Long weekend part 2

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

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

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

A whole lotta sports

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

Thank God for long weekends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melissa and Ade dance to Maxwell's "This Woman's Work" in SYTYCD

(I just edited this post coz I noticed the previously embedded video had been taken down)

One of the most powerful dance numbers I have seen on "So you think you can dance?". I won't bother writing what I think about this video, I will just let you see it and hear what the judges' comments are.


video uploaded in youtube by user DGirlEmmy

I've watched this dozens of times now, and each time, it still impresses and moves me.

Surprise, surprise

I usually skip out on the UAAP basketball frenzy coz UP never really does well in it. So I only found out through a friend that UP actually beat Ateneo 68-58. I don't really know how that happened, and I have no idea whether they can replicate that win because that was their first in four matches this season and it was Ateneo's first loss. But it's still a bit of pleasantly surprising news.

*****

And who would have thought that Lewis Hamilton winning the Hungarian Grand Prix earlier today would be a surprise? After all, he is the reigning Formula One world champion. But in the first 9 races of the 2009 season, Hamilton in his McLaren hasn't been a factor, failing to nab a podium finish. That is, until today. Lewis drove a superb race to finish way ahead of 2nd placer Kimi Räikkönen and 3rd placer Mark Webber.

This F1 weekend included a lot of other surprising events. Scariest of which was Felipe Massa being struck on the helmet by a suspension spring that had fallen off of Rubens Barrichello's race car during qualifying. Now normally, being struck by a suspension spring while wearing a helmet won't be too bad, but if you get hit while you are driving at close to 300 kph, it becomes very life-threatening. The latest info is that Massa is in stable condition so that's good news.

The other surprises - Fernando Alonso losing a tire while in the lead (I can imagine just how pissed off he must be, could've been his first title this season) and Vettel being forced to retire also due to tire problems.

Clearly, Brawn GP has lost a lot of momentum, and Red Bull Racing is now narrow the gap. I think Brawn lost the plot somehow - I think they've made some poor strategic moves in the last couple of races - and RBR have remained very consistent. Jenson Button is still ahead of the pack by 18.5 points, but his lead is starting to dwindle. Hopefully Brawn can find some of the magic they had in the first 7 races this season and get JB back on the podium.

Feast Day of St. Michael Jackson

Okay well the title of my post is a bit misleading LOL but have you seen the tribute of the Cebu inmates to Michael Jackson? If I didn't know better, I'd think I was watching some religious celebration.

The original full video is apparently not available in my country so here's a shorter version of it:


video uploaded in youtube by user salaso2007

It's been a week and a half since Michael Jackson passed away but it's still making headlines all over the world. He truly is a legend. But while I immensely appreciate his talent and music, I'm in the minority in that I don't totally grieve his death. While his pedophilia was never proven, a lot of the other stuff - like MJ dangling his baby outside a window or him publicly denying that he had work done on his nose or his decision to change his skin color (why didn't he just have his "white spots" darkened instead of lightening his complexion?) - prevent me from feeling as bad about his passing on as the rest of the world. I surely do feel sorry for him though as the abuse he experienced in his childhood certainly contributed to his lack of stability His prolonged exposure in the limelight couldn't have helped him any.

Still, Michael Jackson will go down in history as one of the most influential music legends of all time. And I certainly do hope he is in a better place now.

Marathon #6. Woo-hoo!

Can't you believe it? I've done it six times now, running 42 kilometers for charity. Amazing!

Last July 5, I ran my sixth marathon for a cause, raising more than PHP 72,000 for charity patients in the Philippine General Hospital. You can read more about how my run went in my other blog:

photo courtesy of my friend Petite

I didn't have bike support for the first time this year so I don't have a lot of photos. One of my friends, Petite, was in a support station along the route and took a few photos, so here's proof of my run.

Thanks again to all my family and friends for the amazing support, encouragement, and generosity! :)

Friday night out

When I was with my friends Me-ann, Joh, and Raffa a few weeks ago in Eastwood, we decided that we wanted to try out the Platinum theater in Eastwood. This is the cinema where the tickets cost more than P300 but you get unlimited pop corn and soda. Of course, if we were paying that much for movie tickets, we figured that it should be for a pretty big movie. And the biggest one we could think of was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Now since we knew Che would be in town in end June and Transformers 2 was showing in Manila beginning June 24, we thought it would be cool if we all met up for dinner in Eastwood and watched Transformers 2 in the Platinum cinema.

