coffee this morning.
a split-second of airtime showed sharon galvez (or someone who looked kinda like her) making it to the next round of auditions. next tuesday, we will find out who makes it to the final 24 (12 guys and 12 girls). here's hoping she makes it.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
mardi gras
today is fat tuesday. tomorrow is ash wednesday.
and thursday is the day i fly back to dear, dear philippines. i am beyond excited now, knowing that it is only two days away. i try to control myself, however, because i do not want to end up being so over-eager. it's like watching a film with really high expectations and you end up a tad disappointed. why? because you expected too much from it.
anyway, i haven't had a decent sleep for the past week or so. on sunday night, i got to sleep past four a.m., and i had to wake up early for our monthly meeting. last night, i was able to sleep around half past two. tonight, i do not know. tomorrow, hmm.
what have i been busy lately? well, last-minute shopping, for my friends who e-mailed some requests re: pasalubong. the list that i have (including that of my nieces') include a whole gamut of stuff it already resembles santa's list.
last week, i also placed orders on amazon.com for some more stuff. yesterday, i went to urban outfitters to buy some flip flops. i think they're called havaianas. i don't understand the fuss about it. damn thing looks like spartan to me. hahaha. joke.
i am having problems about one most requested item though: krispy kreme donuts. how can i bring it as a hand-carry? what about my real hand-carry? and won't the frosting melt by the time our plane crosses the pacific? oh well. let's cross the bridge when we get there.
yesterday, i burned on cd around 500 photos of my mom and dad that i got when they visited me here a couple of years ago. aside from those in disposable cams, they have not seen these pics yet. so i went to rite-aid this morning before i went to work and had copies of these pictures printed. i had so much fun selecting pics and i ended up ordering 200 prints. it was only later when i realized that it would set me back by almost sixty bucks (inluding taxes) since one photo costs $0.29 to print. well, i figured, the memories that my parents had of this trip costs way more than the $60 i am going to pay later.
i have been remiss with my friends' bloopers lately but this one, i suddenly remembered earlier when i came across a flower shop on my way to coffee.
friend: samahan mo ko, bili tayo ng flowers.
me: okay, saan?
friend: may magandang flower shop sa may (place street name here).
me: sige
pagdating sa flower shop.
friend: excuse me, excuse me, do you have live flowers here?
me:
flower shop girl: yes, we do. <sabay pigil ng tawa>
friend: oh, ayan. meron daw.
Friday, February 04, 2005
countdown
...anim na tulog na lang!
one of the reasons why i have not been getting good, quality sleep the past few days is because of this fact, and this fact alone.
my excitement is killing me. after five years, i am going home. yes, i still consider the philippines as my home.
and now, it's within reach. six days na lang. i've been terribly excited. i've been having lots of dreams about my past life.
six days, and counting...
hodgepodge
it has been a crazy day. last night, i thought i had so much to write. but then work took over and i am left with this. anyway, here are my random thoughts for the day.
• the aviator
watched the movie last night (finally) and all i am quite impressed. i liked the film a lot. plea to the academy: please give the best actor award to leo. he frikkin deserves it. i never realized howard hughes lived such a colorful life. i have new-found respect for him, as an actor. he was really amazing. i had some favorite memorable scenes and in all of them, leo delivered.
• the phantom of the opera
i saw this last week but i did not have the time to blog about it. i liked this movie, too. although i think i kind of liked the musical better. maybe because phantom of the opera was the first ever musical i saw here in the u.s. (san francisco). i like the soundtrack as well (a friend of mine bought it, and at one point, the last song syndrome took over and all we could hum, from dinner to coffee was 'think of me...')
• sideways
i saw this like two months ago with a couple of my co-workers. i liked the basic simplicity of the movie. it was so linear, the story-telling was so simple...i guess that's what made it compelling. i'd prefer 'the aviator' over this one, if you ask me. but then again, i am not a film critic. i am a fan.
