flipped & twisted

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

aga muhlach in carson

went to carson yesterday morning upon the invitation of jollibee management. they were launching a couple of stuff (including the original recipe of the chicken joy) [my own comment: then what were we ordering before everytime we asked for chicken joy? NOT the original chicken joy?].

aga muhlach, jollibee's celebrity endorser was there.

here he is, with the city mayor of carson (extreme left) and council member elito santarina presenting him with the key to the city.

the crowd was crazy. jollibee's vp was still delivering a speech when the unruly fans inside started chanting 'aga! aga! aga!' and the unruly fans outside started banging on the walls/windows. wow. i didn't realize aga STILL had this effect on people.

exhibit number 1:

and exhibit number 2:

the event ended and the crowd control people were able to prevent a stampede from happening. aga was whisked off to an unknown location after the program and the guests were served spaghetti, chicken joy, hamburger and peach mango pie for lunch!

jollibee's top celebrity endorser then thanked the numerous filipinos who, even if they are in the states, continue to flock to the 9 jollibee restaurants in california. next week, they are opening the 10th in los angeles (corner of beverly blvd and vermont avenue).

ah, life!

'pack your bags'

simon cowell echoed my sentiments last week when i said that melissa mcghee and kinnik would be leaving the show, if there is justice in the world.

indeed, there is justice in the world, as the two ladies sang back to back last night and performed well below par. hah. goodbye girls!

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

x-men III

moving on to lighter stuff.

the trailer of x-men III was shown last night during the 2-hour showing of 24. which, by the way was just awesome. the nerve gas was released inside ctu and killed most of its employees, including edgar. kim is back with a boyfriend who looks older than her father. c. thomas howell, what happened? it looks like you did not age gracefully. i wonder how ralph macchio looks now.

x-men III will be shown in may. three more months of waiting.

low

for reasons i am not ready to divulge yet, i'd like to say that yesterday was an emotional low for me.

maybe the day just didn't start right. maybe my stars were not aligned. maybe it was just an off-day.

yesterday, it rained hard. and it rained hard on me.

there's a reason why i should not be too happy at times.

Friday, March 03, 2006

sue me!

i was coerced by a couple of my friends to watch a movie last night. not just a movie but a tagalog movie.

for two weeks, this film called 'close to you' was shown here in LA. i don't know how it fared but yesterday was the last day and my friends and i caught the 7:30 pm screening. there were about 40 people in the entire cinema.

the movie starred john lloyd cruz and bea alonzo, two young stars who have made a killing by appearing in numerous soap operas/teleseryes earlier. introducing was sam milby, a fil-am from ohio who was also a pinoy big brother housemate.

the plot was kinda predictable but it had its moments. yes, moments. the movie also became a semi-travelogue, what with scenes shot in davao, bohol, dumaguete and even singapore. it was nice seeing the countryside, even if it's only on film.

hate

i hate it that the east coast is 3 hours ahead.

i hate it that my favorite reality shows, including american idol, are aired ahead in the east coast.

i hate it that i have friends in the east coast who love, love, love to annoy me by spoiling my fun and revealing who gets the boot or who wins. year after year after year. season after season after season.

having said that, say goodbye to the four contestants who got kicked last night.

i was so spot on with my prediction about the girls. not with the guys. damn.

2 of the remaining 5 guys i picked got the boot last night. good night and good luck sway penala and daniel radford.

now who's supposed to leave next week? if there's justice in the world, they would be kinnik and melissa and gedeon and kevin. on to the final 12!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

separated at birth?

or mother and daughter in real life?

to the left is american idol semi finalist paris bennett and to the right is chandra wilson, the actress who portrays the role of dr. bailey (in grey's anatomy) with aplomb.

wala lang.

Friday, February 24, 2006

disaster after disaster after disaster

it has been 20 years since the first people power removed the dictator out of malacañang. 20 years! and to the day, disgruntled people are out to stage yet another people power to remove the current (p)resident in the palace. why not, para isang celebration na lang pag nag anniversary.

how sarcastic.

i was watching TFC last night when the 'breaking news' was aired. by 'breaking news' i meant gloria arroyo's announcement that she has declared a 'state of emergency'. is this 'state of emergency' aka proclamation 1017 be her version of marcos' martial law aka proclamation 1081? scary thought.

my two-cents' worth: i personally think that arroyo's economic reforms slash programs are working, which is good for the country's economy. i think nobody will argue that. until today, the peso has been the best-performing currency in asia. when i had a vacation in manila last year, a dollar was more than 55 pesos. until today, it was pegged at 51. i dunno what the repercussions of the coup rumors and rallies and rallies will be. sigh.

okay, replace arroyo!

problem is, who are you gonna replace her with?

2 out of 4

okay, so i got the first two people who were eliminated in last night's AI! woohoo. my luck's a-changing. bye becky, bye bobby!

apparently not quite.

the two other contestants who got the boot were both in my top 12! shoot. lesson learned for both. if you are a guy (patrick, listen!), do not sing a girl's song. even if it is a melissa etheridge song! if you are girl (yes, stevie, that would be you!), do not sing a guy song. of course i am kidding.

what is wrong, america? patrick was not bad. steview wasn't as bad as well. listen to it again. it was even quite refreshing for me (and i am big josh groban fan) to listen to a girl take on any of his songs. i enjoyed it. it seems america didn't.

sigh. so who's gonna fill up the posts left by patrick and stevie?