As luck would have it, the Platinum cinema was sold out by lunch time. And when we checked sureseats, only front-row seats were available. Ack! Not the best seats for a movie with a lot of very quick movement on screen.

We ended up watching in Shangri-la mall (tickets there cost P200! Man, I still remember when movie ticket prices were a tenth of that...) and having dinner in Sumo Sam. Anna Mae was also with us this time, and I realized that the last few times I had gone out for dinner with this particular set of friends, it has been in Sumo Sam (or its sister resto, John and Yoko). Che then treated us to some frozen yogurt in White Hat and it was pretty good.

So, the movie. The fortunate thing for us is that we all heard bad reviews about Revenge of the Fallen from both movie-goers and critics so our expectations were all very low heading into the theater. And true enough, Transformers 2 wasn't that good. Lame story (that quite frankly didn't make all that much sense LOL), bad script, a few cheesy and even downright stupid scenes, and some duh moments meant this sequel didn't really live up to the hype. But because we all knew it was going to be bad, we ended up pretty much embracing all the negative aspects of the movie and enjoying the action and special effects. I guess as long you know what to expect from the movie, it's still worth a watch. :)

Tennis time again

So the first half of Wimbledon is over, and talk about your ironies - the first year that Centre Court in Wimbledon has a retractable roof, there hasn't been a rain delay LOL.

The sad part is that Rafael Nadal has pulled out of Wimbledon due to a knee injury. With Roger Federer high in confidence and in very good form right now, it is highly likely that he will win his 6th Wimbledon and 15th Grand Slam title overall, breaking Sampras' men's record of 14 Grand Slam titles.

I would like Andy Murray to win though, and he's been in pretty good form so far. It would be awesome if he does win as he Brits haven't had a home court winner since Virginia Wade in 1977 (and in fact, the last men's winner was Fred Perry, who won the last of his 3 Wimbledon titles in 1936!). And on the women's side, I would like Venus Williams to win her 6th Wimbledon title.

Speaking of the women, it's interesting that both Maria Sharapova and Michelle Larcher de Brito both lost on the same day. These two women have to be the loudest shriekers on the women's tour. As much as I respect Sharapova for her immense power, fight, and never-say-die attitude, I just can't root for someone who shrieks so loud it makes me want to switch the channel when she plays. I thought she was the loudest until I heard Larcher de Brito, who seems to have taken grunting to a whole new level as her grunts seem to last until her opponent hits the ball.

If you don't believe me, check this video out. Warning: not for sensitive ears!


video uploaded in youtube by user SharapovaPower

Now just imagine if these two played against each other....

Getting read for my 6th marathon for a cause

So I found out about 3 weeks ago that the Milo Marathon was going to happen on July 5. Normally it is held in end July or early August so when I called the Race office, I was fully expecting to have about 2 months to train. As it turns out, I had only 1 month left!

I decided to start training but was still mulling over the idea of running on July 5 or doing another marathon later in the year. I knew there is a marathon in Singapore in December so I was thinking of doing that, but then I realized that it would be near-impossible to get people to pledge during December because it's Christmas. I was also told that there is a Pasig River marathon in November, but apparently the route is right along the Pasig River. Considering that it's hard enough to run/jog/walk 42 kilometers, doing it next to a river that doesn't exactly have the best smell in the world will be an even more herculean task.

So I gave myself a bit of an "ultimatum", if I could get to 18 kilometers after two weeks of training, then I'd do the July 5 run. And as it turns out, I managed to get to 18 kilometers by June 15 after training for 13 days. So I committed to running the marathon and now I'm officially registered:


This is definitely the worst training I have ever done for a marathon but hopefully, the motivation of raising money for PGH will help me complete my 6th marathon.

You can read more about my marathon for a cause here.

Taylor Swift meets Coldplay

I am "stealing" this from my friend Mark who put this video up in his blog. Musician Jon Schmidt created this arrangement of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and he thought it would sound good with Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" so he put them together. Check it out:


video uploaded in youtube by user carlosian2

It's a great piece, and it is beautifully played. I've heard "Love Story" on the radio many times but never thought of it as a beautiful song until I heard this arrangement from Jon Schmidt. And of course, the fact that it gets transitioned beautifully to Viva La Vida makes the whole piece even better.

