Presenting: The Philippines!

A couple of weeks ago, a English friend of mine, Ben, came to the Philippines for a 2 ½ week holiday. Ben has been in South-east Asia for the last six months or so, doing charity work in Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo, and Indonesia (most of his work has revolved around helping out with tsunami relief), and will be doing much of the same over most of the next four months. As such, he decided to take a short vacation from all that hard work and spend a couple of laidback weeks in the Philippines.

He didn't really know anyone else from here (he knew Omar, but well Omar is in London) so I came up with a list of suggestions of what he could do while he was here. Once I came up with that list, I suggested an itinerary for him which he thought was really cool.

Now during the course of this planning, the fact that there was still a lot of places in the country that I haven't been to and wanted to see was reinforced. So I figured it would be good for me to take some days off of work and accompany Ben. After all, once I realized a few years ago that I had seen a lot of places in other countries but not enough of my own, I decided to visit at least one new place in the Philippines every year. Plus Ben gets a free tour guide and translator.

So this is how the final itinerary looked like:

First stop - Boracay. He spent his first night (Monday) in Manila before heading to Boracay and spending 3 nights there. I would have gone with him if it were not for the fact that this was the same time as the SNS offsite in Shenzhen. I also had too much work to do during that week that I couldn’t take a couple of days off. Didn't matter. Boracay is very tourist-friendly so Ben didn't have problems going around, and I've been there a few times before so not a huge deal that I missed it.

Second stop - Cagayan De Oro. We met up on Friday night before splitting up again - I had dinner with Joh, Raffa, Chris, Shar, Meann, Hannah, and Paulo while he hung out with some new found friends at the Fort. As such, we had very little sleep since our flight to Cagayan De Oro was at 510am on Saturday. Spent the day white water rafting then headed back to Manila on Sunday.

Third stop - Coron, Palawan. I couldn't take Monday off since I still had to finish a ton of stuff, and I ended up working til about 430am on Tuesday but I did manage to sort everything out before leaving. We got there on Tuesday right before lunch and returned to Manila on Friday. I was supposed to have a meeting on Friday afternoon which was thankfully postponed because my flight was delayed by 2 1/2 hours and I would have missed it if it pushed through.

Final stop - Metro Manila. I took Ben to Malate on Friday night. On Saturday he watched a couple of UAAP games (UP lost to FEU, unfortunately). On Sunday he joined the other Bukas Sarili people for the celebration breakfast right after the marathon. On Monday, he played basketball with Chris and his friends (Basketball is Ben's sport and wanted to play it here, so when I found out Chris was playing on Monday, I managed to get Ben to join them). And on Tuesday, his last night here, he watched my band perform.

(Btw, the night that we hung out in Malate, the song 'Call on me' by Eric Prydz played in the bar we were in. He mentioned to me how it was a popular song in England and how the video was so hot. So I searched for it in the internet and manged to find it. And I have to say that it is the hottest video of all time!!! Haha, at least for me. Anyway (well, I guess only if you are a guy) I suggest you try to find it in the net. Note that there is no nudity so don't think I'm some perv hehehe. So now, whenever I feel a bit stressed at work, I just watch that video and I feel re-energized. =))

The details of my rafting and Coron trips will be in latter posts (can't fit them in here anymore). But after Ben left Manila last Wednesday, I felt pretty cool at how I was able to organize a full itinerary for him that represented the Philippines pretty well - great islands and cities to visit, cool places to hang out in, Pinoy food (adobo and adobo flakes, sisig, and even balut!), watching and playing our 'national' sport, and listening to amazing live music (of course it's amazing, it was my band playing! =)). He thanked me for sorting out his trip here and suggested that if things don't pan out for me in IT, I could work as a travel agent. =)

Time to get those anti-depressants out

On paper, this should've been a good week. The marathon is over, so that's one big project off my to-do list. Most of the stuff I need to get done at work have already been done, or are moving along well enough so no worries on that front either. And it surely makes sense that after I go rafting in Cagayan De Oro, snorkeling in Coron, and after a kick-ass gig, I should be on Cloud 9 right now. Or thereabouts.

But the truth of the matter is I'm not. In fact, it's quite the opposite really. I don't even recall the last time I have felt this depressed and down-trodden.

I felt so bad at the end of the day today that I was just supposed to have a quick dinner. But when I was done, I just realized I could not go back to my desk. I just couldn't. Ah, maybe I could watch "The Wedding Crashers." After all, as they say, laughter is the best medicine. Well, it was funny all right and a great movie. But the moment I stepped out of the theater, the weather seemed to match my disposition as the rain was pouring. And I had no umbrella.

I think that's where the problem lies. I don't feel like I have an umbrella while the rain is pouring. It's like no one's got my back. And everyone around me wants a piece of me. Or no, not even just a piece, more like a chunk. Right now, though, it doesn't feel like there is enough of me to go around. I've been holding the fort wearily for far too long, and the reinforcements don't seem to be anywhere in sight. Can anyone say 'exhaustion'?

Of course I do know that holding the fort is not bad. Makes you feel like people can count on you, that you are the go-to guy who makes things happen. That you can be trusted. That's always a good thing.

But the moment people take your willingness to help out as an indicator that you exist for the sole purpose of helping them whenever they need you, then it becomes tough. No, it becomes abusive. And shitty. And sad. This week has felt shitty because it seems as though everything I do isn't working. When you try to be diplomatic, you get maligned and manhandled. When you raise your voice, you become rude and unprofessional. When you tell someone you'll get them something done, they hound you until they get it from you. When you tell people you'll help out, they all of a sudden look at you to lead. Then when you ask someone to do something for you, they don't do it. Or don't do it well so you end up stepping in anyway to fix things. What a f*cking nightmare.

And I think what simply compounds things is that it's not just one bad thing happening, but so many bad things happening all at the same time. When that happens, you just feel like you can't breathe.

Guess I'm just gonna try and hold my breath a little longer. See how things turn up...

(I'll post the fun stories about my recent trips when I am in a better mood)

Marathon-for-a-Cause for the third year in a row

Yesterday, I just ran my third Bukas Sarili Marathon-for-a-Cause. 42 gruelling kilometers over nearly 5 hours. I managed to raise P73,000 raised, and almost P160,000 when you combine it with what the other pledge runners were able to raise. Quite unbelievable really. Especially when you think that running a marathon was never really one of my life goals or in my list of things to do before I die.

I ran for a very short period of time when I was in college, largely due to the influence of the people I hung out with at the time who were all into distance running. After that, I probably didn't run long distance again until 2003. This was when I just got back from my 3-month assignment in Belgium, during which time the chocolates and beer I consumed helped me gain some unneeded weight. So when Gosh asked me in Jan 2003 if I was interested to join this 8-km race in April, I agreed to join and decided to start running again.

And from March to May 2003, I ran about 6-10km three times a week. But even then, running a marathon was still not something I planned to do. I recall leading a Time Management training session at work in early June and telling my class that running 25km was one of my long term goals. Yup, only 25km coz at the time I didn't feel a need to run any longer than that. But then, I had one very brief yet life-changing conversation with Mike before a Bukas Sarili meeting in mid-June. He asked me if I wanted to run a marathon for Bukas Sarili. I said that I didn't think I had time to train for it since it was 2 months away. He said there was no need for me to finish, I just had to try and run as far as I could. So I agreed. A few months after that, I completed my first ever marathon for charity.

In the process, I not only got fitter but I also managed to raise more than P50,000 through donations by friends and colleagues. I figured that this was something I could do every year. It was like hitting two birds with one stone - raise money for charity and stay healthy. So I did it again last year. With 6 weeks of training (kids, don't try this at home! I never intend to train for just 5 weeks for a marathon ever again), I managed to cover the same distance in less time than I did the first time. I also managed to raise P71,000.

Which brings me to my third marathon this year. What is great about this year is that it marks quite a few records. I improved on my personal best as I shaved 2 minutes off my previous record (4:52 now from 4:54 last year), and as such marks the 2nd year in a row that I bested my previous result. I also ran the longest distance without stopping to walk due to tirednes (I managed to cover 30km before my I walked; prior to this year the longest I had run without stopping was 25-26km). I also managed to raise more money (individually) than I ever have for charity, with donations from dozens of people amounting to almost P73,000! That is still not counting the pledges I will be getting from about five people who said they would donate but sometime later this year. To say that I am inspired right now by the generosity of so many of my friends is definitely an understatement. I mean, P73,000. All I can say is, wow.

Add to that the support I got while running. Ray and Quintin met up with me on their bikes at around the 20km mark (just past Jollibee). Quintin then went in search of Kendrick while Ray kept me company the rest of the way. At around 7:50, I was on my way back at around the Jollibee area when cheers welcomed me as I saw Sarah, Bunky, Joy S, Vangie, Ada, and Jaygat. Then most of them got in Bunky's car and drove to the finish line where they, along with Tess, Susie, Vince and his girlfriend greeted me with more cheers and applause. Then they joined me from breakfast at Manila Hotel where Ben, who didn't get up to his alarm clock, met up with us all. Quintin and Kendrick then joined us a several minutes later.

I recall telling Ray at some point that I couldn't believe I was running my third marathon for Bukas Sarili. In fact, I have never been as mentally prepared for a marathon as I was this year, maybe in part due to the fact that I had already done this twice before. But in terms of the distance I covered during training, I actually felt less prepared. I managed to run 20km only once, 15km once, 12.2km once, 10km a handful of times and 5km the rest of the time. In some ways that isn't as good as where I was last year (physically). Last year, despite training for only 6 weeks, I managed to run >10k three to four times and >20k twice, covering a distance of almost 28km in my longest training run. My legs and feet hurt like hell now, and that must be proof of how poorly conditioned I was this year for a 42-km run.

But then I just think about the money I helped raised that will be used to help dozens of sick patients who are having trouble paying for tests or medicine in PGH. I also look at the number of people who have been so generous with their money and with their words of encouragement (tears have welled up in my eyes a few times from the beginning of this project until now). I think of everyone who worked hard and stayed true to make sure this project was successful. I think of all that, and all of a sudden I don't feel the pain. Of course, the massage helps too. =)

Seriously though, right now, what I do feel is motivation to do this again next year. And every year after that. For as long as I can.

