Schitzophrenic Sunday

Arrived a bit late to a christening party at Dad's/ Saisaki (Glorietta branch) that didn't happen. Since Lisabelle's husband Gilbert's grandfather died 2 weeks ago the party was cancelled. I heard of the former news but failed to deduce the latter, though it would've helped if Lisa actually told me that the party was postponed, probably 'til Baby Nigel's birthday in December. Drove home in time to get picked up for a lunch party at Tramway.

After lunch, however, instead of heading home we went to Le Pavillion in Pasay to check out Oti's booth at a wedding convention being held there. (Nice Apple monitors.) Stayed for about an hour, or 45 minutes more than I could stand. Did we head straight home after that? Nope. First, dropped Dad off at the Holiday Inn, then picked up Sis and the kids at their place for a supposed trip to Makati... which somehow turned into a trip to Intramuros and (get this) Manila Zoo. And for a place that was currently under rennovation (hence the lack of giraffes and lions), the 40-peso ticket price (half price for Manila residents) was definitely not worth it. I haven't been here for more of less 2 decades (and boy, I wish it was 3 decades).

After the zoo we picked up Dad and finally went home, though 45 minutes later we went out again for dinner at Country Waffles. Saw Bernadette Sembrano and a gentleman friend (and someone I assumed to be the gentleman friend's mother). Good steak, though the pink lemonade was too sweet. I think one of the waiters tried to flatter (or irritate) Berns by belting out "Wish Ko Lang," at random. If he really wanted to flatter her he should've called the owner of the car that was blocking theirs when they were trying to leave.

Power Out, Out of Power

Got up really early. Six AM, in fact. Why? Last night the power went out (11:16PM, according to Meralco) in a "scheduled power interruption," and there I was just finishing a Tae Bo workout a few minutes earlier. Needless to say trying to get some sleep was a bitch. Power came back 7 hours later.

Had lunch with Joy at Bubba Gump Shrimp. Even though I had already packed a lunch (2nd time this happened with her) the restaurant staff didn't make a fuss when I had fried rice with their bucket of mahi mahi, shrimp and lobster (and fries buried underneath).

Tonight I had dinner with Rafael, Cheryl Uy and 2 of their friends from Canada, Jocelyn and Grace, at Josef Imbus Stube, a German restaurant in San Juan. Like with Ivy's wedding reception, not being the "alpha male" of the conversations, I only had a moderately good time. Nothing against the company, but they simply had more history together. Most of the time I didn't know what they were talking about. Part of me regretted uninviting Josephine (and Marjorie by association) to this get-together. A small consolation come in the form of Karen Lim and her batchmate Laurie, both of whom also went there to eat.

"So, How Was Your Labor Day Weekend?"

April 28: Had lunch with Joy at Gloria Maris in Greenbelt, despite the fact I packed a hotdog lunch for myself that morning. Hell with it. I haven't seen her for a long time. Also managed to download and print myself a copy of the latest Michael Crichton novel Prey. Almost got Michael Moore's Stupid White Men too but the stupid PDF file was in German.

May 1: Watched X2 with Vince, DJ, Russell and Beth (Dee couldn't make it) at Robinson's Galleria. Missed the opening sequence featuring Nightcrawler, but was really frustrated me was the P120, "single viewing only" ticket price. Save for the ridiculous climax (which had Wrath of Khan written all over it), the movie kicked ass. And I was right about the spoiler.

May 2: Goverment employees had an extra day off. No such luck with private employees such as yours truly. Luckily Ma was in the neighborhood and picked me up from work. We went to Megamall to check out the 3-day sale, Day 1. Got some new shorts, a baby carriage (gift), plastic flower pots and a couple of electric fans. I got another "missing" issue of Black Panther and Captain Marvel, as well as Codename: Knockout #16, while issues 0 to 15 are still with Jeffrey Co in the US. Well, gotta start somewhere.

Damn You, Spoilers! DAMN YOU!!!!
Rache came by the office for some voice icon recordings. Afterwards we had tea and frappuccino at Starbucks.

So an accidental glance at one of the questions from a online interview with Famke Janssen and James Marsden for X2 may have revealed a major spoiler for the film. And after all the effort I made to avoid such things til tomorrow when I plan to watch it with Dee and Vince. Worse, this spoiler may be nothing else but the "surprise ending" I've read about! Please don't let me be right!

"Holy Naga Weekend!"

Holy Week was spent by all 3 Families in Naga City. Planned 6-hour trips back-and-forth turned into 10-hour trips with stopovers, overtakes and traffic. Should've brought more than 5 CDs and 1 tpb (Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection, bought with Rachelle whom I treated to tea at Seattle's Best last Wednesday after Aimee treated me to lunch at Grappos that same day... but that's another story)

Day 1 was spent settling in the established houses where we'd be sleeping. Took a trip to the LCC (their version of SM) "mall," then to my maternal grandmother's gravesite, then finally capping off with dinner at 3-Ku's house.

Day 2 was "leisure time," first with a trip to a private beach house in Bacacai, Legazpi. The filthy sea water kinda ruined it, but the kids swam anyway. We even got to bury Herman in the sand. After lunch we headed for the Mayon Volcano, specifically the rest stop at the bottom (or 1/4 the way up). Simultaneous hot-sunny and cool-breezy was really annoying. Before heading back to the beach house for dinner we stopped by the local zoo, which was pretty cool, in a "looks better than Manila Zoo and smells better than Tagaytay Zoo" kinda way. I couldn't figure out though why the ostriches, mountain goats, sheep and chickens were in the same cage/lot. Low budget, or were they going for a Noah's Ark theme? Capped off the evening watching Mean Machine on DVD.

