Category: tv

updates and stuff

So, the weekend. I stubbed my toe. The last time I did something so stupid was in grade school, when I stubbed my toe while jumping rope. I broke it and it swelled like a tomato and I had to hop around the house for a week because I was too proud for crutches. This time Jake and I were walking around Greenhills after a glorious lunch at Gloria Maris with his family and a Starbucks stopover with his mother on Friday, and the fellas in front of us stopped and Jake stopped but I didn’t stop soon enough, so my toe hit the back of his shoe and my toenail cracked and almost got ripped off the nail bed. The pain was excruciating, but my first thought was, “My pedicure’s ruined!” I only noticed the blood when we got to the car.

Thank you to Jaykie for this care package. My bleeding toe was very grateful:

(Greenhills, I shall conquer you some other day.)

The logical thing to do was to stay home and rest the toe, but I wasn’t logical, so out I went with Jaykie to meet up with my high school friends. We had dinner at Abe (great food and the service staff was really helpful) and dessert at Golden Spoon and strangely enough, nobody took pictures. Why is that? Were we really that hungry? Or have we reached that age where camwhoring was frowned upon?

Saturday and Sunday were spent in Bulacan. Toe got better and I read some and watched some and I ate my mother’s cooking. No writing done, since I thought I deserved a break after all that pain. Ah, melodrama. But having a toenail almost ripped off your feet is really fucking painful, so there.

* * *

I finished the one and only season of Fear Itself. It’s a horror anthology series and I want more of it. (It got canceled, unfortunately.) Now I want to check out Masters of Horror. My favorite episodes: The Sacrifice, Family Man, In Sickness and In Health, Skin and Bones, Community, and The Spirit Box.

Other TV-related blabbering:

1) I’m glad Glee got its groove back with that season opener. It got boring and dull after the break in Season 1, but now I’m excited to watch again.

2) The How I Met season opener is blah, but I’ll keep watching.

3) Mad Men! More Mad Men! Yeah, I’m watching Season 4, even though I haven’t seen Seasons 2 and 3 and I haven’t even finished Season 1. Eep.

4) Wait, wait, I haven’t seen Big Bang Theory‘s season opener, but I will soon. Also: Modern Family!

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Hey, have you seen Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer? Tight political thriller. Stunning last scene. (I’ve always thought of Kim Catrall as Samantha, so her British accent here just sounds wrong to me. Other than the fact that it actually sounds wrong – she drops the accent every now and then.)

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It’s a year after Ondoy, and Rocket Kapre’s charity anthology is available for free till October 8. I have a poem there. :)

eleven

Eleven months since the day, which means just one more month and it’s the anniversary! Here’s a picture of us before heading out for the Serendra date on Friday.

Another solo for meeeeeee.

There.

Early dinner was at Chelsea Market Place & Cafe. Great ambiance. We had the Chelsea Fritto Misto Collection (appetizer) and the Three Mushroom Truffled Fettucine (one of the specials). We tried one of the boutique beers, but I can’t remember the name now a glass of Stella Artois. Ooh fancy, lol. (I wasn’t able to take a picture of the food because we were starving by then, heh.)

They also sell cakes, but I wanted to have dessert elsewhere.

Cupcakes by Sonja!

I’m a big fan of Mint Condition. Mmm.

I looked around A Different Bookstore not planning to buy anything, but I saw a cheaper copy of Joe Hill’s acclaimed 20th Century Ghosts, so I bought that. At Fully Booked, I claimed my free Signature Chocolate drink at Starbucks (they have a promo) and Jake picked up a Warhammer novel about the Space Inquisition.

I also saw a copy of Under the Dome, and wow I didn’t know the novel’s more than 900 pages. That’s a huge book. I’ll probably get it next time.

Then we sat at our usual spot, just outside the bookstore, facing Serendra, and peoplewatched and talked about whatever.

* * *

Saturday. We could have gone to the Open Gaming Meet or the Book Fair at SMX, but we were lazy and weren’t exactly in the mood to deal with crowds (lol), so we just watched Better Off Ted and Through the Wormhole and ordered takeout. Later in the day I had this huge craving for Starbucks chocolate (again!), so we went out for a short walk and ordered our drinks and shared a glazed donut and pandesal.

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For your Moment of Zen, the new sign of the University of the Philippines! Ang yaman!

* * *

P.S. I got my medical exam results for the year, and I’m overweight and my cholesterol level is seven points higher than what’s acceptable. ARGH.

P. P. S. Hey, you: Thank you for making the weekends so special.

Even though most of the time all I do is eat and sleep while you play the PSP. Haha!

