Food that fights back

Several years ago, I had a horrible allergy that left me with a nasty rash all over my body. So nasty in fact that even a day after I still had the rash, so I figured I would go consult an allergologist. She told me I had to go on an elimination diet to 'eliminate' any possible allergens from my body. A week (and five less pounds) later, I went back to my allergologist so that she could administer a skin test to see what I am allergic to. During the skin test, the doc exposes a portion of your skin to a variety of allergens. You are then instructed to wait for about 15 minutes and to NOT touch your arm at all.

As I sat outside her office while she talked to another patient, I started that section of my arm turn red. Not a good sign. Even worse, when I went back into my doc's office and showed her my arm, she had a look of concern and asked me if I scratched my arm. Of course I did not, but upon hearing her say that I knew I was in trouble.

Turns out I am allergic to the following: most non-fish seafood (like shrimps, crabs, lobsters, squid, clams, and mussels), anchovies, another type of fish, chicken, eggs, mangoes, mango trees, acacia trees, and talahib, among a lot of others. The doctor then gave me a list of all my allergies and for the next several weeks, I stayed away from all those.

However, I wasn't always allergic (I don't ever recall reacting negatively to mangoes for instance). So after a while I started trying out small amounts of each of those items, and at some point I realized I 'lost' my allergies. So at that point I no longer stayed away from anything. I did notice, however, that since then, I would always end up having rashes if I ingested shrimp heads (yeah I know, only the head, weird), crabs, and bagoong.

Now recently, I think that for some reason my allergy to seafood has come back. I was in Singapore recently and had some chili and white pepper crab, and that night, I had a bit of a rash, and the next day I had a small rash on my upper lip that stayed on for a couple of days til it caused my lip to get busted. Shortly after that, I had some kare-kare with bagoong, and almost as soon as I ate the bagoong I could feel my lips starting to swell. And just yesterday, I had some seafood pasta and a clam from seafood chowder, and I got the same reaction I got from the bagoong.

I recall my allergologist telling me that it is possible to have allergies that only appear during certain times of your life, and it may be brought about by a variety of things. Now over the last several months, my stress level has been higher than I have ever recalled it to be, due to so many things happening on so many areas of my life. I am guessing that the stress may be partly to blame for the return of my allergies.

So not only do the tough exoskeletons of these seafoods coz some level of grief when eating them, but now they even leave a rash and even some swelling. Great. Oh well, I guess maybe when I am no longer as stressed as I am now, my allergy may decide to go on another indefinitely long hibernation period. Just hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Oh and yeah, I never ever thought I would use the word 'exoskeleton' in a blog post.

A memorable encounter with a giant jellyfish!

(This blog post is a waaaay overdue but [1] it is still worth writing about and [2] I did promise to write about it. To refresh your memory, see the following related posts: going around the country and rafting in Cagayan de Oro.)

Last August 2 2005, my friend Ben and I headed over to Coron. I had never been to Coron and I thought that a stop in Palawan would be make Ben’s tour of the country more complete.


Even before Ben got to the Philippines, I had already warned him that it was rainy season and that a lot of his plans may end up getting washed out by rain but he didn’t seem too concerned. So when we arrived at Divelink in Coron at 11am that Tuesday and it was raining, his mood didn’t seem to dampen.

There were two other groups there with us – a Filipino family of three and a Spanish couple. We all arrived at the same time and welcomed by the Divelink folks. They told us that the plan for Tuesday was that at 2pm we would go snorkeling in one of the Siete Picados islands (not sure if I remember the name correctly) then hanging out in the Maquinit hot springs. We were served an early lunch before we all headed out to our respective cottages.

By 2pm it was still raining quite hard and I was ready to just lie in bed and rest (I had zero sleep the night before since I worked in the office until 430am to complete everything I needed to get done that week before taking a few days off). But at 2pm Ben was raring to head out. I am quite easy to convince, and I just came to the realization that I had never had a holiday that was completely rained out. So I figured it would be a cool experience to be snorkeling and island hopping with bad weather. The interesting thing was that the rest of the people there all headed out shortly after we did (I’m not sure if it had anything to do with the fact that they saw me and Ben head out excitedly toward the pier despite the rain; maybe they all figured they were there for just a few days so they might as well try and experience as much of Coron as possible, awful weather be damned).

So we got to the first snorkeling spot. Visibility wasn’t very good but we could still see enough of the marine life (the most interesting thing I saw was a seahorse which I would otherwise have missed had Ben not pointed it out to me).

We were then brought over to the hot springs. Our boat actually had to drop anchor a couple hundred meters away from the shore because the tide was low. We had to get on kayaks and navigate our way through rocks that almost jutted out of the water for us to get to the hot springs. It was quite an experience though – the water was quite hot, almost too hot, in fact, the moment you first sit down in it. But you quickly get accustomed to the heat and all of a sudden it feels absolutely calming and therapeutic, especially considering that it was cool what with the rain falling on you while most of your body was submerged under the hot water. We hung out there for quite a while before heading back to Divelink.

We had dinner before heading back to our room (no nightlife on Divelink itself, I figure if you stay in another resort in the town itself I would think you can find some local hangout). Earlier that day, Ben spotted a mahjong set and he asked me if I could teach him to play it. So after dinner, we borrowed the mahjong set and I taught Ben how to play. We didn’t really get to play proper mahjong as that requires four players, but I managed to teach him the basics and we played several rounds of modified mahjong i.e. for two players only.

Ben also told me that he wanted to teach me this card game that his family played every Christmas. It’s called crib and it’s a bit too complicated for me to explain it here. Anyway, we went through a test run before delving into the actual game. We had one set (i.e. race to 120 points) where I managed to score something like 24 points from my ‘box’. (Yeah, I know, you don’t know what that means exactly, but suffice it to say that Ben told me he couldn’t recall ever seeing a score like that from the ‘box’. Chalk it up to beginner’s luck.)

The next day was jam-packed. We headed out at around 9am to what is called the Skeleton wreck. There are a lot of wreck sites in Coron, but this was the only one that you can see without having to scuba dive. It was a bit surreal, almost creepy, the moment you pick it out in the water (it was still raining so visibility wasn’t as good which meant spotting the wreck in the water wasn’t all that easy).

But the most frightening experience I had was when this huge (and I really do mean HUGE) jellyfish ran, er, swam after me! It was so big that it was larger than my head! The guide said that those jellyfish don’t really have painful stings (it only causes itching apparently), and so I got into the water and looked at it closely in utter awe (seriously, it must’ve been like a foot and a half in diameter). I was tremendously calm up until I realized that it had come to within a couple of feet of me and I couldn’t get back into the boat. When it hit me, I freaked out then started scrambling in the water and headed to the boat balancer thingie. I don’t think I have ever panicked like that in the water! The funny thing was that the jellyfish seemed to change direction and started moving to where I had gone! (And please note that it wasn’t just my paranoia, even Ben told me later on that it did seem that the jellyfish was actually moving after me). In any case I got back into the boat and waited ‘til the jellyfish had gone before heading back into the water, and even then I kept looking around making sure that it wasn’t back.

We then headed to a small island where we had lunch while on the boat. I had never had lunch on a small banca before, so that was another first. I then got on a kayak and started paddling around before Ben joined me. We checked out the island where there wasn’t really anything to see apart from a kitten (I have no idea how that got there).

After lunch, we went to the hidden lagoon. I am not really sure what that place is called, but essentially you have to go there only at a certain time of the day to get the full experience. What happens is that there is a, hmm, “tunnel” that leads to the lagoon. At the time that we got there, the water level was nearly hitting the top of this tunnel. So to get to the lagoon, you have to swim underneath this tunnel. As I have mentioned before, I don’t know to swim, but I had a life vest, a snorkel, and fins on so I was had no issues being in the water. Again, the experience was quite unique. As you swim along, you keep hitting patches of the water with different temperatures – from cool to warm to cool again. And whenever you are passing through these changes in temperature, the water gets so incredibly murky that you almost can’t see where you are going, and you just blindly swim forward and wait ‘til the temperature evens out and you can see again.

