101010 (Not Binary Code)

Had Sunday lunch w/ Dee at Cafe Mediterranean in SM MoA to help pass the time as the 'Rents attended a birthday lunch party at Century Seafood. For the first time I didn't completely finish my moussaka.

Later that evening I ran into Dee's sister Marilyn at Jehan Sia (Li)'s wedding reception at Sofitel (went w/ BoiT and Dionne), seated at the table next to ours. Since Jehan's little brother married my cousin Eliza it was no surprise that the Hao Chins were present, as well.

The newlyweds seemed to have a allotted a significant portion of the wedding budget to photographers. Aside from having 2 shutter-guys (Jervy Santiago among them), the now-obligatory photo booth was replaced by an actual photographer standing by w/ her DSLR camera, while her partner worked on a laptop and portable photo-printer.

Tonight was also the largest gathering of Ad Extremians (aka SJCS Batch 1994) in formal wear since our Senior prom. Tim Yap emceed and did improv for the evening, while Jehan's dad performed w/ his Argentinian Tango dance group, same as last year. I was also surprised to see Joy Lua since I thought had already formally settled in Australia. Also on my list of "Hey, it's you!" sightings: Winston Co, Richard Uy, Jane Kingsu, Ritchie Ang, Peterson Tieng (actually that shouldn't come as a surprise since he officiated the church wedding) and 2 DLSU professors, including Julie Tanada. Unfortunately the other guy's name escape me, although we did recognize each other.

Déjà View

I need to come up w/ new poses...

Missed the Boat

This Saturday was the Galeón Andalucía's (a replica of a 17th century Spanish galleon used during the galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco -- thanks, InterNets) last day docked at Manila's South Harbor, where it arrived October 6 and was open to the public. For its last day visiting hours were only going to be from 8AM to 12 noon, so Lola and I woke up early and arrived at a quarter to eight.

Guess we should've arrived earlier, because the line outside South Harbor was already insanely long. Even as we were able to sneak past the gates (told the guard we had an appointment at the Manila Standard), we only ended up on the tail end of an even longer line, because like us they also decided to check out the boat last-minute like. On the other end of the line was a sign posted on the gate of the registration office that read Please be ready for long lines. Registration is from 9-10:30AM. I thought things were looking bleak, but Lola the optimist wanted to stay on.

(Incidentally that's where I also caught sight of a guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln on 3-wheeled motorized scooter. Boy, the things you find on street corners...)

Around 11AM the combined stifling heat and frustration that the lot of us may be lining up for naught were making some people in line antsy and very vocal about line-cutters. One guy, who wore a ring as a necklace while his curly white chest hair was poking out of his shirt (Lola couldn't stop laughing when I whispered that description of the guy has he walked past us) even grabbed a long piece of wood, presumably to look bad-ass and show line-cutter he means business. Right, like he'd risk assaulting someone and face possible jail time because someone wanted to get on a boat earlier than him.

By 11:45 we had to leave the line because I was due to meet Eileen at Robinson's Ermita in a couple of hours (to watch The Town), my feet were killing me and I wanted to eat lunch first since I only had one tall glass of Ovaltine before I left the house this morning. When we got the gate the crowd outside was even bigger than when we last saw it. Good luck, suckers.

Two meaty meals, Royce chocolate samplings and drinks of Cafe Mocha later Eileen found us at Starbucks. Unfortunately Lola didn't join us for the movie because she was determined to clean up her room today. I'd cross my fingers, but based on her past attempts to get her room-cleaning started I'll just end up w/ sore fingers.

After the movie it was "official:" I've been out of the house all day, but once I got home I showered and changed, preparing to join and drive the 'rents to a Chinese Sweet Sixteen (he's a dude) birthday dinner party in President Tea House in Binondo. And what better way to celebrate your 16-year-old Chinese son becoming a... late teenager than by giving guests boxed bottles of Johnny Walker. My head still hurts from being bombard all night by Chinese KTV.

Kara's Day

Today I became Ninong to one Kara Naomi Uy Chong (named after Battlestar Galactica and anime characters, respectively, yes-the-dad-is-a-geek), home from Hong Kong w/ her parents Richard and Aimee.

(Lookit that, isn't she a whole-round bundle of CUTE?)

I more or less arrived early at the Santuaro de San Jose in Greenhills but still failed to get a decent parking spot. Fellow godparents included SJCS alumni Marilyn Chua, her hubby Allan Go-Alcantara and Christopher Uy. Pretty much went off w/o a hitch, and afterwards we headed for Gloris Maris for lunch.

As a gift I got her a couple of Supergirl T-shirts because my inner geek would like to believe she was half-named after Kara Zor-El.

Robredo, not Robredon't

Tonight --upon 4-Ku's initiative-- we hosted a small dinner for my Ninong, "acting" Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government and current crab mentality victim Jesse Robredo.