Team building in China

(This has probably been the busiest I have been in about a year's time so my messages are coming in a lot more slowly and my posts tend to be about stuff that happened more than a week before I actually posted about it. Anyway, I hope my few readers bear with me. I should be calmer in the week of August 15, during which time I will be blogging about a lot of stuff: rafting in Cagayan de Oro, trip to Coron, my marathon for a cause, plus more. So please stay tuned! In the meantime...)

The entire Asia SNS team went to Shenzhen in China last July 24 for our annual team building event. The event itself was about 1 1/2 days long - Monday whole day + night, and Tuesday morning.

It actually started off a bit badly. On Sunday, we flew to Hong Kong via the Cathay flight that left Manila at 1230. It was actually delayed by about 45 minutes so we ended up in the HK airport at around 315. Our bus was supposed to leave HK airport at 345 and arrive in Shenzhen at 530. However, the bus ended up parking in the wrong place and it took us ages to find it, so we ended up leaving the HK airport at 430. Then when we were in Shenzhen, the bus driver couldn't find the Waterfront hotel which is where we were supposed to stay. So we ended up arriving in the hotel at 8pm. Wow! Considering that I had to leave my house at 9am to get to the airport 2 hours before my flight, you could say that I had lost my entire day to travelling!

Anyway, we had a pretty big dinner that night. Karen, Denden and I sat in the same table, and we ended eating most of the food in our table (well, Guoliang too =)), which was funny because most of the other Pinoys didn't fancy the food too much.

Monday had a lot of information sharing during the day. In the evening, we had the SNS awards. The Pinoy SNS community won a lot of awards, including my team and Grant (we tied for the Magic Innovation award) and Mhar, who won the organizational excellence award.

We also had the country presentations. There were four groups: China, Singapore, Philippines, and Japan. China performed some Chinese traditions, like taichi and dancing with fans, and Chinese rap and stuff. Singapore did a skit that revolved around Singlish (or Singaporean English). Japan performed this Japanese samba number. They ended up winning due to audience participation coz almost everyone danced along with them. However, the Pinoys put in a great performance (we later lamented that we shouldn't have joined the Japanese group when they invited us to dance with them because the audience impact cost us the top prize hehehe).

Our presentation started off with a spoof of what was going on in Philippine politics: Mando as Erap and Jobim as Ping were trying to take the presidency from Beni as GMA (they were terribly funny!). Then Paolo announced that Pinoys all over the country had united in cultural performances to celebrate unity (which was kinda the theme that night). Then it started off with an incredibly professional-looking Ifugao dance number (to the tune of 'Magkaugnay') from Karen and Erwin, who were in full authentic costume (they also won best costume that night). Then Denden, Mhar, Eric, and Ivan did a Muslim dance number. Tina, Lourdes, and Ava then performed Pandango sa Ilaw. The boys - Grant, Reden, Pabs and I - followed with a semi-funny Hagibis dance number in our barongs. We ended the night with a grand song performance, led by Denz, of "Isang Mundo, Isang Awit" which is the 80s song by Leah Navarro that says 'I love you' in multiple languages, including Japanese and Chinese (much to the delight of our audience). A pretty good performance, if I do say so myself. =)

My other personal highlight for that offsite was the fact that I joined this eating contest with Mando as my teammate, and while he had to eat polvoron, I had to consume a Japanese cracker that was dripping with intensely spicy wasabi. My tolerance for hot & spicy food has never really been good, so you can just guess what happened when I had to eat that. =)

My latest achievement

I worked out in the gym again yesterday. One of the exercises I did was, well actually I just realized I don't what it is called. Essentially I get on this apparatus and I bend my upper body so that it is makes a right angle with my legs then I use my lower back to pull my upper body right back up. The purpose of this is so that I strengthen my lower back. Anyway, to stretch your lower back after this workout, you have to just bend at the waist and reach down without bending your knees. I had my eyes closed while stretching when all of a sudden I just realized that I had touched my shoes!

Now, I actually do not recall the last time I was able to do this. I think it was in high school at least, and quite possibly in college, but I haven't been able to reach down that low in the last 7-8 years.

So when I felt the tops of my shoes, I was quite surprised. So much so, in fact, that I thought that maybe I bent my knees. So I tried it again, and not only did I confirm that I wasn't bending my knees, this time I was also able to reach my toes. Wow! I was feeling mightly flexible, or well at least more flexible than I have been in recent memory. =) So since I was feeling lucky, I decided to press my luck and see if I could reach the floor. Well, well, well, I could! I was so impressed that I started telling everyone. In fact, I am so impressed that I am even blogging about it now hahaha!

Anyway, I guess it is not really such a big deal. But I guess the fact is that I wasn't expecting it. I have lost weight, reduced my body fat, strengthened my muscles, and improved my endurance. I simply forgot that improving your flexibility is also one of the benefits of exercising well and regularly. Cool. =)

Richie's despedida

A friend of mine from the office, Richie, got into UC Berkeley and so we had an overnight despedida for him in Clark two weekends ago. We had very little sleep when we were there, which is always expected, but it was definitely a whole lot of fun!

We first met up in Jack's Loft in Eastwood, where some folks had a bit of a late lunch. Yeah, I know, it is not very normal to have an out of town trip where we leave in the afternoon, but Meann and I are not an early morning people, so I recommended to her that we just leave after lunch (she was organizing it so at the end of the day, she could call the time). I got there at around 215pm and Richie, Meann, Karen, Daniel, Marc, and Tanya were there. Tanya was actually not going to join us in Clark but since she wanted to see Richie off, she joined us for lunch. Jayan was going to meet up with us in the Petron station along NLEX while Daniel would pick Andie up on the way.

We arrived in our Holiday Inn 2-bedroom Suite at around 5-530pm and as it was a bit too early for dinner, we decided to do one round of Taboo. First team to score 30 points would win. Our team consisted of Karen, Meann, Daniel and myself. The other team had Richie, Andie, Jayan, and Marc. This first round of Taboo was a blowout. Our team won fairly easily.


By the time we finished, it was time for dinner. We first headed out to Pure Gold to get some groceries like beer, water, and junk food. The problem was, there was no lime or lemon or calamansi or salt in Pure Gold and we needed those for, what else? Tequila! (Actually I have sworn of Tequila already but the rest still needed it). So we figured we'd just get some from the hotel during dinner. We headed to the main restaurant at Holiday Inn and had dinner there, and then Meann asked the waiter if she could have some salt and a knife brought to our room. The waiter said sure, and did we want any calamansi as well. Hahaha he saw right through us! Naturally since he offered and we needed it, we accepted his offer and by the time dinner was over we were back in our room.

Richie then got presented with his despedida gift - a scrap book with pictures and messages from everyone. Afterwhich we played Taboo again. This time, the team who scored 50 points first would win, and the previous teams were jumbled up - I was now in a team with Jayan, Andie, and Daniel. This round, my team still won but with a smaller margin. Funny thing, in our first round, Jayan, Daniel and I all got zero words and Andie got six. We thought for sure we would lose but we managed to put in a good comeback. Afterwards we decided to play our last round of Taboo. I was now in a team with Karen, Marc, and Andie. At this point, it was only Richie and Marc who had not won so it came down to a battle between the two of them to find out who the jinx was =). Initially their team had a good lead, then towards the end our team had a good lead. But finally we both ended up in a tie at 49-all!!! So whichever team scored more points in the next round would win. Daniel was saying we needed to let their team win because it was Richie's despedida and we can't have the guest of honor be the jinx. But well anyone who's ever met a proctoid will know that we are all competitive people so we refused to give in hahaha. In the end we won by 1 point!!! Richie became the jinx and that was the last Taboo game we played.

It was now time to start the Videoke challenge! Jayan plugged in the Magic Sing, which Richie specifically requested that we bring, while we played Pusoy Dos and Uno. Richie initially got the highest score of 91 with his rendition of Desperado, which apparently is his flagship song in Videoke bars. Not that the scoring really accounts for anything, but Richie's high score stood for a long while until I got a 95 (can't remember with what song). Karen got a couple of 94's as well. This was around the time that we started taking all these wacky pictures. It was also the time that Daniel kept wanting me to sing Coldplay songs, before deciding he would sing them himself. At some point we had a random song selected and Karma Chameleon came up. I decided to sing it and lo and behold, I got a 99! Jayan had actually folded earlier in the night but then he woke up while we were all tired of singing and started singing the same songs he had sung earlier in the night!!! And Daniel had started to sing Clocks a few times. Around 5am we decided to call it a night/day/whatever.

Almost everyone got up around 11am on Sunday and so we all just packed up. Only two cans of beer were left although there was still a bottle of something that remained untouched. We had breakfast, er lunch, in this Chinese restaurant on the way out of the Clark area (also next to a Pure Gold) before we all split up.

Flipside

Okay, not really a good idea to end the work week on a low note. So let me note three great things that happened this week.

#1
Although it was the incredibly sad death of Amor that brought Amy and Duncan to Manila along with Lucas, it is absolutely great that I get to see them again and spend time with them. And after all the problems that Amy had with respect to coming home without having her US work visa yet (it has already been approved but hasn't been stamped on her passport yet), she was able to get an early appointment next week, so it looks like all three of them will able to go the US all at the same time.

#2
I am watching Fantastic Four with Pia, Joh, Raffa, Che, Meann, Tim, Peegee, and Paulo tonight at Greenbelt 3 right after I finish posting this message in my blog. =) I heard the movie is fun, so I am looking forward to watching it. Also heard Jessica Alba has a scene in only her underwear which guys should look out for. Can't wait. =)

#3
I had a mini-reunion with old CDB teammates. Funny thing, it was such a stressful week that I wanted to have lunch with someone who I don't get to see fairly often. So I asked Tina if she wanted to have lunch and she said sure. On our way out of the office, we ran into Gosh who was going to have lunch by himself (turns out all three of us have the uncommon habit of eating lunch alone) so he joined us and we ate a healthy lunch in Soup Kitchen. Tina said it's too bad the other CDB folks weren't with us so I suggested to her that she organize a lunch with them next Friday. Hopefully that pans out.

So there you go, the week ain't all that bad after all. =)

Checking in

Well it's been quite some time since I posted my last message but the last week has really been one of the most stressful weeks I've had in a while. For a whole variety of reasons.

Last week, Amy, Duncan and Lucas came home from Cincinnati because Amy's sister, Amor, was taken to the ICU. Unfortunately, when they got here, Amor had already passed away. The necrological services were held on Sunday night from around 830-1030pm and the cremation was on Monday early morning. Due to work I was no longer able to go to the cremation, but I was able to go to the wake on Saturday night as well as the necrological service on Sunday.

