Twenty random facts about me

I actually owe this to Tanya who tagged me several weeks ago to do this. Anyway, here are 20 random facts about me.

1. I don't know how to swim. I can move in the water for a few to several meters maybe, but I am holding my breath the entire time so when I run out of air, I'm dead. =)

2. I once broke a tooth during an ice cream eating contest. The ice cream came straight out of the freezer and was rock-hard.

3. I am such a geek that I actually recall (from 2nd year HS biology) the scientific name of the following: rice, corn, dog, cat, lion, tiger, red tide, a certain blood fluke, a certain liver fluke, tapeworm in pigs, tapeworm in cows, gumamela, and makahiya. Yeah, I know, not really something to be proud of.

4. When I was in 4th grade, I co-hosted with June Kiethley for a couple of Children's hour episodes in Channel 4.

5. I drink too much caffeine. I down about 3-4 cups of coffee a day. That's not even counting the coke lights I have...

6. I have a big crush on Hilarie Burton a.k.a. Peyton Sawyer in One Tree Hill.

7. I am allergic to crab meat.

8. My most embarrassing moment happened when I was in college - I forgot the lyrics to the National Anthem while singing it in front of a fairly large crowd. The National Anthem! My God...

9. I have visited 16 countries so far in my life.

10. I actually started playing badminton more than a decade ago, when it wasn't popular yet. At the time, my friends and I were pretty much the best badminton players I knew. Now, I can name dozens upon dozens of people who can kick by butt. Can't believe I have now been left behind! hehehe

11. I am scared of heights and of spiders.

12. My record for number of pan pizza slices eaten at one time is thirteen. Happened during the Pizza Hut Eat-all-you-can days.

13. I have near-perfect vision.

14. When I was 10 years old, I managed to be an extra in a TV commercial. You couldn't really see me - I was in a crowd of kids. Got paid P700 for that short stint on TV. Back then, that was very good money.

15. I am planning to take Spanish and French lessons at some point in the next 1-3 years.

16. I do not know how to play any instrument (I barely got to Grade 1 on piano). And here I am, in an alternative rock band...

17. It's nearly impossible for me to fall asleep before midnight. That only happens when I wake up terribly early in the morning and am dead-tired by the end of the day.

18. You know how the person in a passenger seat of a car is supposed to talk the driver to keep the driver awake while driving? Well, you don't have to do that if I'm driving. Everyone in the car could be asleep for all I care. As long as I get to the play the car stereo, I'm fine.

19. I've done the Shooters in Cocomangas (you know, 15 and still standing) twice in my life already. No more plans to try it a 3rd time.

20. I can wiggle my ears.

Okay, now, who to tag? Dunno really. Maybe Iona, Ching, and well I am not really sure anyone else with a blog reads mine so I leave it at that. =)

Still alive

Yes folks. I haven't disappeared, and I haven't forgotten about my blog either. It's just been the latest in a series of massively hectic months that have all but completely disabled me from keeping people abreast of what I've been up to.

I am feeling kinda sucky that I haven't been able to keep my blog up to date about my recent business trip to Sao Paulo, about the recent rash of weddings and parties I've attended, about the latest set of problems regarding my soon-to-be new pad, about the Christmas gifts I have already received and opened (yeah, low EQ), and about things in general.

Ah well, such is life. I just hope that things get better real quick. I don't think I can remain on turbo-stressed mode for much longer. =)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Celebrating Christmas early

A couple of years ago, I attended a Christmas party on December 6, nineteen days before Christmas. At the time, that was the earliest Christmas party I ever attended.

This year, I broke that record by 3 days. My work friends and I decided to have our little Yuletide get-together on December 3. Not because we wanted to break any records of course. But well, Giselle and Paulo are getting married on Dec 11, so the week before that (which is this week) would be tight for them. Then while they go on their honeymoon, Joh and Raffa would have impossibly tight skeds as well due to their Dec 19 wedding too. And when they head off to their honeymoon after that, Pia will by flying off to Davao. So really, there isn't any time left for us to have our Christmas party.

