"Untold" by Pete Francis

Here's a really good song from Pete Francis called "Untold".


video uploaded in youtube by user jramster1144

I watched an episode of One Tree Hill recently (I haven't really been watching this series much anymore) and in that eppy, a lot of cool and interesting songs were featured. It made me remember the great songs I discovered by watching this show. 'Untold' was featured back in Season 1 and I've been a fan of this song since then.

Jollibee on Glee (with spoilers)

So I'm watching the latest episode of 'Glee' on ETC and I see this scene were Artie gets off his wheelchair (a 'daydream' sequence, apparently) to perform the 80's hit "Safety Dance". Which kinda shocked me since I always thought that Artie used a wheelchair in real life. As I continue to watch, I quickly realized the surprises weren't over. "Jollibee" makes a cameo!

You can easily make out the big Jollibee sign at the top right of the screen just behind Artie and the rest of the crowd. It comes up a few times. Apparently the scene was shot in Eagle Rock mall in Los Angeles.

Was the product placement intentional or not? Some folks have opined that the "Safety dance" scene is reminiscent of the Jollibee flash mob promotional stunt done in SM Mall of Asia last year. Whatever the case may be, it really was a pleasant surprise to see the biggest local fast food chain on one of the biggest US television shows this year. :)

Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 has been such a major box office hit so far and it's still raking in millions as I write this but it took me two and half weeks to find my way to the cinema to catch it. I watched it on Sunday night with my mom and one of my nephews. I have to say, though, that apart from the action sequences - the one in Monaco and the one at the end - it was a bit of a let-down. I actually thought it was kinda boring. Considering that the action sequences really kicked ass and were so entertaining to watch, it was a pity that there weren't enough of them.

Record-breaking victory

What an incredible win! Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer with a score of 6-4, 7-6 in the Madrid Masters final. Why was that win very significant?

• It is Nadal's record 18th Masters 1000 title. Andre Agassi held that record previously with his 17. Roger Federer is only two titles behind with 16 so Roger could still take that record, but he is about 5 years older than Nadal.
• Rafa's win also moves him back up to #2 in the rankings, which is just in time for the French Open. He is now assured of being seeded second which will hopefully bring Rafa a better draw.
• He has now also won all three Masters titles on clay in the same year, the first time anyone has achieved this feat.
• Rafa's head-to-head against Roger Federer now stands at 14-7.
• He has a perfect 15-0 record on clay this year.

I don't want to think Rafa is a shoo-in for his 5th French Open title given that last year, Rafa was the red-hot favorite leading up to Roland Garros before losing to Robin Soderling in the fourth rounbd. Howver, his results on clay this year should definitely give him back a lot of the confidence he lost last year. Hopefully Slam #7 for Rafa is just around the corner.

An evening in Burgos Circle

Of all my sections in high school, it was my third year class that seemed to bond and get along with each other the best. Because of that, we had more than our fair share of get-togethers and parties, even when we weren't classmates anymore. We probably met up last as a section in our first few years in university. So it was pretty cool that we - or well some of us at least - got together again on Friday night.

We were planning to have dinner in Henry's (by Good Earth) in Burgos Circle, but apparently there was a private party there that night so we moved to Mile Hi Diner. Nine of us made it - myself, Jan, Mico, Lawrence, Flo, Tricia, Elaine, Jackie, and Mitch - which is about a third of our section size. Not bad considering it's been nearly two decades since we sat in the same classroom for an entire school year. Needless to say, walking down memory lane played a great part in our evening conversation. We stayed in Mile Hi up until they started playing Barry Manilow songs - which we took to be a hint that we needed to go rather than a reflection of our age lol - and had drinks or dessert and coffee in Rastro (their creme brulee was really good but their cocktails are so-so), where we stayed until it closed.

Apart from Mitch, Elaine, and Jan (who I keep running into in different gimmick places in Manila lol), I rarely get to see everyone else who was there that night so it really was awesome getting to catch up. I also think it's really cool that I've been meeting up with a lot of different sets of friends in recent weeks. I do have a few more friends coming to Manila in the coming weeks, so my social calendar in May is starting to look pretty good. :)

The Trilogy!

I got it! I finally got it! The Star Wars Trilogy on DVD!