I also got sick last Tuesday. And it was such a bad time to get sick. I had two meetings at work, a band meeting and a jam at night, and I had a couple of deadlines on Wednesday. Since I got sick, I was unable to attend those meetings and my band meeting/practice. And when I got to the office on Wednesday, I felt like I was on turbo mode since I had those deadlines to meet.

Then this is also the first week in the last month that I had to cancel going to the gym. My personal trainer was only free on Friday at 5pm but since my Friday afternoon was free, I agreed to have a training session with him then. Unfortunately, I was informed only on Friday morning that I had a very important meeting I had to attend from 430-530pm. So I had to cancel my gym session. In the last month, this will be the first time that I will not be able to exercise for more than 2 days in a row. And that really pains me, especially since the rainy season has arrived which has massively screwed up me tennis lessons.

The Bukas Sarili Christmas card project is also not going very well. We only have two approved designs so far - the plan was that we would have ten designs by end-May. I am not completely sure what to do now. This will surely be hot topic in tomorrow's monthly meeting.

And finally, this whole GMA wiretapping issue. Before Gloria admitted that it was her voice on the recording, the buzz was that there would be no demand for Gloria to step down from the business sector. However, because GMA did acknowledge that she was indeed caught on tape, the business sector have now started protesting on the streets of Ayala, demanding that GMA step down. If she doesn't step down, I don't know what could happen. And if she does, I don't know what would happen. Such a fine mess we are in.

Times like these, I just have to think: this, too, shall pass.

The ultimate 21-day challenger

The results of the 21-day challenge program were announced in a simple ceremony over lunch today. And guess what? I swept all the awards that I could get yahoo!!! Interestingly enough, when this whole thing started, I didn't really want to even try and win it since I wanted to eat junk food and break my calorie limit fairly often. But then two things happened: (1) I started losing a lot of weight and body fat percentage, and (2) I placed first in both weeks 1 and 2. I then started thinking, what the heck, I might as well try and win the whole thing.

So now I have twenty more sessions in Gold's gym for free, as well as gift cheques totaling P1,000 in Toby's (which I will use to buy gloves to use in the gym). So what awards did I win that got me these cool prizes?

1. Most total points earned, individual male
I actually didn't score the most number of points. I think a couple of girls in another team managed to get more points in total than I did. But since there was a male and a female category, I lucked out. Guess all the sacrifice paid off somehow.

2. Most weight lost, individual
This one I absolutely dominated. In three weeks, I went from 165lbs to 153lbs. That's 12 lbs lost! I think after my 12 lbs, the next most weight lost is about 7.5lbs. Chalk it up to a lot of exercise (about an hour per day on average for 3 weeks) and the near-elimination of desserts from my diet.

3. Most total points earned, team
This one was tight, but the huge lead we built in week 1, plus the fact that we had three people on weight maintenance who maintained their weight (and gave us full bonus points) put us slightly ahead at the end of the day.

4. Most weight lost, team
This one was a tie, where the average weight lost was about 4.25lbs per person. Thankfully, the total weight I lost was enough to pull our average up.

So what did I do after this? I ate a lot of food hahaha. But don't think those 21 days were for nothing coz I spent 2 1/2 hours in the gym working out my legs, triceps, and abs, as well as doing cardiovascular exercises.

My short-term goal now is to have a chest that bulges out and a tummy that doesn't. Still a long ways to go but at least I am on the right direction.

Talking about movies

I got tagged by Tanya to do this, because she thought that I would have a lot of fun answering this. Haha well she is right! So here goes:

Total number of films I own on DVD/video:

Being the OC I am, I actually put together an excel spreadsheet of all the DVDs, VCDs, and CDs that I have. Why, you ask? Well, once I wanted to listen to a couple of music CDs to rehearse a song that I needed to sing in a wedding, and lo and behold it was not in my room. I figured I needed some place to keep track of everything I had (plus the fact that Duncan had once mentioned to me that he had an inventory of all his CDs). Anyway, at the time I put the list together I had 42 DVDs and 17 VCds (well, I have a box set of all the Voltes V episodes, but I considered that to be only one video in my list). However, as you might have read in previous posts, I have bought quite a few more videos recently. So I guess I must be up to about 50 or so DVDs and 60 or so DVDs.

The last film I bought:

Wimbledon. Chick flick, I know, but the fact that it's a tennis movie made me appreciate it enough to want to own it. I recall watching it and being almost as tense as if I was watching a match involving Steffi or any other player I am rooting for at the time.

The last film I watched:

In the cinema, it was Mr. & Mrs. Smith. On video, hmm, I think Wimbledon as well. Hehe, well I can't help it. The actual Wimbledon tennis tournament is ongoing so I tennis is kinda 'in' right now.

Films that I watch a lot or mean a lot to me:

Ack, where do I start? The entire Star Wars series - I must've watched episodes 4-6 (esp 6) dozens upon dozens of times already. Episodes 1 and 2 I have watched much less but mainly because they came in several years after I had watched the first trilogy a lot already. Here are a few others (maybe in the future I will dedicate an entire post to this answer hehehe):

• The Incredibles - I've talked about this one before
• Sixth Sense - for the final scene but moreso for the scene before it where the mother realizes that her mother has been proud of her all those years
• A Few Good Men - riveting story
• The Joy Luck Club - loved the book (our whole Pisay batch did), and when I realized they were turning this into a movie, I was very skeptical. But they pulled it off, and they did it brilliantly.
• Mighty Ducks (the first one) - best underdog sports movie of all time (well, okay, for me =))

To which five people am I passing the baton and why:

Er, I don't know five people who have a blog who hasn't sent this to me or hasn't received it already from someone. So I will just put this up in my Friendster bulletin board and have anyone have a go at it. =)

Miscellany

I think the popularity of DVD and VCD piracy has really driven video prices down. Imagine, when DVDs came out in the Philippines, they cost about P1,000 and VCDs cost about as much as a music CD (P450-ish). Now, although there are still some DVDs that cost that much, a lot of them now cost from P395-595. On the other hand, a lot of VCDs now cost P150-275. What's more is that there are always video sales wherein these prices drop even further. Last week, for instance, there was another sale in Tower Records. I took a look at the items on sale and I found two very old Jackie Chan movies - 'Drunken Master' and 'Snake in the Eagle's shadow.' When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot of Kung Fu movies on betamax with my brothers and cousins, and these movies were two of our favorites. So when I saw them on sale, I decided to purchase them, and I watched them both over the weekend. Pretty cool! Brought back a truckload of childhood memories hehehe.

*****

My nephews started school in Community of Learners this week. Actually their first day was supposed to be last Wednesday but both of them got really sick so they had to miss the first few days of school. My grandparents were also able to find a driver so that someone can take the kids to and from school (which is actually quite a distance from home). My older nephew CJ is having 'i-don't-like-school' problems, which might be coming from what we think is some trauma developed in his previous pre-school. My mom actually went to Community of Learners yesterday morning since CJ was having problems, and she says that the way they handle special children and their teaching methods are very good indeed. According to my mom, CJ is starting to warm to the idea of school again (he said 'I like school') so maybe it will just take a little more time before he gets in a groove. On the other hand, Ciera, my younger nephew, seems to be enjoying himself there quite a bit. Hopefully, Community of Learners can help them a huge lot in their development.

*****

My band, StillOz is going to having another gig tomorrow, this time in Racks in El Pueblo. It'll be our first time to play there, and is always the case when we play in a new venue, I will surely get stage fright again. I just hope we can do well in this gig as it could become another semi-regular venue for us to play in.

*****

Bo Bice's single, 'Inside your heaven' (which is the idol song) was released last Tuesday in the US (June 21). The single is now ranked #2 in both the Barnes and Noble bestseller list and Amazon.com (behind Coldplay's new hit album, X&Y - I like their new song btw). Carrie's single, which was released a week earlier, is doing fairly well too, although not as well as Bo's. It really seems to me that AI wanted two idols, as you can see by the fact that both the winner and the runner-up released the Idol song 'Inside your heaven', which has never happened before.

1st week results...

The last week has been a true test of will power on my part as I began my attempt to do well in the 21-day challenge. I managed to exercise for more than 30 minutes in five out of the first seven days of the challenge. What's even more impressive is that I have managed to say no to the following food and beverage items on several occasions: chocolate buffet, coke, coke light, chocolate mousse, wine, ice cream, Mary Grace brownies, dark chocolate, coffee bean sans rival, mange crepe, banana crepe, and beer. Also note that I had to say no to these food items during (1) my gimmick with my HP friends, (2) Gary's wedding, (3) the dinner at Mitch's place, and (4) my team dinner last night. Not exactly easy to explain to people why I can't even have one glass of wine or one spoonful of mousse (I have to keep saying that after 21 days it'll be okay and I just need to earn the points for three weeks). Me saying no to food? That's a first.

But it seems to have paid off. When I weighed myself two Mondays ago, I was 167 lbs. On Wednesday last week, I was 165lbs. And yesterday, I was about 160-161lbs. That's about 5lbs in a week, and 7lbs in 9 days. What's even better is that my body fat percentage has gone down from 31.5% to 30%. This means that of the ~5lbs I have lost, almost 4lbs are fat. I have lost 4lbs of fat! Wahoo! (Must be the near elimination of dessert in my diet).

Hopefully by the end of the month, I will be close to 150lbs and have a body fat percentage of about 28% (maybe get a six-pack along the way hehehe). Not a bad thing to pull off before I turn 30. =)

Performance night

Last night was a pretty showbiz night for me, what with the partial repeat of our Walang Kupas play and the StillOz gig in Ponti.

