her performance at the 2004 film 'sideways' was short but it was in that film that i seriously took note of her as a performer. last fall, i was more than glad to see her as one of the lead characters in abc's grey's anatomy, which would become as one of my new favorites.
at the last golden globes, i only got two guesses right. one was reese witherspoon's win as best actress, and sandra oh's best supporting actress (for tv). needless to say, i was more than happy to find out that dear sandra won the best drama actress for tv at the screen actors guild awards (sag) tonight. woohoo.
and reese also won. and a host of my other favorites: kiefer sutherland (24, best drama actor), sean hayes (will & grace, best comedy actor) and felicity huffman (desperate housewives, best comedy actress). i couldn't be happier. (photo via ap)
Monday, January 30, 2006
oh, sandra oh!
Sunday, January 29, 2006
overkill
since i am nursing the worst jetlag i've had in ages, i've been staying at home for the past few days. and when i'm at home, ninety percent of the time, the tv is on; and so is the computer. anyhow, the point of this rant is this:
today was laundry day so i psyched myself that i'd be doing nothing but laundry today (and that includes the folding, my most disliked part of doing the laundry). anyhow, the 'overkill' in the title of this post refers to my very own pacquiao overload. and abs-cbn's overkill in hyping up his win over erik morales.
you see, i was en route to thailand with M and R when the big fight happened. by the time we turned our cell phones on the moment we landed in bangkok, the text messages came rusking in: pacquiao beats morales in the tenth round! yehey.
we never got to feel the 'pacquiao fever' in the philippines, and also in los angeles. i arrived the day pacman left for manila.
since then, i've been hearing and watching about his 'heroics' day in and day out on tfc. today was no different. i woke up and asap '06 was on, so i watched. they devoted an entire show for manny pacquiao. wow. i'm impressed. while in manila, i got bombarded with pacquiao's song being played incessantly, whether on radio (love radio, kailangan bang i-memorize yan? wait, have all taxi drivers banded together and decided that love radio is their official radio station? just wondering because 99% of the taxi cabs i've been in have been tuned in to love radio. except for the last cab ride i had which was playing wrock. nice.) or on tv.
you know it, you've heard of it. it goes 'para sa iyo ang laban na ito...' and ends with a melancholic promise to his homeland, yeah para sa iyo bayan ko. sure. i was half-expecting and half-praying that they won't be asking pacquiao to sing it today since it was a tribute for him and all he had to do was sit down with his wife and pretend that they are enjoying all the attention. but hey, it was a show for him, so naturally, they had to ask him to sing. nature seemed to have agreed with me, it rained (it was an open air event) and someone with an umbrella had to accompany pacquiao onstage. meanwhile, my ears started to bleed.
the masochist that i was, i stayed on. hey, i had no choice, i was doing my laundry.
as if the entire asap '06 was not enough, they had also had him in the buzz, a showbiz-oriented show. what was a boxer doing in a showbiz talk show beats me, but hey, he had an album and he had to promote. and the freaking hosts had to ask him to sing a few bars from his song. initially, pacquiao begged off, saying that his head hurt, or he had sore throat. just a few nudges and a little convincing and there he was, singing 'para sa iyo ang laban na ito...'. my ears continued to bleed.
to compound my woes, their discussion went into ipods and how many songs the guy has in his. he said 'mahigit wan tawsan na' and it included, among others, songs of sharon cuneta, pilita corrales, imelda papin (this was when kris aquino could not help but suppress her laugh. hey, it was caught oncam), victor wood, everly brothers, righteous brothers... boy abunda suggested that pacquiao should complete the list by adding nora aunor songs and he began to sing 'pearly shells...' passed on the mic to pacquiao so he can continue, (and he did) 'in the ocean...' (he said, i mean he sang, off-key). i think i just turned deaf.
as if asap '06 and the buzz were not enough, there was a 'hataw pacquiao: party ng bayan' special in the evening. just how many times can pacquiao thank the filipino nation, and abs-cbn, and all his kapamilya? now if this is not overkill, then i do not know what is! this is where i drew the line. enough is enough is enough. i can no longer tolerate this. i turned the tv off and proceeded to have dinner in peace. after watching the first few parts of the show. hah. at least i gave them the chance.