Day 3 went more slowly. Thinking that our ride to Bestra would be late Emark and I had a heavy lunch. Wouldn't ya know it, the ride came early, so unfortunately we were too full to enjoy any of the party food prepared for April's birthday. After killing time watching Transformers The Movie on DVD (newly noticed details: Megatron's oily blood and drool, and pike actually said Oh, shit!), we headed out for Pasacao to check out the family owned ports. (I thought they planned to swim again.) Sis had a small accident when she slipped the busted the infra-red cover of the video camera. Failing to swim in the surprisingly cleaner Pasacao waters we caught up with Glen and his family at a water resort in Penafrancia. The kids got to swim and slide while we got video footage of Herman going down the water slide with Mia...and slipping while trying to stand up! Funny and scary and the same time. Big dinner party at Mabulo (5-Kim's house) that ended with one group going to 5-Kim's brother Atoy's ice making factory and the other out bowling. Boit and Sis tied at 125, while I sucked at 76.

Not sleeping on my final night in Naga I watched One Hour Photo, then got picked up at 4 AM to head for Mabulo (I slept in Emark's house), where the Families met up, had a big breakfastm and departed at 5:15 in the morning. Four stops and 1 lunch at Max's Restaurant later we arrived home at 4 in the afternoon.

Birthday Bowling Party

Yesterday I had a birthday bowling party at the Playdium. Expected 12 people, 8 showed up, and late, at that. (lesson #1: invite more guests than you expect to arrive to break even. lesson #2: don't show up on time your own party, 'coz the guests won't) Vince kicked my ass, score-wise. Dee beat me by a couple of points, but only because she does that dainty, get-the-ball-rolling-like-a-senior-citizen bowling techinique. All of us kicked DJ's ass. Lisabelle and Gilbert just watched our 2 sets, since they were pooped from staying up all night with the baby. After the game I brought Vince, Dee and DJ to the house for some ice cream.

Most the gifts consisted of pastry, 'cept for Rafael, who got me a necktie with a sheep-pattern design.

Operation Now What?!?

Three weeks later US forces have overtaken Bagdhad, looting is rampant (why is it an opressed society's first instinct upon being "liberated" is stealing?) and Saddam Hussein is nowhere to be found. People seem to have forgotten why the US invaded Iraqin the first place: recover weapons of mass destruction and capture/kill Saddam. Guess what? Neither goal has been achieved.

Now for happier news. For my birthday we (the families) had dinner at The Outback. Wilson (though the card said From Jasmine)got me an Adobe Photoshop 7.0 book while Jocelyn got The 7 Samurai DVD.

Ongpin Odyssey (experienced Tuesday, entered Wednesday)

After completing the morning errands I drove Pa to his favorite barber shop in Soler Street, Binondo. It's the same one he's been going to since...forever. When Boit and I were younger (re: prepubescent) Pa would take us to Soler (where my second cousin used to have a store selling wholesale fabric) to get a haircut. We've outgrown the place since then, with me going to NitKat in Aurora and Boit to Greenhills. Still pay half of what he does, though.

ANYhoo, Pa said it'd take him an about an hour to finish (haircut, shave, massage) so I killed time going around Tutuban Center. When I came back for him he still wasn't done so I headed for the parking lot but not without getting a little lost first. When Pa finally arrived he made me get out of the car so we could grab a bite to eat. I was surprised to learn that we weren't that far from the President's Tea House, were we had siomai and siopao. Saw (but didn't approach, as is my way) Jenny, an old batchmate from SJCS, chatting with friends. After snacks came the walk to the drugstore, the convenience store, and finally the street vendors for some fruit. Even ran into 2-Ku, who was staying at the Fortune Hotel.

I just experienced a typical afternoon for Pa when he's in Ongpin. It had its moments (particularly when he was paying for everything since I didn't have any money), but on the whole I'd rather stay home.

Saisaki Saturday

For Sis' birthday the families had dinner at Saisaki QC. It's been a while since I last ate there so I was surprised to see ice cream added to the dessert buffet selection, as well as having the sushi buffet move exclusively to the sushi bar. More sanitary, I guess. This time I stayed away from the rice I stuffed myself with sushi (notably octopus), steak and tempura. Dessert consisted of watermelon and chocolate ice cream.

Day 2 of Really Hot Summer, as in no cool breeze, day or night. Ech.

Thanks But No Credit

After arriving at the office I left about 45 minutes later and went to DLSU to attend the thesis defense of my ComArts clients Reena and Mon. The screening of their animated feature went well with the audience (and thesis panelists) and even got its fair share of laughs. Like I said (but not out loud): a good presentation can make up for what's lacking in content, in this case some glaring plot holes. Sadly the stroking of my ego never came as nobody asked about the voiceover work. Seens the presentation was so good they overlooked the fact the only 2 people did the voices for the numerous characters in the cartoon. Voiceover work is so thankless sometimes. It pays, but still thankless.

Okay, you get thanks, but no recognition.

On a side note, next time I head for DLSU I'll make sure the return trip is for home, not the office. Commuting from DLSU to Makati is an absolute pain.