Family Tied

My cousin decided to get married this week. In Hong Kong. (Less guests to invite this way. ) His dad's livid, sort of. First his youngest told him he wanted to be a standup comedian, now the eldest is taking getting married abroad to a non-Chinese girl. Old school hangups, for sure. Hopefully I'd be more open-minded w/ any future brood of my own, 'though that would require an emotional detachment, w/c is almost impossible. Baby steps...

Veggie Casserole Tastes Good

Ma’s birthday was on the 22^nd, but we opted to hold the Big Dinner Party on the 25^th, or Saturday. Now that the party’s over we have naught but the leftovers to deal with: herb rosemary chicken in olive and garlic, cannelloni (w/c looked like lasagna) and broccoli-cauliflower casserole. For once the leftovers weren’t so bad, except for the fried rice. But ask me again in a week when they’ll still be around and I’ll be crapping casserole. Mmm... fibre.

Manny Pacquiao Wins

...so nothing else happened in The Philippines today.

NOTHING.

10 Thoughts on Casino Royale (Spoilers!)

Preface: Made it to the Promenade cinema w/ minutes to spare. Also, one Smokey's footlong hotdog and a regular-sized Fuzion fruit smoothie does not a complete meal make.

Anyhoo...

• This may be the first time the actual actor playing Bond (in this case Layer Cake's Daniel Craig) was incorporated in the opening credits. Sixties Hollywood movie trailers meets Money for Nothin' music video meets iPod commericals (you'll have to see it to get it). Song sucked, tho'.
• In the first major action scene, the agile running dude DJ and I dubbed Black Spider-Man (or Black Jackie Chan) was French free runner Sebastien Foucan. No wires and cables strapped to that guy's crotch. It was pure Parkour.
• If our blonde Bond wasn't an MI6 agent, he would've made a helluva parking valet. Speaking of w/c, only in the movies can you park a horse on the beach w/o any posts.
  
• The movie disrupts 007 continuity a bit w/ Dame Judi Dench's appearance as M. In GoldenEye she was newly appointed as M while Pierce Brosnan's Bond was already a vet in the 00 service, but here it seems she's the one that actually promoted Bond to 00 status. Mebbe they should've called it Bond Begins.
• Cute cameos by Alessandra Ambrosio, Richard Branson and Joy Luck Club's Tsai Chin, who was a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice. Still, having first known her as "Waverly's mom," there is no way I will think she's hot.
• As soon as Vesper Lind showed up I thought alright, she's either going to betray him or die. Thankfully she doesn't disappoint on both counts. And finally, a villain who wasn't out for world domination (or some variation of it), just the money.
  
• I would've enjoyed the movie more if I'd only brushed up on my knowledge of poker, 'coz there was a lot of it in this film. I was expecting Mel Gibson's Maverick to show up. Drunk, of course, and blaming the Jews for everything.
  
• I guessed wrong w/ the big-ass plane not blowing up, but not w/ Vesper's betrayal, w/c was practically being telegraphed. Bond in love and quitting? Oh, ya KNOW sumptin' ain't right.
  
• Perhaps another reason why Bond was almost gadget-less (save for the portable mini-defibrillator-- w/c does exist) was because the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn, had already passed away, and getting John Cleese back would've looked silly.
  
• This Bond movie puts all the ones that came before it to shame, especially that "comedy" mess that was the original 1967 Casino Royale. If you've never of it, count yourself lucky.

I Knew I Should've Brought My Digicam

So many interesting sights seen today, the one time I neglected to bring my Ixus40 w/ me to Makati (not counting last week w/ the German cartoon shorts screening).

Henry Calayag's H Salon moved from the 2nd floor of Rustan's to the 4th floor of Glorietta 4, near cinemas 4,5 and Wendy's. Definitely a.. different atmosphere than the one I'm used to when I visit, and by different I mean louder. Even the ice tea was served in a less fanciful glass, and-- gasp!-- turned out to be coming from the common fast food drink dispenser!