So there we were- Pia, Raffa, Joh, Che, Tim, Pau, Gi, Peegee, and myself (along with a very late John Q who just showed up right as we were about to leave) - wining and dining in the lobby of the Manila Peninsula. It was supposed to be Partie Noire et Blanche, where we all dressed up in elegant black and/or white clothes, and for the most part it was. Except I was the only one in white and Peegee came in a B&W striped shirt and jeans. =) Paulo commented that having everyone wearing black made it kinda sad, so maybe the next time we have a black and white dress-up party, we assign colors to different people.

We also had our traditional white elephant exchange gift ceremony, but unlike in previous years, this one didn't drag on too long because (1) there were only 9 of us (John Q didn't make it to this part of the evening), and (2) seems either all the gifts were pretty good or people were more content with what they got. The havaianas I brought ended up with Pia, while I got a perpetual dog-calendar, which I felt would look good either on my desk at work or in what will soon be my new flat.

I guess we may have a part 2 though, but maybe without Pau and Gi (and probably Raffa and Joh). Mike, Suzanne and Nenen are all coming to Manila for Christmas so I am pretty sure there will be another party coming up. Wonder though if we'll have another white elephant exchange gift session. I don't have anymore havaianas to give away. =)

(P.S. stay tuned for a post on my recent trip to Brazil for more info on why I had spare havs =))

A good run

After being in the bottom half of the English Premiership for most part of the season, Liverpool have now clawed their way through and are now 3rd in the league, 12 points behind Chelsea with a game in hand, and 3 points behind ManU. I actually thought Chelsea were going to run away with it early in the season, but now I am starting to dream again.

Helps my delusions of grandeur, too, that Liverpool managed to draw against Chelsea twice in Champions League, which means that Liverpool top their group (Chelsea are 1 point behind in 2nd place). A 6th Champions League trophy for Liverpool this season? Heck, why not? =)

Still Oz reunion!

Actually, I shouldn’t call it a reunion because this was actually the first time that my band got to play a full set together. John V left for Singapore last January, and back then, we still didn’t have a bassist (well, we had John Q splitting his keyboard so that one half of it played bass notes while the other was a regular keyboard). John Q hasn’t really been able to play a lot of keyboards due to his tendonitis, but his wrist seems to have healed well enough for him to play at least one full set now.

So finally, last November 13, the whole band got to play as a whole band: Bunky on guitar, Cholo on drums, John Q on keyboards, John V on sax, Oz on violin, Sep on bass, and of course myself on vocals. Imagine that, seven people in a band. Haha, we might as well be an orchestra! But well with us it’s all about enjoying playing together and enjoying the music we play, so even if that means that our talent fee gets split into 7 (not to mention the manager’s fee going to Dex), we don’t really care.

The gig was held in the Edsa Central parking lot, and we played only one set, although this was kind of an audition for something and as such we didn’t get paid for it. But we hadn’t played in almost two months due to busy and conflicting skeds (our last gig was the one in Breakfast, which btw was also for free), and our next gig won’t be until December 9. Plus, we would be complete for the first time, ever. So we decided it would be great to play, even if it was for free and just one set.

Once we got there, though, we almost backed out at the last minute because the other band playing was a showband and we realized that that was so not our crowd. But we decided we were there already so we might as well play.

We changed the sequence of our set just so that we get the audience to pay attention to us from the get-go. So this is how our set looked like: With or without you, #41, Knockin’ on heaven’s door, Grey Street, All I want is you, Where the streets have no name, All along the watchtower, and Ants Marching. We sorted it out that way so that the unfamiliar songs would be placed between popular ones and audience interest in us wouldn’t wane.

Seems to have been a good idea as the audience started cheering once they realized we were playing the intro to “With or without you.” The coolest thing was, even for the songs that they didn’t really know (pretty much all the DMB ones), they were still banging their heads and cheering. It was also great that the audience seemed to figure out our genre as we got requests to do other 80s and 90s rock songs.

By the time we were done, we had put together a pretty decent set. Probably the best set that we played after not playing for a long time (normally, if we haven’t practiced or gigged together in about a month, our first gig is crap, but this one we pulled off pretty well. John V also brought his videocam and Dex got us on tape.

Next stop: Racks El Pueblo, 10pm on December 9!