And by Trilogy, I mean the original trilogy - 'Star Wars' (A New Hope), 'The Empire Strikes Back', and 'Return of the Jedi'. I knew Ray was coming to Manila in April so I ordered this DVD box set from Amazon a couple of months back and had them delivered to him so he could bring them to the Philippines (instead of me paying for the expensive international shipping costs).

I'm sure a lot of people who are used to the impressive visual effects of recent years will find these original versions clunky and uninspired, but these films used special effects that were ahead of their time. These are probably the films I have watched the most - maybe Return of the Jedi more than any other film - so now that I have the DVDs, I'll surely end up watching them a ton more.

(And despite the fact that people generally regard 'Return of the Jedi' to be the worst of the trilogy, it's still my favorite. :))

Halalan 2010

I feel bad. And ashamed. I wasn't able to vote. My name was deactivated in the Comelec list. Apparently I didn't vote in the last two elections. I know for sure I voted in National elections in 2004 and I missed the National elections in 2007 because I was in Sweden. So I thought it was just one election I missed. But I forgot about the Barangay elections in October 07. So two consecutive elections missed means my name was no longer in the list of voters in my precinct. Sucks big time! But well, it was my fault for not figuring things out better.

Anyways, it's good to see that for the most part, the first national computerized election in the history of the Philippines is going well. There was some violence that led to death (I still dream of the day when there is no more election-related violence) and a lot of cases where the machines didn't work. The lines were also incredibly long - people waited for hours before getting to vote - but it's great to see that the election turnout was still a pretty good 75%.

The great thing about the elections being computerized is the fact that the tallying of the votes is miles better than it was before. It hasn't even been 12 hours since the precincts were closed and about 70% of all votes have already been counted (unofficially though, but it means the official count shouldn't take anywhere nearly as long as it used to).

Hopefully, I sort out my registration status between now and the next election. Gotta make sure that my voice - however small - is heard.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

This Sunday was probably the first mother's day in recent years that my family didn't go out. This was driven mainly by the fact that my grandparents went to the province for the elections. So my mom and I ended up just going to church and then eating out after. We had dinner in Il Padrino Coffee and it was pretty cool because they offered a 20% discount on food items because of Mother's Day.

There was a small massage place next to Il Padrino so my mom decided to pamper herself and get a massage 1 1/2 hour treatment (for only P500! And it was traditional Pinoy 'hilot' so it really relieved the tension and tiredness in her muscles.) So while she was getting her massage, I ran some errands like buying food for Monday (so we wouldn't have to cook) and getting the dry-cleaning. I returned to Il Padrino to have coffee and tiramisu while waiting for my mom's massage to be done. Nice quiet calm day. Not a lot of these in recent weeks so I'm thankful. :)

*****

I caught the awarding ceremony of the Spanish GP when I got home, and it's nice to see that Jenson Button managed a 5th place finish and still stays atop the Drivers Championship. Hope he gets another good result - maybe a win? - in Monaco next week.

More catching up

This time, it's over Mexican food. Che arrived in Manila about a week ago to attend a wedding so we ended up having dinner tonight in Agave in Bonifacio High Street. Che had never eaten there before so she wanted to try it, and the menu is pretty reasonably priced so I was definitely okay with it. I woke up really late today which threw my schedule off, and this meant I was about 40 minutes late for dinner. When I arrived, everyone else was there: Che, Hannah, Raffa, Joh, Steph, and Me-ann who had to leave shortly after I arrived because she just got in from a business trip abroad and had to head home ASAP.

When I got there, Hannah had just eaten half of her burrito and didn't want to polish off the rest of it so she gave the remaining half to me. I was planning to order either a burrito or an enchilada, but since I had half a burrito already, I decided to order the pork carnitas. Thankfully my free half-burrito was good because the pork carnitas was not such a good choice. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the P240 I paid for it. I should've just ordered an enchilada lol.

Didn't really matter because it was the company that I was after. And as is always the case when I hang out with these guys, it was a lot of fun talking about anything and everything, and catching up on stuff. Raffa and Joh had to leave after about an hour and a half, so the rest of us decided to have coffee in Coffee Bean to cap the evening and catch up a bit more.

Most of us will be hanging out again in a couple of weeks because Me-ann is organizing a McDonald's birthday party for her nephew. Should be fun.

