el mafioso

Todo es solo para el Don

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Of Movies and Unplanned Vacations

I am currently in vacation in Cebu to visit my relatives on my mother's side. And we just came from Bohol this afternoon. Since this vacation was unplanned and I hurriedly packed my things, I was not able to post my review about the movie "Fnding" Neverland", sa pagbalik ko na lang at kasama ng aking Bohol adventures.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Rediscovering Reinvented Cubao

I had spent my early childhood in San Juan, where we lived with the rest of my single titos and titas in a house that was owned by my paternal grandfather’s brother. I remember that my second brother (because my youngest brother was not born yet) and I would always look forward to visiting Cubao after hearing mass at Mt. Carmel every Sunday (after we relentlessly prod our parents to do so, or else we would only end-up eating at the nearby Broadway Centrum). Cubao was every middle-class family’s perfect getaway, which has everything the family needs. Dads could bowl or watch movies with the family at Ali-Mall (named after boxing legend Muhammad Ali). Moms could shop for almost everything at SM Cubao and the rest of the malls in the area. And kids dreamed of always going to the famous Fiesta Carnival. Before Time Zone, Worlds of Fun and Enchanted Kingdom, every kid in my generation had always wanted to visit the Fiesta Carnival. Cubao was always the place to be, especially during Christmas. Not only that you could find the best bargains in the area. In fact, Cubao is a crowd drawer during the Yuletide. Who could forget the Christmas shows at COD? Christmas seemed to incomplete if you had not watched a single Christmas Show at COD. For the younger generation, this the show that you can presently watch at the Greenhills Shopping Center. Who could miss the lighting of the Giant Christmas Tree at the Araneta Coliseum? Most of all, who among you have not looked forward to watch Disney on Ice every December also at Araneta Coliseum?
But with the advent of bigger malls, in Ortigas and Makati, Cubao seemed to have lost its glory. I have not really visited Cubao that often since we transferred to Cainta. In fact, the last time that I have been in Cubao was one year ago, April 30, 2004 to be exact. when I trooped the Araneta Coliseum to watch The Voice’s- Andrea Bocelli’s concert.
So it was a sort of a trip down to memory lane when I visited Cubao last Friday. It was like visiting an old friend that I have not seen for so long. Being in Cubao was like being in a familiar territory again. I went to the place with Dezza, my new-found friend that my friend Kim introduced to me one sad and dateless Valentine’s Day via the Yahoo Messenger (thank, God, there’s Yahoo!). We became instant chat mates and friends and have been constantly chatting for about three months now. Though we have already seen how each of us look like through modern technology, meeting each other in person was one thing that I looked forward to. We were supposed to meet up a number of times before, but something always gets in the way. Prior commitments, busy and conflicting schedules, and my graduate school work, among others always hindered us to plan and go on with our first meeting. It was a good thing that we were both free last Friday and we decided that it was the perfect time to meet up (because it was also a payday, hence we have money!). We agreed that the Gateway Mall was the best place to meet since it was accessible for the both of us. She lives in Las Piñas and Cubao was her usual route when she goes home. Likewise, I could easily ride an FX or jeep to Cainta from Cubao.
After seeing the Gateway Mall, Cubao seems to be bent on restoring, slowly but surely, its old glory. The mall connects all the important establishments in Cubao in a one big complex! It offers world-class amenities- fine restaurants, hip bars, really good movie houses, among others- that rival those of the leading supermalls in Metro Manila. One thing that I really liked about Cubao is that the place is somewhere people from all walks of life could go to. Kay coño, jologs o nasa gitna ka, ang Cubao ay para sa iyo (okay, this is too much advertising and the Aranetas should pay me here…a one-night stand with Bianca will do).
Dezza and I initially planned to eat at either Italianni's or Pizza Hut Bistro, as suggested by my good friend Jenny, who seems to really know the place. but decided to watch a movie first since we just both came from a small office gathering. After checking the movie schedules, we chose to watch Debra Messing’s and Dermot Mulroney’s "The Wedding Date", which is a nice movie to watch after a day’s hard work. In the movie, Kat (Messing) needs to attend the wedding of her spoiled half-sister where her ex-fiancé, that dumped her, is the best man. So as not to appear that she has not moved on, she hires the services of professional escort Nick (Mulroney) to act as her significant other. She instantly becomes a hit in her family and friends, not to mention someone that everybody is envious of, when she introduces Nick to her family and friends. And like any other romantic movie, what started as a purely professional relationship develops into a romantic one- and the two falls for each other. We enjoyed the movie as much as we enjoyed our two seatmates (two middle-aged women), on our left, who seemed to be really very happy with the movie- they were giggling (very loudly) at almost every scene.
Two scenes from the movie really struck me (yes, I make mental notes when I watch movies). First is what Nick told Kat when Kat was too afraid to let Nick love her. And Nick told her that "The hardest part of love isn’t loving someone, by having the courage to let them love you back." And the other one is when Nick left and Kat was so confused if she should go after him and tell her what she really felt. And then his stepfather said, "Since childhood, you were always trying to do what other people expected you to do. It’s time that you do what your heart tells you" (or something to that effect). Maybe, in the future, I should write about why these scenes and movie dialogues have really affected me.
After the movie, we decided to eat at the Pizza Hut Bistro, since both if us have not tried that restaurant yet. The restaurant was, in every way, like your ordinary Pizza Hut- only that it served pasta (not just Fettuccine Alfredo). An attendant led us to a very good table, located near the window from where we could see all the bright lights of Cubao. Since we were not that hungry, we just shared the Penne with Tomato Sauce and the New Orleans Chicken that we ordered.
Meeting Dezza was something that I have always looked forward to. With the YM chats that we usually have, I just figured out that we have many things in common. And true enough, it seemed that we never ran out of stories to tell and topics to talk about last Friday. It helped that we shared common friends and acquaintances and are from the same college of the same university. You could say that we "talked" the night away and before we knew it, it was already a few minutes past 11 PM. The waiter asked us if we already asked for the bill, when in it was very obvious that we still have not. Wow, I guess that was a polite way of saying that they were already closing shop and that we already need to go. After being "forcibly" cast-off from the restaurant, we decided to end the night, I walked her where she could get a bus to Las Piñas and I then went home straight to Cainta. Well, it was just another wonderful evening.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