The salon's still a work in progress, as the smell of lacquer thinner will attest to, along with exposed, cold concrete floors and walls of glass smudged w/ so many hand and fingerprints it would take all 3 CSI franchises to catalogue them all. And why-oh-why did they settle for a pearlescent tile motif?!? I'll definitely miss the fancy lavatory, w/ it's glass sink counter and... the fact that there was a lavatory, as this place seemed to be lacking it.

After my haircut I bought a turkey sub and went to CoffeeBean & Tea Leaf to hang out. While waiting for my order of Moroccan Mint I ran into old DLSU batchmates Lolita Lachica and Jona Cham, themselves just hanging out. So we hung out together for the next coupla hours: me waiting for Ma's haircut-and-dye job to finish, Lolit taking work-related calls on her phone, Jona just passing time eating Choco Baby. Afterwards we exchanged contact numbers (rrgh, forgot my camera and my calling cards!).

Fifteen German Animated Shorts on The Wall, Fifteen German Animated Shorts...

I attended a screening of German animated short films w/ Lola at the Adamson Building in Makati (thank god parking was easy and free). It reminded me of the first time I attended a screening of the Japanese filmfest, since the animated shorts were shown in a relatively small room with only 3 rows of seats. Today was also the last day of screening, so it quickly became an SRO event. Before the screening began I mentioned to Lola that there seemed to be common look among the female attendees: long, past-shoulder-length hair wrapped with a single band, dull-colored casual dress w/ a light sweater, and glasses. It almost looked like a female Clark Kent convention.

Afterwards we had dinner had Italiannis at GB2, where our waitress turned out to be my 2nd cousin Ivy (Michelle's little sister and Philip's 1st cousin). who's on paid OJT. From the moment she introduced herself as our waitress for the evening to when she was clearing up our plates my penchant for remembering faces but not names was proving to be a bother. What made it more embarrassing was that she was practically family! It was only when I finally mentioned that she looked familiar that she mentioned our connection. And as a nice ending to this tale she gave us a 20% dicount on dinner! Left her a big tip, despite her protests.

Anyhoo, my short thoughts on the 15 short flicks:

• Gil Alkabetz, Rubicon - Reminded me of Bill Plympton's work, w/c wasn't a bad thing
  
• Jochen Ehmann, HOBO - Whuh???
  
• Lars Henkel, The Patchwork Queen - Whuh???
  
• Daniel Höpfner, Cherchez la Femme - Whuh??? Oh, and WHUH???
  
• Andy Kaiser, Harara - Confusing. Pruny.
  
• Tine Kluth, Ghost Train - A little sad, with Boxing Helena homage
  
• Raimund Krumme, The Message - Fido Dido w/ indie flavor
  
• Jochen Kuhn, Recently 2 - Didn't watch Recently 1. Should have.
  
• Daniel Nocke, The Modern Cyclops - Wish it had better animation to go with quirky story
  
• Hannes Rall, The Raven - The Simpsons version was better
  
• Chris Stenner, Heidi Wittlinger, Rocks - Watching life pass by in "rock time" was cool.
  
• Jan Thüring, Terminal: Paradise - (See thoughts on The Modern Cyclops)
• Thomas Voigt, The Moment - Trippy Animal Planet moment
  
• Johannes Weiland, "Hessi James" - A Bug's Life meets Woody Allen
  
• Kirsten Winter, Escape - They shoulda closed with Hessi James.

Spider-Man 3's Venom

Yowza!

Lost on Lost? Take Losticil!

Click on the blank space below. Seriously.

I Think That I Shall Never See...

... a poem as denuded as our tree right now.

A crew from Manila Seedling finally came by to assess the damage Typhoon Milenyo wrought upon our mango tree. Bad news: they were gonna amputate. And amputate they did. The tree went from oversized rhubarb plant to biblical burning bush, sans the burning.

Well, at least placing the Xmas lights on it this year won't be too difficult.

Cloning on The Day of the Dead

My latest clone pix series was shot during our annual visit (today) to Manila Memorial Park in Dasmariñas. I kept the poses rather plain ('coz who wants to act like an ass in a cemetery), so I tried to make up in quantity what's lacking in quality.