survivor, the grand old dame of reality television is getting a bit racy in its newest incarnation, its 13th season, which was shot on cook islands somewhere in the south pacific.
seg-re-ga-tion. that's how it's going to work with this "social experiment," as its host jeff probst calls it. 20 "castaways" will be divided into four groups. before, they went men vs. women, another time, i think they went young vs. old.
now, it's african-american vs. hispanic vs. white/caucasian vs asian. interesting, to say the least but how is this going to eventually play out? there are two pinoys in the asian team (woo!hoo!) and they are the first filipinos ever to be cast in this wildly famous show (at one point, it beat 'friends' in the ratings and nbc (producer of friends) had no back-ups whatsoever).
brad virata (from los angeles) and jenny guzon-bae (from chicago) will be joined by two south koreans and a vietnamese guy. i hope this team beats 'em all.
some say it's racy and call it as the latest stunt to be pulled by survivor producers. others say it's a bit racist. what do i think? methinks it's both and weeks before its premiere, people are already talking about it. which means that if they wanted this as a publicity ploy, they sure are succeeding since people have been talking about it. my only problem is that how is this show's eventual result going to affect the way people are going to look at the racial divide in america today.
can't wait.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
survivor gets racy racist?
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
the smashing '80s
it's been awhile since i last visited the wily filipino's site (and my other fave blogs) because (as i mentioned earlier) i have been quite busy the past few days weeks months.
so it took me some time reading through the voluminous posts that i have missed and i found a goldmine somewhere. it's this. it's a compendium of "1,500 of your favorite '80s videos"! yay! if the wily pinoy spent an hour gleefully watching his favorites, i spent about two travelling back to the glorious 80s watching gazebo, a-ha, air supply (sue me!), abba (sue me once more!), go west, foreigner and others. caution: it's addictive.
black dahlia
it's supposed to be the biggest, unsolved crime ever in los angeles.
and now, it's a movie. hilary swank, scarlett johannson and josh hartnett. i'm quite intrigued myself. now, i'm watching 48 hours mysteries on cbs and it's discussing about this real-life mystery that happened in 1947. dr. hodel's story is disturbing. now, i really need to go and watch this film when it opens.
pda. i think i am getting quite addicted with this tfc reality show. and it's only on its second day. whew. i just don't like the producers trying to skew the story by putting in romantic liaisons between the "scholars". icky. leave that stuff to the wannabe-actors. but right now, who can say? these 20 (first it was 16, then they raised it to 20. why? beats me.) are probably just as star-struck (oops, no pun intended) just like the rest of its viewers and that they would, eventually, venture into showbusiness. oh well.
i just like the concept. it's like american idol meets big brother. and they are kept inside that house for four freaking months! wow. i still don't know how they are going to eliminate contestants but with 20 of them inside the house, i think they need to start weeding out the non-talents. it's really going to take time. i don't know if i'll still be invested by then. we'll see.
for now, it's still rosita bareng and geoff taylor for me. hehehe. i don't even remember the names of the others, those who actually made an impression: the girl from cagayan de oro, the rocker girl from cebu, the guy from pampanga, the guy who composed 'tuesday', the girl from pangasinan, the fil-jap guy who doesn't understand nor speak english and tagalog, the cali girl, the aussie guy and girl. the rest? just send them home.
big brother all-stars. hah! janelle wins power of veto. erika nominates danielle and danielle loses it. hah! i'm still biased for janelle, i dunno why. and dr. will. i hope they'd be the final two. then erika, george and mike boogie. that's my pecking order, assuming that danielle gets booted out thursday. we'll see.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
to new york and back
i think my record for not updating this blog is a little less than two weeks.
i'm quite surprised to find out that i have beaten that record. shamefully, i must admit that it's now a little more than two weeks (two weeks and a day, to be exact) since i last updated this little place of mine in the blogosphere. for this, i apologize to my very few readers. hahaha. no explanations needed.
so i will be doing a very, very long post (and that is if i sustain the patience to write it) so hang on.
the weekend of august 12 and 13 - spent my saturday at the U.S.-Philippines Expo held in fairplex, pomona, about an hour drive from los angeles. the crowd-drawers from manila were judy ann santos (yay!) and ryan agoncillo and from san francisco, nora aunor (double yay!). saw some old friends and caught up with a few.
