Chip IN My Shoulder

The persistent consequence of the P90X program is still persisting: pain in my left shoulder area.

Describe the pain, please.

Pinchy, but from the inside.

When does it hurt?

When I raise my elbow almost above my chest.

What else have you noticed?

Once in a while I hear either a small pop or a dull grinding sound when I move my left arm across my chest.

Any swelling or bleeding?

Nope.

Have you taken any medication?

Alaxan, but it doesn't help.

Have you sought any other kind of treatment?

Twice I had a massage. Afterward the pain went away, but after about 24 hours it came back.

Yargh, Me Mall Mateys

(Made a voice memo about this on my cellphone yesterday, but still forgot to blog it. My memo needs memo.)

I was reading The Graveyard Book while waiting for Dee at the Coffee Bean (and Tea Leaf) of Robinson's Place when I saw a burly foreign dude pass by. He was sporting a wooden leg (hard to miss since he wore Bermuda shorts) that started just below his left knee.

In this age of plastics, pneumatics and flesh tone latex rubber it was surprising to see something so old school in terms of prosthetics. Given his physique the guy was one eyepatch and a parrot away from being a pirate, only his "peg leg" was punctuated w/ a big brown left shoe instead of a stump.

I was temped to take a picture but couldn't set up the cellphone cam in time (plus I was doing that stupid voice memo thing). Then again if he saw me he might have keelhauled my ass.

* * *

Went to purchase tickets for me and the 'Rents for a trip to Naga this weekend at the Air Philippines office. While waiting for the receipt another couple --old man and I'm assuming his daughter-- came in to purchase tickets. By coincidence they were also going to Naga on the same date.

When I went to meet up Dee at the Coffee Bean who should also arrive but the same old man and daughter. They even took the table next to mine, with the old man sitting while daughter goes in to order. I was thinking of asking him about their trip but what seems to be an amusing coincidence in thought might seem creepy-stalkerish in reality.

"Hello, 'di mo po ako kilala but I was at the Air Philippines office when you and-- anak mo ba yun-- were getting tickets. Punta rin po kayo sa Bicol? Ako rin!"

Random Weekend Notes

S A T U R D A Y

• Caught up on my reading. 100 comics in 8 hours (but not consecutively).
• Finally beat Amy at Facebook Bowling Buddies, but Andy crushed my overall high score. Boit gives me pointers.
• Dee YMs me about craving Koizu Tea.
• Tried out the P90X+ Intervals workout. It was basically 2 rounds of a 20-minute cardio routine, w/ the second one done in reverse order of the first. Got winded, but that won't last. Plyometrics is still harder, IMO. New month starts tomorrow. Perfect time to start a new program if it weren't for my f@#king shoulder.
• Stayed up all night scouring BitTorrent for the songs Dee asked me to download. It didn't help that I never heard of most of the artists.
  

S U N D A Y

• Tried to watch movies (and the Beijing Olympics closing ceremonies) but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Didn't help that I was lying down on the couch while watching, but that wasn't the problem. Just couldn't get into it.
• The reason I didn't make any concrete plans to go out today was because I was supposed to have a massage at 4PM, but it turns out Bebot didn't make the appointment. In the end it was just as well since we were going out for dinner.
  
• After picking up Pa on the way to Dampa the light rain became a heavy downpour, w/c lead to Pa (again) freaking out about getting caught in floodwaters and insisting we head for the nearest resto of his choosing, Dragon Gate. The other car's occupants (me, Ma, Ais, Evett and 5-Kim) argued against it, suggesting that MOA was a better option since it had indoor parking and more resto options. At first Ma wavered, so we made the U-turn to Dragon Gate. When the parking attendant told us that even their parking lots were flooded we headed out for MOA. After settling in Fish & Co. the downpour stopped. Sheesh. I ordered the teriyaki salmon.
• Saw long lost long-lost SJCS classmate Johanna Ong, carrying (I'm assuming) her daughter. Didn't say Hi to either one of them.
  
• Actually had trouble blogging about the weekend due to lack of content, hence the "bulletpoints" edition.