The lagoon was quite deep, I reckon maybe 40-60 feet. And since I don’t move well in the water, I was several meters behind everyone else who had gone into the lagoon (there was another group of folks there at the same time). So I am unable to confirm whether I really did see what I think I saw through the murky water – some kind of brown ray (sting ray maybe? Definitely not a manta). Our guide said there weren’t any rays inside that lagoon, so I can’t be sure of what I saw. But if you ask me to put money on it, I would say that it really was a brown ray. Ah, if only the other folks weren’t much faster than me in the water, I could’ve pointed it out to them.

Our next stop that day was a trip to Barracuda Lake. To get here, you have to walk carefully over some craggy rock formations. Once you head into the water, you move a few feet and all of a sudden you see a sheer drop – from wading depth to several meters deep. And it gets even deeper than that. It feels freaky! I have snorkeled in really deep waters before and never felt my heart race, but here, I didn’t want to move away from the edge of the water (Barracuda Lake is completely surrounded by tall rock formations that start from under water and jut straight out of the water to the heavens, and I stayed close to this “rock wall”) I think what makes it freaky is the fact that the water is so murky that you actually can’t see the ocean floor. We stayed in the lake for a bit, mainly because the freakiness of it all made it interesting to remain in the water. But I guess not seeing anything gets a bit boring after some time, so when the novelty of the whole thing wore off, we decided to head back out (or well actually I think the novelty didn’t wear off, but we were running out of time and there was still another lake to visit).

Our last stop that day was Cayangan Lake. This time, no crags to climb over but a long, fairly steep dirt path from the shore to the lake. The lake itself I think is not all that interesting (I mean you do see some interesting fish but you can see a lot more of t hem when you are snorkeling in the sea), but the journey you take to get there, plus the stark contrast between this and the previous lake, make the whole experience pretty darn cool. A vacation to Coron (in better weather of course) is definitely something I would recommend to anyone.

Toss up

American Idol 5 is underway and for the first time in a while, I don't have a clear favorite. This is so unlike last year season when I was rooting for Bo, or the season before that when I was rooting for Fantasia.

So now I have four favorites - Paris, Mandisa, Katharine, and Taylor. I'd love for them all to reach the top 4 but I don't think that'll happen, so I will settle for all four of them making it to the top 6 (I'm pretty sure all four of them are a lock to get into the top 12). I'm kinda liking Elliott too, but I'll find out tonight if I am going to be rooting for any of the other men because I really haven't seen a lot of AI recently and I don't know who has great pipes among them.

Fearless forecast (based on what I've heard and what I've read):

• top 6 girls - Katharine, Paris, Mandisa, Lisa, Kellie, Ayla (or heck it could be Brenna just because the producers want to keep a contravida around for the people to cheer against
• top 6 guys - Taylor, David, Ace, Chris, Sway (mainly coz he'll be carried to the top 12 by the Filipino block vote. He's okay but he's not one of my faves, so I don't think I would vote for him if I was in the US), then either Will or Elliott but I want Elliott to get through.

So well good luck to my fave 4! If they all make it to the top 4 it would be fantastic, but I'd settle for one of them winning.

Jinx

Just when I congratulate Liverpool for beating both Man U and Arsenal, I find out that Liverpool lost their Champions League match against Benfica in Portugal 0-1. This means that for Liverpool to get through, they have to beat Benfica by at least two goals, or beat them 1-0 then win the penalty shoot out. A win by 1 goal that is not 1-0 will result in Benfica moving on due to the away goals rule. Oh well, that's football for you.

Of crosses and free kicks

If you haven't seen the movie 'Goal' then you need to go see it ASAP before its run ends. And this applies whether you are a football fan or not. Of course, if you follow the English Premiere League and international football to some degree, your appreciation for the movie will increase. Especially when you see Alan Shearer, Keiron Dyer, Steven Gerrard, Milan Baros, Igor Biscan, Frank Lampard, and Joe Cole play actual football on the pitch - the fact that you have real international players playing the game definitely gives more legitimacy to the film. But even if you can't pick out who the players are and are completely uninterested by the athletes who are part of the cast, it doesn't really matter. The story is universal - live the dream and work hard to achieve your goals.

SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want me to give the movie away, please refrain from reading any further.

Goal is now my current favorite movie. You know, like 'The Incredibles' and 'Episode 3' were when they both came out. I am absolutely raving about Goal, and I am trying to get more people to see it. It is now my official favorite sporting movie and my favorite underdog movie too. I am a sucker for underdog movies, but only if on some level it is believable. And it is only believable to me if (1) the lead character has enough charisma for you to root for him and believe that he is that skilled, and (2) if you see him put in the hard work necessary to succeed. The lead character Santiago Munez (played by Mexican actor Kuno Becker) manages to do this. You can't help but root for him in this film.

So now you have this poor kid who hasn't had much opportunities in life but who is unbelievably talented. Then you see him go through so many struggles in his life, and each time he falls he stands up and tries again. And he fights hard. That in itself is great to see. Then add in a supporting cast of people who help him each time he stumbles - his grandma giving him what he needs to fly to the UK, a talent scout who, without really knowing him, fights for him to be given enough opportunities to show everyone he is more than worth their time, and a teammate who pleads his case to ensure he remains in the team. So not only do you have a man with great skill, self-belief, integrity, determination, and heart, but you also see people around him who help open doors for him. It thus makes it far more believable that this guy with no professional training and who only kicks a ball around in the playground ends up on top of the world. And in a reality where you see so much despair and failure, watching a film where you see karmic justice being brought to fruition just makes your heart soar.

Some favorite scenes:

1. When Santiago's father accidentally sees him play on TV, especially when Santiago takes his jacket off and displays his father's last name "Munez" for the world to see, and mutters "that's my son." That moment when he realizes how far his son has gotten, and that he was wrong and his son was right and he embraced it fully. Man, just thinking about that scene is giving me goose pimples.
2. When his talent scout Glen Foy tells Barry Rankin that Santiago had signed with him and he was now Santiago's manager. I was scared for a second that the allure of money and fame would make Santiago sign with Barry and forget about Glen who had stuck his neck our for him. So finding out that Santiago had remained true and loyal was a triumph in itself.
3. When Santiago gets pissed off that he didn't make the reserve team or even the reserve bench, only to find out that he was now playing for the first team.
4. When he also finally admits to having asthma, and when his asthma is accepted as something that can be handled. I could feel for him that such a huge strain had been lifted off his back. And now he had more freedom to shoot for his dreams.
5. When Santiago's grandma gives him the bus, train and plane tickets he needs to go to London. It was not clear what sacrifice his grandma made, but watching it you knew that she made one, and to see her make it so that she could give Santiago a chance to chase hi dreams was so heartwarming.
6. And of course, the last 15 minutes of the movie. It was Santiago's brilliant run and his perfect cross that got Newcastle the equalizer they needed, and his final free kick that got Newcastle the win they needed to make it to Europe. Instant hero in only his second outing with the first team. The crowd were chanting his name. His grandma and his brother see him in his moment of glory. And they all find out that his father had indeed forgiven him for leaving, and that he eventually, after all those years, saw Santiago play. Awesome moment of triumph. And you just sit back and feel blessed to have been part of that journey. Even if it was just a movie. =)

Seriously, there are a truckload of great scenes in the movie. And me writing and raving about it now is making me want to see it again. And I'm pretty sure I will. I also love the fact that this is part of a trilogy and that the next two installments will be about the Champions League then the World Cup, and I can't wait til those movies come out. The DVD is out on March 6 apparently, but I am not sure if it will also be out here at the same time since it just started showing here on Feb 16 (I hope it does though).

Was there a downside to the movie? Yeah, Newcastle beat Liverpool in the final game of the season and make it to Europe while Liverpool don't. But okay, that is forgivable. =)

*****

In the real world, I love the fact that Liverpool have won their last two matches - they beat Arsenal in the league 1-0, then they eliminated Man U from the FA Cup also with a 1-0 win. Go Liverpool!

Brazil, Brazil!

(This trip was actually last November but I didn't have time to write about it until now.)

To say that I am fortunate that my company sent me to Brazil on business is an understatement. No one else in our office here in Manila (or at least from the IT department) has ever been sent to Brazil on business. And when I think about it, I don’t really know a lot of people who have been there. So when it was decided a couple of months ago that I would fly to Sao Paulo to kick off a project there, I was pleased and eager.

