couch patatas

one down…

2008-01-31T08:57:00.000-08:00

it's several minutes past midnight. hours earlier, we spent two odd hours battling an 11-page barrage of questions about loans, interests, guaranties, and sureties. now, the casualties of that war are scattered in this little foxhole i call home.

z surrendered to the lure of the red sofa. s was felled by an assault on the head. m is probably still struggling with damaging torts. in a matter of minutes, he should be down and out too.

i just declared a ceasefire with criminal procedure. the human mind can only take so much. over dinner, z wondered how we can cope with retention issues if…when we take the bar.

how indeed… we have to pass credit first though.

reboot

2007-10-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

curious time to write a blog entry.

i'm sitting here with my fingers tapping the keys with a law journal, a codal, the constitution, several websites on law idle on my browser, and a lot of scratch paper strewn throughout the room. ok, only two scratch papers. and they’re on my desk.

i paused to keep my brain from short circuiting. i am writing a paper (due monday, ganda lang…) about pinoy literary writers, blogging, and jus vindicandi. don’t ask about the last element of that series. not now.*

i previously entertained a lot of potential topics to write about, and was pretty excited about the prospects i had, when i stumbled upon the most basic of all questions when writing a paper: is it a research problem? imagine the horror when the basic question became the rhetorical question. with the answer an obvious, big, fat NO. panic.

a series of consultations later (read: one), i was pointed the way out of “that-is-not-a-research-problem” shit-hole. so, here i am tapping the keys. but i had to stop again. right in the middle of writing it. well, actually, i’m in the middle of re-imagining it than writing it.

it is always fun, though not productive, to re-imagine things just when you’re right smack in the middle of actually doing other things. the “other things” being the more urgent. my wife can write a short story in the middle of writing a chapter of her thesis due the following day. i can pull off a wicked trade coup in nba 2k7 in the middle of writing a paper on landscape painting and another on a respected sculptor. it’s no comparison, i know, but zip it. just zip it.

i had to re-imagine it because i realized my direction takes the paper a bit out of the ambit of the course. it is beginning to look more like a paper for a course i will be taking some two semesters from now. so before i go any further, and suffer any more damages (real or imagined), i had to stop. and re-imagine how to write this. and i think i know how to write this. operational word being “think”, not “write”. panic.

---

*don’t you just hate the third element of any three-element series, the one that leaves you scratching your head and saying “come again?”

my nba teams for next season

2007-05-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

i've made up my mind: houston rockets. the clincher: rick adelman.

it was recently announced that rick adelman is bringing the high octane, big-man-passing, motion offense to yao ming, tracy mcgrady, and the houston rockets, a complete turnaround for the team that relied on set plays and a stingy defense.

admittedly, i lost interest in the nba after adelman and his staff was fired unceremoniously by sacramento. i enjoyed watching adelman's portland team (led by clyde drexler) when i was younger, only because everyone was pro-michael jordan. after the team was dismantled, i didn't watch an nba game for years. until i watched the sacramento kings and their fluid, passing, motion offense. it was basketball in its purest form: teamwork is norm, one-one-one is a last resort. so un-nba. so un-superstar player-centric. kahit may superstars sila. only then did i realize that the team i liked watching was coached and managed by the same guys who ran the drexler-led blazers.

since then, i was a fan of both geoff petrie, who knows how to find quality talent (recent find: kevin martin and cisco garcia), and rick adelman, who knows how to make players mesh and play as one (though vlade divac played a huge role in sacramento's famed chemistry).

so it broke my basketball heart when rick was removed. i only, fleetingly, followed the kings season because i still believed in geoff petrie's management skills. and good thing the owners now backed off in the coaching search, after the musselman experiment failed (miserably i might add). i'll still follow sacramento and see where they go with a coach that petrie himself selects.

but this news that rick adelman is coaching again is the kicker for me. i like the rockets because of yao ming and shane battier. now, i'll be sticking to this team because my favorite nba coach is back in the sidelines. i hope he brings in pete carril back too.

trust me, houston will be fun to watch next year. watch the point guard pass to yao at the high post. watch the point guard and probably t-mac cut to the basket. watch the weak side and backdoor cutters. watch yao pass to any of those cutters. then watch the cutters pass to the wing shooters. watch until they find the open man inside or outside.

just watch the ball move. a lot.

---

coincidentally, i recently traded mike bibby and brad miller to houston for yao ming in my xbox game (84% winning percentage, and 3 straight titles, with the 4th coming up! i'm playing 8-minute quarters on superstar level... and i'm switching to hall-of-fame difficulty soon).

hmm... i must have espn or something...

question

2007-05-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

"does a dyslexic atheist believe in dog?"

hehe. lalang. that was a line from csi las vegas. spoken by liev shrieber's character, keppler.

the joker!

2007-05-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

my favorite online movie mag--empireonline--recently broke the news that the first official photo of the joker (heath ledger) from next year's dark knight is now out!

wasak si ledger as the joker! i am officially all riled up!

the photo is actually the third in a series of preliminary promotional gimmicks. the first is a teaser page. the second is a fictional campaign site for harvey dent.

the third is a vandalized version of the second, and this was the gimmick: you receive coordinates after you input your email address, etc. in the site; the coordinates correspond to nine sections of the vandalized site, and when clicked on, the picture underneath is revealed. and the picture was recently revealed.

and voila, meet the joker! wazzak!

world book day!

