Jollibee rhymes with SMB

Conceptually, it sounds gravy. At least, that’s what I thought. But trust me, Chicken Joy doesn’t go well with San Mig Light. Nor does Burger Steak, for that matter.

A huge part of this experiment wasn’t for pure purposes of justification, of whether or not my theory on SMB going well with Jollibee holds true. It was, in fact, just a good story waiting to be told.

The thrill lies in the fact that how many people have actually tried bringing in a can of SMB inside a Jollibee chain. Guerilla-esque, we thought, but really, how juvenile can one actually get?

We bought the beers from a nearby convenience store and smuggled them into the resto. We even had this conversation of whether or not they would be kicking us out from the place. That’s how rebellious our stick-it-to-the-man selves wanted to be, but in the end, they just let us be. Duh.

So that’s the end of my experiment. If there’s any consolation, at least, now I know that it’s really not that great.

I seriously, seriously thought that I was one year younger than what I actually am. It wasn’t until I viewed my profile in this social network earlier today that I realized otherwise. And to think I’ve been counting wrong for the past six months.

—

Death Cab for Cutie’s Narrow Stairs. Out on 5/13. Can’t wait.

even better than the real thing

Actually, probably not. But I reckon, it does come close.

Got to watch U2 3D last Thursday, and in a word, it was mind-blowing. The opening shot of the stage in Buenos Aires with the band yet to even take the stage already conveys enough enchantment, and that was all it took to tell me that I’ll be in for a spectacular show.

And boy, I certainly wasn’t dissapointed.

As a U2 non-fan, I’ve always spoke about how U2 is right at the top of my concerts-to-watch list. From way back Zooropa days, I knew that a U2 concert is a spectacle to behold. And judging from the way the band commands the audience with its presence is akin to an entire course in performance.

Contrary to most people’s reactions, watching U2 3D didn’t make me experience the feel of an actual live concert. There was no wedging oneself among the sweaty and boisterous crowds; instead, the cool air-conditioned theater along with the comfy reclining seats greet you as you enjoy the show. However, the snug environment did have a negative externality, and its that the place was way too tame. Clap and cheer as I would’ve wanted to, it was just too plain embarassing. And I’m sure most of the 40 or so people that watched with me in that particular Imax theater were thinking of the same thing.

The shots were all well-choreographed, positioning you in such a way as no live concert can. One moment, you are with the crowd snapping pictures from their cellphone cameras, and the next, you are flying atop Edge as he plays the piano masterfully. And there’s this particular instance where Bono turns to the camera and sings ever so poignantly, and humiliating as it may seem, I was actually tempted to reach out and touch his 20 foot face.

So much for being a non-fan.

The mix of effects brought about by the live production (especially the political propaganda), and U2 simply being U2 make this the ultimate Imax experience. I doubt am certain that no other band could ever pull this off.

Beatle Musings #3

“Try to realize it’s all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you’re really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.”

- Within You Without You by the Beatles

Homerun

I’ve known Z for close to 11 years, but it’s only recently that I found out that she and I more or less share the same taste in film. She let me borrow her copy of Homerun (跑吧孩子) and Voces Inocentes, while I gamely lent her my copy of Tulad ng Dati, Paris Je T’aime, and my favorite Korean movie of all time, A Moment to Remember.

It took me a number of tries, but I finally managed to make my way through Homerun. It wasn’t the lack of interest that failed to engage me; rather, it was the ungodly hour that I kept with regard to my viewing schedule. The past week, I usually start watching at 1am and will be fast asleep 10 minutes into it. But I promised I’d make time for it today, with lots of free time owing to the holiday.

And so I did.

Homerun is Singaporean Jack Neo’s (of I Not Stupid fame) remake of the Iranian Children of Heaven, which recounts the misadventures of two siblings, over a lost pair of shoes. Chew Kiat Kun blames himself for losing his sister Seow Fang’s shoes at the beginning of the movie, which inevitably starts the roller coaster of events they had to go through.

At first, they agreed on a shared ownership of the only pair they have left, with Seow Fang wearing Kun’s shoes in the morning, then running home so that Kun can go to school in the afternoon. This plan is not without complication, as Kun becomes compulsively tardy to class, much to the chagrin of the school principal. However, things look up for them upon Kun’s discovery of a cross-country race for schoolboys where the third prize is a pair of new shoes.

The film echoed similar attributes as Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, with the centerpoint being sibling love while perched on the harsh realities of poverty. I liked that in Homerun, the story was more grounded to reality and the portrayal more genuine. But then again, the setting and circumstances in Grave called for more drama, and thus, was actually more engrossing.