I guess part of the reason why I don’t know a lot of people who have been to the 5th largest country in the world is because it isn’t exactly the easiest country to go to, at least not from Manila. Of course, I had to navigate through 36 hours of flying time to get there and 41 hours going back home! I don’t have a US visa and there really wasn’t time to sort one out. Also, the flight that my travel agent got through Europe was cheaper than the one that went through the US. Of course, this meant I added almost 60,000 miles to my frequent flyer program (that’s a free trip to the US already) so at the end of the day, jetlag notwithstanding, it wasn’t all that bad.

(I will talk about the interesting little details of my flights to and from Brazil in another post. What I will focus on here is my experience in Sao Paulo. Summing it up – it was pretty darn cool.)

Sights

I arrived there Sunday night, at 730pm, but it took so long to get through immigration that I only got to my hotel room around 1015-1030pm. Much of the week was also spent just going to and from the office, so Leo, my Indonesian colleague who was on that same business trip, and I crammed all our sightseeing during the weekend (we both had evening flights on Sunday). Where did we go?

Parque de Ibirapuera (Ibirapuera Park)

Too bad the weather wasn’t very cooperative. Otherwise, we could’ve taken nicer pictures. Of course, we wouldn’t let rain stop us from enjoying so we still headed out to the park (without jackets or an umbrella, I might add) and enjoyed the scenery (check out the neat lake with the fountain centerpiece),


as well as the flora and fauna (there were a lot of birds there, and in fact I saw wild vultures for the first time in my life).

Considering the weather, there were actually quite a few people there: running, biking, rollerblading, or playing improvised football or volleyball. What was also cool was that in the horizon, beyond the treetops, you could see the skyscrapers of Sao Paulo which providing a neat, contrasting backdrop to the calm and serenity of the park.

Praca da Se

What I love about Sao Paulo is that there is a lot of greenery in the middle of the city, and nowhere else is this more evident that in Praca da Se.

You have this little square right smack in the middle of the city that is mostly asphalt and concrete. Here you can find palm trees reaching almost as high as the buildings next to them.

And it’s not very common to see a garden on the rooftop of the Mayor’s office, either.

Add to that a Theater patterned after the Opera House in Paris, as well as dramatic fountain that immediately draws attention, and you have a marvelous oasis right smack in the city center that you just can’t help but love.

MASP

This is short for Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo. It has a pretty good collection of paintings from all over the world, including originals from Renoir, Monet, Picasso, Chagall, and Van Gogh, to name a few. Too bad most of the Brazilian paintings were being restored (or maintained, whatever you call it) so we only saw a few paintings from a guy who is apparently one of the more famous and influential painters in Brazil.

Food

In Sao Paulo, the order of the day is buffet, buffet, buffet. Most restaurants serve buffet (which cost pretty much the same as an ala carte meal), and in fact I had only four meals in my entire 7 days and 7 nights in Brazil that wasn’t buffet. Japanese food is quite popular in Sao Paulo (mainly because you can find in Sao Paulo the largest community of Japanese people outside Japan), as is pizza, although during my entire stay I never had pizza and ate Japanese food only once. Personal highlight – the entire project team had dinner in Jardineira, where you not only have dinner buffet, but you have waiters who keep swinging by your table serving you more and more churrasco (or steak on a stick) – the waiters slice of pieces of churrasco onto your plate whenever they pass by (my favorite steak had to be the pinheira, or rump steak, with garlic). We all ate so much that the next day, none of us really ate much during breakfast and even lunch. Other interesting Brazilian food items I had when I was there: cheese bread, Chocottone, Fejoada (which is like different meats cooked in what is like a black soup which I think is made of refried bean paste), Guarana soda (which is made with the flavor of an indigenous Brazilian fruit), and Cachacas (a light alcoholic drink made from sugar cane).

People

The people in Brazil are really hospitable and accommodating, very much like South East Asians when I think about it. On my first day in the office, Daniel brought me and Leo to a mall and helped me buy a couple of shirts (Air France lost my luggage, so I had to buy shirts to wear to the office the next couple of days). On Sunday, our colleague Guilherme took me and Leo around the city, bringing us to Praca da Se, MASP, and also to Sala Sao Paulo (which is kinda like a train station-cum-concert venue) and a nice little restaurant near Avenida Paulista.

And the evening before that, another colleague of mine, Tarcisio, with whom I had a 30-minute discussion during the week, heard that I was going to be in Sao Paulo during the weekend and asked me if I was interested to watch a dance musical called Milagrimas (which is a kind of like a play on words – it combines the Portuguese words for “a thousand tears” but then it also sounds like “Miracle”). I went to see it, and I really loved it. The dancing was amazing, and the music and lighting added depth and dimension to the program that left a very strong impression on me when I left. I got the CD after the show, and I have to say that a few of the songs there are so haunting that I hear them and I see the show all over the again in my head. It was amazing! But the most amazing thing about the show is that all the dancers are young men and women from underprivileged families. An NGO in Brazil, for which Tarcisio’s wife works, set up this program wherein underprivileged kids can express themselves in dance and hopefully give them the self-confidence and self-belief to succeed in life. Considering that these kids are not professionals, the quality of their performance is astounding. I am kinda kicking myself in the butt now for not getting the DVD.

So for the most part of the weekend, we had colleagues bringing us around Sao Paulo and helping us enjoy our stay there. But besides the clear effort from the Brazilians to make us feel welcome and comfortable, there also is subtle proof of the openness and friendliness and warmth of the Brazilians. By the end of the week, we had a pretty good bond with our colleagues there that when we said hello or goodbye, the handshake was firm and it came with a half-hug, and it was beso-beso with the women.

The only unfortunate thing now is that I don’t think I will be able to go to Brazil again, at least not on business. Oh well, maybe I can just use the miles I earned to go there on leisure. That way I can get to see more sights and cities (like Rio, the Amazon, and Iguacu falls). Cool little bit of trivia – Filipinos don’t need a visa to go to Brazil as tourists. Nice. =)

Happy new year everyone!

Ah finally! My first blog post for 2006!

There’s pretty much only one reason why my blog would not be updated for almost a month (you get three guesses). It really has been the most difficult Yuletide season and start of a new year that I’ve ever had in my entire life (or at least that I can recall). But I’m not really complaining since a lot of things have gone, and are still going, my way.

So before I write anything else this year, I will take a quick look back at the last year to celebrate the best of 2005:

Top five highlights

• Turning 30 (yeah I know, weird, but I really do think that it’s so cool that I’m 30 now
• Bringing my family to Ocean Adventure then spending a weekend in Oakwood
• Singing live on national TV (when my band performed in Breakfast)
• Running my 3rd marathon, breaking my previous record, and raising P200K
• My nephews getting into Community of Learners and beginning to enjoy school

Top five memorable gimmicks

• Hanging out with college friends at the pen lobby after Jed and Ods’ wedding
• Richie’s despedida
• IO with office barkada for Pia’s birthday
• Red box with the ‘Walang Kupas’ cast
• Bukas Sarili year-end celebration

Top five favorite performances of mine

• Ponti in January – our band’s original best-ever gig
• 90proof – officially our best gig ever
• Performing the role of “Roque” in the “Walang Kupas” zarzuela we staged for our company anniversary party
• Taking on the lead role “Kulayaw” in the “Walang Kupas” repeat performance
• Singing “Angels brought me here” in Ods and Jed’s wedding (was good enough for Joh and Raffa to notice it and ask me to sing it again in their wedding)

Top five favorite sporting moments

• Liverpool: European Champions!
• Liverpool getting into the Champions League this season even if they didn't make it to the top 4 of the premiership, and then proceeding to top their CL group which in fact had Chelsea in it
• Kim Clijsters winning the US Open
• Three Pinoy boxers (Manny Pacquiao, Brian Veloria and Boom-Boom Bautista) all winning in LA in the same night
• Romy Garduce achieving the record for highest altitude ever reached by a Filipino, and then breaking the record half a year later!