Catching up over Korean Barbecue

Ray flew back to Manila for the elections, but his schedule in Manila was so hectic that it was tough to find time to meet up. So when Marga organized dinner in Ye Dang Korean Restaurant in the Metrowalk area on Wednesday night, I definitely made myself available.

It was really good catching up with Ray and with everyone else there who I rarely get to see. Someone even commented that despite most of us being in Manila, we only manage to get together whenever Ray is in town, which was funny but (sadly) true. The World Cup is coming up in a few weeks though so there have been talks about getting together to watch some of the good matches together. (Not totally sure though if I'm up to it as the matches will be played at around 230am local time!)

To make the evening complete, the food in Ye Dang was also really good. The food was actually prepared Korean Barbecue style, which means it was being cooked in our tables by our waiters. I asked Marga how she learned about this place and she said that since Ray wanted to eat in a new place, she asked her uncle and he recommended Ye Dang. The owner is Korean so the food is definitely authentic.

A fun night complemented by good food. I have to say that a positive bonus to the elections on Monday is that a few of my friends who are now living outside the Philippines are coming home. I am supposed to meet up with a couple of other people in the long weekend who are here to vote as well so I am certainly looking forward to that.

Rome title #5!

Congratulations to Rafa Nadal for winning his 5th Rome Masters title in the last 6 years. This was a record-equalling win as he now has 17 Masters titles tying him with Andre Agassi who won 17 Masters Titles in his career.

It was a bit scary for a moment as Rafa was under pressure in the semifinals against Ernests Gulbis, who eliminated Roger Federer in the second round. Thankfully Rafa scraped through that match. In the final, he was tested in the first set by compatriot David Ferrer and kept things even after 8 games. But the two rain delays worked in Rafa's favor, who dropped only 3 games after the first rain delay to win the match 7-5, 6-2 and with it, his fifth Rome Masters title.

So after 11 months with no trophy, Rafa finds his footing once again on his favorite surface and wins two major clay-court events, racking up a 10-match winning streak. There is one more major event on clay before the French Open - Madrid - but it is still not sure whether Rafa will play in that tournament or not. I personally prefer it if Rafa skips Madrid to ensure he is fully fit for the French Open, but I will trust that he and his team make the right decision with respect to his match play.

Elliott Yamin back on Idol Gives Back

It's great to see Elliott Yamin back on American Idol. And once again, he makes a special appearance on Idol Gives Back, returning to Angola. This time, he goes there with Kara DioGuardi. Check out the video here.


uploaded in youtube by user dacrowe

I missed this when it was shown on TV so it's only now that I got to see it. The background music being played is Elliott's song called "Doorway" which is available as a bonus track when you purchase his full album "Fight for love" on Itunes.

Belated Happy Earth Day!

This is coming in late but a belated Happy Earth Day to everyone!

I would've posted this earlier but the week of Earth Day was one of the busiest I've had this year so far. Our corporate social responsibility organization at work had been planning and organizing a charity run for months, and one of our two beneficiaries is the environmental NGO Haribon (the other is Kythe, an NGO that helps pediatric patients). These two NGOs were our beneficiaries in last year's charity run and we decided to keep them as beneficiaries this year. Since we knew already that the run would be in support of Haribon, we scheduled the event on April 24, around the same time as Earth Day (April 22), making it our official Earth Day event this year.

I also thought it would be a good idea to get Haribon to give an environmental talk as part of the Earth Day celebration. We invited employees who were interested to learn more about what Haribon does and what we can do to help the environment. To make sure that all interested parties could attend these talks, I organized one session in each of our three office sites. The talks turned out to be really good. One of the most interesting things I learned is that people who drive, jet-set, and use a lot of electrical appliances and equipment like air conditioners and computers need to plant nineteen (19) trees a year to compensate for the carbon footprint they leave behind. (So it seems I still have a lot of catching up to do!)

Interestingly enough, I've been learning a lot more about how to care for the environment better in the last few weeks. Our Earth Hour campaign back in March led me to do some research on ec0-friendly products since we wanted to give special prizes out to a couple of Earth Hour participants. We ended up buying stuff from Echo Store. If you check out their website, you will see that their products are environment friendly, sustain marginalized, indigenous and creative communities, support poverty alleviation programs, are created with fair labor practices, are animal-friendly, and express Filipino design excellence. They have a store in Serendra and a smaller one in Podium.