sunday - r, a friend of mine who lives and works near cerritos, decided to check the box-office of the edwards cinemas in cerritos to check if there are still tickets for this pinoy film called sukob. (back story: this movie started airing in los angeles august 11, and my friend j, picked me up at the office to meet with r so we could watch it on that day.
unfortunately (surprise, surprise!) it was already sold-out.) since it was quite early in the afternoon, there were still tix for the 730 screening so he bought tickets and called us. off we went again to cerritos and by the time we arrived, all evening screenings have been sold out as well.
my take on sukob: it is a finely-crafted movie by chito rono, and it succeeded in jolting the audience quite a number of times. i personally prefer this one than feng shui (which rono also directed, and starred kris aquino) because it was tighter and loved it that kris aquino died. hah! just kidding krissy. i just don't like the way how i was 'spoiled' because i also happen to watch (sometimes) kris on tfc (pilipinas, game ka na ba?) and in one of the episodes, she asked one of the five contestants if they have seen the movie and only one responded in the positive. so kris then asked her, "na sad ka ba nung namatay ako?" and the girl replied (bravo!) with a "no!" and madea 180 (boo!) when she added "heroic naman kasi!" so much for spoiling the film's biggest surprise.
worked on monday and tuesday. flew to new york on wednesday. highlights: having frrrrozen hot chocolate at serendipity 3 (yes, the cafe featured in that john cusack movie with the same title. we shared the 'outrageous banana split' which had a price tag of $20! and of course, the frrrozen hot chocolate $8.5 per), lady boss treating me and j (our birthdays are days apart) for a lovely dinner at the tavern on the green inside central park, discovering through LB's friend two great finds at the village: dragonfly and pasticceria bruno along bleecker. yum for both! had some cupcakes at cupcake cafe [capsule review: the cupcake part was a tad too dry but the butter cream on top was yummy. if they mixed the cupcake from magnolia bakery (the one made famous by sex and the city) with their butter cream topping, than that would perhaps be the best cupcake in new york]. oh dear. i just realized that the highlights of this trip area always food, food, food. hahaha. no wonder some folks have been telling me to slow it down. i'll try. life's too short anyways.
what else?
last friday night, the gang and i had a wonderful dinner (oh no! food again! has this become a foodie's blog?) at red corner asia in hollywood where we had, among others, a volcano chicken (a flaming chicken on a stick, like baliwag or the lechon manok back home) and my new favorite crispy duck in panang curry sauce. oh well. had coffee afterwards at cbtl and that's where i started having this feeling that i was going down with a bad case of colds.
i bought some meds and took some of them but unfortunately, i think the cold has been in my system long enough that i could no longer kill it even with a thousand milligrams of sudafed. that's why i was stuck in the house since saturday just watching tv and sleeping and cleaning my room and watching tv. finally, i've seen pirates of the caribbean (yes, now i can watch the part 2!) and bagets. hahaha. i don't know what took over me but i had to look for the bagets vcd that i bought last january in manila. popped it in the dvd player and enjoyed the movie and its fabulous soundtrack. i can't believe it has been 20 or so years since that movie was shown. 1984. i was still a toddler then... hahaha. may kokontra?
and yes, this new tfc show called pinoy dream academy. i have my bets. i am going for the ilocano! i think his name is geoff taylor from cagayan valley. yes, cagayan valley represent! hehehe. the girl from cali looks cute but so are other fil-am girls you see around town. let's see if he has talent. i'm quite surprised that the guy from canada made it. maybe the producers saw something in him that i missed.
the dh/ofw from dubai? wow, pang-ratings. do they honestly believe they can make a popstar out of her? seriously? seriously! she is good and she sings well but the producers themselves have said it quite a number of times: total package. if only to check if they really want to make her into a popstar, i'd do my share to campaign for her, so she'd end up winning the whole title and the million pesos and the house and the contracts and that they did not include her in the top 16 for ratings' purposes. go rosita bareng!