Top five firsts

• First time to visit Coron (Palawan) and Cagayan de Oro
• Having a business trip in Sao Paulo (my first time there, and my first time to go to the Southern Hemisphere)
• Becoming president of a Charity Foundation (I am now president of Bukas Sarili, who would've thought?)
• Participating in the 3rd annual Gold’s Olympics
• Starting a blog (and maintaining it!)

Here’s looking forward to more of the same in 2006!

Twenty random facts about me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. I am allergic to crab meat.

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

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

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

11. I am scared of heights and of spiders.

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

13. I have near-perfect vision.

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

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

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

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

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

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

20. I can wiggle my ears.

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

Still alive

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

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

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

Merry Christmas everyone!

Celebrating Christmas early

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good run

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

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

Still Oz reunion!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ocean Adventure

During the first long weekend (Oct 29-Nov 1), I took my family (mom, bro, and two nephews) to Ocean Adventure in Subic. It was a 3-hour drive from Manila and thankfully, the traffic was cooperative.

We left the house a bit late (our planned ETA was 6am but we ended up leaving around 7am) and we actually started off with a massive scare – I got caught in Subic for running a stop sign which we missed seeing since everyone in the car had their eyes focused on looking for the signs indicating how to get to Ocean Adventure. Then it turns out my nephew in the front seat didn’t have his seatbelt on since we had just taken a pit stop and we forgot to put it on him again when we got back in the car. But the worst of it was, apparently my license expired two month ago (naturally I did not pay attention to it during all the hustle and bustle of recent months)! Since no one else in the car knew how to drive, the initial option was that we had to be escorted out of Subic, but my mom was able to talk our way out of it (and honestly, I really wouldn’t have tried to weasel my way out of that situation if it was just me, but we had two kids in the car who would be extremely disappointed if the trip didn’t push through). In the end, we were let go with little more than a slap on the wrist and a warning not to go breaking any more traffic regulations ‘til we got out of Subic. Needless to say I was like a soldier the rest of the way, making sure I didn't run into any more infractions.

But aside from that hiccup, the rest of the day went fantastically well as we got to do practically everything you could do there. We arrived at 1030am, just in time to join the first dolphin encounter at 11am (the next one was at 445pm). My mom was initially thinking of just having the kids participate in the dolphin encounter (it was P2300 per person), but we decided that the kids may need adult supervision with the dolphins so I told my mom and my bro to do the encounter as well.



I decided not to go in anymore since I had already done one in Mexico late last year, and I figured it would be good for me to just take pictures and watch over all the stuff we had while they were in the beach with the dolphins. Ciera ended up getting scared so my mom had to hold him while he was with the dolphin (their dolphin’s name is Loki), but CJ was really excited. It was great too, because the people taking care of the dolphins genuinely cared for them (as they should of course). During the encounter, the dolphins actually sit on shallow part of the beach for a few minutes for picture taking, and the trainer said that Loki was tired of sitting still and wanted to swim a bit so that’s what Loki did before returning to the beach to complete the photo op.

We then had some lunch before heading to the El Capitan Stadium at 1215 to watch the first dolphin and whale show that day. It was great, the dolphins were “walking on water” and jumping several feet in the air. Then the false killer whales came out and started dancing with the trainers and performing all sorts of neat little tricks. At the end of the show, the dolphins and the false killer whales all came out together and jumped out of the water all at the same time. It was a great spectacle. The host then started talking to the audience how we should care for these animals and our environment.


At 1:30 we headed to the Nautilus Theater for the Sea Lion show, and it was great too. They started off the show by having one sea lion lipsync the welcome remarks of the host. I also didn’t know what the difference of seals and sea lions were before: I used to think it was only their size, but it turns out it is also the way they walk on land – sea lions prop up their front body by using their flippers as legs and as such can walk fairly efficiently on land, while seals practically crawl on their bellies. Apparently they are also really strong as they can lift up their entire bodies using just their front flippers (one sea lion even lifted her whole body with just one flipper much like a break dancer!). Then a few more tricks were done before the show was concluded by another lesson on the three Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) and how we should not throw garbage into the oceans as it is the cause of death of tens of thousands marine life every year.

We then headed to the Sea Lion encounter area where my nephews and I had out picture taken with one of the sea lions named Madison. Unfortunately, our digicam ran out of battery so we only have a hard copy of the picture they took of us with their camera (by they I mean Ocean Adventure staff).

After the show, we headed to the Discovery aquarium, which is a collection really well maintained aquariums with an assortment of fish and other sea creatures like sea cucumbers, starfish, and even a lobster. My nephews naturally loved it and kept jumping from one aquarium to the next and back. We left Ocean Adventure at around 230 after what felt like a full day of enjoyment (this also meant that we got to Manila in the early evening). The place is quite expensive actually (even the lunch we had cost quite a bit), and when you compare it to similar facilities abroad, it isn’t as good. However, I think it is a great place to bring kids to (make sure you save for it though), and a great place to have an encounter with a dolphin here in the country (they also have whale encounters, but you have to be at least 8 years old to join that).

The rest of the long weekend was spent chilling out in Oakwood. I booked a two bedroom suite for two nights in Oakwood, and we headed there right after our Subic trip. Once again it was a lot of fun. We had good food and the kids enjoyed swimming in the pool and just running around the room. CJ also started drawing impressions of the animals he saw in Ocean Adventure, and my mom kept them all and decided to put them in a photo album along with the other photos we took of that weekend. After checking out on Monday, we had lunch in Outback because they had this promo where kids in costume got to eat for free. Both CJ and Ciera dressed up in pumpkin costumes. All in all, another great weekend.

Busy, busy, busy...

Hay, it seems to be that time of the year when things just go apeshit and my work-life balance tips too much towards the work side. Anyway, I'm checking in to say that I am alive, and that I am still around, but there hasn't really been enough time to blog. Which is kinda sad since, again, lotsa stuff has been going on. I think last week is the first week that I wasn't able to update my blog at all. Sucks when you realize that you can't even spare half an hour in the entire week for something like that.

Oh well, hope things get better soon.

Respect

Recently, an email about an answer supposedly given by Lara Quigaman in the recently concluded Miss International has been making its rounds. It’s a very interesting exchange and I’m copy-pasting it here:

Q: "What do you say to the people of the world who have typecasted Filipinos as nannies?"

A: "I take no offense on being typecasted as a nanny. But i do take offense that the educated people of the world have somehow degenerated the true sense and meaning of what a nanny is. Let me tell you what she is. She is someone who gives more than she takes. She is someone you trust to look after the very people most precious to you - your child, the elderly, yourself. She is the one who has made a living out of caring and loving other people. So to those who have typecasted us as nannies, thank you. It is a testament to the loving and caring culture of the Filipino people. And for that, I am forever proud and grateful of my roots and culture."

It’s a brilliant answer that not only gives a lot of respect to nannies but also uplifts the Filipino identity on a world scale. However, I’ve been told that this email was a hoax, that Lara Quigaman was actually never asked that question during the competition itself. Someone told me that she may have been asked that during an international press conference and not during the Q&A portion of Miss International.

Whatever the truth is about this e-mail, I am very pleased that it is landing in many an inbox. Primarily because it changes the level of respect that nannies (and people belonging to any other similar profession like maids and drivers) normally get.

People working these jobs, at least in this country, not only work very hard with little pay, but they are also looked down upon (sometimes on an unconscious level) by a lot of people with supposedly “more respectable” careers. One of the biggest insults maids and drivers get is how when someone who doesn’t look all that good is said to be ‘mukhang driver’ or ‘mukhang katulong.’ That is a terribly disrespectful comment on two levels. First, it means the recipient of that comment is looked down upon for not looking as good. Second, and immensely more disgraceful, is that it means that and maids and drivers have been made benchmarks of ugliness.

After all, imagine this. Someone was born into a poor family and is unable to go to school. However, since they don’t really have a lot of money, they decide to try and earn a living to help put food on the table. As they didn’t have enough funds for school, they can’t get any of the so-called respectable jobs. So they work as drivers and maids. Then they spend the entire day taking care of your kids while you are away, cleaning your toilet, cooking food over a hot stove, or waiting for you to get out of work and then driving you through two hours of traffic. And remember, they didn’t have enough money to go to school, so what would give us the idea that they would have the money to buy make-up and nice clothes?