The Walang Kupas play we did last May was such a hit that there has been such a demand for a repeat performance. The thing, though, is that it is more than an hour long and not really a lot of people have patience to sit through an entire musical unless it was something like Les Mis or Miss Saigon. So for the company event we had yesterday, we just performed a total of 5 scenes: the opening scene, leading into the laundry scene, then the miracle scene, then the sari-sari store scene, then the finale. Now in the original performance, we had 10 dancers with us, as well as stage actor Noel Rayos performing the role of 'Kulayaw' the narrator. In this 15-minute excerpt of the play, we naturally did not have the budget for Noel and the dancers (which is okay because we had a smaller stage). So the entire cast ended up as the dancers (that is, whenever they weren't supposed to have any other part), and the role of Kulayaw was given to me. I ended up making a lip-sync mistake in the opening song, and I almost forgot one of my lines in the miracle scene, but I think all in all I was okay. And as a group, we put in a great performance (I'll try to post some pictures here soon) that got us a standing ovation. Cool. =)

I wish I could say the same for the StillOz performance in Ponti later that night, or well at least the 1st set. Our 1st set last night was one of our worst performances ever, definitely the worst in recent history. Our sound check was actually good, but then for some reason we were not in sync with each other. I think we picked up finally with 'Grey Street' (although I have to say I was unable to complete the 17 second sustain in that song, which is quite unfortunate because I nailed it during practice. Oh well, I still managed to sustain the note for about 13 seconds which is definitely nothing to sneeze at). However, the best performance of the set and probably of the night was 'Far Behind' by Candlebox, which we performed right after 'Grey Street'. I used to shy away from that song because it is really difficult to sing, but after realizing that a lot of the songs we do right now are just as difficult, we decided to finally put it in our repertoire. And boy did the audience love that performance. Our 2nd set was definitely much better (we managed to play 3 requested songs from the audience, including what I think is one of our best covers of 'Scientist' by Coldplay), but we definitely need to shape up for our next gig on June 24.

Funny thing, one of our visitors from Germany who is in Manila this week to meet up with my team asked me if maybe I was in the wrong business. Hehe, unfortunately I am a bit too old to try and enter showbiz right now. Maybe if our local singing festivals increase the age limit to 30 I have a chance. Oh if only we still had 'Bagong Kampeon,' then I could join the 'Pwede pa kami' portion hahaha!

Hanging out with friends

With all the stuff that had been keeping me busy over the last month or so, I haven't really been able to spend a lot of time with some of my other friends who I don't get to see on a regular basis (i.e. people from work, StillOz or Bukas Sarili folks). So it was great to get a chance to actually hang out with a lot of them over the last 4 days.

Last Thursday was Paulo's birthday, but since he had a big presentation for his MBA class on Friday, we decided to celebrate his birthday with him after his presentation. We ended up at the Pen lobby - Paulo, Raffa, Joh, Tim, Che, Meann, Pia, Hannah and John Q. It was a lot of fun seeing them again as I think it had been about more than a month since I saw them all last.

On Saturday, Gary and Winnie got married and Mitch, Anna, Iona, and I were all invited. What was cool was that Mike L, Monique, and Rona G were all there, and it had been ages since I saw them last. Also there were (the other) Rona and ID and Jude and Pia, and I haven't seem them in an even longer time.

On Sunday, I met up with Mitch, Anna, and Iona again at Mitch's place, but this time with Joyce for dinner and videoke. Rommel came by some time later as did Myra and her boyfriend Jun. Dinner was great and it was lots of fun. We ended up leaving at around 2am. Not exactly sure whether our singing (or my loud voice) kept Mitch's neighbors up. Oh well. =)

Then today, I had rehearsal for the Walang Kupas partial repeat so I spent the afternoon with Donna, Stelz, Denz, Queena, Ghe, Mark, Ivy, Neyna, and Janet, as well as the staff and crew. A lot of fun as it always is when hanging out with these people.

Finally, I am going out for coffee and a movie tonight with Diane and maybe Dale. I haven't seen Diane since she left for Cincinnati (gosh, when was that exactly?) which was probably the same time I saw Dale last. We plan to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith and I can't wait to hear the super super hot Angelina Jolie say "Who's your daddy now?" Ahh, if only I were Brad...

The 21-day challenge begins

Today is the first day of our 21-day challenge. What exactly is it, you may ask? Well basically it's a program we have in the office where participants try to gain healthy habits and lose unhealthy ones, and as part of this you get free use of Gold's gym (well, free for the participants, but the company pays for it of course).

At the start of the challenge, you have to declare what you need to accomplish at the end of the 21 days. This means you either maintain your current weight, gain weight, or in my case lose weight. The company doctor checks your height, weight and body fat percentage before the start of the event and confirms whether your target goal is appropriate for you.

So what does that mean for me? Well, for starters, I need to consume only about 2000-2200 calories a day. That means smaller portions! To add insult to injury, all junk food (which includes sweets like cakes, brownies, pastries, and cookies.) So today, for breakfast I had cereal with low fat milk, for lunch I had a diet coke, a can of tuna, a cup of rice and a guava, and for snack I had another small box of cereal with low fat milk. Haven't had dinner yet (and boy am I HUNGRY!), but I think I can eat up to about 700 calories without going over.

I don't really think this is sustainable over the long run. However, one great thing about this free use of the gym is that we also get 10 free sessions with a personal trainer (which would otherwise cost a LOT of money) so I am now targetting to lose an inch or two around my waist and buff up my upper body and arms a bit. That way I can pull off the tight fitting shirts that I 'have' to wear during our gigs a little more. =)

My recent buying spree

I think I actually need to call my credit cards to check how much in debt I already am coz recently, I got into a zone of buying stuff. To be fair, I don't think I bought anything whimsical and expensive, but I think I spent more than I should have as these small purchases all started piling up.

Let's start with VCDs. Nenen recently decided to sell her videos as what I guess to be a part of her apartment cleanup since she is moving out of her unit in Westgate by the end of the month. She had a truckload of videos and was selling her original VCDs at P40 each. A good bargain for me because if I rent VCDs at ACA, it'll cost me P30 each. Yeah yeah I know, I must be the only person still renting videos and buying original, but well if I end up being in showbiz at least I can say I've been (mostly) anti-piracy all the way. =) Anyway, I ended up getting about 35 VCDs, including the entire 5th season of 'Friends'. I started watching them already over the weekend.

Also, my marathon will be on August 7. As such, I need to start training at least 3x a week. And since I also joined this 21-day challenge in my company, I get 15 free trips to the gym, and 10 free sessions with a physical trainer. Add to this the fact that I am still taking tennis lessons (I still have 4 sessions that I have already paid for). So it'll be a physically fit June for me, with exercise practically every day. Thus, I decided to buy a couple more sports shirts. I got an Adidas Climacool shirt, a Nike sphere shirt, and a Nike dri-fit shirt. I have to say, since I got my first drifit shirt a couple of years ago and with my level of perspiration during phyiscal activities (a cotton shirt really weighs down on you after you run 10km), I realized that with shirts, it's drifit and similar fabric shirts or bust for me. That said, it does cost me a lot of dough.

I also got a lot of music CDs. Over Amazon I ordered the Blues Brothers 2000 OST, Aretha's Amazing Grace live recordings, Diamond music from Karl Jenkins, and the Cosima single 'When the war is over' which I heard on a plane trip a year ago and which I promised myself I would get (this Australian Idol runner up or 3rd placer has a fantastic voice). I also purchased the American Idol 4 Showstoppers CD as well as Fantasia's 'I believe' single. My mom also asked me to get a video of the Wizard of Oz so I got the DVD at Tower (it was on sale). And on another trip of mine to gateway, I found this CD of Ron Miller, "Somewhere in time and other piano classics." When I was a kid, my mom bought a cassette tape of this and I used to listen to it a lot as a kid, so I decided to get this CD as well (P100, not bad for a CD with 20 songs in it).

Then yesterday, I got myself a new mattress. Why, you ask? Well, that's because my bed fell apart about 2 months ago and I got a new bed last month (yeah, I slept on a broken bed for a month or so =)). The problem with my new bed is that it had larger metal bars as compared to my previous bed, and my old mattress was quite thin. So when I lie down on the mattress, my weight flattens it to the point where I can actually feel the metal bars against my body. Suffice it to say I would feel quite sore each morning that I got up. So I got a new mattress that's about 6 inches thick and well, I slept a lot more comfortably last night than I have over the last few weeks.

And as I mentioned in a previous post, I also bought some running shoes last week, and still plan to buy those thick running socks to prevent blisters. So there you go. A truckload of cash gone down the drain. I have a wishlist of stuff I still want to buy actually (like the Kenneth Cole watches I saw in Powerplant) so maybe I can post that here soon so some kind reader would be nice enough to buy them for me. (Haha yeah I know, fat chance. =))

Gateway and other stuff

Last Saturday I went out with Anna, Iona, and Joyce in Gateway, the supposedly cool new place to be in Cubao (Mitch and Ferg were still touring Europe so they couldn't be with us). It actually wasn't bad, and it makes Cubao a more interesting place to hang out again.

I actually started the day off with a meeting with Ray and Jay at Ray's unit in Ortigas. Topic was the future of Bukas Sarili since Stanford accepted Ray's application and he will be leaving for Palo Alto in end-July.

After that I headed to Robinson's Galleria to look for running shoes. The running shoes I have, the ones I used for my marathon last year, are a bad fit and when I run more than 10km in them I end up getting very bad blisters (as I did when I ran the marathon last year). I couldn't find any in Robinson's Galleria so I decided to go to Shangri-la Mall and look for shoes there. I couldn't find the running shoes that were recommended to me by www.roadrunnersports.com (I'm flatfooted so I need to find shoes with motion control) so I looked for another similar shoe and ended up with New Balance 765, which was on sale actually. I haven't been able to run in them yet, though, (I have to remind myself to buy thick running socks - Thorlo - tomorrow so I can run on Sunday).

I was then supposed to meet with the gang there at around 7pm for dinner but when I had purchased my running shoes and had nothing better to do in the Ortigas area, I decided to head to gateway early and check the place out.

It's actually quite cool. Greenbelt-looking, albeit with a bit less space to move around in. Some of the shops and restos there are quite high end so we know which market Gateway is trying to pull in. I discovered that there was a Columbia shop there. Columbia is an outdoor activity and sports store (I guess similar to Northface), which has these hmm light-weight, 'dri-fit'-type 'convertible' pants - you know, the pants that have a zipper at the knee area to allow you to use them as either long pants or shorts? I am kind of on a budget right now so I figured I wouldn't buy them just yet. Maybe in July before I take two weeks off for vacation.

I then met up with Anna who was looking for a wedding gift for Gary and Winnie, and we subsequently met up with Joyce and Iona. We were planning on having dinner in Cibo, although I really wanted to eat at Taco Bell since Gateway is the only place in the Philippines with a Taco Bell. Unfortunately for me, Iona had already eaten there and didn't really like it. Anna suggested we try Pizza Hut Bistro because the menu had items that were not sold in any other Pizza Hut. I had this tortellini dish and also ordered the chicken popcorn pizza (which is currently one of my favorite pizzas around). Pretty good meal. We then capped off the night at Coffee Bean.

