gas from manhattan - 30 dollars
toll gate at the holland tunnel - 6 dollars
not getting lost going back to your hotel - priceless
for everything else, you can pray...
my goodness. it has been days. i've been here in new york for four days now and it has been weird and crazy and did i say weird? not the weird wednesday addams weird. just weird weird.
i'm here with some people and i can say with conviction that we're no nincompoops, although we're not einsteins as well. the thing is, for the fourth straight time, we got lost on the freeway going back to our hotel from manhattan.
let's just say that i have never felt so confused/frustrated/stumped before. no matter what we did, we always end up not getting the right exit to our hotel. i tell you, it was exasperating. my personal stress level was so high that i wanted to snap out and shred our driver into pieces. but i am not going to do that because i am not going to do that. hehehe. and yes, the driver episodes are an altogether different series.
three more freaking days and i bet a buck that we're still gonna get lost in the coming days. i told you it was weird, didn't i?
Sunday, June 25, 2006
commercial
Saturday, June 24, 2006
what are the chances...
that i'd get to cross a street in manhattan (fifth avenue, on west 45th atreet) on our way to times square, with a person i had known from way, way back.
we decided to eat at this new pinoy restaurant in midtown manhattan that i found on menupages. it's called bayan cafe, a small joint on east 45th street (between second and third avenue, for those curious). the food was okay, not great, just okay. it's a very small place, and could only accommodate 16 people at a time. anyways, review will come soon. for now, back to the story.
we parked on second avenue and initially decided that we'd walk to times square to burn the calories we consumed. then someone asked the waiter at bayan how far times square would be and he quipped, "ay naku, ang layo po!" and i asked back, "di ba mga six blocks lang?" and he replied back "oo nga, pero malayo yun talaga." so, we went back to the car, and discussed the pros and cons of bringing a car to the theater district where parking is crazy. eventually, i prevailed, and we walked. and walked, and walked.
on fifth avenue, one of us whipped out his camera to take photos of the philippine consulate and on our way back to the place where we were about to cross, i looked at my left and saw an apparition. si ate guy. hahaha. joke lang. it was ned legaspi, a good friend of mine from college and abs glory days. it was a surreal feeling. how could we be in the same exact place at the same time, when moments earlier, we were contemplating on taking the car to times square. when moments earlier, we crossed a street to take photos of the philippine flag on fifth avenue.
it turns out that he's in new york to accept abs-cbn's award from promax for the tfc plug that they produced. ned told me that they also won last year, it's a back to back thingie for them. this is the station id/plug that they produced starring gary valenciano while last year's was that of lea salonga's. we talked for a few minutes and bade each other goodbye. he was on his way back to his hotel where his cousin is waiting for him while we were on our way to look at the sights and sounds of times square.
yes, it's a small world, after all.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
samu't sari
so many things crossing my mind at the moment that i need to compartmentalize.
first up, i am off to the big apple in less than 24 hours and i have not even packed yet. i pack light (yeah, it's a talent) but i tend to forget something and i am feeling that i am going to forget something in this trip. i hope it's not something important such as my contact lenses or my glasses or my charger or my ipod or my ipod charger. sigh.
i caught a glimpse of this show on tfc called wanted: pinoy hero or something like that. it was hosted by pbb (that's pinoy big brother) season 1 big winner (yeah, big winner dapat. kailangan may big) nene. anyhow. she was fine with her delivery and the way she projected onscreen. my only 'complaint' was that they had ninoy aquino and manny pacquiao in the same breath, in the same sentence.
to call manny pacquiao a hero is something, to place him alongside ninoy aquino is another. ninoy died for his country. the main (emphasis on main) reason why pacquiao fights is economics: there's a big prize (dollars!) at the end of the rainbow. secondary na lang yung para sa bansa. i cannot, for the life of me, accept a statement that would (shudders!) equate his achievements with that of ninoy's. my goodness. maybe i'm just alone in this. hey, i am not discounting pacquiao's efforts to bring honor to the country. it's just that, he's doing it for the money primarily, and the bringing honor to the country part is just incidental. take away all the prize money, would he still risk life and limb just to become his country's hero? i. don't think. so.
great game 5 last sunday between miami and dallas. it was probably one of the best championship games i have seen. of course, i was cheering for dallas (mainly because they beat phoenix. hah!). dallas lost, darn. i hope they can recover.
i was able to watch the match between france and south korea (almost) in whole last sunday and i was with our south korean brothers and sisters praying for a korea win. there was a korean invasion at the staples center that day and everyone was wearing red. i wonder if koreatown was deserted last sunday.