The environmental sustainability focus area of our CSR org is now working on doing research on proper waste disposal. Hopefully we can identify partners that correctly dispose of different types of waste - i.e. food waste, cans, plastic bottles, paper, and electronic waste - and work with them. Not sure if our research will amount to anything but if I do learn something useful, I'll post it here.

"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap

This song is called "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. This particular video includes the lyrics so you can appreciate the poetry while enjoying the music.


uploaded in youtube by user LaterDayzz

If it sounds familiar, it's because the bridge (or well I think it's the bridge lol) was used prominently in Jason Derulo's monster hit 'Whatcha Say'. I actually discovered 'Hide and Seek' while listening to 'Whatcha Say' on youtube and I've been a huge, huge fan of it ever since.

I can't be totally sure what the song mean as these kinds of lyrics can always be interpretated in a variety of ways. But a lot of people tend to agree that it's about a relationship that has ended - maybe even a marriage ending in divorce - due to someone cheating. Whether or not this is correct, the song is definitely very well written and the use of the vocoder to add multiple harmonies using Imogen's own voice makes this piece very unique.

A lot of fans of this song hate the fact that 'Whatcha Say' sampled it and ruined it for them or that a lot of people sometimes think that 'Hide and Seek' sampled 'Whatcha Say' (instead of the other way around). I can understand the displeasure of these fans but on the plus side, if not for Derulo, I most likely would not have discovered 'Hide and Seek' and would've been deprived of appreciating this incredibly beautiful song.

The drought is over!

Finally! After 11 months of quarterfinal, semifinal and final appearances without a title, Rafa Nadal finds his feet on - what else? - clay and wins the Monte Carlo Masters for the 6th time in a row. So not only does Rafa finally win a tournament, but he tied or broke a couple of records along the way. He is now tied for the record of most Monte Carlo titlesand holds the record for most Monte Carlo titles in a row. On top of that, he now holds the ATP record for winning a tournament the most years in a row in the Open Era. That he lost only 14 games en route to the title - and I think this is also a tournament record in terms of least games lost - gives me hope that he is now back to his winning ways. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he reclaims the French Open a few weeks from now.

To add to the good news, Jenson Button wins his second F1 race this season. It's only the fourth race so far so his two wins now put him ahead in the drivers championships.

Now I just hope Liverpool manage to beat West Ham at home. If that happens, it'll be another perfect sporting weekend. :)

ETA: So Liverpool did beat West Ham 3-0. Awesome.

Bills, bills, bills

So I met up with my friends Mitch, Joyce, and Iona and among the many things we discussed while catching up was the fact that Mitch's electric bill apparently increased by about 50-60% from the previous month. Iona said that apparently, this isn't an isolated case as everyone has had to deal with having to pay 50-150% more than they did in the previous month for electricity.

When I got home, my bill was waiting for me. And just as we had discussed, I now had to pay about 150% more than I did in March. Not good news. I don't know if this now means electricity will continue to cost this much, or whether things will go back to normal some time soon. In the meantime, I guess I just have to start saving more. Cheaper food and less gimmicks, here I come! LOL

Birthday celebration

Happy birthday to my lola! Normally, Nanay as we call her celebrates her birthday in their house, but this year, it was decided that we would celebrate by having dinner in Tita Ace's house. And boy was did we have a massive dinner. Tito Sandro bought lumpia ubod while Tita Ace prepared grilled chicken, fried fillet dory, and lengua. My grandparents and Tita Tuds brought lumpia and a cake, while I brought bread pudding from La Cocina De Tita Moning (I had to pick it up from the resto in San Rafael the day before, but I was immensely pleased that I managed to find my way there without getting lost after driving there only one before). It's too bad that Tito Lito, Troy and Tracy weren't there to complete the extended family, but it was a really good celebration. Needless to say, I switched to 'baboy' mode yet again and stuffed myself.

Which reminds me, I really need to get back to the gym soon as I am now heavier than I have ever been in the past. I was able to go to the gym fairly regularly in early March but I have gotten so busy the last few weeks that I am unable to find time for the gym. I have been working to get my schedule cleared out next week though, so hopefully by then I can start getting fit again (and getting ready for my 7th marathon which will most likely be in March).