The really ace thing about this performance? The cellist is actually playing cello and bass drum while singing! You can see it at around the 4:19 mark. Amazing! :)

To read more about Jon Schmidt, check out his website: http://www.jonschmidt.com/

Not a good May

After a very valiant effort, Liverpool fall short - four points short, to be exact - of the English Premiership League title. They managed to win practically all of their last few matches apart from the one draw against Arsenal, but Man U unfortunately did not falter either and held tight the rest of the way. Too bad. I just hope that Liverpool can mount another solid campaign next year, and hopefully take the league trophy.

And to add to my disappointment, on the very last day of May, Rafa Nadal was shockingly ousted in the 4th round of the French Open by Robin Soderling. This is a guy who had never beaten Nadal and even lost to Rafa 6-1, 6-0 a few weeks before in Rome. But he played a tremendously powerful and precise game that stopped Rafa in his tracks. This was Nadal's first ever loss in Roland Garros, and his first even loss of a best-of-five match played on clay. Too bad. I was really hoping Rafa would hoist the 7th Grand slam trophy of his career.

*****

While we are talking tennis, I was immensely pleased to see Steffi Graf present the trophy to the women's champion, who turned out to be Svetlana Kuznetsova. A month ago, she was in Wimbledon. Then last week, she was in Roland Garros. This is the most I've seen her back in tennis circles since she retired a decade ago and it's pretty cool. Even more cool was that Svetlana mentioned in her acceptance speech that she met Steffi the first time before the match and she thought it was great that Steffi wished her luck and was presenting the trophy to her.

And while Nadal is still nursing a knee injury that kept prevented him from defending his title in Stella Artois title (which is now the Aegon), my second favorite Andy Murray has continued to do well, winning the title in Queens. It's his 4th title of the year, and hopefully his success on grass gives him confidence to do well in Wimbledon.

Summer

Talk about time flying by so fast. May's about to end. This means that school is once again about to start, which also means a lot more traffic on the roads once again.

To get ready for the new school year, my mom and I took my two nephews shopping for school supplies last Sunday. We went to National Bookstore in Shang Mall. It's been years since I was in grade school (can you tell? LOL) and I had completely forgotten that there are so many different types of notebooks - writing, composition, spiral, math, and music! My nephews weren't really too keen on shopping for school supplies - they wanted to get toys instead, big surprise there - but once we started they actually got quite into it. It was cool too coz for the first time, they were choosing their own stuff.

Of course, the start of the school year heralds the end of summer. Which sucks coz I haven't been to the beach yet! LOL I do have plans though. My high school friend Suzanne is planning a trip to the beach on the June 12 long weekend with some other high school friends. I am hoping that it doesn't rain then. Although to be honest, it's not like it hasn't been raining. I'm pretty sure more than a few summer holidays got screwed up in the last couple of months due to the very uncooperative weather. So at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Lots of fun to be had anyways, even if it does rain.

One other cool thing about this season is that the major movie companies start churning out most of the year's major blockbusters during this time. Over the last five days, I've seen three movies - Star Trek, Angels and Demons, and Terminator Salvation and I enjoyed all of them (Terminator not as much as Star Trek and Angels and Demons, both of which I really loved).

The next big movie I'm waiting to see is Transformers 2. I had dinner last night with Me-ann, Joh, and Raffa in Eastwood and while we were there, we said we should try the premier cinema there - not really sure what it's called, but it's the one where you get refillable pop-corn and drinks and sit in a Lazyboy, I think. Of course, we all agreed that we had to really like the movie coz it costs about P300+, and it turns out we are all looking forward to seeing Transformers 2. It will be shown in Manila on June 24, during which time Che will be in town, so there will be more of us to enjoy the movie.

Teardrop by Massive Attack + Newton Faulkner's cover

Here's a song I really love. It's Teardrop by Massive Attack that came out about a decade ago already. It's such a cool, chill song.


video uploaded in youtube by user pavelmurdoc

I was doing a search of this song on youtube just to check out it's very intriguing video and I noticed several other cover versions of this song. I was interested in how the cover version would sound so I checked some of them out. Of the ones I listened to, the standout was this version by Newton Faulkner.


video uploaded in youtube by user gietube

I have to say, especially considering that Newton is doing his cover with just a guitar, it's pretty awesome!

A Centre Court Celebration in Wimbledon

So I didn't get to go to London to watch Steffi Graf play with Andre Agassi and against Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters. But I did get the next best thing - they showed the entire thing on Starsports last night!

It was a really interesting set of matches to watch. It was clear that all the players were worried to some degree at how they would be playing - obviously none of them wanted to embarrass themselves. But as it turned out, all of them lived up to the hype and delivered the goods. Kim was very consistent and her groundstrokes still carried immense weight - heck, she managed to outrally Andre a few times! Tim's volleys remain some of the best I have ever seen. Andre's hand to eye coordination was still phenomenal and he still had amazing precision in his shot placement.