wala lang.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
pet peeve
one of my major pet peeves is waking up with a headache. no, not the hang-over type. just plain headache brought about by (i surmise) stress and tension. but from sleep? i should be well-rested after a good night's sleep, right?
pardon the confusion. those are the voices in my head debating among themselves why i woke up this morning with a mild headache that lasted until the afternoon. no thanks to the warm, warm weather. suddenly, i miss june gloom. boo-hoo.
btw, a friend invited me for an advance screening of the fast and the furious 3: tokyo drift at the grove last wednesday night. the movie was fun. a bit tiring but fun. it was a b-movie, no question about that, but it was a good b-movie. i've interviewed justin lin (the film's director) a couple of times before (better luck tomorrow days). in fact, i'm quite glad to see a couple of familiar faces also from blt who are in this film, most notably sung kang.
oh well...
Friday, June 16, 2006
Sunday, June 11, 2006
loser streak
the last time i predicted a winner (in any competition i lay my eyes on) was when kelly clarkson was proclaimed as the first big winner of american idol. and i did that on the first week of the competition. back then, i thought, i had the eye to pick out the diamond in the rough, so to speak.
i was so mistaken.
whether it was tfc's star in a million, or cbs' the amazing race, or the last four seasons of american idol, heck, even survivor or the apprentice, i ended up choosing losers. capital L-O-S-E-R-S. i have never regained the glory of predicting the rightful winner again. call it 'losing the touch' or probably just plain 'jinxing the choice.'
on tfc, there's this show called 'star circle summer kid quest,' a talent show looking for the newest batch of child prodigies. the first season, i placed all my bets on this sweet little girl named sharlene san pedro. she's so cute and precocious she reminds me of my youngest niece jianne. need i tell you that she lost? she was declared the runner-up. boo-hoo.
this season's crop is not as good as the last. i only liked a handful among them. there are five finalists in what was aptly called the magic circle of five. two girls -- mika and cheska, and three guys -- julijo, darius and quintin. one of my friends, who knows about this innate talent i have, asked me who was going to win. knowing that my bet surely won't be declared the big winner, i said, 'i am going to risk jinxing her but my bet is mika' and i quickly followed it up with 'actually, i don't care who wins, AS LONG AS it's not quintin.' anyhow, my pecking order was quintin-cheska-darius, with the final two being julijo and mika.
today was the grand questor's day on tfc. and when the time came when they announced the winner, i was wholly confident that my bet won't make it. so they announced their pecking order. darius (ooops) then julijo (what?!) then cheska (good!), leaving quintin (what!?) and mika (yes!) in the final two. hah! me bet was going against my most hated disliked contestant. this was easy. my mojo was back! there was no competition. my bet was taking the one million peso prize!
not.
quintin was announced as this search's grand questor. and my long list of wrong bets continues...
Saturday, June 10, 2006
june gloom
for the past six days, the weather has been kind of cool (as opposed to scorching hot) and weather people here are calling it that: june gloom.
it's already supposed to be summer so it should already be warm and hot, but because of some low-lying clouds that cover the sun's heat waves, it has been almost six days without the sun.
no topic to cover, and i just want to update. heh.
Monday, June 05, 2006
su-weeet
my iPod lulled me to sleep last night. we were both happy. we, meaning me and my iPod.
i was happy with the deal i got from the apple store in glendale galleria. they chopped off some $80 off from the altec lansing's $179.95 price tag of the in motion portable audio system. i only paid 99 bucks. tee-hee.
and last night, i had it play (almost) non-stop. the sound is so crisp, just like the harman kardon speakers of my imac, only this time, it was not playing it in my computer.
Friday, June 02, 2006
ursprache
regular readers of this blog (and my close friends) would know that i am fixated with the spelling bee competitions. in the previous years, the final scripps spelling bee were aired on espn. not tonight. it was aired on network tv (how funny that it was aired on the alphabet network. hah. abc) for the firts time in its 79-year history.
this year, a girl named kerry close from new jersey won after she correctly spelled u-r-s-p-r-a-c-h-e, which was pronounced oorspraka. color me very impressed. i was rooting for her opponent though. her name's finola mei hwa hackett and she's a charming girl from alberta, canada. she breezed through the different rounds of the competition but was stumped with "weltschmerz" which means a type of mental depression.
anyway, the word ursprache means 'parent language'. yeah.