tonight's the emmy's. i hope grey's anatomy wins. and 24. and oh yeah, i caught the kick-ass premiere of prison break and all i can say is this: wentworth miller rules!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
still lucky
despite the numerous mishaps that happened during my recent trip to london, i still feel god damn lucky because i got back to the u.s. a day before the scotland yard foiled what was dubbed as yet another terrorist attack.
the scenario: ten planes going to different cities in the united states, taking off from london's heathrow airport. among the passengers are suicide bombers who would detonate the liquid bombs in mid-air, as each plane travels across the atlantic ocean. just the mere thought of it possibly happening gives me the creeps. much more when that thought actually includes me in one of those planes. goosebumps.
i don't mind not carrying anything inside the plane (just travel documents and probably a book, all inside a transparent plastic bag). i don't mind not carrying a bottle of water or any of my favorite drinks. i don't mind travelling with my glasses on, with my contacts and cleaner safely stowed in my checked-in luggage. i don't even mind not bringing my ipod inside (this is a stretch!) just as long as i have peace of mind in that trip.
so during the past two weeks, i was an escapist non-pareil. survived the emergency landing of my flight from lax to heathrow. woke up at 4:30 in the morning to a fire alarm in the hotel that eventually led more than a thousand hotel guests on the streets of london wearing nothing but their PJs/boxers/nighties/comfy sleepwear. (i didn't realize i could actually put all my impt stuff inside my black messenger bag in less than one minute. when we realized that the hotel was being evacuated because of this fire alarm, we had to leave our room immediately and bring only the basics -- passport, wallet, camera, cell phone, glasses -- in that order, for me.)
on my last day, dear charl decided to meet me up anywhere along high kensington street so we could have high tea somewhere near the kensington palace and gardens. a block away from the location, we noticed a phalanx of people being driven out of the area. not knowing what was happening, we walked right ahead. turns out the police has been exasperatedly telling people to vacate the area? why? a bomb was reported to have been left inside the israeli embassy. there i was, in the middle of central london, on my last day in the freaking city, being yelled at by british police to "leave the bloody area immediately because a bomb might go off!"
but hey, i survived. and everything has been charged, not only to my credit cards, but also to experience.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
when terror strikes?
i didn't realize the intensity/gravity of my flight's emergency landing in new york's jfk a couple of weeks ago until i heard the passengers clap their hearts out when we landed safe (a bit hard though). it was in the london papers when i arrived. i did some research and found this --
| American Air Flight Has Engine Fail; Lands In New York Wednesday July 26th, 2006 / 13h50 |
 |
| NEW YORK (AP)--A commercial plane carrying more than 250 people experienced engine failure Wednesday, and pilots landed it safely at a nearby airport, officials said. The Boeing 777 plane landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport less than a half hour after one of its two engines failed, said American Airlines spokesman Billy Sanez. Officials were investigating what caused the problem on Flight 134. "The plane landed after the captain declared an emergency," Sanez said. "It's not a common incident, but the pilots are trained to deal with these situations." The aircraft, en route from Los Angeles International Airport to London's Heathrow Airport, was carrying 239 passengers and 14 crew members, Sanez said. All passengers would be put on another plane, he said. The flight left Los Angeles at 8:35 p.m. PDT and landed in New York about six hours later. A message left for a local Federal Aviation Administration official was not immediately returned early Wednesday. |
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
back from london
it's almost funny how two weeks went away just like that.
i'm back in LA, back at work too. arrived yesterday afternoon and i was picked up by j, who had told our friends that i was arriving and that my birthday (albeit belatedly) dinner was scheduled last night. in less than an hour, it was planned.
anyhow. i'm dreading the arrival of my credit card bills since a good part of my expenses were swiped. uh-oh.
i really had a good time catching up with a and r and we had a blast going to all the touristy places in london such as the trafalgar square, picadilly circus, leicester square, tower bridge, westminster abbey and all those stuff but also the not-too-touristy bit such as the cemetery tour we made. yup, we visited karl marx's abode at the highgate high cemetery someweher in the outskirts of london. we were joined by about ten other people. nice.
yup. fresh flowers for karl marx. not from us though.
tourists doing touristy stuff: hamming it up at the tower bridge.