the show was hosted by donita rose, bayani agbayani and edu manzano. first up was this girl say alonzo, one of the housemates of pinoy big brother, abs-cbn's new star-making slash star-search discovery machine. she sang this song that she has been singing since she was in the house. and then she said she was not the only housemate in the house. and i said uh-oh. she introduced 4 housemates, including the grand winner and they went onstage. nag-isip pa ako kung ano ang gagawin nila. maybe something different than usual. chance, chance. then the strains of the 'pinoy ako' song played and they started dancing. now, this is where i really drew the line. i've had too much of pinoy big brother. too much of pinoy ako, the song. too much of pinoy ako, the dance. too much of manny pacquiao. too much of tfc?
i turned the tv off. again.
i went upstairs to my room, and turned the tv on. time for desperate housewives.
Friday, January 27, 2006
jetlagged
this is probably the worst jetlag i've had since, well, since the land before time.
j and j (johnson and johnson) picked me up at the airport. had dinner at sanamluang (where else?) and had coffee afterwards at the coffee bean (where else, part 2). gee, i am so predictable.
while in bangkok, richard was hell-bent on looking for the best pad see ewe there. so almost every meal we had (including breakfast!) had pad see ewe in it. what we got there were not the same ones we got here. now, isn't that weird?
so the quest for the best pad see ewe ended after three days with no winner. because the best pad see ewe for us, hands down, was still sanamluang's. hah!
anyway, back to the jetlag stuff.
got home shortly before midnight to an apartment that was almost bare. then i remembered, my roomie called on friday the 13th to tell me that the pipe at the downstairs bathroom burst and flooded the entire ground floor. my goodness, i didn't think it would be possible but i was transformed to that day six years ago when i moved into this apartment with M. it was bare. bare, with nothing except, well, with nothing at all. i stared at the wide open space, trying to place where things were before the flood. rebuilding and rearranging the living room would require a lot of time. time that i don't have.
i went up to my room. the stuff that used to be downstairs are now between my door and my roomie's door and the bathroom door. it was a maze and i had a hard time getting in my room. tired from all of that, i went to bed. i checked my watch: 1:30 am.
when i woke up it was still dark. or so i thought. it was almost 6. in the evening! it was already dark (as opposed to 'it was still dak'). suddenly i tried to remember if i woke up at all and i just ended up sleeping more. apparently i didn't. i have skipped breakfast and lunch altogether. and i didn't feel hungry. wow. i felt light-headed.
i turned on the tv and caught up on desperate housewives.
smallville's 100th episode was at 8. i have been an on-and-off fan of the show but since this was the 100th episode and that 'something big' was going to happen, i decided to stay tuned. the trailer revealed that someone close to clark was going to die, and they made it appear that it was going to be lana. so i thought, it was not going to be lana, and they were just deceiving the viewers. lana died during the first half hour of the episode after clark revealed all his secrets to her. there was a twist somewhere and clark had a chance to save lana. by the end of the episode, clark was mourning his father's death. rest in peace, jonathan kent.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
another quickie
yes, another one. this time, i am doing this quick posting at the mabuhay lounge of centennial terminal 2. i am waiting for my flight back to los angeles.
since i arrived from bangkok last night, and i used the same terminal, i was exempted today from paying the terminal fee of five hundred fifty pesos. cheap thrill. hahaha.
anyhow, my mind's still abuzz from all of the activities i had since last night. E, our friend, picked me and R up at the airport and he brought us to max's for some food. i had lumpiang sariwa. then we moved to their fave hang-out along baywalk on roxas boulevard. san mig light costs 30 pesos per. i had two.
i left around 10ish to meet up with other friends. i had no other time to meet them, since i am leaving manila today. after that, i went home to fix my stuff and pack. naturally, i couldn't really pack because my luggage was still with my brother, who i was scheduled to meet for lunch today.
to make matters worse, i found out when i was unpacking my stuff that i left my cell phone charger in bangkok and i need to buy a new one since my fone is drained. as in drained. that was the first thing i did this morning. after that, i dashed to greenbelt to do some last-minute shopping. next thing i know, it was lunch time. had lunch with my brother at rockwell where i bought some stuff (gourmet tuyo and tinapa at blue kitchen. yumyumyum). traffic was so bad! got home around 230, brought my bags up to the 32nd floor and started putting everything inside my samsonite. the other luggage? stuff from the office. thank god there was not much padala this time. by 3:00 i asked my brother to drop me off somewhere in glorietta so i can buy some more stuff. then my roomie's mom called while i was at power books. damn, i totally forgot abt roomie's pakisuyo: an envelope for his mom. anyhow, i scheduled to meet up with his sister before 4 pm (my boss wanted to check in early, so we had to leave makati by 4). i also called my friend T's mom because i know that she was going to send something for T.
