Ondoy and Under (or, What a Floody Web We Weave...)

All things considered, my family was really lucky during the stormy weekend 48 hours past.

I was about to get the answer to a crucial question (How do you pronounce "Canaan?") when we lost power around 1:30PM Saturday, and it only came back around 6:30PM Sunday. (Sorry for the delay, Flixster Soulmate.) After that it was howling winds, leaky walls and a rainy afternoon.

That night (after using the remaining daylight to catch up on my reading), we were witness to Mother Nature's sense of Irony when an electical fire broke out at the neighboring shanty area 2 blocks from our house. (Oh, now the rains stop and winds pick up.) From my bedroom window I saw the fire raze westward and peppered w/ explosions (probably propane tanks or electric appliances). Looks were deceiving as the fire looked closer than it really was, prompting Aissa's paranoia to get our essential files and folders out of the steel cabinet and ready for moving. Firetrucks had trouble getting to the fire because some idiots decided to avoid the flooded streets by parking and leaving their vehicles in the middle of my street, effectively roadblocking it.

I killed time chatting w/ Eileen on the phone til' one in the morning.

Come next morning we were still w/o power (we'd only see the magnitude of the damage the day after online), and not having showered for over 24 hours I was feeling... sticky. Ma still managed to get to Makati to have her hair and makeup done, since the 'rents had a wedding to attend in the afternoon. I joined them afterward for the evening reception (yes, after bathing).

When we got to Makati Shang you'd think no-one had gone thru hell and high water (literally) to get here. Amidst RJ Ledesma's emceening (man, that guy's loud... why bother w/ the microphone) I saw a familiar face at Table 40, and my mind raced the entire evening figuring out who she was. Turns out it was Krishna from DLSU Englicom days, and to prove how small the Tsinoy world is, her dad and my mom turned out to be classmates in high school. Also ran into Ad Extremian Tracy Lim's sister Vanessa and her husband. While her voice hasn't changed, her hair grew. A lot.

*Sad Postscript: Words won't do justice to the level of sadness you can't help but feel when going through these pictures. (And speaking of sad, how is it Facebook has better photo coverage of Typhoon Ondoy than actual news media organizations?).

Imagine 2-meter high MMDA pink fences along SM Centerpoint riddled w/ torn plastic bags, giving you a clue as to how high the floodwaters were that day. Cars vertically piled in twos or threes after being washed into that position by strong currents. Beds and refrigerators ending up on high electric power lines, w/c were also being climbed on by people avoiding the currents. The lower half of 2-storey houes caked in mud. Road underpasses under water. People almost drowning trying to save their Sto. Nino statues.

Makes not having water nor electricity but at least high and dry seem frivilous, doesn't it?

Wedding Addendum (or Weddendum)

More details on my cousin's wedding last Sunday:

My other cousin Aissa (and my sister to some extent) was all giddy upon hearing that morning FM radio hosts Chico & Delamar were emceeing. Too bad for them that the program was more AVP/guest centric, so their fans didn't get to hear them say much except during the quiz portion.

Super-long AVPs are the bane of my wedding reception experience. If the goal was to have something to play in the background while the waiters served dinner, bravo, they succeeded. Otherwise, I get it: Baby pix, kid pix, jump-like-Jesus'-bible-bio-straight-to-adulthood pix, couple-pix. Continuity is fine. It's the length I have issues with. (Do you really need 3 songs to tell an already truncated version of your biography? I guarantee just one will tell and leave an impression just as effectively. It's like there'll be quiz afterwards.)

On the other hand, movie trailer-like on-site AVPs I adore. Michael Bay-ish sweeping pan shots are getting tiresome, though.

Aside from the string band they had an acapella group glee away the time while dinner went on. The highlight of the evening's entertainment was probably a performance by Johann's dad's Philippine Argentine Tango group (of w/c he's president or chairman). I half expected them to use Por Una Cabeza (aka tango number from Scent of a Woman and True Lies), but no, they went w/ something longer and more obscure. That said, everyone in the ballroom stopped in their tracks to watch.