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

all i want for christmas

...is my two front teeth.

unfortunately for the new james bond (daniel craig), he just lost his.

apparently, he's in the czech republic filming the new james bond film called casino royale when the film's villain accidentally knocked his two front teeth out. what's ironic is that this was the first fight scene to be shot. ouch.

and for more bad news for the man, diehard (fanatics!) fans of james bond have gone online with craignotbond.com, a website that, well, questions the producers' decision to hire the actor as the new bond. james bond.

let's see. you just lost your two front teeth in the first fight scene of the movie that you are doing. and the loyal fans of the movie that you are doing have vowed to boycott the film because you are in it.it's not going to get worse than this.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

$101,100.51

that is the final (and winning) bid for the shirts worn by jake gyllenhaal and used in the film brokeback mountain.

that's 5,257,226.50 pesos (at 52 to a dollar). five million pesos! my goodness.

i think the winning bidder just reinvented the word 'fanatic'.

Friday, February 17, 2006

say it ain't so

this piece of news bothered me.

apparently, after winning their second award at the brit awards, coldplay announced that the band is splitting slash breaking up slash putting the band on hold.

i say what? after just three albums? this fan just can't accept it. boo!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

american idol season 5 addiction starts right now

fearless prediction: top six would be ayla brown, paris bennett, kellie pickler, stevie scott, lisa tucker and katherine mcphee [holding on to the seventh spot, hopefully gunning for the sixth is mandisa]

fearless (and extremely biased) prediction: top six would be ace young, jose penala, patrick hall, chris daughtry, will makar and taylor hicks [the crucual seventh spot is shared by elliott yamin and daniel radford. sorry kevin covais. hope you do well.]

oh my goodness. can't wait for tuesday, wednesday and thursday next week. there goes my nightlife! [thanks jared for the pics]

sway, sway, sway

okay. so it's official. jose 'sway' galang penala is in. [note to dear m, maybe he's related to the galangs of cabanatuan. hah!]

i just finished watching my AI tape. this was the episode where they officially chose the top 24. and sway is one of them. yey!

last year, because of my 3-week vacation in the philippines, i did not get to watch AI as much as i wanted to. which means that i was not as invested as i was in seasons 1, 2 and 3. specially 3. hahaha. but now, i got to watch almost all of the episodes so far, including the auditions, so it is safe to say that i am on the AI season 5 train. specially since a filipino is there? hah.

dial away!

[edited to add:]

i was blog-hopping when i came across this message. the poster was listing his/her top 24, and his/her entry on jose penala was spot on. i nearly died laughing.

4) Jose “Sway” Penala — Now I put this guy here not because I particularly think that he’s great, but because he has the ethnic minority vote locked up solid. This is the same demographic crowd that took Jasmine Trias to 3rd place over the much more talented Latoya London in Season 2. And note — THEY VOTE !! He tends to oversing songs and makes too much melismatic variations for my taste. But hey, to each his own.

Monday, February 13, 2006

pink mist*

rest in peace, bomb squad guy. you will be missed.

bomb squad guy is kyle chandler. kyle chandler is the guy on this old show called 'early edition.' [photo shows him with dr. burke, the surgeon who is shagging dr. christina yang (oh, sandra oh)]

he was the bomb squad guy in the two-episode arc of grey's anatomy that started last week after the super bowl. with all my hopes (and some of my co-workers' and some friends' who are avid viewers of the show) that he is the person who's going to break the meredith grey - derek shepherd - addison shepherd love triangle went for naught when he was killed off.

it's a triangle where all the characters are likeable. like ben-felicity-noel. or dawson-joey-pacey. okay, not like dawson-pacey-joey.

it's just that it has been awhile since i screamed at my tv set. last sunday, i did that, when dylan the bomb squad guy exploded into tiny bits. pink mist, as the anesthesiologist told christina ricci's character last week.

it was a beautiful explosion. it was well-executed. way better than all the explosions they do in alias and 24. combined. the effect was just overwhelming.

grey's anatomy just overtook desperate housewives, taking the top post in my list of favorites.

(*all that is left of a person when a bomb goes off)

Friday, February 10, 2006

no to HR 4437!

more than a hundred people flocked to the democratic national committee's headquarters in downtown los angeles thursday to call on the democratic leadership to oppose HR 4437, a bill that people think is anti-human and anti-immigrant. the bill hopes to eradicate more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the united states. it's such an ugly bill i wonder why it passed the house in the first place.

i covered this rally yesterday and i felt one with the rest of the protesters. why a republican (surprise, surprise) lawmaker would come up with a bill that would criminalize people and organizations who would be helping/assisting undocumented immigrants is beyond me.

america is a nation of immigrants, deal with it!

remiss

i have not been exactly a diligent blogger lately. in fact it has been more than a week since my last post. it's just that it has been a pretty hectic week and i have been quite busy.

now that it's out of the way, what exactly happened the previous week?

first up, movies. i saw four movies last week. the eye (on dvd) at home, with P, D & T. i thought this was one of the new asian horror films. i found out later that this was done by the pang brothers in 2002! and it's being remade in hollywood, i think with renee zelwegger as the lead actress. hmmmm. i liked the movie. it was not a screamer kind of a horror flick. and i like my horror that way.

next up was a back-to-back marathon of munich and the last holiday with J. watched munich simply because i wanted to find out why spielberg was nominated for best director and the film was snobbed, as well as its lead actor eric bana. bana was surprisingly good. after watching him in the hulk a couple of years ago, i sort decided that he's a ham. this movie proved me wrong. the film was more than three hours long but i managed to watch it in its entirety without even looking at my cell to check the time. that is a good thing!

queen latifah was funny in this film called the last holiday. it was predictable, so i just went along for the ride. it had its moments and i loved the way they shot most of the scenes during her european vacation. well, the premise was simple. our heroine was told that she only had three weeks to live. what to do? well, fly to the czech mountains in the middle of winter and stay at the grandhotel pupp (pronounced 'poop'). hah. funny. film was directed by wayne wang, who also directed the joy luck club.

the last one was 'walk the line' which i saw at the arclight with T.