Jesse and his wife Lenny --close family friends since my parents were kids-- were selected to be my godparents for my Catholic Confirmation in SJCS. (Another pair was being considered but eventually passed over because my sister thought they would've spoiled me rotten.) To my knowledge they're the only living godparents I have left and ones I had a say in choosing, as I know next-to-nothing about my baptismal godparents.

The man is barely 2 months into his post and all it took was one disgruntled, most-likely crooked, trigger happy ex-cop, a bus full of tourists and a media $#!+storm to threaten the good he's barely done and will do. 4-Ku wanted to see him and ask how we was doing. His worrying was for naught (reading the papers lately doesn't help), since Ninong Jess said he's doing fine (not reading the papers helps him stay that way). You don't get to be a man w/ this much integrity w/o being thick-skinned.

It's also this integrity that makes me believe him when he said was informed too-little-too-late about the hostage situation (w/c was horribly mishandled and mismanaged), and that he really wants to help the PNP grunts, but of course the power to do so was taken away by The President.

He says he won't resign, but won't fight if he's fired for the sake of politics. Any would-be replacement won't do the job better than him, but will probably be more willing to "play the game." Oh, and Jesus Versoza is a real boob and should've retired earlier.

If all this is coming off as one-sided and name-droppish that wasn't my intention. He doesn't need me to defend him, and he already knows that family and friends are behind him all the way. I'm doing this for me. I'm proud to be his godson. I'm lucky to know someone who's good at what he does and will do it for the good of others. To know that there's a good guy in government gives me the kind of hope having Noynoy Aquino as president never will.

(Yes, the irony of Ninong Jess campaigning for Noynoy does not escape me; but I with Dick Gordon called him, instead.)

More Ketchup, Please

This is becoming a regular feature in my delayed-and-w/o-too-much-detail blogging lifestyle. (Ah, well. Beats having to open a Twitter account.):

Aug. 14: The Contessa's newlywed friends Elwood and Sarah Mae invited us to their lovely new home in Quezon City, a 2-storey structure featuring the current architectural fad of horizontal beams, large exterior ornamental stone designs and super-high ceilings. Guys like me went gaga over the 54-inch plasma TV in the living room (w/ surround speakers installed in the ceiling over the couch), while the ladies went lala over one particular lamp next to the couch.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Mae's cousins Rhea and Racquel (and her husband Alfred). While the rest of the grown-ups were chatting I was playing Build-a-Cup-and-Coaster-Castle w/ Racquel's daughter (whose name escapes me at the moment, but seeing as she's only Prep I in SJCS I doubt she'll hold a grudge).

Aug. 15: Hanging w/ Lola at our usual Starbucks joint (Ash Creek), secretly making fun of the cabal of teenage-to-adolescent Chinoy males huddled at the table behind her. It was like watching the gathering of the Asian cast of Revenge of the Nerds.

Aug. 23: Arya Greenhills for a double dinner date (The Contessa would probably object to the "date" part, but rest assured I'm only in this for the alliteration) w/ Rhea (see how fast I can make friends?) and her friend Dino. It should have been a sextuple supper but Sarah and Elwood had to leave early, so apologies for them for only taking out the camera after they departed. No Robin Padilla sighting this time, but we did see Angelu de Leon having dinner at the table across from ours.

Aug. 28: Spent the late afternoon and evening w/ Amie, Lyndon's friend whom I met coupla years back. After I had a massage we went to Marina at Metrowalk for some dinner.

If anyone noticed that the path of these meetings took me from Quezon City to San Juan to Mandaluyong, well.... correlation is not causation. :p

First Rule of GeekFight! Club:

Friday night, on the eve of the 3 Families' annual shopping sojourn to Hong Kong, Lola and I attended Geekfight!, a pop culture-centric quiz nite event at Quantum Cafe in Makati. The quiz's catergories were: Gadgets, Dinosaurs, Comic books, Music, Video Games, Crime Movies, Sci-Fi and the Geek IQ Portion, with bonus Star Wars round. I chose the name Capricornix, in honor of Caprica and Boy Bawang.

The one Gadget question they threw that surprised me was "What device is used to open the New Gods' boom tubes?" (A: Mother Box), since that was really more of a Comics question. Apparently they wanted to delve into fictional gadgets as well.

While no-one in our team (adopted members Ed and Frances --who thought the team name was an allusion to Asterix-- included) had much to offer by way of right answers in the Music category (we opted for funny ones, instead), the Comic Books category was a chance for me to have what Lola called my "smug face." The only ones I answered incorrectly was due to my not having read the books in question, no pun intended (Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6 and Slam Dunk, specifically). Meanwhile Lols and Ed saved our butts in the Video Games category.

This was only the second quiz nite event I've attended, but the first one I managed to stay the whole evening for, and the evening ran late, much to Ma's frustration (told her I'd be done by 10, but it ran 'til 1AM). In terms of overall ranking we were No. 6 out of 15 participating teams. Least we made the top 10, in not the top 5.