Now, as someone who has had to wait a couple of hours in the car for someone I was picking up and then navigate through Edsa traffic during rush hour, I can safely say that by the time you get out of the car, the stress level actually shows on your face and you couldn’t really care less about anything else, least of all how you look. These drivers and maids and nannies all work to serve you and make your life better, not really having enough time to preen themselves. And why would they? If you had to clean a toilet, would you actually want to put on your best dress and look good for the cameras while doing it? I think not.

I find it really sad then that these people work hard to make your life easier, for a meager sum at that, and we think less of them for the way they look. Of course you can argue that you aren’t degrading maids and drivers when you say someone looks like a driver or a maid. But here’s a question for you – would you make that comment when there’s a maid or a driver sitting right next to you?

As such, I think it’s great that the supposed Q&A with Lara Quigaman is being read by an ever-widening audience as it can hopefully change people’s perspective a bit. I know someone who was once mistaken as the person who cleans rooms when he was in another country and he felt extremely offended by that comment. Now he says that, after reading that email, he no longer feels any less when he is mistaken as a housecleaner. One step at a time, I say, to make the world a better place.

Sick again

Got sick again last Monday. About a month ago I had to take a sick leave as well. I don't think I've ever had as many sick leaves in a year as I've taken in 05. Must be getting old. Or maybe I'm running myself ragged too much.

Thank God it's just a few more days before the long weekend! Can't wait to just chill out at home and get a bit more sleep than I am used to.

My least boring 10km treadmill run ever

Gold’s Gym had its 3rd Gold’s Olympics last Saturday. There are five teams, comprised of members and trainers, who compete in this event that features five elements – running, relay, bench press, boxing, and group exercise.

One of the trainers, James, was forming a team with the help of my trainer, Marlon. Thursday night last week, I got a call from James asking me if I wanted to run the 10km for their team. The run would be on a treadmill – the guy would run 10km and the girl would run 5km on an adjacent treadmill as soon as the guy finished. I told James that (1) I hadn’t run for two months, and (2) I don't run anywhere nearly fast as a lot of other serious long distance runners. I guess he was out of options (I later found out that his original 10km runner was unavailable at the last minute) so I was the guy. I figured I needed the exercise and it was an interesting thing to be a part of, and it was early on Saturday morning so I wasn’t going to lose my entire day. So I agreed to join.

I ended up finishing last out of five runners (as I expected) but I was quite pleased that I finished in under 55 minutes. Considering I haven’t run, exercised, or played any sport in the last 1 ½ months or so, that, for me, was quite an achievement. Also, I was only about 6 minutes behind the 2nd placer, 4 minutes off the pace of the 3rd placer and 2 minutes behind the 4th placer (I was worried my opponents were all track athletes who would be clocking less than 45 minutes and that I would finish in more than an hour which would have been embarrassing). With everyone watching and giving the runners encouragement, that 10km treadmill run didn’t feel boring at all (and it felt like it was less than 54 minutes too).

The cool thing though was that my partner, Jona (not sure if I spelled her name right) absolutely smashed the competition in the 5km. Her time added to mine put out team in 3rd place overall. In fact, she was so fast that if she pushed herself, she could’ve pulled us up to 2nd, but James told her not to overwork herself since she would be doing 100 abdominals in the relay as well.

At the end of the day, our team ended up 3rd overall, losing to the Black team and the Green team (both of which I think featured a truckload of trainers, we had about 3 or 4 only). It was so much fun that I am actually hoping that I get to join again next year despite my last place showing. Maybe if I train continually for the next year, I can shave off enough minutes off of my 10km time, allowing me to get a callback (hehe I wish!)

Still Oz live on Breakfast!

Chalk up another milestone for me this year – I can now say that I have sung live on national television! Imagine that!

A couple of weeks ago (Wed, Sept 29), my band Still Oz guested on the Studio 23 morning show “Breakfast”. Oz asked us a few days before the show whether we wanted to perform on Breakfast which airs at 630-8am. I am not a morning person and in fact I was terribly busy during that time, but opportunities like this don’t come along very often and I figured I would still make it to work early enough coz Breakfast finishes at 8am and Makati is less than an hour away from the ABS-CBN studio. I guess everyone else in the band thought so too so we all agreed to do the show.

We ended up playing 5 songs, all of them by Dave Matthews Band and U2. The set up was that we would sing 4 partial songs, usually leading to commercial. It’s not really very easy to sing first thing in the morning but I guess my adrenaline was pumping that day as my voice seemed to open up well enough for me to do a good job with all our songs.

The show opened with us playing ‘Ants Marching’. In the middle of the song, the hosts introduced themselves and what was lined up in the next hour and a half. Then later on we did ‘All I want is you’ and ‘Where the streets have no name’, both as segues into adverts. Several minutes later, one of the hosts, Patricia, interviewed us (we all got asked a question and you could see how inexperienced we were as our answers were not the most well-versed or well thought out) before we performed #41, the only song we played in full. We then finished the show with ‘Grey Street’ which we played while the credits were rolliwng. I was pleased about the fact that I managed to hit the 17-second sustain in that song (which still made the show, sort of, as I think the show cut in the middle of me holding that note).

Aside: Strangest coincidence. Oz’s friend who got us to perform on the show is apparently a high school friend of Kathy. As luck would have it, Oz’s friend also got Kathy and her friends to perform fire-spinning on the show (which they do every so often in different venues across the city), and on the same day! Now what are the chances of that happening? =)

All in all, a fantastic experience. Not sure if it’ll ever happen again, but at least now I can say that I’ve sung live on national TV. Now I just need to make sure I get a tape of that show.

My Big 3-0 (part 2)

The rest of my birthday celebration was kind of a long weekend. My birthday was on Saturday, and my band had a gig in Racks El Pueblo on Friday night that was going to start at around 11pm. I figured there was a good chance I would be performing on stage when I turned 30, and true enough, I was. Can’t remember exactly which song I was singing at the stroke of midnight, but I knew that it was Sept 24 when I saw members of the Grin team (the volleyball team I coach who watched my gig after their game that Friday night) come up a few feet away from the stage and mouth ‘Happy birthday’ to me when I looked at them.

The gig itself wasn’t all that good technically – we majorly bungled up the intro to “Selling the drama” and well everyone was making quite a few mistakes. I have to say, though, that part of it was certainlty the sound system which sucked quite a bit and in fact my mic died a few times in the middle of a song (especially a couple of times during a cappella parts!). But the audience didn’t seem to mind, and the reception we got sort of mirrored that of 90proof where a huge part of the audience were standing up to watch us perform and even sing along with us (as if, again, it was a concert that they came to watch).

By the time the gig was over, the remaining Grin team whisked me off to their table where a slice of chocolate cake with a candle on top of it was waiting for me, and they started to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. (Earlier in the night, they also presented me with a nice picture of me with the team, and dedications from everyone at the back, Jane had also gotten me the ‘Free yourself’ CD of Fantasia Barrino, which was a whole lot better than I thought it would be, and I’ve been playing it a lot on my car stereo recently). Later that night er early early morning, Bunky realized that it was past midnight and the band and our friends who stayed to watch started greeting me as well. Sep even got me a San Mig light – one for the road – before I headed out.

The next day I got up quite late as I was exhausted from the long week and the long Friday. I then made reservations for ten in Cantinetta, this new restaurant next to Starbucks along Pasong Tamo extension. I learned about this resto from Anton’s blog and he raved about it so I figured it would be good to try it out. I knew it was pricey, but thje plan was that Mitch and I woudl split the bill since Mitch's birthday is just a few days before mine and most of the time we celebrate together.

I picked up Iona and Joyce on the way to Makati, and we got there right on schedule (730pm, as I had reserved). Mitch and Ferg got there shortly after, followed by Mike. Gary and Winnie came a bit later and Anna rounded up the gang. The food was actually very good – from the Tagliatelle, to the mushroom and spinach appetizer, to the different pizzas, to the cannelloni and lasagna. The wine that Ferg picked for us was pretty good too. Cantinetta served us a couple of desserts for free, but as that was clearly not enough for everyone, Mitch and I decided to get one each of the desserts they had.