goodness, $14 for a movie? that's just insane for me. too much. too pricey! why arclight, why? anyway, i enjoyed the movie immensely. i really liked reese witherspoon's performance as june carter-cash. (i need to watch transamerica to see how my dear felicity huffman performed. only then can i decide on who deserves the oscar more. yes, i've narrowed the fight for best actress between the two ladies. as if my vote would matter!)

i was never a fan of joaquin phoenix but i think he also delivered a solid performance on this one. however, just like the story in the movie, he needed the radiance and support and love of june carter in order to shine himself, and face his critics. johnny cash would not be johnny cash without june carter, that's what i got from the film.

what else? next post please.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

just plain praying

for the families and friends of the people who died saturday morning in a stampede in manila.

i've been feeling sad since last night when i first heard of the news through a text message from a friend. sad because in the efforts of the people who died to find their luck in a game show, it was death that they found instead.

it was tragic. and that is putting it mildly. it's more than a terrorist attack, only this time, people cannot put the blame on a single group of people. in this day and age of finger-pointing, many will accuse abs-cbn of negligence, of not planning the logistics enough to carry out a show such as this.

biases aside, what happened was a terrible accident that could have been prevented. it has happened. no amount of talk or fighting could return the lives of the 80 plus people who have perished.

let's all move on and learn something from this.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

praying for sway

he delivered a fine audition last week in san francisco, singing 'superstar' in front of paula, simon and randy. they all welcomed him to hollywood.

but is his trip going to be cut short?

according to eonline, he 'may have sung his last note' on the talent search. uh-oh.

the article further says that he 'may have been in violation of the competition's strict eligibility rules at the time of his tryout last summer.'

In a development that does not bode well for Penala's Idol future, he was reportedly signed to E-Real Records with his band, 6th Day, at the time he auditioned for the show last August.

In September, the band released a CD titled Forever Starts Today via the site brownjungle.com, where it can be purchased for $11.99. Around the time of the album's release, a Filipino newspaper reported that Penala was still a member of 6th Day and that the band was performing mall shows in Manila.

As of this week, 6th Day was still listed on the E-Real Records roster. It's unclear whether Penala remains an active member of the band.

Controversy or no, the fledgling singer has already earned himself a dedicated network of supporters, as well as his very own fansite, www.josepenala.com, which offers music samples, photos and a biography of the "star in the making."

read the rest of the article here.

six more weeks

of winter, that is.

that's according to punxsutawney phil, who saw his shadow today, which happens to be groundhog day. oh well. what's six more weeks of biting cold? six more weeks of enjoying my winter clothes, my jackets and my sweaters.

oh carol, i am but a fool

i was on the phone with my friends J and R for almost an hour late afternoon yesterday. we hung up and went on with our lives.

i watched american idol. after the first gap, i switched channels. by the time i went back to AI, the second gap has started and J was on the phone, again.

J: Did you see Carol Banawa?
Me: No, where?
J: Are you watching American Idol? I should have asked that first.
Me: Yes.
J: You didn't see Carol Banawa?
Me: I didn't. I was channel surfing. Are you sure itw as her?
J: Yes, I am sure.
Me: Why did she audition in Texas?
J: Ay oo nga. (Pause). Walang audition dito sa LA.
Me: Uh. Ok.

Then this morning, J called me in the office.

J: I think that was really Carol Banawa.
Me: Okay, if you say so.
J: No, not just me.
Me: Okay.
J: The message boards say so.
Me: Okay

Then this afternoon, around five minutes ago.

J: Check your email.
Me: Why?
J: I sent you a link to Carol Banawa's video.
Me: Why?
J: To prove that it was her.
Me: Okay. So did she make it to Hollywood?
J: I don't know. I don't think so.
Me: Okay.
J: Check it now. Talk to you later.

So, I checked my mail. And here it is. Miss Carol Banawa. On American idol.

blogging at 3 am

why a 10-minute accidental nap (max 15) between 9:00 and 9:30 pm last night has me (still) wide awake at 3:00 am continues to baffle me. i've got stuff to do tomorrow and i need to finish them but i think i'd be way to sleepy if i don't get to sleep soon.

after watching american idol, i went up to my room. i turned my tv on, then my computer. then i went to my bed. i had no plans of sleeping yet but i crawled under the sheets nonetheless. next thing i know was that i was waking up.

reruns of sex and the city, friends, will and grace and a bunch of other documentaries on pbs hours later and i am still up. finished reading two old issues of time, cover to cover, and yes, i am still up. i stared at my bookshelf and there it was, the da vinci code, begging to be re-read. probably not a good idea, or i'll end up reading until daylight breaks.

what to do? why, turn on the computer and blog about this sleep disorder. hah. i have a sleeping disorder. i need to go see a sleep therapist. or a sleep coach. damn it, i want to sleep.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

february na!

oh gee, it's february!

it's like january passed by so quickly i didn't even notice. probably because i spent two weeks in manila, one week in haze after that and another week, well adjusting to the new year. hah!

i just read from dolly ann carvajal's column the first six confirmed housemates of celebrity big brother in the philippines. who's in, so far?

well, according to her: rosanna roces, keanna reeves, rustom padilla, chin-chin gutierrez, john pratts and bianca gonzales. interesting mix. of course, this is only half of the cast but so far it has made me wonder why they would put two sexy stars (osang and keanna...oh keanna. with a name like keanna reeves, oakay, i won't go there!) together? maybe the producers are hoping that somewhere along the way, a major catfight's gonna happen? hmmm.

among the six, it's bianca who i know the least. know is the operative word. well, it should be 'know from' TV. she's ryan agoncillo's co-host in y-speak. wait, i wonder why that show is not regularly shown on tfc. maybe because back home it has moved to studio 23. oh well.

john pratts was a toddler last time i looked. of course, that was a long time ago when he was but a tyke doing stupid and corny stuff for 'ang tv'. apparently he's all grown up.

rustom padilla. i guess it's his time to shine. and share to the entire world that he's such a happy, a very happy person. but then, maybe he'll go the uma route. ouch.

other names being thrown in the air (hey, the show's supposed to start in 4 days in manila): carlos agassi (no words for him. i am friends with his former manager) and zanjoe marudo (sp?) (i remembered his name from a long chitchat we had with R at coffee bean last november because zanjoe is R's friend. or something). speaking of R, hey, sorry i missed your wedding. i was stuck in antipolo with my boss and the rest of the crew. i hope you had a great time. congratulations and best wishes!

my only wish for now: i hope that tfc airs celebrity big brother in its entirety here in the states. otherwise, i'd be asking well-meaning friends to tape it for me. oh well, probably not.