• cher calvin on ktla
ktla's publicist called me yesterday afternoon to advise me that cher would be introduced to the viewers at 7:40 a.m. today. so last night, after watching my requisite soaps, i TiVoed VCRd (hahaha!) the morning show, from 7:30 to 8:00 a.m, enough time for allowance. so when i woke up today at around 8:40, i rewinded (rewound?) my tape to watch it. the 7:40 mark came and went and all i saw was cher's pixellized face in one of their teasers. the tape finished and i did not see cher at all. 5 minutes to 9 and i decided to go to channel 5. commercial break. one last gap. yes! cher was there, and they had like an 'instant feedback' thing where this viewer from hesperia commented on how hot cher is. anyway.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
sex and gender
"Sex is what you have between your legs. Gender is what you have between your ears."
That quote is from this lady lawyer who joined the legal team of Philip Abramowitz to defend Donita Ganzon and her husband Jiffy Javellana. I attended their press conference this morning in Sherman Oaks.
As a backgrounder: I covered the Donita Ganzon case when it first erupted last December when she, together with her husband Jiffy Javellana, sued the United States immigration service. The couple is seeking a federal court order upholding the validity of their marriage and challenging the United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS) refusal to recognize their marriage.
Donita Ganzon, 58 and her
husband Jiffy Javellana, 27
It gets interesting. Donita Ganzon is a post-operative transsexual. She was born in Bataan as 'Celedonio Secusana Ganzon.' She arrived in the U.S. in 1974. She underwent sex-change operation 1981 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1987 . Her naturalization certificate, issued by the then-INS, recognized her change of sex from male to female. She is 58 years old.
December 2000. Donita met Jiffy Javellana when she went to the Philippines for a vacation. Jiffy was a friend of one of Donita's nephews. They talked. He sang a song for her. They became inseparable. They fell in love.
Donita revealed the truth to Jiffy about her being a transsexual the first night that they became intimate withe ach other. To her amazement, he did not run away. She said he did not even flinch. "You're more beautiful than any other woman," Jiffy told her. Donita was in heaven.
Jiffy arrived in the U.S. in 2001. The couple got married in Las Vegas later that year. He then applied for permanent residency.
Bottomline: The BCIS denied his application based on its policy of prohibiting recognition of transgender marriages. Immigration officials cited the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
The lawyers called for the presscon to announce that Debra Davies-Soshoux will be helping in the case. She delivered a lecture on sex and gender issues. Asked on why she thinks this case is important, she replied, before dropping the bombshell. "Because I am like her, too," she said, pointing at Donita.
If I didn't know any better, I would have fallen off my chair. But a little tweety told me about it a day before the presscon. It was like watching Alias spoiled. [Snark fans call people who, unknowingly or not, find out key plot twists through spoilers, as, well...spoiled.]
Who could have thought such a twist? Certainly not the bright minds at Boston Legal or The Practice. Proves one thing: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
meeting cher calvin
[i typed a few paragraphs earlier but when i clicked 'publish post' is said that it cannot process my request. when i hit 'back', all teh text i typed was gone. so here it is, again...]
i had dinner with cher calvin last night. yes, the famous cher calvin. thanks to the owners of goldilocks for inviting me. cher's in town because she is moving to la-la-land. she is moving from fox 5 in las vegas to the wb [KTLA channel 5] network here in los angeles.
cher calvin with her dad, former actor
roger calvin at goldilocks cerritos
we had dinuguan* for appetizers. i found out that she has never eaten dinuguan (not even during her stint with 'F' where they used to go to different restos in the philippines). i have to credit goldilocks for jazzing up dinuguan because they included it with angel hair pasta. it was kinda weird, but it was delicious. cher kinda liked it. [she didn't finish her serving though]
for appetizers, we were also served with lumpiang shanghai and calamares. i liked both. for the main course, we had garlic fried rice and braised beef (i think) with gravy on top. dessert was cheese roll (yes, like the ones that porto's in glendale makes) and ube ice cream.
back to cher: she's so down-to-earth. i like her sincerity and the way she answered my questions. i hope she does well at ktla. people will be supporting her. basically, she's taking over the post vacated by sharon tay. [yes, the daring anchor who moved to msnbc. not too big shoes too fill, cher. you can do it.]
that's it for now. los angeles peeps, catch cher calvin as she hosts ktla's 'morning show' [5 to 7 am] starting this monday, february 7.
* chocolate meat, for the uninitiated
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Quiz Time: What 2004 Hit Song Are You?
|
100 Years by Five for Fighting |
"Every day's a new day... 15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to choose Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got 100 years to live" 2004 was about thinking and reflecting - but isn't every year? |