And Steffi. Well, where do I begin? LOL First off, of all four players on court, she still seemed to have the perfect athletic body. You take one look at her and you wouldn't think she retired from tennis ten years ago. Her fitness level would still put most pro women tennis players to shame.

And so would her movement! In her heyday, she was known for her footwork, speed, and balance, and watching her chase balls all over the court and run around her backhand like in the old days. I seriously thought Kim would blow her off the court, especially with her powerful backhand, but Steffi managed to keep rallies going with her very precise and well-angled slice backhands. Her serve still had lots of weight on it too. She did score a few service winners and manage to set up points with it.

Of course, any discussion about Steffi will not be complete without mention of her forehand. It doesn't have as much weight as it used to - after all, she is 10 years older and hasn't played that level of tennis in years - but she still matched Kim's forehand and even got the better of her on several occasions. There weren't any match statistics, but I'm sure Steffi got a decent number of forehand winners in the match.

She eventually lost the match, 6-4, but when you consider that Kim is 25 and planning to mount a comeback and that a lot of tennis fans are expecting her to still do great things and win a few titles, 6-4 is definitely not a bad scoreline!

Watching Steffi play definitely made me wish I got to watch the Centre Court Celebration live. But even more than that, it made me wish she was still playing. She did have a smile on her face for virtually the entire match against Kim so it was clear that she enjoyed herself immensely. Hopefully that will give both her and Andre the idea to play more exhibition matches in the future. Which would definitely be a treat for tennis fans all over the world. Hopefully, I can get to see the next one (if there will be any...)

Self-boxing

My friend Onin sent me this youtube link and it got me laughing. Check it out!


video uploaded in youtube by user sylar1717

Since it was a clean hit, the question is, who gets the point? ;)

What a great start to the F1 season!

So there's a possibility now that the F1 drivers' championship gets passed on from one Brit to another. Last year's world champion, Lewis Hamilton, ended up ahead of everyone else, albeit barely, by winning five of the seventeen races of the season. Now, five races into the season, Jenson has won four races and placed third in the other one.

If he keeps up this pace, he is on track to become F1 world champion. Heck, if he keeps this up, he could end up with a season in the league of Michael Schumacher, who holds the record for the most race wins in a year (13 out of 17, unreal!).

*****

And since I'm talking F1, I have to mention my friend David. He's the one who turned me into a football fan when he took me to watch the England-Albania World Cup qualifier match in a sports pub in London back in 2001. I have now been keeping a close eye on F1 and have been watching a lot of races ever since I took David to watch the Singapore GP last September in Handlebar. So apparently, whenever I watch a sporting event with David in a sport bar, I end up becoming a fan of that sport LOL. Fun times!

A P1000 discount on my shoe purchase in Adidas

So I was in some kind of shopping mode last weekend, mainly coz I needed some new slacks for work. At some point in my shopping spree, I thought of looking for new white sneakers coz the ones I currently use are no longer as white and have started looking at bit shoddy. I swing by an Adidas store and try on these Adidas Porsche Design shoes and I decided I wanted to get them. The shoes I got kinda look like this photo except the stripes on mine are black:

When I tell the salesman that I was gonna purchase the shoes, he asks me if I was going for the trade in (apparently he was looking at the Aldo shoe box I had with me - yes, I got some new dress shoes as well) and I didn't immediately get it. As I head to the counter to make the payment, I see this sign that talks about this promo in all Adidas stores in Manila (or maybe the Philippines?) where you can trade in an old pair of sports shoes of any brand and that are in decent condition, and you get a discount. You get P500 if the shoes you are buying cost PHP1,500 to 2,999 and P1000 if they cost P3000 or more. The shoes you donate will go to the Pamulaan Center for Indigenous People's Education (read more about this foundation here).

Now I had a pair of old Nike cross trainers that I hadn't used in a while and which I now only use for Habitat for Humanity builds coz I don't mind if they get dirty. I figured I could trade those shoes in. I get P1000 off on my new shoe purchase and I get to help out the Pamulaan Center. So I ask the salesman if he can hold those shoes for me and I would just return with my old pair. He said he would.

So I managed to get rid of my old pair of trainers, get a new pair at a big discount, and hopefully help someone out in the process. A pretty nifty deal if you ask me! The promo lasts only until May 17 so if you've been thinking of getting new sports shoes, you might want to consider getting them in Adidas.