Monday, January 30, 2006

oh, sandra oh!

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)

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?
contestant: george

tanong: anong hayop ang may gizzard?
contestant: baka

you think the 'show' was monopolized by the locals? hindi napatalo yung tfc subscriber from virginia.

tanong: how many vowels are there in the english alphabet?
contestant: 3!

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.)

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

Saturday, December 31, 2005

nip/tuck marathon

because of my erratic schedule, and my extended stays in the philippines, i was not able to consistently watch nip/tuck, one of my favorite shows on the boob tube.

that is why i took the opportunity this weekend to catch up with my viewing and watch the entire season (a total of 15 episodes) in less than 24 hours. i thought my eyes were gonna pop out of their sockets because of what i did, but thankfully they did not.

the show is so addicting and i kept on telling myself "just one more, just one more" every time an episode ended until i realized that it was already 5:00 am and i have seen the first 7 episodes. the last 8 i finished after i woke up (slept only around six hours) which means that my first meal for the day was at 7:00 pm. yes, 7:00 pm. breakfast, lunch and dinner, all in one. to complete my meals was my dessert: the fact that i already found out who "the carver" was.

here's what the boston herald printed on the day that the finale aired.

i've been hooked on this show since season one and it was in the middle of the second season when they introduced the character of "the carver," a serial 'slasher' slash rapist who thinks that "beauty is a curse."

maybe because i watched it non-stop that i have questions in my mind about how the writers tied it all down when they revealed (do i need spoiler tags here? okay, spoiler, spoiler) that dr. costa is the carver and he is kit's brother. sorry, too late.

i have no idea yet if there is a season four. i think there is since there were stuff that were not revealed. or were there? i think i need to rewatch closely.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

sunset boulevard of broken dreams

i took this photo from the boardwalk of huntington beach two weekends ago, after a couple of my friends and i had a long walk on the beach, after a hearty meal of crabs and more crabs (and shrimps). for some unknown reason, i enjoy staring at this photo. the sunset was so fleeting, you can see the sun almost rushing down. it is very rare for me to witness sunrises (since i am so not a morning person), sunsets have become my favorites (sort of). well, that is if i ever catch one (and not stuck in the office, or somewhere else).

from my mailbox

first up, happy birthday to one of my good friends, pierre. where's dinner?

i don't usually do this, as in post stuff from my mailbox. for the past weeks or so, i've been contemplating about an article/essay about women and monogamy.

just that i've been talking with some women (some attached, some not) who are thinking of straying (while attached) and who have strayed (now not attached) and it led me to think, is polygamy no longer exclusive to men? what happens if an attached woman (married, engaged, with a boyfriend) gets sexually attracted to another man? and how many women have entertained thoughts of being with other men? so many questions. take it away, carrie bradshaw.

PRESS RELEASE

The Truth About Women And Monogamy:

What Do Women Really Mean When They Say They Are Unhappy?

Statistics on affairs are notoriously unreliable. Since Kinsey’s watershed study reported that 29 percent of wives and 50 percent of husbands had affairs by the time they were 40 years old, other research has put the stats as low as 15 percent of women and 25 percent of men to as high as 60 percent of women and 75 percent of men. The one consistent factor is the sense that women are more “naturally” monogamous than men.

A new report challenges that theory. Michelle Langley, author of Women’s Infidelity: Living in Limbo: What Women Really Mean When They Say, “I’m Not Happy,” conducted research over a 10-year period that indicates that women do, in fact, cheat as much as men.

Even more surprising, Langley says marriage and fidelity may be more difficult for women than it is for men because men who marry in their mid to late twenties are moving away from their sexual prime; whereas women of the same age are just beginning to move into theirs.

Additionally, society’s expectations of male monogamy are lower, so men have less difficulty reconciling sexual interest in other women with the maintenance of a happy marriage, she contends. Women, on the other hand, see sexual interest in another man as an indication that something is wrong---with their husband, with their marriage, or with themselves.

The changes in women’s hormonal balance as they age---specifically the unmasking of their testosterone have been drastically minimized. Langley said most of the women she studied were not prepared for the dramatic increase in their desire for men outside of their primary relationships.

Recently, the media has focused attention on relationships between older women and younger men. Langley says it is actually quite natural for older women to be sexually attracted to younger men because younger men have increased desire and stamina.

According to Langley, most of the prevailing beliefs we hold about women were created in order control the sexual behavior of females in an effort to ease paternity insecurity in males. She says when females give birth they know the children they give birth to are biologically theirs. Males, on the other hand, prior to DNA testing, had to rely on the faithfulness of their partners; which is the reason a sexual double-standard emerged.

However, over time, the sexual double standard gave way to a false belief that females were, in fact, naturally monogamous. Now due to economic freedom and DNA testing, Langley says we are beginning to see glimpses of women’s true sexual nature.