But unfair comparisons aside, I generally liked Homerun. I did have qualms with the injection of unnecessary dialogue that spelled laugh at me. Comes across as campy and borderline screwball. But I liked the camera shots and the general mood the film creates. I liked Megan Zheng’s performance as Seow Fang. She didn’t have much speaking lines, but her facial expressions endears, conveying just enough that is needed without going overboard.

And being the first all Mandarin film that I could sit through without the need for English subtitles, I’m certain that that had a lot to do with my general positive outlook of the film.

valorous

Thank God for the brave. It it weren’t for them, we probably wouldn’t have this unwarranted ‘day of valor’ holiday right smack in the middle of summer. Ergo, a two day weekend for me (I’ve got work on Saturdays).

So it goes without saying that I’m not really complaining, with this holiday seemingly baseless and all.

It’s almost 2am, and I’m actually on a break from tidying my room up. My work corner has been desperately crying for attention the past few months, with the pile of stuff accumulating day by day. Paid bills have been left unfiled, books left on top of each other, and my Beatles shelf looking less and less Beatlesque as each day progresses.

Now, my shelves are a shade of their old selves, looking pretty and debonair. Pretension actually besieges my bookshelf after I hid the ‘uncool’ books in favor of the ones that make me look intelligenter. The books I chose to display dealt with travel (Kerouac’s On the Road, and Ma Jian’s Red Dust), religion (Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha Living Christ, and Neale Donald Walsh’s Conversations with God), and some Asian fiction (tons of stuff by Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto). And of course, there’s the obligatory Coelho and Garcia Marquez.

As for my Beatles shelf, I must say it’s looking quite spiffy. I’ve placed an additional few books on the shelf, and the Lennon and McCartney action figure seem welcoming, as if waiting to burst into ‘Twist and Shout’. Save for the Rubik’s cube that displays rather nicely alongside the Beatles discography, I’m guessing I should be pretty vehement against placing anything non-Beatle related to this shelf, if I intend to keep it the way it is now.

—

Headed out to Alabang last Saturday night to meet up with a good high school friend of mine, R, and his lovely wife, S.

People who know me know that I always joke about Alabang’s proximity, refering to it as out of town, and a journey there would entail embarking on a cross-country road trip.

So I actually don’t know what happened, but perhaps the inner workings of my subconscious took the jokes to heart, and I ended up believing it was a real road trip. I even had a playlist made. Appropriately titled ‘Alabang’, the playlist consisted entirely of pensive and ambient tunes, with tracks by artists such as Air, Stars and Kings of Convenience.

We had dinner at Kanin Club in Westgate, and it was great. The waiter sure does know his stuff, recommending to us not to try the fried rice, and order plain rice instead. So we can savor the ulam, he says. True enough, he was right. The tapa ni Dr. Ana was soft, sweet and juicy, and the seafood kare-kare was a refreshing take on an old classic.

All in all, it was really a good meal. Filling and satisfying, Kanin Club is a place that I don’t have any qualms on going out of town for.

she’s lump, she’s in my head

While on the way home from work earlier this afternoon, I heard Wonderful by Adam Ant on the radio.

To me, this song will forever be lumped together with Jeff Buckley’s Last Goodbye and Hum’s Stars. It’s almost automatic. Not only did they all come out during the same year (’95 alternative rocks!), but they do distill the same emotions of yearning from within me, yet shadowed by shades of innocence.

But I guess that’s just on target. I was only in high school then, and that’s what kids during that age are supposed to feel, right?

Here are links to the videos of the aforementioned songs.
Wonderful by Adam Ant
Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley
Stars by Hum

—

Last night, I finally finished watching the awesome Japanese flick Battle Royale. It’s sort of like Lord of the Flies meets The Running Man, with a bunch of high school students left on an island and forced to kill each other in the name of survival.

Remaining true to it’s notoriety, the murder scenes depicted were indeed gruesome and obscene. But abnormal as it may seem, I could only remember one moment where I squirmed in horror (Clue: it involves the words axe and crotch). Not to say I didn’t like the movie, but perhaps, I’m just a little desensitized with violence.

So I thought about the film’s potential; about what if such a situation did indeed take place? Certainly, I wouldn’t want to be put in such circumstances where I have to kill others in order to fend for myself. You can say that it’s the ultimate zero sum game, where losing equates to death.