Still. :)

happy things

Some cheer to wash away the sadness of the previous post.

I got my new glasses! Ms Sarabia even gave me this cute case for them.

Purple frames!

Lunch date at ROC in UP Diliman.

Starbucks with HGC peeps. (Photos by Jme.)

Watch-a-ton with Jake. :) We saw two episodes of Through the Wormhole (“Is Time Travel Possible?” and “What Happened Before the Big Bang?”, which also questioned the Big Bang), Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant (smart, sensitive, sad), and The Pixar Story. Did you know that in the first draft of Toy Story, Buzz was red and small and Woody was completely obnoxious? Disney almost shut down production LOL.

Bonus: Jaykie’s (pseudo)annoyed face, after I combed his hair flat haha. <3

That’s all for now. :)

pretty little liars

I have some complaints.

– It has that Mean Girls flavor, except that it takes itself way too seriously.

– The Aria/Ezra sub-plot bores the hell out of me.

– There are way too many stupid characters in here.

– Suspension of disbelief. Aargh. It’s tiring. So sometimes I just shut my brain.

– The series should be darker, meaner. Why hold back? It’s a high school drama murder mystery. Go crazy. Go all the way.

It’s frustrating because it could have been more than another ol’ TV show with beautiful people. It has that potential of being cerebral. It can go Tim Burtonesque, what with that excellent opening song (“Got a secret/Can you keep it?/Swear this one you’ll save/Better lock it, in your pocket/Taking this one to the grave”). Ah, well. Why wish for more? I like the set design and the clothes and the music. It’s mostly entertaining. So maybe I’ll still watch it.

meeting jessica zafra’s optometrist, and other adventures

Friday

I read Jessica Zafra’s blog because I remember loving the Twisted series, and the lady makes me laugh. One day she blogged about her optometrist, Nella Sarabia, who has a shop inside the Shopping Center in UP Diliman. I never needed glasses before, so I didn’t even know there were optical shops inside SC (Ha!). There were comments on Zafra’s post, all of them positive, and my astigmatic right eye is killing me,  and anyway we’d be in the UP area during the weekend because Jaykie is craving for Creme Brulee at Antas-bucks, so I decided to give it a shot.

Here’s my own picture of Ms Sarabia’s shop. Note the vintage cameras.

She’s nice and smart. I like her. What I don’t like is the fact that my eye condition has worsened. From 20/20 and 20/25 last year (hence, the anti-glare glasses to protect my eyes from the evil computer screen) my eyes are now 20/50 and 20/25  (plus another 25 grade for my astigmatism). So that means I have to wear glasses all the time, not just when I’m in front of the computer.

While choosing for a suitable frame for the lenses, Ms Sarabia invited Jaykie to sit beside me. “Are you the boyfriend? Hello.” Then she asked if Jaykie is also a Journalism student.

“No. I’m taking up Math.”

“Grad school,” I said.

“Math?” said Ms Sarabia. “Math?!?” (Pause) “Very good.”

Haha!

Ms Sarabia’s frames were on 30 percent sale, as it turned out, so all in all, I only paid a thousand pesos. The downside: I can’t claim it on the same day, like in the malls where you only have to wait for an hour. But that’s okay. I should have it before this week ends. My frame is a lovely shade of purple.

It’s caterpillar (higad) season in UP. I hate! Argh.

Saturday

Up early for the GA meeting at the office, the first GA meeting that I’ve ever attended that went smoothly. Post-CBA happiness haha! Met up with Jaykie in the afternoon, and watched too much Family Guy and World Poker Tour and got drunk on cheap brandy. That night we watched Episode 2 of Through the Wormhole, called “The Riddle of Black Holes“. Excellent mind-blowing stuff. This is a good show. It’s making me seriously want to take up Physics credits (or Astronomy classes, if there are any offered locally lol).

But then – the math. Shiver.

Sunday

I’m on leave! Ha! Met up with the siblings at the mall, had lunch at Pizza Hut, coffee and sandwiches at UCC, and shopped till we dropped. (I almost did. That was some workout.)

My brother had his eyes checked at the mall. The verdict: 20/175 and 20/50. It was so bad even the ‘E’ on the eye chart was blurred, he said. Wah.

So he got glasses.

I’m wearing my anti-glare glasses here.