anyhow. everything's water under the bridge. we've checked in and i am enjoying the mabuhay lounge's arroz caldo. i love travelling with people who are in the 'premier elite' level. they can bring in a guest or two to stay at the lounge until boarding time. i saw a computer and it was calling my name. i checked my blog and i started typing away.
stories on my bangkok travel coming up next.
back from bangkok
just a quick post.
it has been a very hectic four days. i just got back from a quick side trip to bangkok with a couple of friends. i had a really, really wonderful time.
i'll post a lot of pics soon.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
fixated
with plenty of determination (and some moolah), i am on my way to claiming my 2006 starbucks organizer! hahaha. i have never been fixated on a thing before, i have no idea why i am fixating on this organizer when i don't usually do organizers.
i am more than halfway there. eleven down, ten to go.
i had dinner with a at this new thai resto in greenbelt called blue ginger. it's a nice, brightly-lit resto and the predominant color of the interiors is orange. yup, orange. the food was okay. not great, just okay. we had grilled pork spareribs, shrimp cake and shrimp paste fried rice. yum.
coffee (starbucks, of course) was on the ground floor, and the place was teeming with people, some beautiful, some not so. hehehe. anyhow, it was catching up galore once more.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
hooked
okay, i have to admit something.
my name is momar and i am addicted to the stickers that i get everytime i buy a cup of coffee at starbucks. in my last post, i was 16 drinks to go.
not anymore.
even if only a few hours have elapsed, my drinks to go is down to 13. yes, 13.
had dinner with former co-workers slash friendships at finio restaurant in tomas morato. it was all our first time to eat there so it was kind of fun. we had pancit molo, tilapia fillet (like the one at recipes), bagnet and adobong kangkong with lechon kawali toppings. the food was great. my only beef (no pun intended) was that the bagnet was not authentic at all. i am ilocano and my roots are from vigan so i know how bagnet freaking looks and tastes like. what they served us were five slices of lechon kawali. sold at 198 pesos. roughly 40 pesos per slice. it was good but it was not bagnet. i felt cheated.
post-dinner coffee and dessert was at kopi roti. my friends wouldn't hear my starbucks wailing. anyway, kopi roti was a nice find. it's barely a year old in its location along morato. in fact, it's an establishment away from finio so we just walked. we asked the manager about what was good. his name is rudy and he was very helpful to us. two of us opted for kopi bun and two of us went for the tea tarik. josaw and izel, who just got in from kota kinabalu last week, were both ecstatic about drinking 'tea tarik' in malaysia, so they were doubly excited when they saw it was on the menu.
my coffee was good. probably the best coffee i have tasted. of course, i am still biased towards coffee bean but this one was different. it was intense and flavorful without being pretentious in its taste. it smelled really good. it was like your regular french-pressed coffee. only this one was better. the combination with the condensed milk was just perfect. i thought i went to coffee heaven after tasting it.
my kopi bun? yum, yum, yum. how do i describe it? it's hard on the outside but soft on the inside. the hard part, the crusty part was flavorful. the inside part was buttery. at 35 pesos a pop, this was one bun i wouldn't mind eating for days. kopi roti, i'll be back!
went back to abs and just when i was abt to hail a cab home, i got a txt message. my friends t and d have just finished watching a movie at the robinson's galleria and they were asking me where i was. we decided to meet at starbucks. i had a white chocolate mocha to cap my evening. i coerced them to have coffee, and they did. 8 down, 13 to go.
boy, this is addicting.