All in all not bad. Gateway is a bit cramped when you compare it to Greenbelt, Powerplant and Shangrila mall, but I wouldn't mind going there. The extra bonus you get there is that they have valet parking (pricier but at least you don't have to worry about looking for parking).

Expecting the unexpected

Last week's AI and Champions League finals took most of my focus but now that they are both over, the French Open is starting to become the center of my attention. And what a French Open this has been.

The great thing about the only Grand Slam event played on clay is that this is where most upsets take place. Of course you can argue that in Wimbledon, you have your fair share of upsets when the obscurely-ranked superservers blow away the top-ranked baseliners. But when you look at the stats, you probably have more one-slam wonders who won the French Open: Michael Chang, Andres Gomez, Thomas Muster, Yannick Noah, and Iva Majoli, to name a few. Under the assumption that the following people will never win another slam (and the odds are pretty good for this), you can even add Alberto Costa and Gaston Gaudio (maybe you can even throw in Anastasia Myskina in the mix). And then you can also count the all-time greats who have never won the FO - Sampras, McEnroe, Connors, Becker, Edberg, Hingis, Davenport (although she may, just may, win this one), Venus Williams. It is truly in this particular event where you come to expect the unexpected.

So I guess I should no longer be surprised when last year's defending champ Myskina gets booted out in the first round (of course she had issues to contend with). Or when Nalbandian loses to Hanescu, Mauresmo loses to Ivanova, and even Venus Williams loses to virtual unknown Sesil Karatantcheva. Am I surprised Mary Pierce reaches the quarterfinals after being unable to convert her first 10 matchpoints against Patty Schnyder? Well okay sort of but not really. Even Daveport's win over Kim Clijsters (whose game is better suited to clay) is quite a feat especially when you consider that Lindsay has lost 6 straight times to Kim, rankings be damned. And this just in - Justine Henin-Herdenne wins 4 straight games to come from a break down and win 7-5 in the third set against Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The women's draw is wide open with most of the ladies left in the draw having a decent shot at a finals berth, and even at winning the title. The interesting thing though is that whereas the women's game is so unpredictable nowadays, it is quite easy to guess the results in the men's tour, granted of course you have Roger Federer in the draw, or Rafael Nadal if it is a claycourt event. It would in fact be shocking if neither of these two men won the title. But in a tennis event where nowadays the top-seed rarely takes home the trophy, having the favorites lose shouldn't really be big news. Karatantcheva French Open winner? Heck, why not?

There's always a first time for everything

Okay, that's arguable. But in this particular case, my band Still Oz played in an event in Cats at the New World Hotel last Thursday and this was the first time that we played a gig without Bunky, our guitarist.

It was actually very stressful. Initially, our call time was at 6pm, but because Oz had to work til 6pm and JohnQ was not free til 530pm that day, Dex talked to the organizers and set our call time to 6pm (program starts at 630). That would've given everyone enough time to get there before we had to play. Unfortunately, some of the activities in that event ended early, so we had to bump up our call time last minute to 530pm, and we would start at 6pm sharp.

The problem there though was that Bunky had finals that day and got stuck in terrible traffic. At 545 we find out he is still in Taft Avenue, so we had no choice but to start without him. To make matters worse, Sep's bass was in Bunky's car, so he couldn't play with us either. To say that the stress level right before we play was high is an understatement. I was freaking out (as I am wont to do in such situations) while we were checking which songs we could actually do without a guitar. No more Dave Matthews Band and U2 songs? Horrible!!!

So we start out with a very laid back Counting Blue Cars, followed by The Scientist and hmm well I can't recall anymore. By then I think we had settled down a bit, and Oz walks over to JohnQ and says, let's play #41. Of course we initially took it out of the makeshift playlist because it is key to have a guitar for that song, but we are #41 addicts and the idea of trying to pull #41 off without a guitar was both intriguing and challenging. And heck, most people don't know that song so if we don't play it as well as we normally do, no one but us would notice. =)

#41 ended up being immensely cool! And it allowed us to play a bit more freely afterwards. We even had enough courage to play All I want is you, Where the streets have no name, and With or without you one after the other. Haha, of course we played those songs poorly, but it was a lot of fun (and the crowd had thinned appreciably by that time as the program was over) so it felt more like a jam than a performance.

Right now, I am looking forward to June 24, our next booked gig (I say booked because we might snag another gig or two before then) which will be in Racks in El Pueblo. The other bands performing there in June are Session Road, Indio I and Mojofly. Wow, I can't believe we are now in the same league as those bands! Hehehe I wish! We need to write our own songs first. =)

Can't wait for Bo to release a CD

When I think about it, I guess it's for the best that Bo didn't win, because the AI runner-up gets a little bit more creative freedom in coming up with a CD than the actual Idol winner. And I reckon that Bo's CD will only work if he is allowed to be a bit more risky with his music. After all, that is how he became noticed - by taking a gamble with his song choices and not going purely mainstream.

That said, I still find it such a shame that Bo wasn't hailed as the American Idol. Of course, as I mention in my previous post, there were clues all around that said this would be Carrie's season. Even during the finale. Ryan Seacrest says that each contestant sings one of their favorites from the season, then they have to sing 2 original songs, 1 of them being the AI finale song 'Inside your heaven' which actually sounds so much like a country song (which as we all know is Carrie's forte). Then for his 2nd original song, Bo has to sing this other slow song 'Long, long road.' Come on, everyone knows that Bo's strength is upbeat rock songs (or upbeat songs with rock twists), so why do they get him to sing 2 slow songs? Then even more concerning: Carrie's 2nd 'original' song is 'Angels brought me here' which is NOT an original (it was the first single of Guy Sebastian, the Australian Idol, which I even think he performed in AI3). What was that about?

Conspiracy theorists have said that Bo was given two slow songs because if he rocked out in the finale, the same way he did in the penultimate round, they would be hard-pressed to explain why Carrie would still win over him. The sad thing is that Bo was apparently really sick on finale day too, food poisoning is what they said it was, but none of the judges acknowledged it. Simon even went so far as to say Bo was much more nervous than Carrie and didn't handle the bigger stage as well as she did, even though it seemed Bo was afraid not of the size of the stage but of puking on stage during a performace.

But okay, enough of the sour-grapes. =) Bo is still guaranteed a CD and I will certainly buy it when it is released (and if they don't release it in the Philippines, I will have Amy buy it in the US and have her send it to me). In the meantime, I will list down my favorite Bo Bice performances this season:

#1. In a Dream - okay this one's obvious. I have raved about it before, but I will rave about it again. He attempted something no one else on Idol had ever attempted before. His voice was clear and powerful, and the performance just had so much soul. It was like music ability in its pure, unadulterated form. Carrie's 'Making love out of nothing at all' was actually very well sung (go listen to it again if you can), but the fact that she sang it after Bo's acapella just made it seem forgettable and ordinary.

#2. Whipping Post - this is what put Bo on the map. We only knew him as the other rocker as cameras were glued to Constantine prior to the semifinal round. In semifinal round 2, Bo ended the show with Whipping Post, and that was the first performance this season that Simon felt was definitive (in the same way that Latoya was under the radar until she shocked everyone with her 'All by myself').

#3. Vehicle - if I were Bo and I were choosing a song to do in the finale, this would be the one I would pick too. I still remember the week he performed that song for the first time. He was the last performer and actually everyone had put in good performances. The judges were just about ready to hail Vonzell's 'I'm every woman' as the best of the night until Bo stepped up and sang what Simon felt was the 'only authentically good performance tonight.' I couldn't have said it better.

#4. Sweet home Alabama - okay, this wasn't officially one of his idol performances. But man, it was spectacular. Bo just looked completely in the zone when performing. He had such a glow, comfort level, and natural ability performing this song that if you didn't know better you would actually be led to think that he was really part of Lynyrd Skynyrd. His was the last performance of the night, and it just felt that he had actually won as every other idol came up to the sides of the stage along with the rest of the celebrity performers, and yet the spotlight was still on Bo.

I wish that, apart from the album he will be releasing, another CD would come out with recorded performances of my favorite Bo songs, maybe along with Spinning wheel, I don't wanna be, Heaven (the one by Los Lonely Boys), Free Bird, Don't let the sun go down on me, and Drift away. And if there's still room, let's throw in I can't get no satisfaction, Stand by me, and For the love of money.

Mixed Emotions

Wednesday was a big night. In Turkey, the Champions League final was held between my team Liverpool and heavy favorites AC Milan. And of course, in Hollywood, it was the results finale of American Idol where my idol Bo Bice was the underdog against heavy favorite Carrie Underwood. I was rooting for the underdog in both these competitions, and I was really hoping that some miracle could happen.

I say mixed emotions as the title of this post because as you might already know now, Liverpool won and Bo lost. So let me talk about the bad news first before the good, that way I end my post on a high note.

BO LOSES AMERICAN IDOL FINALE

I know I really should've expected it. The signs were all there. Earlier in the season, Simon claimed that Carrie would win and outsell any other previous idol. In the episode where there only 4 people left, Simon attacks the band for a bad arrangment of Carrie's song. And when Anthony performs the same song SO MUCH BETTER than Carrie, he tells Anthony he needs soul to sing that song (like Carrie has any more soul than Anthony?). On the results show, they preview everyone's performances. The show 5-10 second excerpts of the performance of Vonzell, Anthony, and Bo. Then they show 20-30 excerpts of Carrie's songs, making sure all her high notes and long sustains are showcased (I wished I taped that show, I have a feeling it was even longer than 30 seconds coz it felt like at least half the song was recapped). Then when there 3 left and Bo blows the competition away, Simon tells Carrie after her last performance that he feels she has done enough to move on to the finale.

Of course, even during the finale, there were a truckload more signs that the winner was a foregone conclusion (more on this in a later post). So well, I guess it wasn't so surprising that Carrie won. But despite the fact that I should've known better than hope that maybe, just maybe, Bo could pull the upset, I ended up being bitterly disappointed when Bo lost. Of course he was tremendously gracious when losing, asking the audience to applaud for Carrie. Oh well, I just hope that Bo comes out real soon with a CD.