Restlessness, while long understood in the male context, has been little explored among women. Langley’s study shows that many marriages proceed to divorce without the wife ever having explained—or even identified—the sexual restlessness that is in fact the root of the problem.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

2005: A Year-End Review

Find the first entry for each month of 2005 in your blog. Post the first sentence/paragraph of that entry in your journal, and that’s your "Year In (Year-End) Review" (note: songs, announcements, surveys and blogthings do not count. they should all be legit blog entries).

January - a couple of my friends and i braved the rainstorm on the last day of 2004 to troop to the sin city and celebrate there the end of the year and welcome 2005 with a bang.

February - 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.

March - yes, i am back. finally.

April - nora aunor is in the headlines again. this time, however, is not about how she conquered cairo for her dramatic performance as flor contemplacion years ago. nor is she on the papers again for an upcoming concert somewhere in carson city.

May - this morning, i covered the launching of the 'asian pacific american heritage month' at the chinese-american museum in downtown. mayor hahn was there, with some of this year's honorees.

June - Consul General Marciano Paynor, Jr. and Deputy Consul Hellen Barber officially opened “Flavors of the Philippines, Part 2,” a gastronomic feast of Filipino cuisine at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles with a simple ribbon-cutting ceremonies Wednesday.

July - i spent my entire morning (and some parts of the afternoon) covering the inauguration of the new mayor of los angeles.

August - it's the first day of the eighth month of this year.

September - less than 24 hours before my flight...

October - hi folks! i'm actually back in la-la-land once more.

November - yup. i am going home. again. by home, i mean manila. the philippines. [insert nostalgic memories here]

December - Spent only half a day at work today. The other half? I spent with my family who drove to the metro to bring my luggage and to see me before my flight this saturday. Friday was not possible since there was color-coding and the office christmas party was scheduled on that day.

(Saw this from someone's blog while I was blog-hopping and I decided to do my own version. While this was not representative of what happened during the year, this summary somehow provides a quick summary of what I did in 2005. When not covering celebrities (Cher Calvin, Nora Aunor) or politicians (former Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn and current Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa), I was out and about travelling to Las Vegas, Manila, Manila and yes, Manila. Not bad. Not bad at all.)

Monday, December 26, 2005

gifts galore

i may have sounded a bit bitter in my last post about white elephants. and lest i sound like a selfish man, i'd like to say that i am not usually bitter. just that, it was supposed to be an 'exchange gift'... oh well, don't get me started.

tonight, i opened each and every gift i got. thank you guys for the thought. i really felt special.

what did i get? aside from cookies and chocolates (yum and double yum) -- i got some underwear (both boxers and briefs!), shirts (probably a dozen), a sweatshirt, sweat pants, bottles of wine (i am no drunkard), a photo album, a tic tac toe game with shot glasses, comforter, books, dried mangoes (dried mangoes!), a ben sherman backpack, gift cards, rolodex organizer, and oh yes, i almost forgot, the hydragel massager.

thank you, thank you, thank you!

merry christmas!

christmas day was spent with friends, over a lunch of wetzel's pretzels and hotdogs. marathon time, as we watched 2 movies today: the 3-hour something king kong and memoirs of a geisha. both films packed in the folks. as in. sold-out screenings. damn.

i liked both. very much. zhang ziyi is very good, as is michelle yeoh. i was half-hoping and half-wishing that filipino actors also get good roles such as those from memoirs. wishful thinking? it's christmas.

got home after dinner at sanamluang: general's noodles and garlic/pepper beef. yum.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

hating white elephants

i am officially hating, hating white elephants and all its incarnations.

i just got back from a party hosted by a friend and his brother. they invited both their different sets of friends so these friends can meet each other. my friend j called me this morning to tell me that there was going to be a 'white elephant' in the dinner party. i told myself, 'oh no, not again.'

just like i am officially a non-winner (i refuse to use the word 'loser') in any (or all) of the raffles out there (another entry), i also end up as one of the non-winners every (single) time i join a white elephant.

why it is called a 'white elephant' in the first place is unbeknownst to me. the concept is simple: it is gift-grabbing.

this spices up the boring gift exchanges in the office. or any other party for that matter. the bottomline with these white elephants: every single participant goes home with the gift that s/he likes. everybody happy. except me.

i went to the party knowing full well what my close friends brought. they were great gifts (ceiling was $30) but when it was my turn to open/grab a gift, do i choose the great gifts? abso-freaking-lutely not. i choose the sealed ones, the wrapped ones, those boxes/paper bags screaming for me to pick them. and more often than not, i end up with gifts that i do not want. always.

tonight was no exception. to make matters worse, i picked the number "2" piece, which means that i was going to be the second person who's gonna open a gift. the only gift i could grab was that of the person who picked "1". but why should i grab her gift when there are 15 other gifts there waiting for me?

i know, i know. what i am rambling about is totally not in sync with the spirit of christmas. but since i have been severly unlucky with white elephants slash gift-grabbing, i am swearing off all kinds of exchange gifts. for now. until next christmas season.

now, excuse me for i need to use my homedics hydragel rechargeable massager. oh amazon, how dare you screw me like this!

[edited to add: i am swearing off all kinds of exchange gifts and its variations. for life.]

Friday, December 23, 2005

becoming biblical

i was browsing one of my favorite blogs today when i clicked on a link about the upcoming sundance film festival.

the article says, and i quote:

According to QT's careful research, there are a total of 14 "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender films" at this year's festival, a number that includes features, documentaries, and shorts. Among the 14 are works from all over the world, including The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, a comedy from the Philippians about a young petty criminal who falls in love with a cop, the Kevin Smith-produced Small Town Gay Bar, a documentary about gay life in the American South, and documentary short The Tribe, "an unorthodox, unauthorized history of the Jewish people and the Barbie doll in about 15 minutes."

Yes, you read it right. The movie is brought to them "from the Philippians." Goodness.

[Here's the link if you care to read the entire article.]