But I digress. I think that the story was written with a tone of partial mockery of reality. While we all shudder at the thought of such violence existing amongst us, we all know that in an enclosed environment where rules are different, a human’s primal requirement of survival will come to play. Even if it means committing murder. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a real situation were held under such constraints and conditions, the movie will play out as accurate to reality as it can get.

I know it’s not in the same vain, but I can’t help but think of the Standford prison experiment, and about how man is innately yet repressedly violent.

And that’s just sad, don’t you think?

sleeping without a dream

You know I dreamed about you
For 29 years, before I saw you.

- ‘Slow Show’ by the National

I once told R that one of the things I look forward to in sleeping is having the off chance that I remember my dreams. These dreams range from the lighthearted and funny, such as participating in a game show hosted by Kris Aquino, to the wild and convuluted, such as the one where I murdered a random stranger.

I recounted that while I may be in for a surprise, not knowing what to expect as I lay helpless during that unconscious state, they do serve a purpose. And that is, to keep me entertained during those moments of slumber. More than watching television, it’s almost synonymous to virtual reality. Being taken to a place where it all seems real gives me an added perception during my sentient times.

—

These days, while I don’t have any inkling of what I think about when I’m fast asleep, it seems as if that my preggy sis-in-law is doing the dreaming for me.

In a way, it’s kinda eerie when she gave an account of her latest episode. I just felt that the protagonist told her in her dream state what she would’ve wanted to, but was afraid to tell me in real life. Maybe, it was a case of thought transference through some omnibullshit means.

Just something crazy I’ve thought of the past day.

Yesterday was quite a day, if you ask me. Woke up late feeling slightly woozy (that damn mojito’s a traitor!), and after much deliberation with my shobe of where to lunch, descended on nearby Ineng’s.

Ineng’s still is considerably ok, with their trademark 7-inch barbecues. But I don’t know, it just doesn’t bring that Salcedo weekend market aura that it used to come with. Yesterday’s lunch was still great tasting, but it lacks the kick that made me proclaim Ineng’s as the best barbecue on the planet a couple of years back.

After lunch was over, went next door and had a Gonut. Being on a diet, my attempts at talking myself out of it fell on deaf ears. But consuelo de bobo I guess, is that I ‘merely’ treated myself to an amazing glaze lite. How’s that for self-rationalization?

Metrowalk was next on the itinerary, and I got myself two dvd’s, Chuck and Across the Universe. Shobe herself got two, one of a film whose title escapes me, and Gossip Girl being the other. Curious as I am with Gossip Girl, but already with an unfair predisposition in place, I don’t know if I’ll get to watch this series. But we’ll see, perhaps when I’m THAT bored.

Anyway, got home, and got started on Chuck.

(Yes, I deliberately put in the most unflattering picture of our accidental hero, because) there’s something about Chuck’s bashful innocence that makes the show tick. He is the sweet, clumsy and down the earth every-guy, something we can admit we find ourselves wanting to be at certain times.

And yes, as of the moment, still awaiting whether or not our not-so-pedestrian schmuck gets the girl in the end. It may seem that rooting for Chuck is for the show’s best interest, but as long as I get shots of underwear baring Sarah Walker every episode, I’ll pretend to not really care.

—

In the middle of it all, I managed to turn the idle, dust-gathering PS3 at home into a modern, kick-ass media center. I can now stream movies and mp3s from my laptop wirelessly to my TV. Now, this is indeed the way to go; makes piracy all the more worth it. Thank God for EyeConnect.

salvation holdout central

Last night marks the first time in quite a long time that I took a drink for no reason at all. No reunions to go to, no night outs with friends, just me and my Syrah.

I didn’t know what got to me, but there’s this bottle that I opened last December, still about 1/3 full, which I felt was just waiting to be consumed. Because of it’s contact with air, the wine obviously degraded over time. But hey, I’m no connoisseur. I didn’t even bother to do the sniff and swirl that oenologists suggest we all do. Last night, I just took huge gulps from my cup and what happened next was me on my bed sleeping soundly.

Or so I thought.

Waking up, there was no hangover that could’ve left me battle-stricken for the day. However, it was something else. It was in fact, a slight throb on my forehead that caused serious displeasure to my sense of balance. The pain wasn’t meanacing enough to cause panic, yet just soft enough to be irritating.

Turns out, there’s this nasty and puzzling inch-long scratch that runs atop my left eyebrow. How I got it, I’ve absolutely no idea. In all likelihood, I probably banged my head on the headboard.

Unfortunately though, the moment was without epiphany. Still same old me, longing for that eureka.