Category: friends

date day, night

I hate it when a national holiday falls on my day-off. How come other people get to enjoy a workless day and have the weekends off? I work on Sundays! I don’t get a long weekend and I still need to share the train with them? No fair.

But April 9th treated me well. Met with Eula after er months – and we went shopping! Typical. After lunch we went around Market! Market! and finally got what I wanted – big, chunky, clunky rings. I LOVE IT. There were rows and rows and rows of stalls selling costume jewelry and semi-precious stones inside the mall. I mean it. We actually got LOST at one point. It was amazing. Eula said she saw Imelda Marcos shopping there once. You should go to there. Seriously.

Here’s Eula and I showing off our rings while inside CBTL in High Street. (We were hiding from the heat. Gah.)

I also bought necklaces and earrings. They’re selling ’em quite cheap anyway. Next time, I’ll buy bracelets. Let’s do this again, Eulaaaaa. ;)

* * *

Met up with Jake that evening, then off to Trinoma to meet up with Carl and his friend and see Date Night.

THIS MOVIE HAS TINA FEY AND STEVE CARELL HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU GO WRONG. (The sex robots are just a bonus.)

Watch it.

Dinner at Tokyo Cafe with the rest of the HGC gang. I’ve avoided Tokyo Cafe for the longest time because I thought the food’s crazy expensive. Okay naman pala. Next time we go there I’ll order the parfait.

So there. How was your –

No. I won’t ask you about your weekend, because most likely you had a long weekend, so yeah yeah you had an extra day to watch DVDs. Hmp.

vacation, or this incredible heat

Bulacan till Easter Sunday. Halu-halo. My mother’s caldereta and kare-kare, yum. Sex and the City. How I Met Your Mother. Some Big Bang Theory. One story, done, but needs re-reading and edits. One story, edited, final read, done (hopefully). Silly computer games, like Diner Dash, to kill time. Jollibee with my brother. Re-read Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Drank Mint Choco Bailey’s with my father while watching a godawful action film.  Made my brother watch The Ruins, and of course he hated me for it, hehe.

The heat was torture. I’d take a long cold shower when I wake up and in a few hours I’d be swimming in my own sweat. I’d take a shower in the afternoon, and I’d start sweating while wiping myself dry. How can we live like this?

I hate the summer. I love beaches, the feel of the sand, the look of the water and the sky, but I hate the heat. Hate it hate it hate it. If asked to choose between an airconditioned hotel room and swimming at the beach under direct sunlight, I’d choose the hotel room in a heartbeat. I’m a worthless tourist like that. Seriously, we should hold tours at night, and swim only when it’s dark. (Boy, I sure hope the sun would hide behind thick clouds during the Bohol trip with Jaykie and Friends next month.)

Anyway, met up with the boyfriend after Lent. It was so hot during the commute back to the metro that I was SERIOUSLY this close to punching a stranger. Seriously. Seriously. So I had a shower first in my airconditioned room. Airconditioning. It is bliss.

Went to UP. Lunch at Choco Kiss (airconditioning!), had the Chicken Kiev. Some The Office. On Tuesday we planned to stay indoors, but ahoy rotational blackouts. Even a moron wouldn’t want to stay indoors in this heat, so off we go to UP, which also experienced a blackout (fuck – it’s as if it’s following us), played cards with Mark who happened to be at the HGC tambayan, then off to the mall.

We watched this! (Mark mentioned that Jme wanted to watch it on Saturday I’m sorry Jme it was hot and I was miserable and I wanted to laugh please don’t hate me for dragging Jaykie and watching it ahead of you guys. T_T)

As I was saying –

Photo from Filmofilia.

I love this film. (Despite the fact that the children speak with an American accent while the adults speak with a Scottish accent – despite the fact that they’re all supposed to be Vikings.) It’s  one of those few 3D films that you won’t mind paying extra to watch through the funky glasses.  (Now, if I can find me a theater where your chair tilts as the dragon spins and descends…)

3D tech has been abused lately, but in this case, it’s quite effective.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I was sweating while we’re waiting in line to buy our tickets inside the mall?

I was sweating. Inside. The mall.

It was seven p.m. when the film ended, so it was safe to venture out since the sun’s finally disappeared from the sky. But before we went home we tried eating at this Vietnamese restaurant (whose name I can’t remember! The heat’s killing off my brain cells!) for dinner. I enjoyed the salad. The vegetable’s really fresh, and the dressing’s light and tasty.

All in all, great vacation. (But still – the heat’s a real fucker.)

* * *

In other news, my story “Once They Were Gods” will appear in is in the April issue of Expanded Horizons soon. Watch this space.  Go click and read! :)

I’m also looking forward to the Summer Komikon and the Philippine Speculative Fiction V book launch this month. Yay!

open gaming meet

Did you hear the wind on Friday? I was in QC at the time, and it was howling and we thought it was going to pour, so we just stayed indoors and ate pizza and chocolate. Diet becomes non-existent in the face of apocalypse.