SPITactular Finish

A bunch of us attended S.P.I.T.'s last night of free shows for August at Mag:Net Cafe, w/ most of the them from Dee's side of the family. My new friends and acquaintances include: Caz, Nes(tor), Sharlyn Kaw (who I suspect is related to my old Saint Jude Catholic schoolmates Karen and Albert) and Rachel Ti. KV, Maine and sister Marilyn completed the group.

While this was my third time to catch SPIT, a new face (for me, anyway) joined the cast in the form of Big Boy. (Embarrassingly, aside from friends Aryn and Kenneth, and celebs Joel and Gabe, the names of other cast members are a mystery to me, even when Aryn introduces them before the start of every skit. Sigh.) His techniques of exaggerated accents and a meta-approach to the joke telling hit the spot. For my part in audience participation I was thrilled 2 out 3 song lyrics I contributed made it through, plus my suggestion for biik (Tagalog for piglet, to my non-existent foreign readers) made for some good jokes following KV's poorly utilized suggestion tattoo.

After the show (again, now down to 90 mins. from the previous 120) it was Trivia Night. KV unscrupulously volunteered our group to join this no-prize quiz contest, either working under the impression that we'd have a fun time or to somehow take advantage of my not-so-limitless knowledge of useless information. Talk about being disappointed on both counts.

KV registered us under the modest name of Team Right Answer, w/ him as team captain Captain Caveman. There were 5 teams, 60 questions, but no buzzers, so we had make animal noises. Captain KaVeman chose "woof," overruling my "quack." The team to get 3 right answers got to vote other people out, while a team getting 3 wrong answers had to kick someone out of their group.

First up: Celebrity triva (alright!), but w/ mostly sports figures (ah, crap!). Goal: spelling their Eastern European Block-loving, vowel-hating last names. Long story short: we lost, and KaVeman (and all the other team captains) were eliminated.

The game continued. We were this close to scoring our only legitimate point of the evening had we spelled Christina Aguilera's name right, but used one 'L' too many. Next to be elimnated: first people in line or in front of the mike. Cue Me.

The rest of the evening was spectacular, to be completely dishonest. The Name That Font segment and Kenneth Keng's Star Wars trivia portion probably had Dee use up her "What the hell?" catchphrase quota for the evening, while I was in the audience wondering out loud if Kenneth got out of the house often. After 80's Showbiz (unfair, IMO, seeing as most of the team were born in that era), Team Right Answer (w/ not even the 5 pity points Gabe awarded but took back for enduring Kenneths SW trivia) called it a night. We stuck around for one more round of drinks, basking in the taste of light beer, picture-taking and a cacophany of pretend animal sounds. (One team gave up trying and just went, "Chicken chicken" instead of clucking.)

Sunday Broken Sunday

Swear I don't know what's wrong w/ my reflexes today. While preparing lunch I dropped a Corelle dinner plate (w/c shatters in star-like fragments, btw, and not in bigger pieces like in the movies).

Then tonight while getting a drink of milk my glass accidentally hits another glass in the counter, breaking the first one.

I already got more sleep last night than I ever had in ages, so I'm not sure exactly why I'm this clumsy.

Your Saturday Night Movie

Tonight was dinner night. Movie night. Booze night. Overnight.

Okay, 2 outta four ain't bad for these things.

My guest list shrank as the day went by, leaving me worried about having too much food and not enough people showing up. (Ooh, déjà vu...) I prepared tacos and corkscrew pasta served w/ chicken in marinara sauce (oh, and ice cream). Cathy (Yao) and her sister Mona (Lisa, seriously) brought lumpia shanghai. Dee brought cakes and KV brought a minibar.

We helped ourselves to dinner while six cans of San Mig Light and Schwepps tonic water rested in the freezer (but sadly remained unopened in the course of the evening). When I mentioned that KV emcees and the Yao sisters baked for bucks, the guests got to talking about business prospects. Dee, with all the manic energy of a female Tim Yap heaped praise on home-based food businesses, specifically cakes. The louder pair of guests (guess :p) also wanted to hook up for conversational Chinese language lessons.