Ran into a number of Ad Extremians, including now-published author Junius Yu. I joked w/ Melissa Tong how buti pa si Junius may libro na, while the two of us were blogging for bupkis. Tim Yap was also there, sporting a tiny tie, w/c Melissa guessed was left over from our 6th grade graduation period.

Matrimonial Non-Sequitors

My cousin got married last weekend. And a coupla days before that I met up w/ a girl my mom's cousin was trying to set me up with and w/ whom I've been corresponding lately.

(And now the details:)

She works as an on-board translator for our nation's flag-carrier in the skies. And she goes to the gym. And she looks cute, as her amateur modeling photos online would attest. After chatting and texting for the past couple of weeks we decided to meet up at the Book Expo at SMX (Convenient coinkydink, shut up.) After making the rounds (separately) on what was again another mediocre literary affair (no reflection on you, Lola), she bought a book but wouldn't tell me nor Lols the title. Weird.

We went for coffee and tea at CB&TL. And there it all began to unravel further.

While we got along better online, she seemed perturbed at some of my sincere questions about her work. (Because really, I'm curious what a not-quite-a-flight-attendant does when she's in the air for 3 hours on route to China, stays on the plane for the next 2, caps it off w/ another 3 hours on the flight back.) Her facial expressions seemed to connote a "Well, DUH, what else can you do but your job" message. Lovely.

Change subject.

I asked her about her singing experience because I saw pix of her recording an album w/ some Fil-Chi youth league, but she seemed to deny it happened, much less knew what I was talking about. I was thinking, seriously? But this was on your Facebook album.

Change subject.

Where do u go to gym? Fitness first, really? What do you get w/ your membership? Again, sincere question (I go to Slimmers). Again, that "Well, DUH" look on her face. The coffee meet was turning into a Mars-Venus First Contact scenario.

Mebbe she didn't like taking about her job, but after the meeting I've not seen her online since. Must be leaving. On a jet plane.

Now the reason I placed a picture of my cousin Eliza (COINCIDENCE, SHADDAP) and her new husband Johannes wedding reception at the Sofitel Ballroom (that's them on the projector screen, middle right), was because it's nice to know that at least somebody else I know had a nice meeting pay off for them this week.

Jehan, we are now cousins. Sort of. No, I insist.

To CineEuropa 12 Organizers*:

*Come to think of it, to all those organizing free film screenings for the general public:

If all you'll do is have people wait in long lines for long hours only to have a DVD movie projected unto a 40-foot screen, w/o any regard to diminished picture quality (or the DVD skipping), I'd sooner just download the freaking films and watch 'em in my living room. FOR FREE. AND NOT EVEN PAY FOR PARKING.

Mediocre Movie Weekend

Last week was better, when Lola and I caught District 9. It's up there w/ Star Trek in terms of great sci-fi films, only the shaky camera movements in D9 had me wishing that I took some Bonamine beforehand. By comparison Cloverfield looked like it was shot w/ a tripod.

Nope, this week after giving my brain a rest from watching Sir David Attenborough's documentary series Planet Earth in gorgeous HD, I finally caught up w/ some older flix, but after watching them wished I never bothered getting them in 720p:

Steet Kings. There's 105 minutes of my life I could've used on Yoga had I known this badly-dialogued, poorly plotted pointless flick ended the way it did. Really should've done IMDB research. Sure, I recognized most of the supporting cast (hey, it's Aidan from SATC, Sucre from Prison Break, Dr. House and The Human Torch!), but the screenwriter also wrote Ultraviolet, Equilibrium and The Thomas Crown Affair remake. Also bleh films w/ big-name stars.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. I'm sorry for not listening to Lola when she said this film was bad. The first scene in B.P.R.D. headquarters made me wince and weary for the rest of the cast. Save for the fight scenes, colorful set pieces, Doug Jones' hand-acting (though if you pay too much attention to his fingers it can get distracting) and "glasshole" Johan Krauss (voiced by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane), the story wasn't all that compelling. Hellboy is basically a bully, casually killing off characters like Tim Burton's Batman. That said, I never really liked the Hellboy comic (the B.P.R.D. spinoff series are a much better read), so I shouldn't be surprised the movie adaptations never caught my interest.