Sports in 4, 3, 2, 1...

Manchester United have only FOUR matches left this Barclays Premiere League season. And with three-point lead atop the league table (plus a game in hand), the odds of Liverpool taking the league championship this season are almost non-existent. Which is a shame since Liverpool started the season incredibly well, and are in such good form over the last couple of months (they just beat Newcastle 3-0, increasing the possibility of Newcastle being relegated. Sorry Newcastle fans..). For Liverpool to score the most unlikely upset, they need to win all four of their remaining games and Man Utd have to either lose two of their remaining matches or draw three. I will still hang on to that incredibly think glimmer of hope though. Come on, Liverpool!

*****

I turned into a bit of a fair-weather fan of F1 when I watched the Singapore GP last September in a sports bar with my friend David. Since then, I've kept an eye on F1, watching a couple of Grand Prixs along the way. And this season, I've gotten on the bandwagon in support of Jenson Button, who was won THREE of the first four races. To be fair, though, since I am a fairly new fan, I haven't really gotten behind anyone yet, although since most people I know are pro-Ferrari, my tendency is to root for the underdog. So Jenson it is, at least this season LOL. I am hoping though that he ends up atop the Drivers' Championship at the end of the season. Good luck, Jenson!

*****

TWO rounds is all the irresistible Manny Pacquiao needed to knock out Ricky Hatton in the highly anticipated Battle of East and West. That rout - no, utter demolition - has to be up there as one of the most lopsided of major sporting activities. As proud as I am of Manny, I kinda wish he was the greatest in another sport aside from boxing as I always feel sorry for the loser. Not only does he lose, he gets beaten up in the process. In any case, Pacquiao has truly lived up to his billing as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world and has made his country very, very proud. Go Manny!

*****

Rafael Nadal has now truly cemented himself as the world's number ONE tennis player. With five titles this year (with the Rome title coming just as I write this blog), the most of any player, he's distanced himself from Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray, who now all have a shot at the number 2 ranking in the next few months. Murray started the year off better than anyone else in terms of win-loss record, but Nadal has now pushed ahead of the pack due to the clay court season, winning his 30th match over Djokovic in the Rome final. Djokovic seems to have gained his the form that took him to the #3 ranking though, getting to the finals of the last two clay court tournaments he's played. He may just be Nadal's biggest threat in Roland Garros, but Rafa has to remain the odds-on favorite to take his fifth French Open title this year. Vamos, Rafa!

Movie watching

So over the last few weeks, I've been able to get some time to catch a few films at the cinema. I figured that there are lots of movie theaters right next to both where I work and where I live. So in theory, I shouldn't be missing as many movies as I do.

So here's a quick recap of the films I've gotten to see recently:

Dragonball Evolution. I've been told by so many people that it wasn't a good movie and that it was getting such bad reviews so my expectations were quite low. So I ended up being one of the scant few people in the world who thought it was okay LOL. I'm guessing though that if you are a fan of the cartoon series, you won't be pleased with how movie didn't stay true to the storyline.

Monsters vs. Aliens. In true computer generated animation fashion, this was really fun to watch. Lots of really hilarious moments. The storyline is really basic, to make sure that the kids who watch it understand what's going on. But the humor is adult and it makes this movie perfect for the whole family.

Slumdog Millionaire. After its massive success in the recently concluded Hollywood awards season, I was really looking forward to see this film. I have to say I was quite let down. I didn't seem to connect with the lead character, at least not for the entire duration of the movie. Maybe it's also because I live in a third world country where I've seen, to some degree, the stuff that was depicted in the movie. So probably the impact it had on audiences from developed countries was lost on me.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Definitely worth watching, although I must've had such high expectations of the film that I ended up being slightly disappointed. I think it's the whole regeneration thing. The utter immortality of the regenerating characters in the TV Series Heroes has gotten me slightly put off by this ability, and in this X-Men Origins, Wolverine's regenerative abilities remind me a lot of the same power in Heroes. I do have to say though that in my opinion, Liev Schreiber gives the best performance in the film. He is utterly chilling and ominous as Sabretooth. Oh, and there's a final scene in the movie, similar to The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, but in all honesty, it's a useless scene and I felt cheated for having stayed all the way til the end of the credits for that one sh*tty clip LOL.

Still a few films I want to see, like "The Fast and the Furious 4". Hopefully I can get to see it before it disappears from theaters here.