LIVERPOOL ARE EUROPEAN CHAMPS!!!

One of the biggest talking points this season was Liverpool not having a spot in next year's Champions League even if the win it this year because only the top 4 teams of England will make it to CL and Liverpool placed 5th. The discussion was essentially thrown out for the time being because people were saying, Liverpool haven't even won yet so we shouldn't think about this until it actually happens. We might end up debating merits of giving Liverpool a slot in CL if they win, then they lose so all that discussion becomes pointless.

And they were certainly on the brink of losing the final. AC Milan built a daunting 3-0 lead. I think after that everyone had practically thrown in the towel. But then the 2nd half happened, and in an inspiring 6-minute spell of brilliant team football, Liverpool scored 3 goals to tie with AC Milan. And 3-3 it remained til the end of over time. When it came down to penalties, Dudek managed to block enough shots to bring the trophy back to Liverpool after 21 years. And since this is their 5th title, they get to keep it. Michael Owen must be kicking himself in the butt since Real ended this season with no silverware and Liverpool have one (the biggest one at that!). So congratulations to Liverpool! It is great to be a fan when these kind of things happen. =)

Cool weekend

Friday night - Zarzuela cast and crew reunion in Red Box!!! There were only 10 of us there - myself, Denz, Ghe, Donna, Stelz, Queena, Mark, Ivy, RB, and Chris - but it was loads of fun nonetheless! Highlights included the duets of Ghe and Denz (they were like those really funny and talented karaoke bar gay hosts, especially when they sang 'I can' from the movie 'Do Re Mi' hehehe), Mark's Josh Groban-like performances, and of course the never-ending picture-taking. Of course, given the group of people you had there, it wasn't a surprise that we practically went through the entire Mariah Carey and Regine Velasquez playlist. We then headed to Starbucks GB3 to have coffee before we called it a night. Interestingly enough, this was the same place where we converged after the 'Walang Kupas' performance. Official tambyan na ba namin 'to? Hehehe

Saturday-Sunday - I took my family to Oakwood for two nights! The room was great and as we were on the 18/F the views were cool. My nephew CJ loved the swimming pool and the bath tub, and the buffet breakfasts were not bad at all. Plus, both my mom and I were able to use the treadmill. Oakwood's location and the fact that is was a serviced apartment made it very convenient too. We were easily able to buy groceries, cook, and use the washing machine and dryer. It also meant I had enough to get my tennis racquet restrung and have the grip replaced. And since we were officially on vacation (albeit in Manila), dessert played a great part - we bought Arce Dairy Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream (you should try this) and Ben & Jerry's Phish Food (you should also try this) on Saturday, and 3 slices of Chocolate Chocnut cake from Museum Cafe on Sunday (this one you should try too). My mom also got to watch Episode 3 and loved it, and on her way back to the room, she bought some pansit and spicy cuttlefish from Superbowl.

What's more, I finally finished the book I bought a couple of months ago (Lucky You). I read about 50 pages on Sat night and the last 100 on Sunday night. I guess I oughtta buy a new book, or okay, read one of the books I have at home that I haven't read. =) But I guess I can officially say that Carl Hiaasen is now one of my favorite authors.

Finally, spending the weekend in Oakwood had one final bonus - I was able to have a full breakfast on Monday morning without being late for my training at 830am. Brilliant. =)

I want my own light saber!

EPISODE 3 ROCKS!!!

SPOILER ALERT - stop reading here if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to find out too much about it. Also, a warning - this post will be a bit longer than my usual posts.

I finally got to watch Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith last night and it was fantastic! It was packed with kick-ass action, dazzling special effects, and awesome battle and fight scenes (and often these multiple fight scenes are all happening at the same time, in true Star Wars form). Naturally, the Sith win out here, Darth Vader is born, and the Jedi order is essentially wiped out (remember from Episodes 4-6 that the only Jedis left alive during the rule of the empire are Obiwan Kenobi and Yoda, and then of course eventually Luke Skywalker too). This obviously gives the film a much darker tone and feel than any of the other episodes of this series, and all the violence and death that surrounds the rise of the Empire definitely made this movie depressing to watch at times. But that is part of the entire experience (and then you just remind yourself that Anakin finds his good side again in the end and helps Luke kill the Emperor to bring freedom back to the galaxy). And as Duncan told me last night, the most critically acclaimed of the series so far is the one where the enemy wins (i.e. Empire Strikes back). But hey, damn the critical acclaim. My fave of the series is still Return of the Jedi. Guess I'm a sucker for good endings. =)

But on to the movie. Or movies. For me, all 6 episodes really do feel like just one movie cut into 6 parts because it wouldn't fit into just 2 hours. So well when I say my fave is Return of the Jedi, I guess it is more like my favorite part of the 'movie' is the last sixth of it, but the whole set is my favorite 'movie' of all time. Talking strictly about what happened in this last installment though, some of the most memorable scenes for me are:

• When R2D2 does some minor ass-kicking of his own. You have here this little droid who has shown tremendous courage under duress and who has risked his, er, life so many times in the entire Star Wars series that you can't help but cheer for him whenever he shows everyone that he isn't as helpless as he initially looks.
• Obiwan's battle with General Grievous. When the General pulls out four mechanical arms, each of them wielding a light saber, you would've thought Obiwan would be intimidated. But he shows his true Jedi form and dismantles his opposition as only a Jedi can.
• The battle between Mace Windu and Senator Palpatine. Windu shows everyone exactly why he is one of the top Jedi masters. Even after the three other Jedis he was with had been executed quickly by the Emperor, he fought on bravely almost as if he wasn't afraid of the Sith Lord. And he did have Darth Sidious terribly close to death, and would've put an end to the evil machinations of the Senator had it not been for Anakin's interference. That scene also served as the impetus that led Anakin to become Darth Vader. Many people may say that they felt his metamorphosis was too quick, but that scene for me felt too real. Faced with the possibility of losing the love of his life, Anakin made a rash decision and crossed a line from which there was no turning back. Made perfect sense to me.
• The annihilation of the Jedi and the Separatists by Darth Vader. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely, and once Anakin made a commitment to turn to the dark side, he used his desire for greater power and his rage to grow in strength and power and to strike fear into the hearts of everyone. One of the darkest scenes of the movie came when the younglings seek help from Anakin as they do not know what do while the Jedi temple is under attack, and Anakin turns his light saber on. The faces of the younglings were like masks of confusion, fear, betrayal, and terror. Not for the faint of heart.
• Yoda's demonstration of why he is the head of the Jedi council. He was the only Jedi who sensed that his life was under threat, and thus was the only one who was able to survive 'Order 66' without any luck (Obiwan survived because he was too far away for the shot to be as accurate as it needed to be). And his battle with the Emperor showcased just how powerful he was. Of course we already knew that from Episode 2, but to see it again, this time against an even more powerful enemy, just made you want to cheer.
• The duel between Obiwan and Darth Vader. The scene prior to that provided the necessary emotional element - when Obiwan was virtually begging Yoda to fight the Emperor instead of his 'own brother.' It is also in this battle scene where Darth Vader begins to hate Obiwan (and if you will recall, in Episodes 4-6 you could always feel just how much Darth Vader hated Obiwan). And when Obiwan finally had Darth Vader beaten on the ground, I could feel the anguish and despair in his voice - "You were the chosen one" and "You were my brother" or something like that. I could thus understand why Obiwan couldn't truly bring it upon himself to kill Darth Vader with his own hands, and why he just left him there to burn.

So all in all a fantastic movie. I am planning to watch it again this weekend, and I can't wait for the original DVD to come out. I remember leaving the cinema thinking, 'I want a light saber!', almost as if I was a kid again and coming out of the cinema after watching Return of the Jedi with my family. I guess that is really why the Star Wars series is such a hit - you watch it and it makes you feel as though you were young again. It makes you feel like you want to be there, like you want to be a Jedi and wield your own light saber and be in a great team that fights to save the galaxy from oppression.

Apart from the depressing elements of the movie, there is one more downside to this last installment though: there won't be another one.

Priorities, priorities...

Episode 3 is finally here!

When episode 2 was shown three years ago, I watched the advanced screening at midnight coz I couldn't wait. And well, when the trailers of Episode 3 came out, I said I have to see it on the advanced screening as well. And that was still the plan up until late this morning.

This morning, I checked online to see what happened in American Idol to see how events transpired. And as it turns out, Bo absolutely blew the competition, making the performances of both Carrie and Vonzell look ordinary. And his acapella rendition of 'Within a dream' was, well, I am not sure what adjective to throw in actually. Brilliant? Chilling? Hypnotic? Phenomenal? It was terribly risky to sing acapella in the penultimate round of AI because of the numerous ways that things could go wrong. But he absolutely nailed it! The risk paid off and we have yet another 'Summertime' moment. Acapella in AI? Crazy. Only Bo could pull that off.

But I digress. When I read and heard how AI was, I decided I would rather go home tonight and watch AI with my family. If I watch the advanced screening of Episode 3 tonight, I get home way past midnight, and I either get to watch the 230am run of AI in Starworld or I fall asleep and miss it completely.

At the end of it all I decided to just buy an Episode 3 ticket for tomorrow at 10pm. =)

Finally, justice!

Congratulations to Uchenna and Joyce for winning the Amazing Race! Thank God Rob and Amber didn't win!!!!

I wonder though how the pilot agreed to let Uchenna and Joyce on the plane even after the door had been shut already. Rob was already laughing his evil laugh when all of a sudden the doors were opened again to let Uchenna and Joyce in. The conspiracy theory is that the producers had something to do with it, but Che told me that someone did have a similar experience before where they were let in even when the doors had been closed and the plane was just about ready to taxi. So I guess their good karma finally paid off. I am so glad the married couple didn't give up!

(Aside - I thought it was so sad that Uchenna and Joyce had great difficulty begging for money. I'd like to think it was the location and the time of day that made it hard for them to find people willing to part with their money. However, in the past, I never saw a Caucasian team have difficulty raising funds by begging. In fact, I recall 'Hellboy' and his partner in last season (what were their names?) raise something like $1200 from begging. Meredith and Gretchen didn't seem to have problems this season either. Makes me wonder - did the fact that Uchenna and Joyce were black significantly impact their ability to raise as much money from begging?)