After the ladies toasted on cranberry vodka (KV had scotch) we headed for the living room for tonight's main feature, REC (voted by majority over Superhero Movie). I've now become so desensitized that the scary scenes came off as "Cool!" rather than "Gaah!"-- almost like when I ride roller coasters. On the other hand from the paralyzed look on the sisters' faces I'd say it worked on them. We ended up watching Superhero Movie to dilute the memory of Spanish zombies. Now for this my belief that dick and fart jokes cheapen a decent parody, so thank god there weren't that many. It also helps to watch it w/ a group, as you somehow ride w/ their energy on the laughs. It's hard to describe, but there's some jokes you just find funnier when a specific person (or group) likes it, too.

Three AM already? Go to bed. Head's killing you. Parting shot, so to speak:

Body of Work

Had my first professional massage tonight. (Hmm, that sounded dirtier than necessary.) Juliet does house calls and our live-in secretary is her usual client, but I wanted to give it a go, if only to see if she can get that knot out of my semi-sprained shoulder. After a bit of Tae Bo and a shower it was my turn under her knuckles.

As I lay on my stomach in my A.B.U.s I couldn't tell what she used to scrape the soles of my feet, but I did discover that my tuchus is ticklish. When she got to my upper back and shoulders she kept hitting that nerve cluster I associate w/ the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. I didn't lose consciousness, but wincing was the word of the day. She also had to tell me to go limp several times when she tried to rotate my arms or bend my head forward so much I almost kissed myself on the chest.

If the masseuse's goal was to crack my joints the way people crack their knuckles, she was only successful insofar as cracking my toes. And speaking of w/c the toe-pulling was my least favorite of her moves, but she was successful in treating my shoulder. Still, better lay off any plans to get back to weight training to be on the safe side.

Strangely enough she managed to make my calves feel like I've been walking on tiptoes all day. When I showered again (to wash the Efficascent Oil off) my skin felt tender, w/c wasn't surprising considering that she kneaded me like week-old dough. All worth it.

'Rent-Free

It's now Day 2 (or Day 3 as it's past midnight) of No-'Rents Week. During this time things slow down around the house. Less lights are turned on at night. Almost everyone goes to bed early, while conversely I get to go down to work at 9AM instead of 8:30. (Guess what? Work's still there, Ma.) And no big meals are cooked either for lunch or dinner.

And how nice of Typhoon Karen to show up as they left. Rainy day.

Spent my morning trying to watch downloaded copies of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies (good chunk of the video concentrated on the parade of nations, so I skipped that) and Sleeper, w/c I'm sure wasn't Woody Allen's way of describing what you'd end up being while watching it. And finally after watching the first two episodes of Hotel Babylon I'm convinced I can play the show on the background while doing something else on the PC.

Another perk to having the house to myself is being to leave it at odd hours (odd for this family, anyway). For instance, tonight I met up w/ Dee for a late dinner at the Museum Cafe in Greenbelt 4.

On a side note, I have 2 bones to pick w/ this cafe's design aesthetics:

1) Fine, the regular lumpia-roll style of presenting a wet towel is cliche at best, but someone should tell them that utilizing instead the shape of dog turd won't exactly invoke images of good hygiene.

2) Ok, so the artistically-cut pads of paper conceal the ugly metal vase, but why place it near a lit candle? Hell, let's make it an even more obvious fire hazard by turning the vases into candle holders.

We had tandoori chicken pizza (thankfully not as spicy as expected) and mojitos. For my first time taste of the latter I can say it was a bit tasteless. Maybe it was partly because Dee ordered the non-flavored (by kiwi or lychee, it seemed) versions, but otherwise all I could taste were the mint leaves. After dinner I treated her to gelatto.

Ah, without the Contessa around only Dee can get me to get out of my comfort zone.

My Thoughts on Wall-E

Saw this today w/ Lola in Greenhills. (Also had my first taste of Quickly Iced Taro. Chewy...)

From my Facebook Flixster review:

Grrr, Jemps stole my line about the almost-no-words-to-describe-this-movie thing. ;) I'll talk around it, instead.