Thursday, December 22, 2005

winter wonderland

while temperatures in the east continue to drop, the weather in southern california gets, well, uhmmm not so chilly.

the past weeks have been cold, and those past weeks were the last portions of fall. winter officially arrived today, and boy oh boy, the weather's just fine, fine, fine.

this one's from my neighbors at franklin avenue. i've been reading mike and maria's blog for the longest time and they have inspired me many times to change my blog's name to hyperion avenue. so much about creativity.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

first look

the mascots for the 2008 summer olympics in beijing made their first u.s. appearance last week at the conference on tourism that i attended.

snapping away... here's your first look.

fun times

just got home from a night of fun with some of my closest friends. first up was the christmas dinner we had at j's sister's house in torrance. his sister is in manila, and he was left house-sitting. what does a guy do? throw a dinner party. hehehe. we didn't trash the house, we were good, no make that great guests. some gifts were exchanged. i can't wait to open my loot.

it wasn't as wild as last year's when we invited our friends, and our friends' friends and our friends' friends' friends and later realized that it was the perfect recipe for disaster. looking back, i think what happened during those previous huge parties was inevitable. put together a group of ten people and chances are, some arguments would arise. how much moe if you put sixty or seventy people with various opinions and beliefs. some saw the world as black, others saw it as white. it was crazy.

tonight's dinner was stripped to the most basic. seven friends plus a couple of new ones - friends' friends - having dinner and drinks not-so-enjoying a b-movie from dear old manila. goodbyes (for now) were exchanged by midnight as we all trooped somewhere to get more booze. there, we saw some of the same old people, including the roomie, roomie's bff and one of my friend's ex-es. sometimes it's hard to have many friends. hehehe.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

las vegas pics

posters for the manny pacquiao vs. erik morales rematch were all over wynn resort-casino, including this one, with the casino in the background. moments after i snapped this picture, a surly guy in uniform approached me and told me nicely that i cannot take photos within the "casino floor". okay. fyn.

the right side of the bathroom, with the huge and deep tub. the left side has the toilet (with a separate door) and the small flat screen tv and another sink (his/hers?).

my really comfortable bed. damn, i could actually live here for a year and you won't hear me complain. at all.

dusk outside thehotel but i couldn't care less. in fact, i almost never left my room, except during the conference proper and when i watched avenue q.

like the bellagio, wynn has an indoor garden area, with nice, bright lights.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

holy mary mother of god!

thank you almighty!

all the reasons why i love, love alias have been restored in tonight's episode. i happened to get home early after arriving from las vegas and after a nice dinner at zakuro in little tokyo with r and c. so when i got home, i still had time to spare to watch the penultimate episode of martha's the apprentice.

anyway. jj, my-good-friend, abrams delivered with a superb episode tonight that sorta tied up season 1's SD-6 stuff with prophet five stuff with the horizon. yeah, it's confusing. it's good to see vaughn back. and the montage-type of scenes he and syd shared before. the great thing about it was they seemed to re-shoot all those scenes from the previous seasons that are crucial to whatever intel they wanted to get from syd tonight.

i was already hyper-ventilating before the last gap so imagine my shock when the mysterious, blurry person earlier was revealed as irina derevko herself. and jack and elodie discovering an eerie nursery in hungary meant for syd and the baby. and syd out-smarting doctor zhivago by telling them the wrong name even if she were all under medication and hypnosis and what-have-you. and syd sticking a ginormous needle into peyton's black, black heart. and syd finding out, at the same time that all of us did, that she's in a middle of a moving ship in the middle of nof*ckingwhere. gee.

the worst thing about all these? new episodes will air starting february, something that alias producers decided to call 'the beginning of the end.' sigh.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

quickie in vegas

not that, you dirty little mongrel!

i am in las vegas to attend the 2005 governor's conference on tourism. there's like a thousand delegates and i am looking forward to meeting each and every single one of them. not. am doing a quickie post from one of the lounges.

i am kinda feeling anti-social these days. it's one of those days i have, when i don't feel like talking to anyone at all. sigh. i wonder what triggered this.

watched 'avenue q' last night. it cost me a hundred bucks but i am not complaining. i had a really great time. for the longest time, i wanted to find out how could this musical about puppets beat the tandem of glynda and elphaba in wicked. now i know why.

avenue q is a riot. the humor is irreverent. it's raunchy and raucous. it's so unlike every single musical that i have seen, broadway or off-broadway. it is edgy. it has a bite. it's different. and i like it. so much. so much that i forked out another 20 bucks for the soundtrack. something that i do not usually do. the musical has me hooked. given the chance, i would go ahead and watch it. over and over again.

i am staying at the fabulous wynn hotel resort and spa. is it a hotel? check. resort? check. spa? check. hence the hotel slash resort slash spa thingy. my room is fantabulous. i'll post pics as soon as i get back to la-la-land. it has a commanding view of the las vegas strip. it has a flat screen tv, a 30-inch one in the bedroom and a smaller one in the bathroom. and the bathroom. my goodness. sometimes i judge a hotel's quality based on its bathrooms. it has a huge tub. probably five more inches wider and it could very well be a whirlpool already. and this is separate from the shower, which by the way is also huge. it has a his/hers vanity. the toilet is located across the hall. with a separate door and lock. and a phone. damn. i could freaking live here.

steve wynn is a genius. he's been called the 'wlat disney of las vegas.' for a reason. he's the man behind mirage before it was sold to mgm. he's the brains behind the highly-successful bellagio. and now this. the 2.7 billion dollar worth wynn hotel resort spa. gee, i am gushing. and i don't usually gush. and i am sounding like a paid hack. which i am so not.

my words are not enough. for the pictures will tell a million more words! up next.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

s as in sam

my oc-ness got the better of me this time.