2007-04-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

is not today, but on the 23rd of april. i just found out today that there is such a thing as world book day. we don't celebrate it here in this book-hating, tv-loving land of ours under the sun, but the rest of the world does. sad.

anyway, i got a message from one of my egroups that while april 23 is world book day, the philippine celebration is today, april 21. the institution that celebrates it here is the instituto cervantes, and they have loads of activities lined up from 10 am to 11 pm.

according to their website, manila.cervantes.es, some of the activities include:

- an open house of the institute
- a sale of 4000 brand new books at token price, a Book Market they call it
- free jazz shows (woe is me with two tone-deaf ears...)
- free salsa and Latin dance classes (woe is me with two left feet...)
- a Spanish food fair (anybody cutting costs on food? come on down!)
- La Mancha wine and cheese tasting (mmm...)

story goes that this world book day affair has its origins in catalonia, spain, where on st. george's day (04/23), men and women exchange a rose for a book. in 1995, unesco declared april 23 world book day after much prodding from spain and a host of other countries. so when you buy a book in instituto's Market today, you will get a rose too. neat idea, this book-for-a-rose thing (now why do i hear seal singing his song about a rose, a kiss, and what-not?).

the news release also says that april 23 is the date of birth or death of many writers, such as miguel de cervantes, william shakespeare, inca garcilaso de la vega, maurice druon, halldór laxness, vladimir nabokov, josep pla, and manuel mejía vallejo. i got a little curious, and i checked out wikipedia.com and below are some writers who were born or who died on what we now celebrate as world book day:

*(d) is death, (b) is birth

cervantes (d, 1616) - spanish; novelist, playwright, poet
shakespeare (d, 1616) - english; poet, playwright
dela vega (d, 1616) - peruvian; poet, writer on the subject of incas

*hey look, they died on the same year! not necessarily on the same day though, because of the julian and gregorian calendar thing. the wikipedia entry notes that under the julian calendar, the bard died on april 23, but under the gregorian calendar, he died on may 3

druon (b, 1918) - french; novelist
laxness (b, 1902) - icelandic; novelist, nobel prize winner 1955
pla (d, 1981) - spanish; journalist
georg fabricius (b, 1516) - german; poet
avram davidson (b, 1923) - american; fantasy, scifi, crime
ngaio marsh (b, 1895) - new zealand; detective [she was also into theater]
pascal quignard (b, 1948) - french; novelist, screenwriter
pierre labrie (b, 1972) - quebecois; poet
william wordsworth (d, 1850) - english; poet
jules-amédée barbey d'aurevilly (d, 1889) - french; novelist, short story writer
rupert chawner brooke (d, 1915) - english; poet
teresa de la parra (d, 1936) - venezuelan; novelist
pamela lyndon travers (d, 1996) - australian; author or mary poppins

vladimir nabokov (b, 1899) was, for a time, thought to have been born on april 23 1899. according to him, he was really born april 22.

on a final note, april 23 is also german beer day. wasak! inom tayo on world book day!

finally got tagged

2007-03-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

1. One book that changed your life. does a law book count? they’re really changing my life right now…
2. One book you have read more than once. does a law book count? (if this is a pattern the rest of the way, i fear for my life…)
3. One book you would want on a desert island. probably war and peace
4. One book that made you laugh. three: the gunseller by hugh laurie, making history by stephen fry, the road to mars by eric idle (hmm, they’re all british...)
5. One book that made you cry. painting history: revisions in philippine colonial art by my thesis adviser patrick flores, just because it is sooo hard to read. i know someone who went to and stayed in baguio alone for one week just to read it from cover to cover. my thesis, whenever i get back to it, is not about painting, but i feel this book can help me sort things out better. i think i’ll go to baguio too.
6. One book you wish had been written. a brave, humorous, satirical take on any part of our history from the minor characters’ point of view. which is what daryll’s cousin is doing right now. can’t wait!
7. One book you wish had never been written. any tv/movie spinoff. the translation to print is always awful. oh, and the da vinci code. it read like an extended, unabridged treatment for a movie.
8. One book you are currently reading. seamus heaney’s take on beowulf, which, i recently discovered, we have two copies of. i got the second copy in fully booked; i think we bought the first copy in booksale.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. the brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky. this was a requirement back in comm i (circa 1994), which i cheated on. watched the movie instead. bad.

drinking on the eve of finals week and my new rule about paying taxicab drivers

2007-03-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

or how i wish i could write a much better title to this long overdue blog entry so that people can stop hounding me for not updating and maintaining my blog

a few classmates and i were crazy for deciding to go to sara’s for a few rounds of beer monday night. at this point in the semester, with classes ending and the finals looming in the horizon, anyone in his right mind would be burying the midnight oil and burning his head in books. that's supposed to be the other way around, isn’t it? must still be tispy.

anyway, we were crazy. i was crazier. i only had a couple of hundreds, which i was trying save for as long as i can because my savings from my last job is going bye-bye fast. i figured we were going to katipunan where there’s enough atms, so kung mapasabak, at least i can suck my savings dry and still make it home. wala nang classes, so i can play hermit and study for the finals. i can always bum a few five- and ten-peso coins from the coin bottle we have at home if the need arises.

but sara’s it was. with beer only 20-plus bucks, i figured i can still have dinner, but after a few calculations, i decided to spend the little money i have on beer instead, despite an empty stomach. a couple of hours and three bottles later, we all decided to call it a night. i guess we weren’t that crazy yet to actually drown the night away in alcohol with less calories.

i was left with exactly a hundred bucks. hailed a cab, and knew that the ride home will cost no more than 65 bucks. even if i’m cash-strapped, i always follow two general rules in paying my cabbie.

one, the very first empty cab that answers my call without the driver asking me where i'm going before unlocking the doors gets a fat tip.

two, if the driver drives safely and follows the rules of the road, he also gets a fat tip.

otherwise, i will pay the exact fare.

but the ride home made me add a new rule: if the driver is as thin as reed and coughs and wheezes like crazy, he gets a fat tip.

i just felt so sorry for the dude. you don’t have to be a doctor to know he’s sick, and that he should be resting. at home. with his family. he shouldn’t be driving late at night trying to earn a buck, but he had to.

the cab stopped in front of our house, and i handed him my last hundred and told him to keep the change. he needed it more than i did at that point. i can earn it back some other time.