Monday, January 16, 2006
dirty dozen
whoa! i am down to my last dozen of starbucks coffee so i can get their 2006 organizer. then i'm going to resume regular programming with coffee bean.
i gained another sticker this lunch after having lunch with t's mom. so now, it's down to my last dirty dozen. i can't wait. lol. is this still healthy? who cares?
despite downing cups upon cups of coffee, i can still manage to get enough sleep.
anyhow, congratulations are in order for brokeback mountain which won 4 major awards. reese, for winning best actress for a musical or comedy and sandra oh for best supporting actress for grey's anatomy. the four ladies of desperate housewives were up for the best comedy actress award but they were all upset by mary louise parker who won for weeds. it seemed like a great night.
sorry coffee bean...
but i am temporarily hooked on starbucks coffees, not because of their really delicious coffee concoctions but because of this brilliant marketing ploy that the powers that be (which one is your ad agency?) hatched up.
it's like 'drink 21 cups of coffee and get this pretty organizer thingy'. so when i arrived last thursday, i picked my first cup at the north luzon expressway. i read about this organizer/planner but the barista manning the counter didn't say a word about it to me. so i shrugged it off.
last saturday, while waiting for a couple of my friends, j, g and i went to starbucks in glorietta. my first time there. i didn't even know that there was a starbucks up there. anyway, after ordering, the barista in the counter asked if i had a card. if i didn't he was gonna give me one. i didn't, so he gave me one. plus one sticker. okay, this is fun. rainbow brite in elementary school fun. hahaha. i coerced my friend to use my card so i can amass as many stickers as fast as possible. so now i have two stickers. holy moly, 19 more to go.
fast forward to dinner. g (who is based in bangkok) was craving for max's fried chicken. so we had dinner there at the shangri-la. after dinner? coffee. starbucks was there. waiting for us. so we had coffee, the 3 of us. five stickers, 16 to go.
today, i browsed one of my friends' blogs and saw this (refer to photo). she has completed her sticker thingie! damn. but her planner/organizer is still out of sight. hah. i'll get mine first. hahaha. kidding. not!
so much to blog about...
yet so little time.
i haven't been blogging regularly because i have been quite busy since my arrival last thursday morning. of course, the entire day was spent with my family. my mom's condition is improving, thank god. she now uses a cane (noel, i didn't have to buy her one) which she finds funny. don't ask me why.
met my friends friday. interestingly, these are not my friends from manila but friends from LA. it was fun bringing to manila what we always do back home (my other home), which is dine out and hang out. fun, fun, fun. for two days.
sunday was family day. too bad my folks had to attend a wedding for lunch so i was left with the tres marias (my 3 nieces). not bad.
it's monday and i'm in makati. kinda hungry. that's all for now.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
i'll be home, i'll be home soon
that line is from the song 'promise me' by beverly craven.
anyhow, yes, i'll be home (in manila) in less than a week. i know, my friends probably are saying (in disbelief) 'again?'. isn't it funny? when i was still based in manila, i rarely saw some of my friends (like once in four months, sometimes even six) but starting last year, i've been seeing some of them almost every other month. how's that?
i was not that excited when i was informed about this trip. somehow the novelty of it all has just worn off. maybe.
i got an overseas call from my brother yesterday. he doesn't usually call unless there's something. my heart skipped a beat. his first line: 'tawagan mo si mamang.' that's how we call dear mom. never called her mom, ma, mommy, inay. just mamang. emphasis on the second syllable. anyway, i asked why, if there are any problems. he told me that she was just feeling depressed lately, something that i did not detect the last time i talked to her.
so i called her up last night and told her that i'm coming home next week. i asked her why she has been feeling sad/depressed. my 70-something mother (shhhh, she doesn't want that revealed. hehehe) said she has difficulty walking because of a minor accident that happened about a week ago.
you see, my mother is kinda klutzy. years ago, she tripped over a stone and fell and broke an arm. since she's not getting any younger, she was advised by her docs not to be too active. but no, she's not just gonna sit down. she's gonna be bored to tears if she does that.
anyhow she attended a senior citizen's party last week and in one of the games that she joined, she tripped and hurt her ankles. really bad. now, she has difficulty walking and she's undergoing therapy. but she's sad and depressed since she's somehow immobilized and she can't help in the household. as i said, you can't just ask her to sit down. she's not going to.
i felt bad listening to her story. i asked her to make more frequent visits to her therapist so we can go out shopping when i go home, and so we can go to a lot of new places.
now, i am more than excited to go home. mang, get well soon.
wowowee
gee, i never thought i'd be writing a post about this show. until today.
bored out of my wits without nothing else to do (i begged off when p invited me this morning to go out today. i have a whole day of work tomorrow (yes, saturday) and i need to be as sharp and as awake as possible) after dinner, i got the remote and turned on the tv. it was on tfc, and wowowee just started.