since my sked has been quite a mess, i have been quite remiss in the payment schedule of my bills, so when i finally organized my list a little over an hour ago, i noticed that my citibank bill is due on december 12. a monday. technically, it's already the 11th. so even if i used my bank's bill pay (which i usually use), my payment would be late. and i would be charged a late payment fee of $39. and my credit will be tattered. okay, exaggerating. but you get my point.

so i checked my bill and read all of the fine print. i have other options, hallelujah! i can go to their website and pay my bill from there. or i can pay through the phone and they can charge me $15 for that. i went to their website.

here's the irritating part. the freaking site cannot process my application to register (i need to register before i can pay) because it was asking for my "security password." now, i don't remember ever setting a security password for this account. but the freaking site says i did. obviously, i reached the maximum number of attempts to register. they had to shoo me away. but i can try after 24 hours. sigh.

so i got my cell phone and dialled their 1-800 number. an indian-sounding representative picked up my call (after me keying in my credit card number).

rep: zhenk yu for calling zitibank eh. zekyooritee password pliz?
me: i have a password?
rep: yes sir.
me: i don't remember ever setting a password.
rep: you have a security password.
me: really?
rep: yes. it starts with an s.
me: s?
rep: s. as in sam.

the s words as they paraded in my mind. shoot. shocks (ala sassy). shiyet. shit. shit. shit.

me: uhmm. i give up. i don't remember my password. is there any other way of verifying my identity?
rep: (pause. long pause) what's your address and home phone number?
me: i recite my address and home phone number
rep: okay sir, i will call you using your home phone number.
me: okay

line went dead. i waited for 15 minutes. blog fodder. i'll blog about this tomorrow. maybe i'll blog about this now. while i wait for the indian guy to call me.

i am freaking done blogging about it and indian guy hasn't called yet. i checked my watch. it's 4 am.

Friday, December 09, 2005

X3

i am done with my fixation with rent. on to the next one: X3. coming in 2006. but before that, i have my hands full with king kong, suriyana, narnia, munich, bee season, memoirs of a geisha, the producers, good night and good luck and munich. thanks, jared.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

alias marathon

it turns out i missed only 2 episodes of alias. so catching up was a breeze.

i have no idea why they moved the show to wednesday. to get the 'lost' audience like last year? too late, i think. you have been cancelled. back to the drawing boards and show us what you have left!

what? sark? sark. he's back. and he hooks up with the almost-sydney. oh well. and sloane? bad-good-bad-good. i'm tired. make up your mind, old man. and next week. vaughn's back. me to self: how could he be back? he's dead! self to me: yeah, he's dead. but this is alias. me to self: oh yeah, i almost forgot.

so next week, vaughn (i don't know how, i don't know why) is back. whether this episode is one long f*cking dream sequence or not, we'll all find out next week. can't wait.

Monday, December 05, 2005

jet-lagged

with my jet lag in full effect, i decided to catch up on my viewing.

first up. a desperate housewives marathon. okay, one show down, four to go. alec mapa in one of the episodes? wow. way to go alec! bree van de camp's son andrew is eeeeeeeeeeevil. almost like george.

next? alias. grey's anatomy, reunion and the oc.

sounds like a plan.

christmas party

i was feeling kinda light-headed when i was awakened by my ringing cell phone.

okay, so it's christmas party/lunch! we were kinda early and i forgot to bring the box of chocolates that we were supposed to bring to manila but it was already an excess baggage so we left it. and i was supposed to bring it today since the prizes for some of the games would we those chocolates. oh well.

by the time we got back, there were plenty of people already. i heard they were expecting a little over a hundred people to attend. that would be us, the staff, some of the boss' relatives, and guests, guests, guests.

lani misalucha was there and sang 'o holy night' with the society of seven. it was awesome. biritan sa tanghalian! goodness.

after the whole she-bang -- games, gift-grabbing, the usual stuff -- it was time to say adieu. jojo and the gang from the san francisco office wanted to have coffee with us, since they knew we were off to the grove to watch rent. we bought our tickets first for the 835 pm screening and went to coffee bean to meet up. we were later joined by mase and christien. it was fun. sharing and swapping stories while sipping hot white chocolate dream latte. the weather was cold and breezy. perfect.

jojo and the gang decided to split around 7ish. went around the mall to kill time. right before we entered the cinema area, someone said, "momar?" i looked around to see who it was.

small world ana. it was marivi. with her bf. we exchanged pleasantries. she told me she'll drop by my office next week to pick up the cd you sent. she says hi!

okay, rent moment.

i found some scenes funny (without meaning to). i give them 10 for loyalty to the material but i was hoping to see more. it was alright, the cast was good, specially idina menzel (maureen) and rosario dawson (mimi). i was crying in some of the scenes. in fact, the same scenes that made me cry while watching the musical.

star-struck moments. saw rachel ray (food network) by crate and barrel. hehehe. food network fans. and the bonus. on our way up to the parking structures. saw the hulk. lol. eric bana. fine!