blockbusted

2006-05-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

three highly anticipated blockbusters of hollywood’s summer are currently running in our theaters. so far, two and a half of them are duds. ho-hum…

mi:iii

sweet potato: phil hoffman’s davian, a very efficient four-man IMF team, good action scenes, and… that’s about it.
rotten potato: tom cruise’s ethan hunt, unbalanced storyline, too “alias”-y, rabbit’s foot

whereas brian de palma used elements of the thriller/spy/conspiracy movie genre in translating and updating mission impossible from tv to movie; and john woo practically made face/off twice: the one with travolta and cage (a cool trip, doves and all) and the one with cruise and bean; jj abrams basically just turned alias the tv series into a movie. he substituted sydney bristow with ethan hunt, the cia/sd6 with imf, rimbaldi’s artifacts with the rabbit’s foot. good thing he tossed phil hoffman in the mix.

see where i’m going with this?

the da vinci code

sweet potato: ian mckellen’s sir leigh teabing, paul bettany’s silas (the few minutes we see him)
rotten potato: really, do you want me to spell it out?

the book is better than the movie. and book is badly written. that's all that must be said.

x-men iii: the last stand

sweet potato: badass magneto, badass phoenix, badass wolverine, badass beast, racism/the otherness of the other
rotten potato: angel, cyclops, storm, rogue, very short 140-minute movie, underdeveloped narrative and ideas

this should really be a 220-minute movie, so that (1) the other mutants can have more time to flex their muscles, dialogues, and storylines [angel just flew! that's it!] and {2} the weight of the issues and drama can be developed more, hence justifying the violence of the action scenes.

instead, we have a 140-minuter, a quickie.

make no mistake my brothers, the action was good. but the movie was rushed; it had bad lines (that could’ve been remedied with 40-50 more minutes), and carelessly placed scenes and subplots (that could’ve also been remedied with the missing 40-50 minutes). rushed, rushed, rushed. by the dude who made rush hour 1 & 2.

of the three movies so far, only x-men iii had substance, albeit not fully developed.

i guess superman (and bryan singer) will have to come save this summer.

numb(ers)

2005-11-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

my last math class was in 1994, a good 11 years ago. my undergrad didn't require advance aptitude in that subject. and at that point, i was kinda sick with math. modesty aside, i was good at it. but 11 years without constant exposure to arithmetic, algebra, geometry, etc. makes one rusty.

and that entrance exam for a law school certainly showed how rusty i was. the exam had 7 parts. i felt i did well in 6 of the 7 parts. there were occasional lapses in judgment (some very stupid lapses, which i am not inclined on revealing), and calculated guesses, but overall i felt good as soon as i put the pencil down some 3 minutes before the proctor told us to stop answering.

but the worst part of the experience was the math part. prior to the exam, i practiced on math tests in the gre. the results were good for someone who had not dabbled in math for 11 years. but i was slow. eventually i got myself to a point where i can almost answer 30 items in 30 minutes, with a few errors here and there. during the sunday exam, i realized i should have practiced some more.

40 items in 30 minutes. i figured i can hack 30, and probably guess the rest of the way. well, i ended up answering less than half of the 40 questions. i thought i was making good time, but when i looked up at the board, i was surprised to see that there were only 10 minutes left.

i finished the math part with over 50% of the answer sheet blank. i had to randomly put numbers on the blank spaces (it's a multiple choice, put-the-number-of-the-correct-answer type), hoping that i can blindly guess the correct answer. with 4 choices per question, i have a 25% chance of getting the correct answer on each of those 20+ items. those are not good odds. not good at all.

the math part will probably be the main factor for me not making the first cut. then again, i have a friend who skipped the math test altogether last year, and he made it to the upper half of thosed who passed the exam, which means he didn't have to be interviewed.

of course, i'm not banking on that to keep my hopes up. but i have to feel good about myself. now, two days after the exam, i still feel good. i just might make the cut.

then again, i may just be numbed by the experience. maybe it'll kick in sometime soon. then i'll definitely need a drink.

still in the kings' court

2005-11-16T00:55:00.000-08:00

eight years ago, i returned to watching nba basketball when i caught a sacramento kings game. what caught my eye was the peculiar form of this young european (the "old" european was vlade divac) when he shoots the ball. his shooting hand is strangely curled under the ball as he, uhm, catapults the ball into the air. the follow-through is equally strange: his shooting hand appears to have been twisted. but there ain't nothing strange about the result. the guy can shoot.

later, i realized that the gm and the coach of the kings--petrie and adelman--were the same gm and coach of the last nba team i followed (portland trailblazers, drexler-era). i also realized that the team was solid up front (passing bigs webber and divac, sweetshooting stojakovic) and at the backcourt (williams, jackson, christie). and i also realized they play basketball, the team-oriented type. they like to move without the ball, they like to move the ball, they like to set up multiple picks and screens, they like to pass, and they like to pass even more--relying on each other to score the damn ball. most teams design plays for their superstars. the kings offense relies on basketball players who know how to play team basketball. isn't that what basketball (or any team sport for that matter) is all about?

so i followed the kings. i was ecstatic when they compiled the best regular season record in the nba. i was crushed when they lost that infamous game 7 to the lakers. i was excited when they tried again the following year, only to be crushed again, by the webber injury in the dallas series. i was at my fanatical best when peja had a breakout year, only to be frustrated as they tried to force-feed web back into the flow and lost to the wolves.

then, the kings' best team in years was slowly dismantled. turkoglu was traded. divac left, and eventually retired. webber was shipped to philly. christie to orlando. bobby jackson to memphis. even one-time kings--and vital cogs--jim jackson, mobley, and young upstarts songaila and evans left or were allowed to leave.

now the kings is a totally retooled team. the only king left from the lineup i first saw eight years ago is peja. the only kings left from the divac-era are peja, mike, and brad. with wells and abdur-rahim completing the first five, the kings cerainly look good on paper. but learning kings basketball is not as easy as 1-2-3.

