Sunday, August 30, 2009

Long weekend part 2

It's still not over, but after my fairly hectic long weekend last week, I decided to take things a bit more slowly this weekend. Yesterday, I went to Glorietta to window shop. I needed some new clothes and I also wanted to see what belated birthday gift I could get my mom. Still haven't figured out what to get LOL so it seems my present to my mom will get even more belated. The rest of the day, I spent cleaning up my pad. I just had general cleaning done, but I had whole heaps of stuff that needed to be organized, so I loaded three DVDs - Outbreak, The Matrix, and The Wedding Crashers - and watched them while I cleaned up. I also spent a bit of time in the gym. For some reason, I had some pain in my knee - maybe from too much driving? - so instead of hitting the treadmill, I just used the elliptical machine.

Today my family celebrated in advance the birthday of my nephew Ciera. Last week, when we watched 'Up', he kept saying he wanted to watch the movie "Shorts", but today he changed his mind and instead wanted to go to an arcade. My family and I first head over to Greenhills to have lunch in Racks. The plan then was for us to head to Greenbelt after, and I'd take my nephews to the arcade in Glorietta while my mom took my grandparents shopping in Greenbelt. We decided to swing by Powerplant first coz my mom wanted to show my grandparents the Cory photograph tribute there. As it turns out, we ended up just hanging out in Powerplant the entire time. My nephews were keen on playing in the arcade, but they wanted to get new toys in Kidz Station first. Afterwards, their interest was fully on the new toys so they were ready to head home.

Thankfully, the long weekend is still not over as I have another day to rest tomorrow. I'll probably spend a few minutes tonight sorting out my expenses to figure out what items I saw during my window shopping I can afford LOL and head back to Greenhills.

Monday, August 24, 2009

A whole lotta sports

The premiership season has started and it sucks that Liverpool lost their opening match against Tottenham, 1-2. Thankfully they beat Stoke City 4-0 last week. If they beat Aston Villa later, the win will put them 3rd (although both Arsenal and Man City have a game in hand).

Most surprising news so far: recently promoted Burnley has actually notched a couple of massive wins, one against Man Utd and another one against Everton! Woo-hoo!

The suckiest bit of news though is that Michael Owen - who remains one of my favorite players despite all his injuries and the fact that he is past his prime - is now playing for Man Utd. Ugh! It really sucks coz I still want Owen to do well and score goals, but not for Man U! If he dare scores a goal against Liverpool when they play Man U, I will be pissed...

*****

Rubens Barrichello finally finishes top of the podium in F1 this season by winning the European GP. Lewis Hamilton could have two wins in a row if not for McLaren messing up in his pitstop. Jenson Button, after starting the season supremely, has lost the plot in the last 4 races, although his 7th place finish gives him a couple more points as he sits atop with an 18 point lead over Barrichello, who leapfrogs the Red Bull drivers to 2nd place. With Webber finishing 9th and Vettel unable to complete the race, Brawn GP reassert their position atop the Constructors championship.

*****

Federer is now the heavy favorite to win the US Open and bag his 16th Grand Slam title. Andy Murray, who is now ranked #2, dislodging Rafa Nadal, was a frontrunner after winning the Rogers Cup. But Federer won Cincinnati, snapping a 4-match losing streak to Andy Murray in the semifinals and a 2-match losing streak to Noval Djokovic in the final. With Nadal currently in below-average form due to his recent knee problems, there doesn't seem to be anyone in Roger's way. Makes me wonder now if he will end up winning more Slams than Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, who both have 18.

Kim Clijsters has also put herself back on the tennis map by coming out of retirement to challenge the current crop of top women. In only two tournaments, she has beaten the following players: Marian Bartoli (#13), Patty Schnyder (#20), Svetlana Kuznetsova (#6), and Victoria Azarenka (#9). Her two losses have come against #1 Dinara Safina and #5 Jelena Jankovic. The question now is whether she can remain consistent, but if her first two tournaments are any indication, she looks to be on her way back into the top 10 or even top 5.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Thank God for long weekends!

Well for my few readers out there, you probably correctly guess that I am very busy when my blog remains unupdated (is that a word? lol) for a couple of weeks. But just to let you know, this blog is still alive. I've got a bit of catching up to do in this blog, so let's start talking about this long weekend.

Long weekends traditionally mean more rest but in my case I think I exhausted myself a whole lot more than I do in normal weekends. It stared out with Joyce's belated birthday lunch on Friday in Bellini's with the entire gang (or at least those of us in Manila) + families. It was my first time to eat there, and my first time to have lunch in Cubao in a long time so it was pretty cool.

Later that night I headed to my friend Marie's belated birthday party, which was a joint party with her sister. The coolest thing about this party was that they got Oven Toaster, the band that plays in Rockeoke nights in Mag:Net, to play a couple of sets in their party and they even got an official go-signal from Mag:Net to use "Rockeoke" to advertise their party. And since Marie is from a family of singers and most of her friends are incredible singers too, the party turned into an awesome music-fest. I got my 15 (or, well, 5) minutes of fame doing #41 by Dave Matthews Band. I just wonder how Marie is gonna top that in her birthday celebration next year LOL.

And from one musical birthday party to another, on Saturday night, I went over to Jason's house for his own rock party. He had a full band setup in his garage, and throughout the night, he had several sets of friends play music. Jason requested me to perform one song, and since someone before me did Mr. Brightside, I ended up singing Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

Before that party though, I was supposed to watch 'Up' with my family. My plan was to take my mom and nephews to watch it in Greenbelt 3 because they were showing 'Up' on 3D there, but when we got there in the late afternoon, the only available seats were for 9:40pm, which was a bit too late for me. So we ended just getting tickets for the next day, which was today, and it was a really good movie, as I expected. The montage they have in the first few minutes of the movie is probably one of the most heartwarming, touching and bittersweet moments I have seen in an animated film, and in traditional Pixar style, you really do end up emotionally connecting with the lead characters.

So yeah, a full weekend and I should log off soon to get some rest before the work week starts. Thankfully it's another long weekend next week!