They all got home safe and sound. I arrived at the unit, did my laundry, had a shower, and read a book until I fell asleep.

pinoydon, etc

Friday was Jaykie’s grown-up duties day – pick up his paycheck, deposit his savings, pick up his credit card, etc. But before all that we had lunch at Pinoydon at The Podium. It’s a Filipino-Japanese fusion place. I can’t remember the exact name of the dishes we ordered, but I know I had chicken and Jake had beef.

We also ordered some aligue (crab fat) maki. We originally wanted the tuna maki crunch with aligue, but it wasn’t available.

Really yummy. Pinoydon also has interesting desserts.

We had the Banana-Q Split.

Ice cream, whipped cream, pinipig, bananacue. Win!

On Saturday we ordered Pizza Hut’s Chili Beef Hotdog. I haven’t had this pizza before, but after having it for dinner (and today’s breakfast) it’s fast becoming my favorite. While stuffing our faces we watched 30 Rock (“They edited Will and Grace so much it’s now just called Karen.”), Better Off Ted, The Daily Show, and the first episode of this awesome new Morgan Freeman-narrated show, Through the Wormhole.

Episode 1 explores the question, “Is there a creator?” Included in the show are the mathematics of the universe explained via intersecting circles (or the E8 Lie Group) by a surfer bum mathematician (a possible step closer toward the Theory of Everything that Einstein failed to finish), an experiment that tries to prove that God “is in the brain” (activating the right temporal lobe makes a subject feel a presence – a young lady described it as “five faceless entities” who are “awesome” and made her feel safe), and a thought experiment involving a human brain and a laptop placed inside a container (you’ll get it once you see the episode). I liked the God-in-the-brain segment. Says the scientist, if the subject of the experiment felt this comforting presence outside of the experiment area, how do we think will she interpret the experience? Most saints and religious activists (like Martin Luther) felt a sensation of being hit by lightning or some similar burst of power, and read this experience as God, and changed history with their actions (Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church and founded Protestantism).

I’m pretty sure I would have understood more if I knew more about quantum mechanics and high-level math, but I found it enjoyable. And hello? It’s narrated by Morgan Freeman? Bet the guy can read my grocery list and make it sound…insightful.

Later that day we had drinks with Jaykie’s sisters and their friend Jai. That’s a good end for my week.

weekend in bullet points

  • My father’s birthday was on Wednesday, the 14th, and apparently he had this big party, involving lechon and two boxes of red wine and a huge-ass cake. Yep, right in the midst of a blackout after the storm. Pity the guy who reportedly brought an electric guitar for entertainment. Oh, well. You live, you learn.
  • I was supposed to be with friends for dinner on Friday, but I’d like to see my family, so I went home to Bulacan instead with cake. I ate my father’s leftover cake and leftover lechon for dinner. Chika with the sister and the mother, then Will and Grace and this new show called Pretty Little Liars, because I want to shut down my brain and look at pretty things.
  • On Saturday I ate leftover pancit palabok for breakfast and went to our store. My father arrived late on Friday after his lawyer friend threw him a party. I want to be friends with his friend. Anyway, my father and I went to visit my paternal grandmother, who no longer remembers people. Met up with relatives who were there, who all said the same thing: Bakit ang taba mo na?
  • Ewan ko! Kebs! Masaya ako! :-p
  • My aunt has this wittol African parrot, a wittol baby that can fit in my hand, eee so cute. (Forgot to take a picture.)
  • That same aunt said, May hubog ka naman e, kahit bumigat ka. Voluptuous, orayt, I’ll take et.
  • Off to QC later that day to meet up with Jake. Happy ninth monthsary, dear! He spent most of the day programming Math equations while I screamed at the TV, urging the Maroons to stop fucking up the game. (They eventually lost to Adamson. Did you see that? They tied with AdU after the 3rd quarter and then – argh. Hope! It is an awful thing.)
  • We ordered pizza and buffalo wings for dinner. The pizza joint (which I shall not name) had a policy where if they delivered the order late (i.e. beyond 45 minutes), you’ll get everything for free.
  • They were late! And we didn’t even lay out the obstacle course! I literally jumped up and down because I thought the rider would put up a fight. But we got the dinner for free! Hooray! And on our monthsary to boot! Tipid!

This has never happened to me before, so I was ecstatic. Look how happy Jaykie was:

Tardiness has never tasted this good.

So yes, that’s a party-sized pizza, 12 pieces of wings, and Coke. The pizza people provided four cups, as though to say, “Certainly this order was meant for four people”. I was ashamed. Not. ;)

We stayed in bed eating pizza and wings while watching Modern Family. The leftovers (There were leftovers!) we saved for breakfast. The life.

  • I am lucky to have the nicest parents.
  • Love is a good thing.