which is why the kings are currently 3-5.

unlike previous seasons, i don't expect the kings to make it deep into the playoffs this year. it takes a while to learn the princeton offense, and it also takes a while for players to learn how to play with each other.

but you've got to give petrie and adelman credit (and the maloofs too, if they don't fire these two anytime soon). they are retooling the lineup at the right time (see divac, webber, christie), and are pretty much setting up the foundation for the future. there are some trade-able players/contracts, and some contracts are expiring at the end of the year. i think they will have moderate success this year, and next year, with enough cap room, they'll lock up peja for the long-term, and probably sign more significant pieces to bolster their lineup.

much like what they did in 1998, when they traded for webber, and signed vlade, doug, jason, peja, hedo, and bobby. their first season together was moderately successful. the next seasons were more successful, with one season just a game away from the finals.

so will i still follow the kings this year, and beyond?

of course i will. because i am a fan of team basketball, the one magnificently displayed by kings on both ends of the court this morning en route to their 3rd regular season win.

hindi kasi ako mahilig sa buwaya basketbol eh.

bayaw brew, episode iii (ehe, sori leyt)

2005-11-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

less than 48 hours after landing in manila, i was whisked away (thankfully so) to puerto galera. i thought i'd never actually say it, but bayaw i am so thankful for the warmth of the tropics! the beach, the sun, the sea, the scantily-clad--erhm.... let's not go there... ladida...

(roll music here, yung may parang bells or chime na sound)

ash i wash shaying...

...

my last night in the us was, again, with beer. at julie's house, a few of us gathered and had a marvelous home brew (we christened it IDA IPA) of indian pale ale and a table-full of pwede-na-rin-sigurong-tawaging-pulutan. i was conscious about not getting tipsy because of the long flight back the following morning.

disclaimer: hindi lang panay beer ang inatupag ko dun ha. trabaho. pero ba't naman ako magba-blog tungkol sa trabaho, di 'ba?

anyway, as the beer flowed (in my case, into three pint-sized mugs), as the food disappeared, and as people left, i realized that my trip was essentially made memorable by the good people i had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with.

when i arrived in amherst, i was telling people that if i ever have the chance to tour the us, i would prefer touring the countryside more than the cities. but when i got to new york, its unique charm stuck, and now, weeks detached from my visit, i still feel drawn to new york (especially the village).

it's not the place. it's the people.

like ken, my most gracious and hospitable host (miss his house, very near the connecticut river, na may heater, salamat sa diyos sa nakaimbento ng heater!).

like gina, who took me around new york far better than any of those red double-deck tour buses could. and stazi, whom i spent time with briefly (she had homework and soccer the following day).

like mary, and julie, who picked me up at ken's every morning.

like shan, who walked me around emily dickinson's house despite her having the colds.

like monica, who picked me up at the airport, and arranged for a cab to bring me back a week later.

like rob, and his fine brew of ipa.

it's people like these who make one feel less foreign in a land where one obviously is...

bayawman in new york

2005-10-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

i'm glad i took everyone's advice to check out new york, even for a brief moment. i got a call from gina one night, and the following morning everyone in the office encouraged me to check out the big apple.

and so i did. after a four-hour bus ride from northampton, which crossed connecticut, i finally got in new york at around noon. gina was there at the gate to meet me, and it was a whirlwind from thereon.

before it even got dark, i visited three bars/restaurants at the village: joe's (john's--i forget) pizza place at bleecker street (where bob dylan used to do the rounds of bars), the white horse tavern (frequented by dylan thomas--who collapsed there--and our own jose garcia villa; also the second oldest bar in ny), and a place called chumley's. yup, before it even got dark, i had three glasses of beer... yeah!

after a short tour of a small part of central park, gina brought me to the metropolitan museum. and for an art history student, it was quite an experience. i got to see--up close, real up close--a lot of the works we only got to see in books and microfilm. and i'm talking about paintings only. i didn't get to see much of the sculptures. but the paintings--oh my god (i felt like a freshman art history student!)--picasso's, chagall's, degas's, matisse's, monet's, seurat's, i can go on forever!

that was just the met. the following day, after brunch at this ukranian place called veselka at the east village, we went to moma (museum of modern art) where i not only saw more of the important paintings in modern art, but i also saw one of my all-time favorites: gustav klimt's hope ii. bayaw, my jaw almost dropped to the floor! it was overwhelming enough to see many of these significant works in just under two days, but to see a personal favorite was just priceless. i nearly cried! (keep it together, keep it together...)

aah... new york... i fell in love with the place...

but i have to say that what i instantly loved about new york was the village. new york is very interesting to say the least, you know, the sights we all hear and see in movies, tv, etc. there are great great scenes: the empire state building, the chrysler building, the ny public library (awesome library!), times square, the subway, grand central, union square, washington squeare, rockefeller plaza, radio city music hall, etc. beautiful. all of 'em beautiful. but the village, now that is something else.

it felt new york, and yet not so new york. there's no bustle of uptown and midtown new york. there is a mix of many, many peoples. there's an interesting place at every corner. buildings are shorter, and each is as beautiful as the next.

ah, amazing. just amazing. on my way back to northampton and even as i type this, i wish i can have an opportunity to come back to new york, especially the village. and stay a bit longer. words aren't just enough to describe the feeling.

you have exceeded your credit limit

2005-10-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

that was one message i received the other morning. dang. i don't wanna know what's on my next bill.

before i left, i asked my network to activate my roaming, and also, which of the networks here in amherst would be the most cost-effective one (i.e., cheap). the guy at the other end of the line recommended t-mobile, but also told me that the rates he was looking at were 8 months old. sheet.

so i limited myself to text messaging only. then i received this message while waking up to a cold, cold, cold morning.