High school reunion

I met up with Ed, one of my really close friends back in high school, last Thursday night. It was his first time back in Manila since 2004 and Thursday night was apparently the only day he could meet up with us since the rest of the time would be spent with his family or on out-of-town trips. So Joyce and Suzanne made an event of it and organized a batch reunion so Ed could get to see as many of our high school batchmates in one night.

It didn't start out all that well actually, and I almost didn't make it. Dinner was supposed to start at 7pm. But I had so much work to do last week and with Friday being a holiday, I ended up working until around 815pm. Suzanne's email, which I read very briefly earlier in the week, indicated that dinner would be in Abe so I rush to Serendra hoping traffic wouldn't be too bad. Thankfully it wasn't so at 8:45pm, I text Joyce to say that I had just parked in The Fort and would be walking over to Abe. Joyce then calls me and tells me that I was in the wrong place and that dinner was actually in Abe Trinoma. Whaaaat?? I was so busy this week that I didn't pay enough attention to the details of Suzanne's email and it slipped my mind that there was more than one Abe in Metro Manila!!

I was so tired and stressed out at that point and was ready pass on dinner (I figured I could try to meet up with Ed some other time before he flew back to Canada) but Ed talked to me on the phone and convinced me to still follow. I arrive in Trinoma shortly past 10pm. A few folks left shortly after I arrived - after all, it had been almost 3 1/2 hours since dinner started - and so about 9 or 10 of us were left behind. It was kinda good though, because the smaller crowd meant that I could catch up with Ed and everyone else there a bit more.

We stayed in Abe until midnight which was about an hour past closing time I think so I told Joyce to leave a big tip. We then stayed outside for about 15 more minutes until Ed's brother arrived to pick him up. It kinda sucked that I was late and ended up in the wrong venue but I was really glad that I still joined them coz it allowed me to take a really fun trip down memory lane and catch up with really good friends.

Legion of Extraodinary Dancers

I saw the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers perform last night on season 6 of "So you think you can dance" and was so impressed by them that I just had to dig up the video on youtube. Everything about this number is sensational. Check it out!!


uploaded in youtube by user RickeyTVX

Wow. Just, wow.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! The long weekend is over but I hope you had a great Easter celebration. I certainly did.

First, my mom and I took my nephews to Shang Mall to attend their Easter event. The plan was for us to leave at around 1030-11am so we could have lunch in the mall but I got up late so we ended up getting there a few minutes past 1 pm (the event was from 1 to 4pm, although registration was from 1 to 2pm). The good thing was that there all participants had free hotdogs, pork choplets, fries, popcorn, ice cream and cotton candy. So at least my nephews got to eat when we got there. There were a few games at 2pm then the magic show of Lou Hilario started after the games. At 3pm, we left the magic show to go around the mall for the Easter Treasure Hunt, which was really like Trick-or-treating since we were given a map to the shops where we could get goodies. We made our way back to the venue by around 3:40 to get the giveaways before heading to the cinema area where we had 4pm tickets for Clash of the Titans.

The cool thing about the Shang Mall is that they have new digital cinemas which means that there were a couple of 3D cinemas (Clash of the Titans and How to train your dragon were both on 3D) whereas most other places have only one 3D theater. While our tickets cost P320, it came with free popcorn and softdrinks so the tickets here were actually cheaper than in other cinemas. The movie itself was good (although i think it would be just as good to watch it on 2D - I didn't think being on 3D added much value to the film-viewing experience), and it made sense for us to watch it since my nephews have recently gotten into mythology.

After watching the movie, we headed over to Quantum so my nephews could play some arcade games. We spent most of the time on the bowling game which earned us a lot more tickets. We combined our newly-earned tickets with the 400 or so we already had from before, which left us with 626 tickets. My nephews used up about 520 of them to get prizes so we still have 106 left that we can use next time.

We then heard Easter mass and then headed home where we had dinner - I bought yang chow fried rice and lemon chicken from Flavors of China and sisig from Sisig Hooray on the way home.

It was around 10pm when things finally settled down, and since my nephews and I went swimming on Black Saturday, I was utterly exhausted by the end of the long weekend. But I wouldn't have it any other way, it was definitely worth it