what was happening today was, as the host willie revillame said, a first in philippine television history. of course, that got me hooked. anyway, if you doubt the statistics that filipinos are everywhere, (all over the globe, in fact) just watch this show and you'll be amazed at the sheer numbers of overseas pinoys who watch 'wowowee' live. it seems that they have made it a point to include the show in their itineraries. (sidenote: according to a friend, wowowee is already "booked" for a year, which means that if you watch tfc and you intend to watch it live in manila this year, it's not gonna happen)
anyway, surprising discovery: there is a place in australia called wagga wagga. nice.
it turns out that the history in the making is the presence of the governor of the state of hawaii, linda lingle. wow. a united states governor in the philippines. watching wowowee live. abs-cbn should milk this one until it runs dry. this does not happen every day.
the lovely governor is in the philippines to meet with philippine officials about the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of filipinos in hawaii. apparently, the state has prepared a year-long celebration to mark this milestone. note to self: try to visit hawaii this year!
everything was downhill after the historic visit, and the requisite interview. well, not after willie revillame initially said, 'we have the honorary...honorable governor of hawaii...'
there were more, not necessarily from the host.
tanong: ano sa tagalog ang tamarind?
contestant: sunkist
tanong: ano ang first name ng director na si spielberg?you think the 'show' was monopolized by the locals? hindi napatalo yung tfc subscriber from virginia.
contestant: george
tanong: anong hayop ang may gizzard?
contestant: baka
tanong: how many vowels are there in the english alphabet?this is why i am keeping my tfc. hah! (paging gma pinoy tv: please facilitate your wheelings and dealings with adelphia so that you can also serve the silver lake community here in hell-ey. i don't think moving to directv will do me any good. it's gonna be more expensive. i don't think i need anc or pinoy blockbuster or any of abs-cbn's radio channels.)
contestant: 3!
Thursday, January 05, 2006
r.i.p. chantico
we hardly knew thee.
starbucks is pulling out chantico from its menu next month. what is chantico? well, in the three instances that i tried it, i realized that it was a drink so chocolate-y it was like drinking a melted chocolate bar. sobrang thick! it's like guzzling brown cow or hershey's choc. okay, i take it back. brown cow and hershey's are way more malabnaw than chantico. it was fun while it lasted. haha!
an associated press report revealed how many calories are packed in that teenie tiny shot glass-type paper cup:
Named for the Aztec goddess of home and hearth, Chantico has a whopping 390 calories per 6 oz. serving, 190 of them from fat. That's considerably more than a Hershey milk chocolate bar, which, at about an ounce and a half, has 230 calories, 120 of them from fat.and this one, which realy made me laugh so hard:
Some have complained that Chantico (pronounced chan-TEE-ko) is so rich it almost tastes like a melted chocolate bar, or as one anonymous barista phrased it on a Starbucks gossip Web log: "chocolate flavored lard in a cup."here's the complete article, if you have time to spare.
everything is bigger...
in texas! yes, texas!
i have a co-worker who has been wearing usc shirts/sweats since tuesday and i just wanted to annoy him, that's why i have been kinda yelling 'let's go texas!' every chance i got.
the championship just ended, and what do you know. texas won! hahaha. not that i cheer for texas. i just wanted to spice it up. usc is from hell-ey (in fact, the university is close to where my office is, about 20 blocks if we're gonna get technical about it) and everyone here seems to be cheering for them. oh well. the texas longhorns won! sorry trojans.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
stormy welcome
for the first time in more than half a century, the annual rose parade in pasadena was drenched with rain. lots of it.
went to casino morongo with a friend and the drive was smooth except for the occasional rain along the 10 freeway. as usual, i lost moolah, not that much this time though. only that i could have bought a nano already. oh well, charge it to experience again. and what a way to start my new year!
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Welcome 2006!
Maligayang Bagong Taon!
:: Hauoli Makahiki Hou
:: Srecna Nova Godina
:: L'Shannah Tovah
:: Elamat Tahun Baru
:: Buon Capo d'Anno
:: Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
:: Godt Nyttår
:: Gelukkig Nieuwjaar
:: Gutes Neues Jahr
:: Subh Nab Bars
:: Antum salimoun
:: S Novym Godom
:: Feliz Año Nuevo
:: Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
:: Sawadee Pee Mai
:: Xin nian yu kuai
:: Kenourios Chronos
:: Bonne Année