my cellphone just became a table clock, and will remain so until i land my feet back in manila. hay... nagcellphone pa 'ko dito... buset...

bayaw brew, episode ii

2005-10-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

so thursday night arrived. and all i could think of was the ipa (indian pale ale). it was turning out to be my favorite beer here.

first we had dinner, a small group composed of ida, monica, mary, and jon. i had this bison burger, with fries (half sweet, half salted), and i keep forgetting that i was in the states, where everything is served big. so my burger arrived, and yeah, it was big. the damn burger patty was so thick, and so stocked with bison meat, that it was a monumental effort just to chew. i wasn't even halfway and i was full! i gave up on the burger about 75-80% of the way. and i didn't even partake of the sweet fries (monica took over the fries).

with dinner done, we went up to the second floor (the name of the place is abc) because we couldn't bring any food or drink upstairs. jon was telling me that massachusetts has the strangest rules when it comes to booze and bars. like, this one: you can't bring the beer you're having in the first floor up to the second floor--finish your glass where you got it, then go up/down.

so anyway, we went up, where we played pool. the place was packed with mostly college students (they look like college students), but we managed to get a table. we played with another group, and well, i tried to shy away from playing. i ordered an ipa (yeah baby!) and started to enjoy it (wasn't the same as last night's brew but it's still ipa). when i returned to our table, our team was on the losing end of a game of eight ball. they took turns, and i just enjoyed my ipa (aah...). then i found myself holding the stick. eh, what the heck, might as well.

i got to the table and found that we still had to sink about 5 balls as opposed to our opponent's two (or three). i lined up for the easiest ball, struck, sank the ball, but prepared poorly for the next. our opponent sank a ball, missed the next. then our luck caught up. after trading misses and a few scratches (we were up against sharks), i managed to even the count. then our luck ran out... temporarily.

our opponent managed to sink the rest of the balls and was lining up for the eight. at that point, i just put the stick down and grabbed my glass, fully knowing that the guy on the table has enough skill to sink the last ball. guess what, he missed! monica and mary called my attention to it (hmm, beer... oh, wha'?), so i picked up the stick.

fortunately, the cue ball stopped at a very good position for all three balls (our last two stripes and the eight). one striped ball was at the other end, close to a corner pocket, the other striped ball was on the opposite end, a bit farther from the other corner pocket, and the eight ball was somewhere in the middle and can be pocketed at any of the four corners. lucky. very lucky. any novice pool player can sink these balls with no english necessary.

so i lined up, used the necessary english (naks) on each shot, let the natural trajectory of the cue ball dictate where to sink the next one... and before i know it, the eight ball was right there for the picking. the cue ball stopped at a not so natural angle with the eight, but i figured i could sink it at the upper lefthand corner pocket with a slight top english. i usually hesitate after establishing my bridge and practicing my swing, but at that point, i knew luck was on our side. so i struck. and the ball glided diagonally across the table, straight towards the designated pocket. jordan fakes, shoots, swish! and that's the game!

hehehe.... balik sa beer....

i went back to my beer and we had to play a mandatory second game. i let them play that one, so i can savor the victory kunyari. we lost the next one badly, but i still had my ipa. like the other night's ipa, this ipa shot to my head (just one glass). after finishing my glass, we stepped out for cigarettes (ida and i), and right on cue, the others joined us, and we called it a night.

inside the bar, my head had alcohol in it midway through my only glass of ipa. but once i stepped outside, it was gone. the damn cold air snuffed out the alcohol in me. and i was just freezing. if i remained stationary, they would have to carry me home! bayaw, hindi tayo sanay sa lamig, namputsa! making it inside mary's car was just a relief, especially when the heater was turned on. i never thought i would love heat coming out of aircon vents.

i got to ken's and we had a bottle each for nightcap. well, he was in the middle of his sierra nevada pale ale, and he gave me a different beer (pilsener, uhm, palm victory i think is the name?). that was my third (we had sierra nevada before i left for abc). and for the first time, may pulutan bayaw. we still had some bratwurst sausage left, and i just have to have it. di kasi uso pulutan todits, bayaw.

ken called it a night moments later, as he has an early morning class, and i lounged around with my pilsener, bratwurst, and cable tv until about 3am. i didn't get drunk, but the new beer experience was just great. hehehe...

a few minutes ago, during lunch, we (well, julie actually) shopped the idea of one last drinking night with yours truly. that's next monday night, eve of my flight. we gathered the troops, and it was set pretty much right away. monday night, julie's place, rob's brew (yeah!), and mostly everybody from work.

episode iii coming soon... (cue music here)

bayaw brew, episode i

2005-10-20T06:43:00.000-07:00

somebody here spread the idea that beer should be in the lineup of activities for yours truly. i'm not as big as a beer fan than most of my bayaws, but i do love my beer. and my beer buddies. so bring on the beer!

so my colleagues tell me that thursday night we'll hit this local brewery and indulge. well, last night, i had a dry run of sorts. after dinner at ken's, where we had a bottle of sierra nevada pale ale (ken says it's a "it'll grow on you" type of beer, but i liked it right away), we drove to this place called the moan and dove. "it's kind of a weird name for a bar," ken said, to which i agreed. "one's a verb, the other's a noun... must be some dada thing." then it hit us, a dadaist bar sounds like an interesting idea! hmm, bayaw gawa tayo ng dadaist bar. the dada bar. has a nice ring to it. (or have we thrown this idea around already?)

anyway, we got to the bar, and julie and rob were there already. then came the choosing the beer. the bar makes its own brew, so there is a variety of options. they were urging me to take samples of some before finally deciding on what to get, but with too many choices, i just decided to get what they recommend. so i got this ipa--indian pale ale. got a tall glass, started drinking, ate some peanuts (ang laki ng mani bayaw! alang bastusan, literal yun), had some small talk, and the night was on.