Sunday, December 04, 2005

still a saturday

what really weirds me out everytime i fly from manila to los angeles is the fact that i may already have a really long day in manila, and i may have slept the entire 12-hour flight, but by the time we land, it's like, well, it's like travelling back in time. anyhow.

so there i was, with my last-minute shopping and stuff. all set and ready to go.

off to the airport we went. same o, same o. my boss was in seat number 2 something. and moi? some 79 rows down. 81A to be exact. the lady in the counter seemed to have liked and me and gave me a seat in the exit row. which means more leg room. which means ic an stretch, stretch, stretch. note to self: request for an exit row seat next time i fly.

and i thought everything was fine. mr. 81B, yes my seatmate, was having a problem. he got his foot sprained in some basketball game. like i cared. in the course of the flight, he stretched his right foot up and placed it on top of the plane's emergency exit door, which was right in front of me. i gave him the dirtiest look i could muster. how dare he invade my personal space! and he did this quite a number of time.

as if this was not enough. mr. 82A kept on nudging and nudging and nudging my back. he would use his foot, his knees, his hands to push the seat in front of him. that was of course my seat and it was not funny.

the only thing that kept me sane was 82C. Hah.

and i'm gonna stop right there.

so J picked me up. i so wanted to watch rent but our some of our friends were in a birthday party and J told them we were gonna drop by. drop by we did, and spent a couple of hours. there goes rent. i still have tomorrow.

after what seemed like eternity, J brought me home. this was shortly after midnight. i unpacked some stuff. cleared my bed. tried to sleep. good god, i can't sleep. one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep....four hundred six sheep. next thing i knew it was six in the morning.

and i was still awake.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

ang pagdadalaga ni maximo oliveros

i managed to crack a smile when i first read the title of this movie months ago. back then, all i knew was that the film has been scheduled to make the rounds at international filmfests. and it was directed by aureaus solito, a theater stalwart from the state university.

i missed probably the first five to ten minutes of the movie. bummer. no thanks to the slow-moving staff at tokyo tokyo.

the movie was simple and beautiful. no big-name stars. no dazzling special effects or computer animation. just a simple telling of a story about a young boy falling in love for the very first time. which happens to almost every single boy out there, right? except this boy was falling in love with a policeman. hence the title, nagdadalaga na si maximo. (they're calling the film 'the blossoming of maximo oliveros' in the filmfest circuit.)

the love story is universal. since almost every human being in this world goes through that phase called first love. and in this movie, the audience gets to see maximo falling in love for the very first time. the only problem? the policeman gets in between maximo and his loving family of small-time crooks.

nathan lopez was very good as the 12-year-old effeminate gay boy while jr valentin proved that he can also act, essaying the role of the principled policeman. and by the way, maximo has a blog! who knew.

the best scene for me? maximo doing the cartwheel after he stole a kiss from the surprised policeman. you could just feel him gliding, ecstatic and in love na in love.

ang pagdadalaga ni maximo oliveros will be the first filipino movie to compete at next year's sundance film festival in park city, utah.

the best part about watching the film? knowing that some of the people i worked with before had a hand at making this great indie film, including lily esquillon, who was the film's production designer. bravo, lily!

craving for camiguin's pastel

i had to make some last-minute shopping. and since i was particularly craving for the pastel from camiguin (which i left at, well, forget it). there was no way i was going back to the tiendesitas just to buy some. the good news was, i saw some at the market market. yes, the ones that sell stuff on carts.

so off i went to market market. bought two boxes again. hehehe. i wandered around the huge mall and i was led to the cinema level. and then i saw it. the film i have been reading about was showing here. at 12:05 pm, first screening. time check: 11:30 am. i had 35 minutes to eat my lunch. two floors down.

one of my favorite iced teas in town is tokyo tokyo's red iced tea. yum. so i ordered a big plate of beef gyudon. plus a large red iced tea. P79 for the gyudon plus P25 for the red iced tea. anyway, their service was kinda fast so after a follow-up, i got my meal at 12 noon. obviously, i had five minutes to finish off my meal. plus a dash two floors up.

the film was already starting when i entered market market's cinema 2.

on the second day of christmas

my true love gave to me: a party at mega saisaki!

yes, the second day of december saw us having a christmas party already at the sm megamall. and i thought our december 4 christmas party in la-la-land was way too early. anyhow, dinner was great.

rushed to greenbelt after the party to meet a friend at coffee bean. talk, talk, talk. on our way out, i bumped into c, a friend i was scheduled to have dinner with before i left but she was so busy. hehehe. and i was too busy. had dinner with her last month at the m cafe. after that, i bumped into her about three times at the coffee bean. tonight marked the fourth time.

anyhow, as soon as i got home, i started packing. i managed to sleep around 3ish.

Friday, December 02, 2005

family time @ tiendesitas

Spent only half a day at work today. The other half? I spent with my family who drove to the metro to bring my luggage and to see me before my flight this saturday. Friday was not possible since there was color-coding and the office christmas party was scheduled on that day.

Anyhow, met them at my cousin's store in QC, then we moved to Tomas Morato to have lunch. I've been craving for Ponciana's since my first trip to Manila last March. Ponciana's is a restaurant along Timog and they serve really good, yummy, home-cooked meals. My co-workers at ABS and I would drive to Ponciana's if we decide that we do not want to eat canteen food or delivery or aristo-carts or the pricier ones in the vicinity. It was like our comfort food station. And today, I introduced Ponciana to my family.

We had quite a feast. I ordered the boneless tinapang bangus (whole) which I later found out cost us P230.00. I also ordered lengua estofada, squash with okra with pork and shrimps, grilled pork belly with fried eggplant, puso ng saging with baby squid, and a couple more. The damage totaled P1,200 plus. Not bad. We were all full to the brim by the time we were done.

We were supposed to go to Divisoria to check out 168, which my former ABS colleagues have been telling me about. Woe to us, nobody knew how to go to Divi. I did not know how to go there since I have never been to Divisoria. Rather than risk getting lost en route to 168, I decided to just bring them to Tiendesitas.

Went around the various villages. When we were done, had some snacks such as puto bumbong, (the wait for the bibingka was quite long), fresh fruit shakes, vigan empanada, okoy and some fruits. awesome.

Bought two boxes of the pastel from Camiguin (which I forgot in the car when they left). Poor me.

Next stop was Market, Market where we did some grocery and shopping for the coming Christmas season. Got tired and hungry so off we went to Greenbelt for dinner. Parking was such a problem it took us more than half an hour circling the parking area. Had a quite pricey but delicious dinner for six. Yum.

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