What Sign of Affection Are You?

Dahil sa wala na naman akong magawa, sinagutan ko ang quiz na ito na nakita ko sa blog ni henlin. Ayon dito, ako raw ay:

cuddle and a kiss
cuddle and a kiss on the forehead - you like to be
close to your special someone and feel warm,
comfortable, and needed

What Sign of Affection Are You?
brought to you by

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

With You

I was late again this morning. I arrived in my office one hour late of the official time. It’s a good thing that my office did not adopt the four-day work week scheme, or else I would be forced to stay in the office until 10 p.m. to make up for my would-be tardiness. Well, nobody in the house had waked me up. I thought of coming to work today, though wala akong pasok kung Miyerkules.

I have my Wednesdays off at work. I bargained for a day-off, once a week so that I could attend to my graduate studies. Luckily, my bosses thought that I was a “good catch” for them to pass up and decided to still hire me (okay, humility is not my virtue).

I had initially thought not to go work today, just do my pending jobs at home (mabait din naman ako), and watch one my TV addictions, The Amazing Race. You see, I have been transcribing the proceedings of the major conference that we had about three weeks ago, for two weeks now. I am really trying very hard to already finish it so that I can already leave. Unfortunately, my office mates seem to have no idea of a “conducive working environment”. We have a centralized sound system, which they would always put in full blast. Nearly everyone seems shouting during conversations. And yet the work that they have assigned me to do requires silence. How could you write articles and papers when you cannot concentrate because of the noise? I initially thought to just do the transcription at home, but later decided to go to office, anyway.
So, I woke up at 7:15 a.m, hurriedly took a bath and ate breakfast. It was really a bad morning. I was already thinking about the traffic that I have to endure to reach Fort Bonifacio. Suerte ko lang at nakasakay ako kaagad papuntang Junction at papunta sa FX Terminal papuntang Ayala. To my dismay, the driver of the FX was listening to Mike Enriquez’s daily radio program. I was thinking, “how could it be this worse”? The last thing I need was to hear his annoying voice. To my opinion, Mike’s style of delivery makes a bad news much, much worse. Buti na lang nilipat niya sa FM. RJ 100 ang station. Aba, mahilig pala si Manong sa mga standards at mellow songs. Kahit papaano, lalamig na ang ulo ko…And then this beautiful song began to play. I instantly loved the song, being the sentimental person that I am. I immediately wrote down the song’s title after the jock announced it and google’d the song as soon as I arrived in office. The song is entitled “With You”, from the Broadway musical, Pip
pin. Here's the songs's complete lyrics:

WITH YOU

My days are brighter than morning air
Evergreen pine and autumn blue
But all my days are twice as fair
If I could share
My days with you

My nights are warmer than firecoals
Incense and stars and smoke bamboo
But nights were warm beyond compare
If I could share
My nights with you

To dance in my dreams
To shine when I need the sun
With you
To hold me when dreams are done

And oh....
My dearest love
If you will take my love
Then all my dreams are truly begun
And time weaves ribbons of memory
To sweeten life when youth is through
But I would need no memories there
If I could share
My life with you

Friday, April 08, 2005

Never really liked journals

I never really liked journals. I never really enjoyed writing my thoughts and my experiences after a long day or after a long week. For me, writing (and keeping a journal) was really not a relaxing and a therapeutic activity. Being the lazy person that I am, I would rather spend my leisure time on more fun and less cerebral activities, since school and work already involve so much thinking and writing (akala niyo lang masipag ako, pero hinde! hinde! hinde!) I figure out that my brain deserves a rest when I have free time. So watching movies and doing fun stuff were always in my to-do list when I have the time. The only time I write at home is when I have the urge and strong feeling to write about a certain topic, which I can't drop.


I still remember the times when I was “forced” to write and keep a journal, most of them in high school. Miss Pontillas, my Christian Living teacher in first year high school required us to record our daily activities in a journal and end each entry with a prayer (hey, my teacher was that creative to be able to justify her making us write a journal). Before JK Rowling thought of Tom Marvolo Riddle’s (the future Lord Voldemort) diary, a diary which writes you back, my Filipino teacher Miss Buban already thought about it in high school. In my third year, Miss Buban made us keep a journal to hone our skills in writing in Filipino. I found it so funny, when she would always comment, give advice and react to whatever I have written in my journal (she checked our journals weekly). So the journal wrote back to me. My English teacher Miss Valeza, I think, made us write one too. Being my lazy self, I still remember making up some stories every time the submission of journal approaches. Mamatay na ang magsumbong! Hey, they were asking us to write daily! And how can you expect someone from high school to have such an interesting life worthy of being recorded in a journal!!! Bahay-Eskuwela-Bahay o Bahay-Jollibee/Dunkin Donuts/7/11-Bahay lang ang buhay ko noon! I think that dairy/journal thing was our teachers’ way of knowing our personal lives and what we were up to!

My friend Maj introduced me to the idea of blogging two to three years ago. But blogging was not that interesting or enticing to me then. And until now, I still have qualms about creating and maintaining one. Firstly, I am already maintaining four or five email accounts. For sentimental reasons, I could not drop my email account in hotmail, not only because of my account’s name (hehehe-the sexiest…) but also because it was my first ever email account. Secondly, I am also maintaining an account in Peyups.Com, basically a forum for UP students and alumni. And I am bent on acquiring the “Lord of the Threads” status in the forum (Peyups Addict pa lang ako). This still does not include the accounts that I keep in Friendster.com, Birthday Alam.com and Ringo.com. Thirdly, I just feel that I have placed too much information about my self in the Internet for the whole world to see and know. I mean I could possible wake up one day, and learn that I already have a sex video, just because some computer-savvy dude had used and altered my pictures and made them move. (not that I don’t like it…but it might fall in the wrong hands and use it against me…hahaha). Or some supranational organization is already keeping track of us (okay, this is paranoia). I remember a classmate who did a book review on “The Next War Zone”, telling that future wars are going to be waged with the use of computers. Not that bright, eh.

But for the lack of productive things to do, I decided to take advantage (trix's term) of our office’s Internet access and give blogging a try, just to keep friends posted on the latest things about me and my life. And since there will be no teacher to check and read every entry, I have total freedom with this blog- when I want to post and what I want to post. Well, this seems a rather long first entry for someone who does not want to blog, and I got to sign off now. And since I’m just a newbie, don’t expect something spectacular in my blog site. I admit that I'm a HTML dummy. I’m still having a hard time in adjusting the color, template and design of my blog site. I'm still experimenting! hehe