On Saturday the wind died down, and I went with Jaykie to my first Open Gaming Meet (OGM).

I’ve never been to an OGM before. In fact, I’ve never heard of the event before Jaykie mentioned it during our dating days of yore.

Anyway, set-up is simple: you pay an entrance fee, and you and your friends get to play whatever boardgame/card game is available on the center table. I suppose you can also bring your own game.(The OGM is held once every month in SM Marikina. Entrance fee is P50.)

Simply put, this is the place where a fairly large number of geeks gather together to play instead of conducting, I don’t know, experiments for nuclear research. (Because this can’t be done in Marikina. Have you seen the garbage dump site just outside the mall? The damn place would explode.)

Jaykie gets to have a big-ass ID because he’s an OGM regular:

We played the card game Bang (me, Jaykie, Jme, Beej, Phil), wherein I played the Sheriff, and I won!

Then we (me, Jaykie, Sam, Derps) played Kragmortha, which I thought was a brutal game. Reminds me too much of Truth & Consequence and high school. I won’t play this again LOL.

Jaykie and I watched some games for a while, then played Labyrinth.

Last game of the day for us (me, Jaykie, Derps) was Kill Doctor Lucky. God, what an infuriating game. I wasn’t even able to take a picture of it, because we couldn’t kill Dr. Lucky. (Derps offed him, eventually. After what felt like five hours.)

That was fun. I’d go to the OGM again. :) (This picture’s from Sam.)

* * *

After that, off we go to Mandaluyong for Carl’s housewarming party. AND WE GOT STUCK IN THE FUCKING ELEVATOR. Well, just for three minutes but did you read that? WE GOT STUCK IN THE FUCKING ELEVATOR. I sort of freaked out when I imagined the elevator car falling down to the ground floor. Damn my brain. But then two guys pried the doors open and we were free! We were between floors 4 and 5 (Carl’s on the 8th). A scene straight out of Being John Malkovich, as Jaykie pointed out.

The hell with nuclear research. Let’s make overloading a myth. An elevator with infinite space! Yes? Yes?

I really need to diet.

dinner party + weekend

Dinner with Research peeps and friends for Ate Julie’s birthday. Thanks for the invite! So much food I even had some chicken to take home with me, har har.

Kroc Grille, Shangri-La. Photos from Cyril. And Andrea.

* * *

Weekend was too much Project Runway and Top Chef and stir-friend veggies with oyster sauce and homemade chicken noodles. I like boys who can cook. This boy in particular yihee. ;)

stories galore

It’s true: gorgeous stories can save us from the atrocious heat. (I went home to Bulacan this weekend, and several rice fields had turned brown. Depressing. I’ve never seen anything like it in the twenty or so years I’ve lived in the province. At home I had one glass of halu-halo after another. Bless my parents.)

Up in the Air

Saw the film weeks ago. (Late review is late.) Watched it knowing absolutely nothing about the story. And what pay-off.

Julie & Julia

Great food, but Meryl Streep’s performance is exceptionally delicious. Amy Adams does loss and despair quite well. Oh those sad eyes.

According to the film, Julia Child (Streep’s character) didn’t even know how to boil an egg when she got married. So I can study this stuff? So I have hope? :D

Princess and the Frog

I watched this one with my siblings. How lovely (and clever) to set the story in New Orleans! Great music, and hello 2D glad to have you back. Lookin’ good. :)

Avenue Q

Exactly what I needed to start the week! Princeton (Felix Rivera) wonders what he can do “with a B.A. in English” and ends up renting a place on Avenue Q as he tries to figure out what to do with his life. Sesame Street on meth, y’all. (Seriously: puppet sex = day is made.) Frenchie Dy (Christmas Eve) at times finds it hard to maintain the Japanese accent, but I still enjoyed the performances. “Special” is one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack (I heard the songs first before seeing the musical – seeing it is waaaay better), and thank you Rachel Alejandro (Kate Monster/ Lucy T. Slut) for nailing it. Bravo! :D

Also starring Aiza Seguerra, Joel Trinidad, Calvin Millado, and Thea Tadiar. Showing at the Carlos Romulo Auditorium inside the RCBC Plaza.

Here’s a few photos with Felix Rivera and Lucy T. Slut’s boobies. :)

Later, dinner at Thai restaurant Oody’s and Cold Rock ice cream at Greenbelt. I loved Oody’s food. Flavorful, and inexpensive. I’d eat there again.

tatler

So I won in this contest, right, and my picture found its way into the January issue of the Philippine Tatler. (Thanks to Andrea and Kate for the tip!)

I belong to a crazy department, so of course this has got to be done:

Gibo and the Na’Vi adore me, Ayuh.

party in photos

Editorial party last night. My throat hurts and my head aches and I think I may have eaten too much Inasal chicken. Just look at the pictures will you?

(PS Charice Pempengco was there, y’all. Like, yeah.)