hah! for the second straight week, the asian team finished first in survivor, therefore, they have avoided being sent to the tribal council.
i found the hispanics' decision to drop a competition because they wanted to get rid of one of their members plain stupid. there's strength in numbers, or did they forget? they had a problem, the logical solution would be to talk about the problem and look for solution, not throw a competition so you'd get a chance to take him off the team. i just don't get it.
and yul. wow. color me impressed. when the hispanic team lost, they had the right to send someone from the opposing teams to the exile island and they chose yul. the guy showed his intelligence and did followed the clues to the T. he found the immunity idol, which means that he will be exempt from being voted off, if and when the asian team gets sent to the tribal council.
will the asian team win for the third straight week next week? we'll see. my guess? most probably.
Friday, September 22, 2006
asians rock survivor
grey's anatomy premiere
i had a conversation with a couple of some college friends before about being overwhelmed, and its opposite, well, being underwhelmed, and the possibility (if at all) to feel just whelmed. one feels overwhelmed with information, or underwhelmed when he has too much expectation, but can one ever just be whelmed?
the point of this rant? that's how i felt about grey's anatomy's premiere a few hours ago. i didn't feel overwhelmed (not at all) but i did not feel underwhelmed, too, because the show somehow delivered, but not quite.
it seems like i am not making sense but loyal grey's fans probably know what i am feeling right now. season one and two of the show were both solid, and the third season premiere somehow did not show that it has the potential of being as big, if not better, than the the first 2.
so finally, mcdreamy has told mer about his true feelings, and dr. yang has shown her soft side, and george can't somehow say the words 'i love you' back to joy viado (hah! everytime i look at sara ramirez now (the actress who plays the role of callie) i cannot help but be reminded of joy viado, no thanks to one of my co-workers who pointed their uncanny resemblance.
with that said, i was not also underwhelmed, which means that there is a huge possibility that as the season progresses, i'd be hooked more and more and more.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
happiness in the mail
i seldom don't regularly open my mailbox at home since i only get a ton of junk mail and my bills. hahaha.
however, i was expecting something to arrive in the mail so i checked it this morning, and true enough, it was already there. not one, but two! hehehe.
i'm talking about the cd/dvd copies of all the photos we took in virginia/washington, dc a couple of weeks ago. krol and imee were kind enough to send me copies of the pics they took with their cameras. woo-hoo. i'll update the photo album later, okay?
Monday, September 18, 2006
live-blogging the amazing race premiere
hah! it's the season 10 premiere of the amazing race, my all-time favorite reality show on earth.
it's on for about 90 minutes today and the 12 teams are in seattle, en route to beijing china. among the 12 teams, some have created an impression on me.
on top of my head: the coal-miner and his wife (very middle america); the asian guys, the beauty queens (miss california and miss new york); the black single moms; the muslim guys; the indian couple; the father and daughter team (daughter's a lesbian); the gay couple; the cheereleaders..and i am missing 3 pairs! oh, the disabled girl and her boyfriend; the engaged couple and one more.
they are now in forbidden city and so far, i've been getting really hilarious snippets from the contestants (i.e. the beauty queens/or the cheerleaders saying 'do the muslims worship buddha?' and the coal-miner and his wife asking the driver to 'go fast! quack! quack!' )
wow. that was a shocker. there were twists and turns and surprises! and one of them is the early elimination half an hour after the show. it's the muslim brothers. awww. the asian guys (they dropped harvard, uc berkley and nyu during their introduction; quite a way to say, we've got brains y'all).
and yeah, the 'one more' i forgot earlier -- the hollywood models who were former drug addicts who met during recovery. how could i miss them? hah!
holy crap! the addicts turned models arrive at the great wall first. they get $20 k for that? damn. and the indian couple arrives last. they're eliminated. i like the way they made this first pit stop. the contestants need to climb the great wall of china in order to step on phil's mat. i'm impressed (very, very impressed) that the girl with the prosthetic leg was able to make it and i'm amazed that the coal-miner's wife and the larger single black mom from birmingham made it too. this is what makes this show very, very good.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
friday the 15th
i flew to las vegas after lunch because of an emergency coverage. i had to interview atong ang. more on that later.
took the southwest flight that left burbank at 1:50 pm and it has got to be the shortest and scaries flight i've ever had in my entire life.
i took the window seat and dozed off for a couple of minutes but i was jolted by the turbulence that rocked the plane. i never blinked after that specially since the rocking became consistent. it didn't help that there were noisy sorority girls at the back who seemed to be convincing each other that the unusual rockings were normal.
it was really scary specially when i looked outside and saw that we were flying low i was scared the wings were going to heat the mountainside. sigh. i was nauseous after we landed and it felt as if the flight went on forever. probably the longest half an hour of my life. and one of the two scariest too. (the boat ride from hell to siargao while typhoon rosing was on its way to wreak havoc in the philippines (1997?) is the other one)
thank god we arrived in one piece (no pun intended). the interview went well (although mr. ang was quite circuitous in his responses) and i had to write the story so i can send it to LA so they can include it in this weekend's issue. whew.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
post 9/11 activities
i made a quick trip to washington, dc last friday to meet up with some friends who are gathering together for the first time after about 6 years (on the average).