Notes From a Blackout

July 14: I type this at 35 mins past one in the morning in a powerless house, using up precious netbook battery power. Just got home a good half-hour before that after driving through intense windy storms. Before that I brought home The Contessa and Lola after we caught the last screening of Toy Story 3(D) at Gateway Mall.

The 3D part was more trouble than it’s worth. Halfway thru the second act the screen goes blank. When the picture came back the 3D wasn’t working properly. Characters in close-up looked fine w/o using the glasses, in plain 2D (w/c wasn’t what I paid for), but foreground characters had ghost images. They “rewound” the film a second time but it also took awhile before the 3D “synched” again. Lola found herself teary-eyed over the ending.

Had the film gone w/o a hitch we would’ve left a good half-hour earlier and not have driven through dark streets and seeing tree branches scattered all over the road. I was taking The Contessa home when we witnessed the street and traffic lights go the same timeas the simulcast radio-tv news on DZBB.

I can now say I’ve driven through a storm in the middle of the night amidst a citywide blackout. Cue Dean Devlin and our disaster-movie of the year.

Spent the afternoon reading. Finished Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, Mighty Avengers: Assemble and Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 9 collections. (Yes: For the most part my new books only see the light of day when the power's out.)

Escaped the blackout in my neighborhood by going to my 6pm kettlebell exercise class (power in their building returned before lunch), and afterwards hung out at my cousin's house for dinner, a hot shower and a screening of I Love You, Philip Morris. Good times had to end, though, as I went home to a powerless house.

I was about to get into some midnight reading (charged my cellphone and netbook at my cousin's) when The Contessa texted me, saying she was w/ M1, and that the latter said that if I wanted to a "sincere reconciliation" I'd should join them in Greenbelt ASAP. Not bloody likely.

July 15: The power came back around 1:30AM, only to go out again 8 hours later but come back after 4 hours in a "scheduled" brownout rotation. Whee... not.

The Internet Said It, So It MUST BE TRUE

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Frankly I like this badge better than the last one I was given when it analyzed the previous blog entry and said I wrote like DAN BROWN. Just shoot me.

Bicol Bacation Bideo Brouhaha

Long story short: I made a video of my recent trip to Bicol, and it made some of my fellow travelers upset, either by its content or the way it was edited (the way some pictures were juxtaposed, not from a technical standpoint). Some of them are no longer speaking to me.

Short story long (Names have been "Singularized" out of my possibly misplaced sense of courtesy):

The video took 3 weeks to produce and uploaded to Facebook at an ungodly hour. Minutes later one of the girls in the video, M1, said she didn't like me putting in certain pix in the final product. In my "defense" those pix in question were my harmless way of getting back at her for putting in certain pix in her version of the Bicol vacation video that I didn't like. Requests for edit=1.

Later that morning I received a text from C --asking me to remove certain swimsuit pictures-- and from M2, in a frantic text saying C left me the above message. (Panicky much?) Requests for edit=2. The harried nature of their messages was probably because I uploaded the video for viewing for Friends instead of limiting it to just my fellow travelers, and they hoped they could get me to take it down fix it before it receives any more viewings.

I was more disappointed than mad at their reactions, especially w/ C and M2. C, embarrassed by the video, called it ugly and wanted her pictures taken out of it because she said it was her pictures. I took that to mean she was claiming ownership, w/c I had doubts about, and after checking confirmed those pics in question were shot with my camera. M2 (after calling me an idiot) clarified that C was talking about her being in those pictures, and that she had a right to ask them to be taken down if she didn't want them made public (as least in video form, 'coz she sure as heck didn't object when those same pictures were previously posted on Facebook.) True, she had the right to ask, just as I had to refuse if I thought the request was unreasonable.

And then there's R, who was in the same "objectionable" pictures as M1, on a warpath. R was mad at me (M1 just disappointed, but at least ok w/ it all now) because there was a tacit agreement between us that those pictures would not go online in any form.

Ok, they got me there. My bad. At first I privatized the video, but to avoid any further conflict (and realizing logic will never win over emotion in these kinds of arguments) I just apologized to C, R and M1 and took down the video. (Hell w/ M2, fighting C's fight when C's perfectly capable of doing it.) But nooo, it wasn't enough for R, who wanted all pictures I posted on Facebook w/ them on it taken down.

Mad and disappointed? No. Annoyed? Hell, YES. Sino siya, si Katrina Halili? I can swear on my own grave that the video is cool and unobjectionable to anyone (else) that has or might see it.

The fact that C, R and M2 are taking the same kettle-bell class as me would've made further contact awkward, but fortunately I attend the class scheduled an hour earlier. Other fellow travelers who've seen the video don't see what the fuss and bile is all about.

Long story short: I was slightly in the wrong, but made peace w/ some, while others are still in the Petty Zone. Hope they enjoy their stay there.