The next day, Sunday, I took my family to Superbowl in SM Fairview for lunch. Unfortunately, Tatay was sick so he couldn’t join us. Tita Tuds and my cousins Tracy, Troy, and Twinkle were all unavailable too because they only found out last minute about it and already had other plans. So it was just me, Mom, CJ, Ciera, and Nanay in Superbowl. We just ordered extra so that we could bring food to those who couldn’t make it.

Finally, on Monday, I met up with my friends from Nortel in Good Earth in Metrowalk. I was actually sick that day and was on sick leave, but I didn’t want to reschedule so I rested the entire day and felt good enough to head to the Ortigas area at around 630. I arrived in Good Earth at 730 and for the first time, I was the first person to arrive. We all stuffed ourselves silly (the beef chow mein was our favorite dish that night, although everything was good) before capping the night at Coffee Beanery that was just right next door.

I also ended up with a bit more stuff from my wishlist and some other stuff – more starbucks GCs, aftershave gel and shaving cream from Body Shop, a concert ticket to the Company’s 20th anniversary, and a few more CDs: ‘A rush of blood to the head’ by Coldplay, ‘Hopes and dreams’ by Keane, and ‘The best of Sting.’

My Big 3-0 (part 1)

I finally turned 30 a couple of weeks ago! The big 3-0! And the strange thing is that I am actually excited to be 30. I guess it’s because I enjoyed the last 30 years of my life well enough to look forward to next 30 (fingers crossed…)

One of the things that make my life pretty exciting are the great, great people around me. So to commemorate my 30 years on earth, I made sure to celebrate with the different sets of people that have made my life worth living.

The first part of my celebration happened last September 19 with my friends from work. It was a Monday, so not exactly the ideal day for a party, but Mike and Giselle were here and would only be in the country that week, and a few other folks weren’t available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday due to late night meetings. So Monday it was.

Didn’t matter really, coz it was a great party! We held it in Mike’s house and I sorted out the food. Since I don’t cook, I just ordered delivery – Pansit Lucban from Buddy’s and Chicken Wings from Greenwich. I got to Mike’s place at 730 and dropped off the drinks, ice cream, and party stuff. Then I left shortly to get some siomai from Henlin since I wasn’t sure whether the variety of food was enough. By the time I got back, a few folks had already arrived although Mike had left. We started preparing the food, but we decided to wait for the other people who were on the way before digging in.


Turns out the people we were waiting for had a cake for me and they put candles in the shape of #30 on top of it.

Then we started eating – turned out the pansit was quite heavy and all 18 of us there could only eat half of the bilao. The Wacky wings from Greenwich was a surprise find – they were actually quite good, and was the only food item that was fully consumed. People were too stuffed to eat all the siomai and dessert although some of us still managed to have cake ala mode – tiramisu meltdown with Double Dutch and strawberry ice cream on the side.

Then we just chilled out and indulged in a lot of fun conversation and friendly banter. Before the night ended, though, we had a gift-opening ceremony. What made it great was that I managed to get quite a few items from my birthday wishlist which I posted a few weeks ago.

What I got – the Best of U2 1990-2000, a band necklace, Sister Act widescreen DVD, a book on bedroom household management for men (perfect for when I move to my new condo unit in a few weeks), several Starbucks GCs, a couple of Suriya Spa Spot Tension Release back massage vouchers, and Body Shop
Aftershave gel.

So all in all, a fantastic birthday celebration. Wouldn’t have happened if my friends didn’t come: Hannah, Marga, Pia, Che, Paulo, Giselle, Raffa, Joh, Mike, Chris, Shar, John Q, Elaine, Tim, Gio, Peegee, and Nats. The downside was that Meann missed it due to an evening meeting that finished very late, and Simon due to issues at work. But it was still a blast and was a great way to start the upcoming year. =)

Draw again

Another draw. What am I supposed to make of that? I guess it means life ain't too bad but that there is room for improvement.

Liverpool drew their Champions League match against Chelsea in Anfield. Home court advantage didn't do them any good. But at least they prevented Chelsea, current runaway leader in the Premiership and CL favorites, from taking all the points from this game. They get to play against Chelsea again this weekend, this time in EPL. I hope this time they manage to pull off the upset.

Miscellany

Last night, the volleyball team I am coaching, Grin team, played the last game in their best of three finals against the Stingers, the defending champion. Grin team and Stingers had split the first two games, both of which were played in three sets. The game started at 8pm but I had a meeting that finished at that time so when I got to Meralco for the game, they were already in the 2nd set. My team won the 1st set convincingly, 25-10, so they decided to let the rest of the team play in the second set. They ended up losing that set by about four points though, but at least everyone in the team got to play.

The third set was up and down. The Stingers took initiative first, taking an early lead. But good play and placement allowed Grin team to catch up and take the lead midway through the set. Unfortunately, at 19-16 in favor of my team, the wheels came off. The Stinger's star player found her range and took control of the match by blasting several tough spikes and wallop serves. Grin team lost 9 of the next 10 points to lose the set and the championship. Too bad. At least they had lots of fun and all their players got to play in the final game of the series. Til next year!

*****

Mig Ayesa made it to the final 3 of Rockstar INXS last week, but no further. How sad. I am proud of his achievement and I am even more pleased that he thanked his supporters from the Philippines and Australia. And as I guessed, INXS picked JD over Marty to be their new frontman. JD's voice and style match better.

While I am on the topic, I have to say that I don't think Marty is really that good or as great as people rave about. When I look back at some of his performances - Live's "I Alone", Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here", and Radiohead's "Creep" - I just think that he doesn't have the vocal versatility nor the appropriate emotional interpretation when performing (he always has this intense, bugged-out-eyes look). "Trees" was his only performance that I saw that I thought was great. But now that I mention it, maybe he doesn't cover other people's songs very well but he does a kick-ass job of performing his own. So maybe he actually is really good as long as he doesn't cover other people's songs.

*****

Michael Owen is starting to make a move in the Premiership once again. He had a lackluster performance in his first outing in Newcastle. But in his second game, he managed to score a goal with a great header and helped Newcastle win 3-0 over Blackburn. Then he scored the loan goal in their game against Man City helping Newcastle claw its way from the bottom of the league to 10th spot. Great job!

On the otherhand, Liverpool have not had as much success. They managed to hold Man Utd to a draw at home which is not the best result, but it was against ManU so I guess a draw ain't so bad. Unfortunately, they also drew against Birmingham away. They are now in unlcuky 13th place, although they do have a game in hand (or 2 even). At least they are so far doing well in Champions League. Hope Liverpool manage to upend Chelsea tonight!

Band stuff

Last Friday, we played 5 songs in a fashion show in IAME (Bunky and Cholo's previous school). Lots of the their classmates have supported us in many of our gigs so we agreed to play pro bono (although we did get unlimited free drinks which was a good deal). Besides, it was 5 songs only so not really a lot of work.

This Saturday, we are going to have an audition in Ojay's in Eastwood at 730pm. I've never been to Ojay's so don't ask me exactly where it is (I will figure out on Saturday how to get there). It would be fun if we get this gig so that we have a venue outside Makati for a change. But I don't really know what type of crowd goes there, so I'm not entirely sure they will appreciate our music.

Then on Sept 23 (Fri next week), we will have a gig in Racks El Pueblo. There will be three bands playing that night, and I don't know yet exactly what time we go on. Since three bands are playing, we will be on for only one set.

The good thing though is that despite the hectic sked, we aren't really playing 2-3 sets each time (or at least not yet), so it is still not as tiring as two 3-set gigs in a month.

Tennis recap

After losing four grand slam finals (three of them to her compatriot, Justine Henin-Hardenne), Kim Clijsters finally shakes off the title "best player never to have won a Grand Slam" by trouncing Mary Pierce 6-3 6-1 in a little over an hour last Saturday to win the US Open. By doing so, Kim won $2.2 million ($1.1 M for the US Open title plus a 100% bonus for also winning the US Open series). This is the biggest paycheck in the history of women's tennis!