freddie and i met up at the los angeles airport last friday night and we bought took american airlines flight 74 en route to washington dc's dulles airport. it was a red-eye flight so i just slept my way through it. we arrived in dc around 6ish since the flight was delayed for about an hour. after about 15 minutes of waiting, carol & steve arrived and we went back to their house to refresh and pick our other friend, imee, who arrived the day earlier.
i had a lot of fun. we took a lot of pics (which will be soon posted in my multiply account). on the first day, c & s took us to mount vernon (formal name is george washington's mount vernon gardens and estates), washington's (the person) home before.
it is considered as the most popular historic estate in the united states today. it is 16 miles south of washington, dc on the banks of the potomac river. what's amazing is the fact that visitors can see 20 structures and 50 acres of gardens as they existed in 1799. hah. such history!
next stop was the national shrine of the immaculate conception in dc where they are keeping our lady of antipolo.
This Neo-Byzantine structure completed in 1959, is made entirely of, brick, stone, concrete and tile. It is the largest Roman Catholic Church in America and one of the largest in the world. Includes an extensive collection of art including a large collection of 20th century mosaics.it's an experience that's quite overwhelming. words can't seem to describe the beauty of this place so i'll just wait until i have the pics.
we picked up onie in dc, then went back home to rest and a lot of catching up ensued.
the next day, steve dropped us off at the washington monument in dc where we walked towards the lincoln memorial to meet up with hazel & francis. francis took off immediately after since he had a meeting. it was an endless walk afterwards as we made our way to the white house and strolled along pennsylvania avenue. had a great lunch at this french restaurant called les halles. went to the national gallery of art after the late lunch and it was time to bid goodbye to onie who had to go back to new york.
went to the nation's capitol and stayed there forf a great amount of time reflecting at the the reflecting pool. hehehe. had quite a few reflections myself.
just a quick update on the stuff that i follow: mike boogie won big brother 7. oh well. i delightfully agree with one of the early evicted contestants who said that janelle and will should have been in the final two instead of those two. again, oh well.
there's a new show on tfc called crazy for you. it stars luis manzano and toni gonzaga and it was shot in spain. wow, spain. i'm watching it because of the fact that it was shot in spain. hehehe. so far, so good. there have been loopholes, but then. well, we'll see how it goes.
Friday, September 08, 2006
oh blake!
[caption: James Blake, of the United States returns a shot to Roger Federer, of Switzerland, at the US Open tennis tournament in New York, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)]
roger federer continues his dominance over the other players at the u.s. open, defeating number 5 james blake. i wanted to be in the minority and cheer for blake to win (not that federer didn't deserve it) because he's also good and federer has been winning like crazy this year that he needs to share his blessings. besides, rafael nadal didn't even make it past the quarter finals. it's not gonna be fun roger.
anyhow.
so that's goodbye blake. and goodbye janey also on bb7. mike boogie wins round 2 of the 3-part hoh and gets a car for that win. he battled erika during round 3 and won, so he had the power to evict one house guest and bring the other one to the final 2. he knows he's not gonna win over janelle so he evicts her and keeps his ho-mance with erika.
now, the 7 members of the jury will vote. at this point, i don't really care anymore. bring survivor and amazing race on!
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
manhattan/brooklyn vs. los angeles?
saw this in one of the LA sites that i frequent and i found it really funny. nice colors, no? apologies to my friends and relatives who have decided to call new york home. i can't help it.
goodbye will kirby
big brother 7 (all stars!) has been my summer's guilty pleasure and i must give credit where it is due. janelle rocks!
in what is considered as a 'shocking move', janelle decided to send dr. will home after she won the power of veto. hay. long story. bottomline: janelle and will and erika and mike boogie are in the final four. mike boogie and will belong to this alliance they call 'chill town' (and this was born five years ago, during big brother 2, which was won by dr. will, who is the only big brother winner in this season's all-stars).
mike is 'showmancing' (root word - showmance - show + romance) erika and it felt like erika fell for mike boogie hook, line and sinker. will is 'flirtmancing' (you get the drift) janelle and it felt that janelle was putting this relationship ahead of her alliances in the house. it was because of this that howie and marcellas (both close to janelle) and danielle (erika's best friend) got evicted and choll town sailed on to the final four.
left photo: that's will sandwiched by erika and janelle while right photo shows chicken george and the two ladies.janelle evicting dr. will is classic reality tv and mike was well, surprised (and it's too lame a word to use) and shocked and pissed and it's good television. hah! i liked dr. will and his evil, manipulative ways in season 2 and i was almost expecting him to win this but thank god for janelle for clipping his wings this early (or this late).
finale is next week, september 12. the jury (the evicted houseguests, like survivor) gets to decide who is going to win the half mil. there's a 3-part competition ongoing among the final 3. part 1's winner will meet part 2's winner in part 3. the winner of part 3 will then decide which co-competitor s/he is going to bring to the final 2. enter the jury of 7 who will decide the winner of big brother all stars. whew.