i liked the ipa, but what i didn't realize was that it shot right up to my head by the time i finished three-fourths of my tall glass. at that point i knew i needed a smoke, pulutan, or anything to keep me from doing anything but taking more gulps. yup, cardinal sin, i forgot to pace myself. no i wasn't drunk--i didn't get drunk--but i knew the beer was going to my head, not my stomach.

so i figured i should try a milder brew. julie offered a sip of allabash white, and its fruity aftertaste was enough reason for me to go for it. besides, all the beer brew sounded greek, so i just had to go for what is immediately accessible. so i got a second glass, it was indeed a milder brew, but with this bayaw loaded with ipa, i knew a third glass would be it for me. "oh-oh, i think i'll get drunk tonight..." which means two things: i could get really animated, or if i don't stuff my mouth with anything other than beer, throwing up is just around the corner (especially since i didn't pace myself well).

i checked my watch, and realized that it ain't even midnight yet. not even close. and if these guys drink like my bayaws do, i'm in for a long night, probably an embarrassing drunken stupor, and a terrible hangover the following day. "what the hell, no one knows me... but an asian dude does stand out in this part of the states... yikes..."

oh, and all of a saging, i fell silent for the most part of the second glass. i realized i was fervently listening to rob, julie, and ken--and i distinctly recognized each and every word they said--but i could not, for the love of me, connect the meaning of one word to the next! bad sign. bad sign. and i could feel a growing ball in my throat...

what saved me from further embarrassment/humiliation (?) was an early work day for all of us. so as i labored somewhat to finish my allabash white, i was relieved to know that i was saved from embarrassing myself. on the way back home, i just felt bad for falling into a black hole all of a saging. two glasses of water was enough to bring me back to sobriety, and after a few sticks of cigarette in the freezing porch, i was off to sleep.

tomorrow, i said to myself, i'll be ready for episode ii.

bayaw: a manila man in massacusetts

2005-10-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

people around me changed from the moment i was in the predeparture area yesterday morning to the bagel shop this morning.

at the predeparture are, i was with fellow pinoys, and a few foreigners. on the plane to japan, the flight attendants were mostly filipino. when we deplaned in nagoya, i was walking around the airport now with a mix of pinoys, japanese, and caucasians. when we got in the plane for the continuation of the flight to detroit, the flight attendants were now either americans or japanese, and the passengers are now mixed. the in-flight announcements were no longer english and filipino, it was now english and japanese.

when i landed in detroit, and got through immigration and customs, there were still asians in the airport, but now we were outnumbered by americans (all kinds of 'em). now i really felt i was in foreign territory.

on the flight to hartford, i was one of only two asians. in the office, i was one of only three. and in this tranquil university town, i am the only bayaw.

mga bayaw, ang lamig dito!

the bayaw adventure will continue!

ehehehe.....

body clock

2005-10-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

woke up at 2am here in amherst after a long flight from manila. i immediately dozed off once my body got in contact with the bed, after repeatedly telling my colleagues that i was feeling neither tired nor sleepy. guess i was really tired after 16+ hours in the air, alternating between sleep and food and movies on the plane.

by far that was the longest flight i have ever taken, but i never really felt the hours pass by until i landed in nagoya, detroit, and finally hartford. that was when i turned my phone on (i don't have wrist watches), and when the captain reported what the local time was.

i left manila at 7am, october 18, and i landed in hartford, connecticut (30-minute drive from where i am now) at 330pm, october 18. in the middle of those hours, i experienced nighttime and dawn on the plane, and and had an entire day's meal, with snacks, on the northwest flight.

that was weird, to say the least. i mean, we all hear of jet lag and time differences, and all that. but actually experiencing one is really weird. which is why i kept telling my colleagues that i was feeling neither tired nor sleepy. i felt like i left this morning and got here in the mid-afternoon.

then, my body just shut down, and i was off to sleep. when i woke up to a chilly air this morning, i realized i didn't even change clothes (i still had my shoes on), and didn't even pull up the blankets. checked my phone, and it wasn't even close to dawn.

i knew then my body clock was messed up. now i have to force it to sync with the local time.

happy fathers’ day

2005-06-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

during the past few days, there has been a swelling in me that just wants to explode. it doesn’t involve my father, or my father-in-law. it involves me.

a revelation that tuesday evening has made waking up every morning feel as if something has always been missing. i share this with my wife, i know that. but i feel something else for myself. i can’t put it into words, and perhaps i never will. all i know is that i feel something else apart from the shared emotions my wife and i have over the matter. maybe it’s because fathers’ day was just around the corner. maybe, for once, i just want to be selfish about it.

so i let it gnaw at me, devouring my feelings, and growing larger by the minute. every time it feasts inside me, i wanted to cry. but i can’t, thanks to the rituals of everyday urban life. when i do find the time to cry at night, i grab my xbox controller and play, racing across atlanta until dawn (virtual and actual). pathetic excuse to not cry. but i know i can’t avoid the inevitable. i guess i just wanted to have one good, fucking cry, and then move along.

alone in our loft on this fathers’ day mid-afternoon, i finally explode. while the rest of the household busy themselves with their own concerns, i cry.

secretly. uncontrollably. regretfully.

silently.

no tears. no sound. no nothing.

happy fathers’ day to me.

why this batman movie scared me

2005-06-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

curse chris nolan. now i can't retreat into my childish imaginings of patrolling the city in a bat suit. unless i want to spiral down insane lane, straight towards arkham asylum.

a review of star wars episode iii in empireonline said something like "after watching this last star wars film, millions of twenty- to thirty-something boys around the world just grew up." laughed out loud on that one, because it's so true. there's just not enough reason--and fun--to imagine being in a galaxy far, far away with a fucking cool lightsaber and cutting the hands of those damn, why-won't-you-just-die sith lords. the cycle has been completed, let's move on to the realities of life in a city that is so near, near your freaking nose.