• Aside from this fantastic record, here are a couple of other statistics:
• Kim has now won 7 titles this year, more than any other woman so far
• She also goes up to #3 in the WTA rankings
• However, based on points won this year alone, she leads everyone else, including #1 Maria Sharapova and #2 Lindsay Davenport
• With her huge paycheck, Kim also now has earned more money than anyone else on tour

Now that she's won, I am hoping she starts winning at least a couple more slams (perhaps the Australian Open next year). She didn't seem as nervous as she used to in Slam finals against Mary, apart from two consecutive games in the 1st set where she made multiple errors and barely won a point. But now that she has one Slam neatly tucked under her belt, the floodgates may have just opened for her.

******

Congratulations go out to Roger Federer for beating Andre Agassi in the final to win his 2nd US Open and 6th slam overall. Congatulations as well to 35 year old Andre Agassi for getting to the finals, winning three 5-setters in a row.

******

If there was an award for the ugliest tennis shirt, though, it has to go to the shirt worn by Dominik Hrbaty. He was actually asked about his shirt and he laughed about it and said something to the effect that maybe the designers thought that the holes at the back of the shirt were good for letting air in or something (although I don't think it's good for tan lines). If you don't believe me, check this photo out:

Coach

Interesting little thing. Last year, Mitch asked me if I could coach her volleyball team in their inter-department ladies volleyball competition. Naturally I agreed. They have a really good team actually, and last year they placed second, narrowly losing in the last set in the finals.This year, Mitch asked me if I could coach them again. My sked has been a bit tight as of late, but I figured I might be useful to them as a coach for at least a couple of games.

Tuesday night last week was their first tough game, against the defending champion. My team though buffed up their line-up: they have a new player who can spike and has great placement, and one of the players in last year’s champion team was reassigned to another division so she was now in my team. The defending champs though weren’t as strong as they were last year, so on paper, my team looked to be in a better position to win.

I got there in the middle of the first set, which they won comfortably 25-16. In the second set, however, their opponent started getting in the groove. With several strong serves from arguably the best player in the league, their opponents managed to take the lead late in the set and held on to it, winning 25-22.

The third set was a different story. With several well-placed shots and great ball control, my team built a big lead early in the set, and they just never looked back. A 6-point lead grew to 10 and by the end of the set they won very comfortably, 25-11. It was a very well-played game, and an exceptional third set.

Birthday wishlist

It's a couple of weeks 'til my birthday, and I decided to put up my wishlist in my blog. I got this idea from Dale. If you are interested in getting me something but don't want me to know, please leave an anonymous comment saying which item you intend to get me so that others no longer get me that item. Warning: some of the CDs might be hard to find:

DVDs (non-pirated):

• X-men 2
• Babe
• Chicken Run
• Sister Act
• Sister Act 2
• A few good men

Note - for the DVDs, please get my the widescreen edition. If you can't find a widescreen edition, please get me something else na lang. =)

Music CDs (non-pirated please):

• A rush of blood to the head by Coldplay*
• X&Y by Coldplay*
• Crash by Dave Matthews Band
• Under the Table and Dreaming by Dave Matthews Band
• The Joshua Tree by U2
• The best of 1990-2000 by U2*
• Fields of Gold: The best of Sting 1984-1994 by Sting
• Rattle and Hum (Live) by U2
• Hopes and Fears by Keane*
• More than you think you are by Matchbox 20
• Yourself or something like you by Matchbox 20
• Free yourself by Fantasia Barrino
• Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson*
• Elephunk by the Black Eyed Peas
• Monkey Business by Black Eyed Peas*
• Greatest Soul Classics (American Idol 3 CD)

Note - the CDs with * are the ones which I think should be easy enough to find.

Others (these items pwede more than one ang makuha ko):

• Body Shop For Men Aftershave Gel
• Rustan's GCs (I need to buy a lot of new pants but I'd like to fit them myself first so GC na lang)
• Starbucks GCs
• Band accessories, like a cool necklace or bracelet
• Suriya Spa GC for Spot-tension release back massage (I don't like having full body massages so the back one will do)

(Update: I already got a few Aftershave gels to last me a while so I am striking this one off in the meantime. =))

They don't make gigs like this everyday (part II)

You can read about the first set of this incredible gig in my previous post. As for the rest of the story that night, read on… After our first set, we took a break and the band Bridge played one set. We had known that there would be two bands that night, and before we played, Bunky shared some concerns about the fact that Bridge covered similar songs to us, mainly those of Dave Matthews Band (DMB) and Sting.

So we were jolted when we heard Bridge play Sting’s “It’s probably me” then Bob Dylan’s “All along the watchtower” (although we do DMB’s version of this song) both of which were part of our 2nd set playlist. We were supposed to play 11 songs in the 2nd set, and since we didn’t want to play the same songs that Bridge played, we were now down to 9 songs. We were rushing to figure out what other 2 songs to put in when Oz told us that management said we had time for only 8 songs in the second set. We looked at our playlist and we decided to take out Poison’s “Every Rose has its thorn” since it was the slowest song we had that set.

I quickly show Oz the final playlist of the set, and he gives me a look like he’s not satisfied with it. We were about to go on, so I just told him let’s just play each song as well as we can. I myself was worried that we wouldn’t be able to live up to our last 3 songs of the 1st set, but those worries were soon put to rest the moment we started. Here’s a run-down of what we performed

“Lightning crashes” by Live. This is one of my favorite songs and one of the first ones we learned, so sing this is almost second nature to me. Since Oz didn’t seem confident in our set-list, I felt that I needed to sing this song well enough that it sets the tone for the rest of the evening. Sep had insisted that I stand up, partly to give us more space on stage and partly so that we would have more passion while performing. I’m glad that Sep insisted on this as it freed me up a bit more and allowed me to be more intense and use my vocals and my range a bit more. By the time I hit my first high note, there was an unmistakable vibe from the audience. And when song built up and became more powerful, we knew that we had picked up from where we left off.

“Bright lights” by Matchbox 20. We’ve gotten great response from our audiences with this song in the past, and tonight was no exception. The cool thing was, when we were learning Beatles songs for Ray’s wedding way back in January, Bunky realized that the instrumental part at the end of Bright Lights had the same chords as “Hey Jude”. Since then, we had been playing the “Na na na na na na na… Hey Jude” part of that song during the instrumental of “Bright Lights” and each time, the audience would start singing with us as they also did that night.

“Grey Street” by Dave Matthews Band. This was the only song that we played in the second set that was never released into the mainstream. But the song has such a great riff and tempo to it that it didn’t matter that almost no one in the audience knew the song. They still gave us a massive ovation once we were done. It was at this point that I realized that everyone in the bar was actually watching us. It wasn’t like we were background music anymore. At that point, the whole gig had the feel of a concert where everyone came there to watch us perform.

“Better man” by Pearl Jam. By the time we played this song, I knew that we had the set in the bag. This song was something that we generally did okay with, but we were already zoned by the time we played it that all of a sudden it felt like it one of the best songs we play. In fact, I saw Dex signal to me to try and ease up a bit as he was worried that I might be straining my voice too much. But my voice felt so strong that night that I knew it would hold up the rest of the set.

“One” by U2. 90proof crowd is an 80’s crowd, and as such a lot of people there are fans of U2. This is one of the most passionate songs that we do, and the atmosphere was electric while we were performing. I could hear the audience sing “Love is a temple, love’s a higher law…” along with me and when we were done, the audience had given us wild applause for the 8th song in a row that night.

“Knockin’ on heaven’s door” by Guns n Roses. We’ve never played this song and not have the audience sing along with us during the chorus. I recall looking at the audience right before we got to the chorus and I could see so many of them gearing up to sing “hey, hey, hey yeah yeah.” The instrumental bit though was absolute magic. Oz opened up the instrumental with his solo and Mano then followed suit on percussions, both of wowing the crowd. The cool thing during this solo was that Bunky started playing percussive guitar along with Mano thus enriching the sound quality. The audience was going crazy the entire song! It was uncanny.

“With or without you” by U2. We had put this song in to replace “Where the streets have no name” after we moved it to the 1st set. And it was the right decision to add "With or without you" to the playlist. The response we got from the crowd on this song was immense! It felt like everyone there sang along with us from the very first note. That has never happened to us in any gig, so it felt like we had broken new ground while performing this song.