two days later is the premiere of survivor. and amazing race. hah. my reality tv fixation continues.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
2 cents worth
the long weekend allowed me to bloghop like crazy. i was able to read a lot of good blogs and a few that weren't quite there.
something led me to the site of mlq3 (i wish i had a 'cool' initial like that. very trademark-able), and to the uninformed, he is manolo quezon.
funny how just a few days ago (while watching tfc), i came across a teaser for a show on the anc (the abs-cbn news channel) and it was about manolo quezon and his show called 'the explainer' and i'm like, 'what? the explainer?' didn't they have anything better? like 'the manolo quezon show' or 'manolo explains' or 'manolo reports'. that's probably the best their creatives can come up with, 'the explainer'. i can't watch the show even if i wanted to because i only have tfc on cable. i don't have the satellite dish and i am not a directv subscriber.
anyhow, reading through his posts and following a lot of links, i came across one controversial topic, the one where he wrote about his objections to the isagani cruz column 'don we now our gay apparel'. he called it 'the grand inquisitor.'
Retired Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz says that his vigorous and vicious condemnation of gays, lesbians and transgendered people is not supposed to incite hatred and intolerance—or to be precise, that he is not invoking a blanket condemnation of all gay people. He only objects to some, not all.it's a great read, so if you have time, digest the entire article. and in the spirit of fairness, the link to the article by the former supreme court justice.
He would have me, and everyone else like me be a slave, a fugitive, a hypocrite and, most of all, a coward. And I find that disgusting. I find it neither reasonable nor acceptable. I do not even find it understandable. Cruz does not understand us, does not want to, would be unwilling to. Yet he says he hates only some, not all, of us, and expects “some of us” to embrace and thank him?For what? That he reserves his scorn only for hairdressers and fashion designers? That he respects me, the writer, but heaps abuse on someone else because that someone uses slang I don’t use, speaks louder than I do, wears what I don’t wear—and those superficial differences are the things that guarantee me (and those who behave otherwise) Cruz’s respect?
I will not embrace him, not for that, much less shake his hand or offer him the opportunity for civilized disagreement. For he is blind to the civilization to which I belong, and to the fundamental identity I share with those he despises. Whether we have a little learning or not, whether we speak in the same manner or not, regardless of what we wear and what mannerisms we choose to exhibit, we are the same, for in the fundamental things—those we choose to love, to have relationships with and with whom we aspire to share a life marked by a measure of domestic bliss and emotional contentment—there is no difference. To permit Cruz to make such distinctions is to grant him and all those like him an intolerable—because it is fundamentally unjust—power to define myself and those like me.
where's my 2 cents' worth? mr. cruz should not have written that piece in the first place because it revealed how ignorant he is about the issue and he shouldn't have stirred the hornet's nest because while some people may have respected his opinions before (him being a former supreme court (supreme court!) justice), in one fell swoop, he lost readers (this one included) and corollary to that, respect, the one thing that he took away from all the homosexual people he maligned in that article.
Monday, September 04, 2006
philippine idol
thank you youtube for philippine idol. the long weekend has been quite long and it made me realize that (a) i can sleep from 3 am to 1 pm the next day (b) talk with a friend on the phone while in the middle of sleep and forget about it (c) there are a lot of things to be seen (gasp!) on youtube (d) no matter how i try to clean my room, well, i can't seem to finish.
anyhow, i was surprised to see this guy on philippine idol. his name is gian carlo magdangal and he is in the top 24. i saw him last year in the musical 'footloose' in manila (the one with jay-r and iya villania) and i was quite amazed with his musical talent. for his first official performance at the semi-finals of philippine idol, he sang, what else, footloose.
hope he makes it to the top 10!
farewell andre
(moratorium on my previous statement that i am moving to multiply since i can do cross-posting from here. for now, i won't, but i am keeping multiply as my photo/video site. we'll see...)
today marks the day when tennis great andre agassi bade goodbye to the sport he embraced 21 years ago. it was a bit emotional and andre couldn't help but shed a few tears after his last game. some guy named becker took the responsibility of beating andre in 4 sets, thereby effectively ending his career. andre has made it clear earlier that this is going to be his last year.
i wasn't really a big fan, just a fan who admired the way he played the game. actually, i was more of a pete sampras fan and i followed their rivalry from the moment i realized i enjoyed watching tennis games (and this was probably around 1994, after my graduation from college). hah. darn, i feel old. the players i idolized in this sport have all retired. well.
speaking of the us open, andy roddick's doing well and today he moved to the fourth round. had andre won his match against becker, he would have faced roddick in this round and it would have been a great match. oh well.
some friends picked me up today and we went to the outlets in ontario to do some (window) shopping. went also to the victoria gardens, a mall similar to the grove and paseo colorado in pasadena.
happy labor day!
Saturday, September 02, 2006
thank you blogger, i'm moving
for more updates about me and the people around me, please visit my new home at multiply.
i'll keep some of my files here so i'd still have reason to come back.
ciao!
(and how auspicious is it that this is my 400th post? hah!)
Thursday, August 31, 2006
survivor gets racy racist?
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.
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 |
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| 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.