but because it's that time of year for the (American) summer blockbuster, and because movie adaptations of comic book characters have become the fad in the post-LOTR hollywood, there seems to be hope for an extension of this suspended adolescence.

enter batman begins. with nolan directing, this batman movie is simply not gonna be the same as the previous ones. a filmography that includes memento and insomnia suggests that batman begins' trajectory is not burton-esque, and most definitely not schumacher-esque (oh thank god). as it turns out, burton's is german expressionistic, nolan's is french impressionistic (schumacher's is simply american childish).

in the previous batman movies (including schumacher’s), we see how the cold, calculating caped crusader dealt with the insane lot of the joker, the penguin, catwoman, two face, the riddler, doctor frost, and poison ivy. all of them driven by madness into a life of crime.

in batman begins, we see how bruce wayne was driven by anger, guilt, and revenge into developing and realizing an insane idea that he can save gotham city from the criminal and the corrupt. can’t help but compare nolan’s bruce wayne to robert rodriguez and frank miller’s dwight in sin city. i have to do something, i have to be the hero.

kalurong an iya inang…

bruce wayne’s spiral down insane lane began when—here’s issue no. 1—he fell down a well, where bats scared the shit out of his billionare ass. the kid got so scared that any image that makes him recall the guano brigade spooks him. like the theater actors in that opera, which forced him to beg to be taken home. so good daddy thomas obliged. then came that dude who popped bullets into his parents’ bodies, and wayne has his issue no. 2. my fault, my fault.

issue no. 3 came when he got beaten to the punch by falcone in killing the dude who killed his folks. oh he so wanted to return the favor to that schuck that he was willing to risk his princeton ass and wayne billions. but falcone’s men ruined his plans. still in an angry and vengeful state of mind, bruce went gee, now what? a face-to-face confrontation with falcone only muddled his brains, and then he decides to disappear.

issue no. 4: bruce becomes fascinated with the criminal mind. so what does a billionare do with such fascination? he goes to china, learns to be a petty thief, and got the internship of a lifetime when he got himself in jail.

that was when his messianic complex began. and who else to help him find what he was looking for but ducard, a wacko who belongs to this group, the league of shadows, which has this insane idea that they can restore balance to the force when things go awry.

and while he got considerable skills and training on how to be a shadow, he locked horns with the league regarding the way they understand and implement justice.

issue no. 5: i wanna do this the right way. not as bruce wayne, but as a giant bat. by donning a bat costume and having cool gadgets. yeah, right. who in his right, friggin’ mind will come up with an idea as insane as that?! oh i’ll scare the living daylights out of the criminal and the corrupt by becoming what i feared the most: a guano-pooping rodent. be afraid. be very afraid.

and so batman begins.

apart from bruce, the movie also gave us plenty of crazies to feast on. ducat, for one. crane/scarecrow is another. r'as al-ghul too, with his warped worldview. falcone. arkham asylum. and that hallucinogen, and the way it plays with your fears. and towards the end, batman and gotham city faces more of the same. inspired by batman himself, the still-at-large, former arkham asylum patients decide to follow his crazy idea of wearing costumes and becoming something else entirely. the difference is that they chose to be the criminals, not the crime-fighters. so the bat flies off to see what he can do with the villain known as the joker.

with nolan brazenly taking on the neurosis of batman/bruce wayne in particular, and gotham city and its hoods in general, batman begins simply stands out as a very mature interpretation of the bob kane creation. burton stepped into that a bit with his german expressionist batman, joker, penguin, catwoman, and gotham city. nolan went inwards, went deeper, and clawed his way into what the hell batman/bruce wayne was thinking when he decided to go bats. i think it was the guano. remember, when he slowly stood up and closed his eyes, and took a long deep breath while millions of bats swarmed him.

batman begins plays with the lead character’s psychosis. sure, there was enough action, but the movie really plays with the dementia of bruce wayne. good thing for gotham he chose to be good. but he’s still a little loose up there.

which makes one’s fantasy of becoming batman a tad harder. with the action/adventure genre, it is always fun to imagine becoming the lead character/s and play out the adventure. the video game industry’s sales suggests that. the juvenile undertaking is but normal for the forever adolescent, twenty- to thirty-something, city-bred male (guilty). boys will be boys.

but the batman begins experience is different. to imagine being batman in a nolan-inspired gotham city is a scary fantasy into the dark recesses of the human mind. of the fear lurking in those depths. of the dementia one has to undergo every fucking day. that's no fun.

i guess one has to grow up sometime. patrolling the nights of quezon city in a bat suit is not a good idea anyway. the buildings are too damn short. sniffing guano siguro, pwede pa…

over-all rating: 4 out of 5 potatoes (five if i can still imagine being batman)

direction: 4.5 potatoes (nolan rules! ‘nuff said!)

script: 4 potatoes (higher if that vaporizing thingamajig was introduced better; oh, and bruce wayne suddenly having a conscience when ducat and rhas al-gul ordered him to carry out justice, league-of-shadows style; palibhasa may saltik)

acting: 4.5 potatoes (yes, even katie holmes was good, neither over- nor under-acting her supporting role; get over the fact that she’s damn pretty, and that she did dawson’s creek, and you’ll see she is quite good; but personally, i think mary louise parker would have been perfect for the role)

art direction: 4.25 potatoes (the neon lights and nipples are gone!)

cinematography: 4.5 potatoes

sound: 4.5 potatoes (that somewhat piercing sound that gets louder and louder is just eerie)

boy bauer

2005-06-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

i finished watching 24 season 4 a couple of weeks back, and i have been itching to write something about one of my favorite tv shows ever since.

problem is, i couldn’t finish one paragraph without citing at least one significant plot twist. and we all know that 24 operates with a storyline that restricts the flow of information, in that we the audience know as much information that the characters know. and you all know i'm not one to spoil your viewing pleasure with revelations, no matter how small or insignificant. i drop hints sure, but that’s as far as it goes.