“Ants marching” by Dave Matthews Band. Anyone who’s seen us perform before would know that we almost always cap off our night with this song. That night, we were all playing out of our wits, and yet we all remained in very good control (does that make sense?). Oz got the crowd going when he played his solo while standing atop a bar stool. We got raucous applause during most of the song. While playing "Ants Marching", we knew that we had just played the best set, and best gig, we've ever played, and we were simply putting icing on the cake. And what perfect icing it was too.

Cheers from the crowd for us to play more, even an encore of #41, filled 90proof but we had to stop as we were told by management that we had played our last song that night. We humbly apologized to the crowd that we couldn’t play anymore. But I guess it didn’t matter that much. Everyone in the band was on a natural high! We excitedly recounted how the set went with each other and with our friends. Noel confirmed with us that we had just passed our audition, and both Treena and Jaygat agreed that it was the best gig we had ever performed.

My hope now is for us to be able to duplicate this feat when more of our family and friends are in the crowd. Maybe even have John V and John Q playing with us when we nail another gig like this. In the meantime, I will continue to relish how well we performed that night. After all, they don’t make gigs like this everyday.

They don't make gigs like this everyday (part I)

Last Saturday, my band Still Oz played what is now considered to be our best gig ever!!!

Almost a week after we performed, everyone in the band is still on a natural high from it. I just remember, while performing, there was one distracting thought in my head - that I wished my family and friends were there to witness that performance. After each song of the second set, everyone in the band just kept looking at each other with disbelief, almost like we couldn't believe how well we were playing.

But the clincher was the audience response. We were playing in 90proof as part of its 2nd year anniversary. 90proof is a resto bar. And normally, when you are in a resto bar, you spend your time talking to the people you are with and drinking beer, only giving cursory applause to the band playing after each song (sometimes not even). But that night, during that second set - EVERYONE was watching us. It was almost like it was a concert. Our concert. And it felt unbelievable!

There were a couple of bad omens actually that gave us the feeling things wouldn't go all that well. Cholo couldn't play with us because of an exam. Also, the night before the gig, I hung out with my office friends because it was Pia's birthday, and we sang for 5 hours, from 930pm to 230am, in IO. I promised myself I wouldn't sing a lot that night, but when I got there, well guess what? I couldn't stop singing, even when I wasn't holding the mic (not surprising, really). Needless to say, my voice was clearly strained the next day. It was sufficiently hoarse that my band agreed NOT to do our U2 medley of "All I want is you-Where the Streets have no name" because that is one of the most taxing song combo that we do. We planned to play "All I want is you" in the first set and "Where the streets have no name" in the second.

When we got to 90proof, I started feeling jittery since that was the first time we were to play there and I wasn't sure how well my voice would hold up. Add to that the fact that there seemed to be a new TV show that would be shooting our first song and maybe part of our 2nd (the camera was actually about 2-3 feet away from my face and pointed directly at me). Our first set was going to be a bit laidback, so I decided I would sit while we were performing. We did a sound check, then I took a deep breath and we kicked off our first set.

We played "Counting Blue Cars" by Dishwalla first, to try and start off laidback and get the band in a playing groove. We are technically clean when playing this song, and it's a good song for me to open up my vocal chords with. We followed it up with Matchbox 20's "3am" which is another cool but laidback song, then performed our first of five U2 songs that night - "Stuck in a moment you can't get out of." The crowd sort of sang along with us for the chorus of "Stuck..." and we played every song very well, but for the most part, the crowd wasn't responding too much (since those songs, as I said, were all quite laidback).

Now since Oz and Bunky draw their energy from crowd support, there was some desperation in the atmosphere after the lukewarm reception to our first 3 songs. Oz said we needed to throw in a DMB (Dave Matthews Band) song to shift gears, but we didn't really have anything we could put in at that time. Instead, we decided to drop "Yellow" by Coldplay, another cool laidback song, and jump straight into "Anti-gravity" by Incubus which was a bit more loud and would hopefully get the crowd going a bit more. Ack, bad move! That was our only bad song that night, and I think it might have been because we were distracted. We still hung tight though, and I just kept thinking - we are following this up with "All I want is you" by U2 so we can still turn things around before we end our first set.

Now remember how I had a hoarse voice earlier that day due to singing too much the night before? Somewhere during "Stuck..." I realized that for some reason the strain in my voice while singing had disappeared. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or all the hot tea and mints I had that day. Whatever it was, when I hit the high notes of "All I want is you" I didn't feel as much strain on my voice as I normally do when singing that song.

The thing now was that the host and crew of that TV show shooting us earlier in the evening started cheering like crazy when I started belting out those high notes. And it seems everyone took their cue from those guys as now the whole crowd was getting a bit wild.

But that wasn't the defining moment. When I realized my voice was on top of its form that night, I quickly looked back at the band during instrumental and said "Let's do our U2 medley!" So I start hitting those high notes again, then I held that last high note without strain and longer than I have ever been able to hold it, and by the time I stopped, Bunky had started playing the chords of "Where the streets have no name." The crowd interest in us had definitely gone up.

The fantastic thing about our performance of "Where the streets.." what that we didn't practice it that day and we didn't talk about how we would play it either. But at the very last minute, Bunky, Sep, Oz and Mano decided to play a version of that song that they had practiced once and that we played once in Ponti. I picked up on it and started singing one of Bono's live versions of it. By the time we were done with the song, the crowd was definitely applauding a lot more loudly and were more involved and appreciative.

We capped off the first set with our first DMB song for the night, #41, and by the time Oz started mesmerizing the audience with his violin-playing, we knew that we were on to something special.

After that set, we were all going crazy. I recall telling everyone else, how the heck are we going to top that? We normally play that U2 medley towards the end of our last set but now we've tossed out our trump card too early. I was worried. But at the same time pleased at how well we played that first set. Save for "Anti-gravity," we played every song very well, crowd reaction notwithstanding, and it was by far the best first set we've played in a long while (or maybe ever).

(Stay tuned for details on how the second set went! This post is already too long! hehehe)

US Open early upsets!

Wow, Andy Roddick is out of the US Open in the first round! That has to be one of the most surprising results I've seen this year! Which is maybe followed closely by Svetlana Kuznetsova's 1st round loss as well. Who is that, you may ask? Well, she is just the defending champion of the US Open!

What a truly interesting year of tennis, especially Grand Slam tennis. So far, none of this year's slam winners have more than one slam trophy - Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer on the men's side and Serena Williams, Justine Henin-Hardenne, and Venus Williams on the women's side. The most interesting stat though is in the women's side which was pointed out by a reader of the CNNSI.com - all of the women Grand Slam winners had to overcome a matchpoint on the way to the title. Serena saved a matchpoint against Maria Sharapova in the AO semis, Justine had to overcome matchpoints against Kuznetsova in the quarters of the FO, and Venus had to save a matchpoint against Lindsay Davenport in the Wimbledon final. Pretty damn cool stat, the one.

So back to the USO. I used to really dislike Roddick, but now he's no longer as in-your-face as he used to be, and I actually felt bad that he lost. Someone said that maybe the fact that even on his best day right now he is still incapable of beating Roger Federer has been playing in his head and has been eating away at his confidence.

Going on the who I think will be the winner, the men's side is a bit more predictable - barring injury, Roger will take it, and as such will have his 6th major. On the women's side, I am hoping that Kim Clijsters finally breaks through and wins her first slam. On paper, she is the player to beat on hard courts. She lost only once on hard courts this year, a fluke result against Shuai Peng (not to be confused with Feng Shui) but won five tournaments on the surface best suited to her game. And she did it by beating all the other top contenders - Davenport, Sharapova, Henin-Hardenne, Myskina, Dementieva, Kuznetsova, Mauresmo and even Venus Williams against whom she has such a bad head-to-head record. The only top player she hasn't gotten to beat on this surface is Serena Williams whom she hasn't played yet this year. But Serena is not in very good form as she hasn't played since Wimbledon so the odds favor Kim there.

Problem with Kim though is that she always loses the big matches. 4 slam finals, no titles. What a shame! Seems she doesn't have the killer instinct to close out the most important matches. So right now, the award for best player never to have won a slam goes to her hands down. I just hope she doesn't hang on to that title for too long. Good luck, Kim!