Btw, I didn't watch the finale (being true to my boycott-TAR7-for-letting-Rob-and-Amber-join form) until I was told that 'good guys don't always finish last.' I guess won't be boycotting TAR8 or any of the future seasons of TAR anymore. =)

No one ever said it would be easy

Bukas Sarili had another Rummage Sale last Saturday. It was our first fundraiser this year and we actually managed to collect a lot of new stuff. So much in fact that when Tess, Vangie, Susie and I were sorting them, we decided to stop after an hour because it would have been too much work to sort everything. Besides, with the popularity of the ukay ukay nowadays, we would be selling even the nice stuff at prices much lower than what we used to price similar stuff.

Sadly though, we ended up raising a very small amount of money - virtually 15% of what sales made 2 years back. What's worse is that since we spent some money on streamers and flyers (which worked very well for us before), plastic bags for putting stuff in when they are purchased, and hiring people to sell and bring the stuff from the Alimurung residence to Santuario and back, we actually ended up spending more than we earned. What a waste of effort! But well, at least I picked up on a few more things that worked and didn't work, so we will probably give it one last go in the last quarter of this year, and if the adjustments we make still don't result in better sales, we will throw in the towel and focus on our other Fundraisers.

I'm looking forward to this weekend though. I booked a two-bedroom suite in Oakwood for Sat and Sun night, and I'm bringing my nephews, my mom and whoever else there. Last April I booked a room at Manila Pen and my nephews had tons of fun at the pool and in the tub. I figured it's better to get a room in a hotel with a pool and a tub rather than bring my family out of town so I got a bigger room this time (which also comes with free breakfast for more people). Also, it's just next to Glorietta so there are a lot of activities we can do when it is too hot to go swimming. Hopefully it will be a fun weekend (and a restful one)!

Slowdown in posting

Guess it's kinda obvious that things have been quite hectic the last couple of weeks - I used to have a new post every few days but now it's been more like one a week. Of course the last few weeks haven't been the kindest. There were the rehearsals for the zarzuela last week, deadlines at work, lots of activity in Bukas Sarili (including the sorting last weekend, the rummage sale this weekend, and the kick-off of both the Christmas cards and pledge run projects), plus band practice. But I don't really have anyone to blame for my predicament but myself. After all, I am not really forced to do any of the things I do. Ah well, better to be busy than idle. And it should get a bit slower after this weekend. Or at the very least, I hope it does.

Speaking of band rehearsals, I think Plan B didn't get the Yero gig. However, Still Oz had our reunion gig last night and it was an absolute blast!!! I had a sore throat actually (the teambuilding event we had in Tagaytay on Monday wiped me out completely) but it cleared up sufficiently before the gig for me to sound decent enough and hit most of my high notes. But what made that gig great? Well, for starters, Still Oz haven't played together since Feb 18, and in fact our last gig with John V was way back in December (it should've been January but he ended up getting sick on our only Jan gig before he left). Also, it was the first time Sep played with us as Still Oz, and the bass sound just completely freed up both John Q and Bunky, enhancing our sound. Cholo also played with a full drumset in a gig for the first time. The best thing though was the crowd. Ponti was absolutely packed (it was standing room only!) and the entire crowd were very appreciative of our performance. IT folks from all over Asia who were in Manila on a business trip decided to swing by and check our gig too. Truth be told, we were rusty and made a lot of mistakes, but for the most part it was good, if not great, entertainment and music with lots of passion that seemed to move the people there. Oz mentioned that the owner of Ponti was interested to get us for another gig there soon. John V said that a lot of other people who were there that night wanted to get us for weddings (an alternative rock band in a wedding? go figure), events, and gigs, and that Dex would handle all those things for us. Hopefully this pulls Still Oz out of its hiatus. If it doesn't, at least it gives me good hope that we will end up still playing all together when everyone's skeds start to free up. Cool. =)

The zarzuela comes to an end

The P&G zarzuela finally happened last night and the general feeling is that it was quite successful even if not too many people stayed to watch the whole show. It was a lot of fun despite the fact that we were never really able to do one full technical rehearsal end-to-end i.e. we never really fully practiced with the lights. Actually, the cast was there at 1pm but the stage was still being set up (they only finished setting it up in the late afternoon, and we were rehearsing while they were finishing it). So to pass the time away, we played Pinoy Genio (sp?) and charades. After dinner but before the show we played free-for-all charades where people just think of a movie, tell me what it was, and I would act it out. When I started perspiring, Chris subbed for me until we were told we would start. The performance was well-received by the people who were still there, and we got a standing ovation from the biggest bosses. Pretty cool! We capped off the night at Starbucks before heading home.

Other great things this week:

• Scott Savol is finally out of AI! On paper, Anthony should've gone with that horrible, horrible 'poison ivy' song (he sang it okay but it was just such a terrible song!) but Scott was just such a prick (and he stayed safe a lot of times that he should've gone) that this was his time to go! Bo-Carrie final in the making? Dunno, but I hope Bo makes it at least to the final 2.
• Liverpool are through to the Champions League final beating Chelsea with a controversial goal! Well, whether the goal was really in or not, I don't care. Liverpool didn't call it, and they managed to keep Chelsea from scoring a goal (6 minutes injury time? Since when have 6 minutes been added?). Up next, AC Milan. It'll be another really steep mountain to climb, so I hope Liverpool still have enough game and luck to score another huge upset.

More good news, bad news

Half-good, half-bad: I played a great game of tennis yesterday. Doubles match - my and my instructor vs Pia and her instructor. We won 7-6 (8-6 in the tie-break). Galing sobra. Seesawed back and forth many times. The bad part was that I jammed my wrist badly to return one of Pia's hard-hit serves, and now it is sprained. I hope it gets better by Saturday for our team's volleybally game.

Half-good, half-bad (again): Rehearsals for our musical presentation for P&G's 70th anniversary started today. I've never been in a musical before so this is really exciting. The bad part is that since my role doesn't come up until Act 3 and our script is still only up to Act 2, I still don't know what I am supposed to say and what songs I am supposed to sing, and naturally I didn't get to rehearse today. Ah well, we did get free dinner and I get tomorrow off since I have nothing to memorize for tomorrow's rehearsal.

Bad news: Anwar is out of American Idol!!! Oh man, the best technical singer is out. And Scott is still there! So two of my faves, Nadia and Anwar are out in successive weeks, both being dropped sooner than Scott. If Scott makes it to the top 4 or God forbid the top 3 I will be so disillusioned.

Good news: StillOz managed to book a Ponti gig on May 10, which is the time that John V will be here, we will have a StillOz reunion. Plus - we now have a bassist! The back-up band which was formed while Oz and John Q are unavailable due to workload - consisting of Cholo, Bunky, Sep and myself - will also have an audition next Tuesday at around 10pm in Greenhills. Hopefully this means a few more gigs for us. And when StillOz comes out of its hiatus in a couple of months, we will have the bass sound which we have always been missing. We practiced 9 songs last Tuesday and the bass guitar really does bring a richer sound to the band and allows Bunky to play around and be more musical. I can't wait to do It's probably me and Anti-gravity! =)

Good news, bad news

It's been about a week since I posted something in my blog so hodgepodge muna ito.

Let's start off with great news: my nephews CJ and Ciera got into Community of Learners. We were worried they wouldn't get in coz we applied a bit too late. But I guess Community realized that both my nephews need some help in school and that they won't be able to do very well in a regular classroom setting. I just hope that Community can really help them both out.

Another bit of good news: I finally found Guysack! Remember that Scorpion Zoid that CJ had been asking for since last Christmas which we couldn't find anymore? Well, the other day when I got home, CJ asked me if I had a prize for him and I asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted Guysack, the Scorpion Zoid (we've proven that when CJ wants something he really remembers it no matter what) so I decided to swing by Kidz Station in Glorietta. Amazingly there were still a few Guysacks available. So I finally got it. And to make sure Ciera doesn't feel left out, I got a Panther Zoid for him.

Half-bad, half-good news: we lost our volleyball game last Saturday against the MDO team, but we went out fighting, losing 22-25 in the 3rd set. It was pretty amazing as well. There were about 10 of them I think, with a fairly deep bench, whereas we had only 6 people. And on paper, their team outclassed us completely, as was evident in the first set when we lost 16-25. I guess everyone thought that we were gonna go out in another lopsided 2nd set, but a crucial change in our court position as well as the MDO team playing their subs actually helped us a lot in the 2nd set, and we hung in there until MDO were 24-23 matchpoint up. We then scored 3 points in a row (saving a matchpoint!) to force a 3rd set. We figured out how to play as a team so even when MDO played their first six, we kept close and even led. At 20-18, they called a timeout and had a substitution (putting Levi, one of their best players into the game), and consequently they scored 7 of the last 9 points to win the 3rd set. Normally you feel bad when you lose but the way that our team played and fought, against a team that was much more skilled than we were on paper, made our team still feel like winners (or well at least we felt good about the match).

Hay naku, too many more things to write about but not enough time. Maybe I'll write a hodgepodge 2 tomorrow.

Oh, the joy!

Holy cow. Liverpool held Italian giants Juventus to a goalless draw and thus advance to the semifinals of the Champions League. Grabe, nilaglag nila ang Juve, Nedved and Del Piero notwithstanding. Wala pa si Gerrard. How they did it, I don't know.

Liverpool are now so close to the title and yet still so far. But it's a good showing for the English teams this season (the unexpected ones, at that). Chelsea and Liverpool play each other in one semifinal and PSV play AC milan in the other. 50% of the semifinalists are from EPL, and the fact that Liverpool and Chelsea play each other in the semis means that an EPL team will surely be in the finals. I just hope it'll be Liverpool all the way.

What's new?

New game - Goodbye text twist and collapse, hello Flip Word! If you go to Yahoo games, you will see it somewhere there. It's kinda like $1M chance of a lifetime of wheel of fortune. If you try this game, let me know what you think of it.

New book - I think I read only one book (that wasn't a school text book) from about 1992 to 1999. From 2000 up until now, I think I averaged about 1 book a year: a Robert Ludlum (or was it Frederick Forsyth?) book which I can't recall, 'Armadillo' by William Boyd, 'Sick Puppy' by Carl Hiaasen, 'Fever Pitch' by Nick Hornby, 'Unreliable Memoirs' by Clive James, and 'Letters from a Nut' compiled by Jerry Seinfeld, so my book-reading has definitely picked up. As you can see, I am into reading semi-light books that are either outright funny or have wry humor - you know, the type of book that you can put down for a couple of days or even weeks and still pick up where you left off without having to think 'who is this character?' or 'what happened?' and start reading the last dozen or so pages again to make sure you are not lost. Well recently there was a sale in Powerbooks so I decided to pick up another book by Hiaasen called 'Lucky You'. Premise - woman wins lottery, but there's another lottery ticket winner, a pair of criminals, and they steal her ticket. So she enlists the help of this journalist to go after the lottery ticket thieves. It's been quite fun to read so far.