i won’t drop hints here. so you can read on. honest.

the first tv channel to show 24 in the phils was rpn 9. during that time, the only thing i knew about the tv series was that it had this gimmick of telling the story real-time. that is, no time manipulation—time is neither expanded nor compressed. what happens in five minutes of story time happens in five minutes of actual time.

cool, i thought.

never got around to watching it though, because abc 5 was the only local channel worth watching that time mainly because of enterprising shows like the misadventures of maverick and ariel, and past shows like the exchange (pero kahit abc 5 na yun, konti lang yung ganung klaseng palabas). i was into cable channels, because they had more brains and brawn. simply put, they were way, way more entertaining.

the show, so i heard, did not get an audience, and was dropped from the roster sometime towards the 12th hour (episode 12). the few audience it had, if it did have any, must have cursed the high heavens.

axn premiered the show much later, and i happened to arrive one night just in time to catch it. i had no intentions of watching it really, but the tv was tuned in on axn when i turned it on. being the couch potato that i am, i didn’t bother getting up to look for the dang remote. was too comfortable in the magic blue sofa (still have it).

the first episode of day 1, as 24’s seasons have become known these days, blew me away. i knew i was hooked when the story clock hit 1:00 am. the next 23 weeks, i was home before 9:00 pm, thursdays. the latest i arrived home was 8:58 pm. didn't miss a friggin’ second.

dragged my wife into watching the show, and later a few friends. then more friends. and the rest is history. a 24 cult has been created within our network of friends.

day 1 has always been my favorite, and although the series has a new contract for two more seasons, i firmly believe that the first season cannot be topped. the stakes raised on day 1 were just much too high. the first african-american with a real shot at the presidency—senator david palmer—was targeted for assassination. jack bauer’s family—wife teri and daughter kim—was constantly in peril. jack’s people at ctu—nina myers, tony almeida, et al.—may be involved in both. a ghost from the past coming back to haunt the principal characters.

day 2 saw jack averting a nuclear bomb being detonated in los angeles. in season one, jack was always on his feet, reacting to what the situation gave him. in season two, we see more of jack’s capabilities. moreover, the season follows up on some of the threads left by day one, and jack confronts an arch enemy and swallows a bitter pill because of it. that was one of the things i liked about day 2: an arch enemy, thus far jack’s most uber nemesis, is in the picture, and promises to be there for quite a while.

day 3 revealed the true jack: clinical, calculating, unorthodox. he was always a step ahead in most situations. he took risks. some paid off, some did not. this time, jack had to stop the use of a weaponized virus. what i like about this season is that it brings the first three seasons to a close, and unlike the last seconds of days 1 and 2, this day ended with jack simply breaking down in tears after a long day’s work stopping the virus from being unleashed.

that ending implied that 24 was coming back. for more. in day 3, jack was at his best. he was damn decisive and efficient. brutally clinical. only his solitary breakdown at the end of the day hinted at his exasperation and frustration. when a call came in, he just had to collect himself, and go back to work.

but when 24 returned for season 4, jack is no longer with ctu, preferring a desk job with the department of defense. the only returning characters this time were jack and chloe o’brien, the ctu computer geek. the threat: a kidnapping of a high government official. or so they thought. or so i thought.

day 4 fundamentally uses the same narrative infrastructures and stylistic systems of the past three seasons. the tv series still relies heavily on restricting information, which leads to many strands of the narrative popping out of nowhere. that has always been both its strength and weakness. stylistically, everything is still there—the ticking clock, the handheld camera shots, the episode endings that leave you wanting for more—which makes 24 what it is.

but some things stand out.

for instance, sean callery’s score. he just keeps adding new, pulsating, suspense-filled music every year.

the writing has become brazen. there are no deviations from the existing narrative structures: the script is still very 24-ish, but there are elements that—if you were american and/or arab-american—have proven to be quite controversial. at least that’s what the reviews say.

couch potato alert: if you do not want to screw up your viewing pleasure of 24, do not go to their website, or do not google the show’s reviews until after you’ve seen the entire season. just trust me.

and most importantly, jack has met his match. i initially thought his arch enemy in days 2 and 3 was the uber enemy. then he had to face this dude in day 4. oh man, if jack was cool, clinical, and calculating in day 3, his nemesis in day 4 is much more cool, clinical, and calculating. again, jack is on the reactive mode. his nemesis here is simply always a step ahead of him.

and while day 3 provided closure for the first three seasons, the ending of day 4 fundamentally puts jack bauer’s story in limbo. if i were a writer in the tv series, i'd probably be going, “shit, now what do we do?” with a new two-year contract, and that kind of ending, what indeed will they do?

finally, i know i promised not to drop any hints, but i just have to spill this out: there is a surprise in the last two episodes that, this couch potato observes, brings the seasons one to three in the viewers’ perspective again.

rambling patatas at patatas sa kanto, tapusin nyo na!

the little victories of mr patatas in patatas inc.

2005-05-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

I love this part of any job, the sending of the final product. Work usually starts slow, then slower. After much frustration, the pace speeds up. Then coffee and cigarettes fuel the drive to finish the dang thing, and soon you reach the dang crest. Just one final (humongous) road bump, and you know it'll be over.

Everything becomes a haze at this point, thanks largely to now-bitter coffee, atrocious cigarettes, and an almost-finished-but-not-quite-yet work.

Then, all of a sudden, it's done.

And like the post-climax of any movie (or story), everything gradually goes back to normal.

Just one more thing to do--send it.

That's what I'm doing right now, while writing this. A form of celebration perhaps of the work just done.

I love this part. But then again, what is to love?

There's shitload to do still, and I'm not event factoring in my thesis.

Dang, I hate this...

para sa mga bayaw na mahilig sa patatas

2005-05-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

bayaw! eto na 'ko!