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!