New DVD - well okay not really new, it's about 3-4 weeks old, but as I haven't mentioned it then it's new. =) I am such a fan of 'The Incredibles' that when I saw posters saying it would be out by March 15, I went to Tower to get the DVD. Unfortunately they said it hadn't arrive yet (only VCD) so I had to wait a few more days but eventually it did come. Now ever since I got it, I have probably watched it maybe 6 times. My mom and older bro both didn't get to see it when it was shown in the cinema, so they watched my DVD and they both loved it. A lot of my friends found it quite dragging, but I guess what I love about it is how interesting the dynamics are of the family, as well as the issues they all have to deal with, both as a family and as superheroes, and of course seeing their powers on display. The special features of the DVD are cool, too!

It's sad but true: good guys finish last

Next to American Idol, the Amazing Race is the only other reality TV show that I follow. Fear factor I watch every now, but only when there's nothing else available and when the stunt looks cool (none of that disgusting eating stuff ugh). Survivor I followed only the Africa one before I realized I didn't like the politics involved in that game. So yeah, I only watch AI and TAR now.

That is, until Rob and Amber. They are the dirtiest and most conniving, self-absorbed and conceited people I have ever seen on the Amazing Race. It annoys me that they were allowed to play in the Amazing Race considering they had global celebrity status already, and that fact has already gotten them places as fans of theirs were oh-so-ready to help them out. And they just had to take their evil Survivor ways, which as I said is one of the reasons I know longer watch Survivor, to TAR, thus making it painful to watch.

But what completely got to me was the fact that these two people, who already won a million bucks and are global celebrities, didn't even bother to stop and help the brothers when their truck flipped over and their cameraman was lying on the ground. Amber and Rob didn't even stop by to say, "hey guys do you need help?" or "hey do you need us to go get someone from TAR to help you out?" No, they just drive by and Rob throws out an excuse while smirking to their cameraman, saying "it's still a race so I'm not stopping" or something like that (I wish I had the actual quote, when he said that it made my blood boil). I am so glad that at the finish line, Phil pointed it out to them and what does Rob do? He says "It's a race, bro." God, despite all his blessings he still wants frickin' more.

What's truly sad though is that they will most likely win TAR7. As such I have given up watching this season. What I would love to happen though is that they end up in the top 3 and lose narrowly to Lynn and Alex, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I wish that maybe at some point a reality TV show comes up where good guys finish first for a change, and assholes get their just rewards in the end. Yeah yeah I know, wishful thinking.

Football weekend

Real Madrid beat rivals Barcelona 4-2 with goals from Ronaldo, Raul, Zidane, and you guessed it, Owen. Pretty good result, Barca now "only" 6 points ahead of Real Madrid. I'm happy that they played Owen at the start, too, and that he didn't disappoint by scoring a goal.

Liverpool on the other hand lost against ManCity, so by not matching Everton's win they are now 4 points behind Everton with about 6 games left. Oh well, I just hope they win against Juve this week. And not the best weekend for the EPL top 3. Arsenal managed a 1-0 win, but Chelsea ended up in a draw and Man Utd lost.

Nikko is out!!! What the f*ck?!>$#W@^

The comeback kid has been ousted for the 2nd time. I don't get it. His performance last night was one of my favorite performances of the night. Simon was wrong - when I listened to it again, he was very rarely sharp or flat. What's worse for me is that Scott Savol, that big aloof-looking guy who doesn't seem to connect with his audience and who has put in more bad performances than anyone else who's still left in the competition (and who was badly out of tune singing One Last Cry last week and Impossible Dream this week), is still alive in the competition!

This is just unbelievable. Nikko hasn't been in the bottom 3 ever since he rejoined AI after Mario "I-am-using-AI-to-gain-the-popularity-I-need-for-my-recording-contract-with-P-Diddy" Vasquez quit. Then he puts in a performance just as good as his last three, and he's out? I have to say, I didn't see that coming.

Funny thing as well last night. Paula Abdul must've been on something as she usually seems to be. She was worshipping virtually every performance as if those performances were the best performances on AI ever. Classic - she implied that Vonzell was a better singer than Barbra by saying she hit a note that Barbra doesn't even go for and held it. Holy f*ck. Barbra doesn't hit the "E-flat" that Vonzell hits not because she can't but because she chooses not to (maybe she thinks the lower note sounds better with the song). Please, Paula, before you make a comment like that, make sure you hear Barbra's "Piece of Sky" from Yentl where she hits an equally high note and holds it for 17 seconds. 17 seconds.

My mom actually felt bad for Vonzell. After Paula's terribly misguided comment, she thought Vonzell might suffer a bit because people felt "hey, she's no Barbra!" and decided to vote for someone else. So maybe she was right as Vonzell was in the bottom 3. At least she's still in the competition. Someone needs to tell Paula that is she wants to keep Vonzell in AI she should refrain from such comments.

If Scott is not ousted next week, I am gonna be so pissed off.

Tennis talk, but this time not about me

Hats off to Kim Clijsters. She doesn't play for the most part of the last 8 months, drops to 133 in the rankings, then makes an amazing comeback by reaching the QF in Antwerp (losing to Venus), then wins back to back Tier I titles, beating five of the top 6 players along the way. #1 Davenport, #2 Mauresmo (who Kim beat 6-1, 6-0!), #3 Sharapova, #5 Elena Dementieva (twice) and #6 Anastasia Myskina all fell by the wayside, and it was only Lindsay Davenport who actually managed to take a set against the comebacking Belgian. Halos puro tambak pa ang wins niya. Even more impressive is that Kim is the first player since Steffi Graf to win both Indian Wells and Miami in the same year (Steffi did in in 94 and 96). She is now (only) #17 but I bet that none of the top players would want to see Kim early in their draw.

Venus also scores a very surprising win over her sister, Serena, the first time this has happened in the last 7 meetings between the two. The problem I have with Venus now is her absolute lack of class. She lost to a very sharp Sharapova in the semifinals, and rather than giving props to Maria (who hit 12 unforced errors in the entire match - for someone who plays hit-the-living-daylights-out-of-the-ball tennis, 12 UE is unbelievably low), Venus says she herself hit way too many errors and should remember not to do that next time. What a load of crap! What can't she just say "Maria was the better player today" or "Maria played very well today, I need to make sure I raise my game the next time I play her" she just practically disses Sharapova. I used to dislike Venus early in her career when she was arrogant as heck, then when she became #1 she became very polite and courteous. Then all of a sudden when she got injured and dropped in the rankings, she became terribly disrespectful of her opponents again. I don't want her to do well anymore. She and her sister.

One last thing - Federer has just now won 5 titles this year. That's eerie. He is indeed just playing head and shoulders above everyone else. A couple of years ago, you couldn't guess which male player would win a tournament but the female contenders you could count with half the fingers in your hand. Now, you know that if Federer is in the thick of things, he has the title under his belt. But the women? Hmm, let's see - Davenport, Sharapova, Clijsters, the Williams sisters, Mauresmo, and heck, even Henin-Hardenne, Myskina, Dementieva, Kuznetsova, Molik and Capriati. If they are all playing you still can't guess who will win.

Amazing Liverpool!

Oh wow! Liverpool beat Juventus 2-1 in the 1st leg of their Champions League Quarterfinal clash. Juve have apparently only conceded just two goals the entire tournament, and here they conceded 2 more to Liverpool. Of course, this happened at Anfield so I am worried that they won't manage to do the same in the 2nd leg, but they have surprised me this entire CL so who knows what could happen.

Also great is the fact that now they are only 1 point behind 4th place Everton in EPL. I had all but thrown in the towel for their attempt at a CL spot for next season i.e. top 4 place (obviously, Chelsea, ManU and Arsenal were all locks for the top 3 spots already even early in the season). But well a win over Everton and a win last weekend (with Biscan's late goal) have now taken them 1 goal behind Everton. With a few more games left in the season, ending up in 4th seems more a possibility now than it did a couple of weeks ago.

And now that we are in the topic of football, I find it absolutely ridiculous and even hilarious that Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer ended up in a fist fight against each other during their loss against Aston Villa. When I saw the report that they were both thrown out of the game due to a fight, I thought it was because they had a fight with someone from Villa. As it turns out, it was with each other! It's the first time I've ever seen two people from the same team fight. Not the best of weekends for Newcastle.

The world mourns the passing of one of our greatest leaders

On Sunday morning, I got a couple of text messages saying that Pope John Paul II had passed away. It was indeed very sad news. On TV, there were messages from all leaders all over the world mourning the death of the Pope. And then it struck me – Pope John Paul II has been the Pope for as long as I can remember (I guess he became Pope when I was only 3 years old and well I can only recall a scant few things that happened to me at that age).

So I guess just as a tribute to Pope John Paul II, I will write about the two times I have seen him in person. The first was during World Youth Day way back in 1995 when the Pope visited the Philippines. Anna, Iona, and I (and I think Anna’s cousin or friend, I can’t recall right now) stayed overnight at just outside Manila Hotel to join the vigil along with thousands of other people who were camped out there waiting for the Pope’s arrival in Quirino Grandstand. There was a great sense of hope and sharing over there that night. And when the Pope arrived there was just such great joy in the atmosphere. I even remember passing in front of us, maybe about 20 feet away (although it felt a lot closer than that) and the sight of the Pope that close to us made our hearts soar.

The second time I saw him was on Christmas Day in 2002. At that time, I was on EBT in Brussels and so I decided to bring my mom to Belgium so we could take a mini-tour of Europe during Christmas break. Naturally, we made sure we were in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to hear Christmas mass. After the mass, my mom and I saw that people were still congregated in the Square, so we decided to linger about right next to the entrance of the church. It turns out that the Pope was going to address the people after the Christmas mass – you know, the one where he says “Merry Christmas” in 70 languages. Right after his address, he got on his Pope mobile which actually passed right in front of us and he was literally a couple of meters away.

Goodbye, Pope John Paul II. You will be missed.