I like recognizing the voice talents involved (guessed right on Jeff Garlin, Kathy Najimy and John Ratzenberger but missed on Sigourney Weaver), so I was surprised to learn the electronic voices of Wall-E and EVE (doesn't she look like something Apple should sell and call the I-Bot?) were done by real people.

Andrew Stanton always makes my favorite Pixar films (no offense, John Lasseter and Brad Bird), even though his latest tale was veering towards my not-so-favorite Dreamworks Animation's "techniques" of using pop-culture references (okay, "retro-culture") and real humans.

Am still unsure why they'd mix footage of actual and CGI people, though. Either they didn't want to waste using Fred Willard or they couldn't find that many fatties.

While the grownups saw the underlying message of environmental destruction and the storytelling legacies left by Asimov, Dick and Clarke, my kid nephews and nieces simply saw the love story of boy robot meets girl robot. I envy them, sometimes.

Lost Then Found (Updated)

Day Before Yesterday: Office PC monitor finally gave out, so right now we're having to make-do w/ second hand monitor Boit brought over from his office. Brightness/contrast adjustment has been difficult and it hurts to look at for more than a few minutes at a time. It's almost as if it was meant for those w/ already poor eyesight (i.e. BoiT). At the very least it will induce it.

Yesterday: After getting my haircut at H Salon (Ma's treat) I speed-walked to SM Appliance Center 'coz Sis said she saw those Creative Zen cases that have long alluded me. Those I found before were not for sale but instead came free when you purchased said mini-media player. (Bad enough the Japanese store overpriced their products, but they weren't big on the concept of freebies, either.) The cases on sale were the 3-in-1 Skin Pack (w/c sounds like a facial package) and the Clear Case w/ keyring attachment. Since the former had 2 more skin wrappings than I needed (reminds me of those extra sets of lenses that came w/ my Rudy Project sunglasses), I chose to buy the latter. It had 2 things going for it: first it was cheaper (and obviously more available) than getting it on Amazon, and second the case was hard acrylic and not the plastic book cover-like material I thought it was.

And speaking of the latter latter, I then stopped by NBS for some plastic covering, and was surprised at how much the price of gauge 6 (or 8) type went up. It was almost 40 bucks a meter (P38.25, to be precise), and again I overestimated by asking for 6 meters worth. Even though I knew I would use this all up eventually (hardcover book purchasing won't go away anytime soon), given that plastics will still be here when I'm long gone I wish I bought huge rolls of it when it was half the price it is today.

(Yes, petroleum products are not limited to crude oil, cooking oil or gas. Plastic covers are also affected by rising oil costs.)

* * *

Today: After I dropped the 'Rents off the front entance of Sta. Mesa Market, instead of using the main parking area I drove up to the spot nearer the fruit stands. I wanted to park in reverse (front facing the street), but a bum (the type locally known as Taong Grasa) was crouching in front of the post between the parking spots. Not wanting to risk hitting the guy I opted to drive straight through (front facing the market) and settled in to read the Sunday papers I brought w/ me.

No sooner do I start reading does TG Guy walk to the front of the CRV then point and rant about the license plate numbers. He wasn't speaking in Tagalog, but his disheveled look and nonsensical ranting was enough for me to think he was a few bulbs short of a Bat Signal. I kept on reading, hoping either he'd go away or at least when he's done deciphering the Da Vinci code in the license plate not hang around near the back door of the car when the meat and veggies come in. Eventually he disappeared, leaving me in suffocating safety inside the car (open a window/door already!).

UPDATE: On a completely related/unrelated note (relatively): BoiT brought in the replacement monitor. It was gorgeous looking ASUS VK191 series LCD. After opening and setting it up I immediately wished I ordered one that was 1-3 inches bigger. And the speakers are crap so I had to reattach the old ones.

On the plus side, images on the screen are brighter and sharper than ever before. And since it's in widescreen multi-tasking (i.e. typing while watching videos) looks less cluttered, and I can display my comic 2 pages a time now. On the other hand I should probably adjust the brightness before I go blind/burn my face.