from tiger to the euros

i didn't really expect the lakers to reach the finals. but it would have been great if they were able to win the championships. sb and i were witness to one of the early days of the newly- polished and rejuvenated celtics brand against the wolves during a pre-season match up at the O2 arena last year. we were packed in the nosebleed section of the newly-built dome. but the travelling violations by kevin garnett were still very glaring from way, way up.

tiger woods, the over-achieving fella from florida and winner of golf's last major, is taking a sabbatical to recuperate from the physical malaise that commonly inflict wearied athletes. some sports fans perceive that tiger's winning ways ruin sport. that's a view i don't necessarily uphold. as sports devotees we tend to follow our biases. we are fans first. objective observers second. how can a european cheer for an american? or how can someone who don't follow sports at all even know tiger exists? it's hard to win all the big ones, even for tiger -- bad knee and all. there have been tons of exciting golfing actions not involving his magical clubs. it's just more substantial viewing if he's around. nobody can win everything. not even federer, tennis very own GOAT, could dig deep against Nadal at the french open. the swiss champ was hammered and pulverized. i know it was on clay but c'mon!

i thought italy would win against the catanaccio defensive playing spain. but as in any major tournament, a deluge of unpredictabilities never fail to crop up in a level playing field. pundits surely didn't anticipate russia and turkey against the sleep-inducing spain and germany in the semis. whoever wins the whole thing, i'm sure their fans would be in rejoiced euphoria.

birthday trifles

june is kind of a weird month for me. i was waiting for a birthday card from my parents and realized anew the harshness of reality. then i took a glance at the ashes of my unborn babies. i still get tears seeing the charlottes (york-goldenblatt and church) of this world leaving me behind in the baby race. i'm just submerged into the depths of introspection on my birthday. i wonder if people do that on the very day they turn a year older or it's merely all smiles, all the yearnings focused on entertaining acquaintances and virtual strangers in a party in a rented hall. but then comes some blithe and felicitous thoughts. i just don't like being physically encumbered though. work is already too menial and stressful as it is.

there is actually no time to wallow. there is this blog to write. the endless tidying may still provoke my incendiary temper but i have yet to manage that flammable aspect of my personality. there are also the gadgets that make me sink further into the introverted pond and how those portable gamings soothe my nerves. alas, i get the swift grip. the dream kisses and the marital hugs are ever so sweet. my brothers never forget to greet me. my BFF's are a delight with their messages. after all the typing and staring at this monitor, i would watch a slideshow of celeb pics and unearth some chuckles or i would play friends yet again and uncover even more laughs. or be a witness in a penalty shootout from Euro 2008. that i love.

now, where's my nintendo DS?

pop politics

i was transcribing our high school class history from the yearbook to our site last week when thoughts of politics and popularity came into view. i used to get excited during elections and slotted tons of time watching news channels. those were in the past. these days, i'm no longer besotted with the electoral process. it's a mere popularity tool used by concerned groups with hidden advocacies and it's mostly the domain of the rich and privileged.

anyway, our class history was very thorough. our historian, gelenn wrote it in vivid detail. too vivid in fact that every little accolade was recorded. it reminded me of the bill clinton autobiography, which was also long but well worth the read if you're an astute student of history. but unlike both the clintons autobiographies, our high school history was written without the help of assiduous assistants. it was gelenn's talent simmering through every word.

skimming through the minute print, one of the ardent failures of my adolescent is there for the present and the next generations to read -- the cancellation of our seniors week. we were sixteen and i know we ran for school office and won but shouldn't we've been guided and rather than treated shabbily by the teachers and the advisers? we, specially me, needed a bit of mentorship that time and got nothing but censure. all cannot be water under the bridge when the bare facts were catalogued and ran through when homecoming talks enter the frame.

anyway, our high school experience no matter how painful shouldn't ruin the rest of our lives. the trick is to study hard. we may not be as naturally smart as some, but studying and reading surely help boost our confidence.

SATC the movie -- fan thoughts

sex and the city the movie feels like the first two games of the boston-lakers current series. if you follow pro basketball in all its glory, you would know where i'm coming from. i am of course, as always cheering for the lakers. so it's a safe bet that the SATC film is a big let down. despite a derelict screenplay, the eponymous HBO series was and still is, through the dvd collection, a staple in lifting my faltering spirits from peripatetic concavity.

for me the carrie story lost its magic before the end of the fourth season the moment she turned down aidan. the likes of berger and alexander petrovsky (no matter how much i adore the great mikhail baryshnikov) scenarios were merely sidetracks to the Big reunion. is there a bigger jackass in real life than Big? but then aidan wouldn't be able to afford a humongous fifth avenue penthouse unlike guys with the financial gravitas of petrovsky and john james preston. in carrie bradshaw's world, big closets and manolos are all the rage. SATC is an advertising haven for product placements. i can always recite a line in one of the two episodes devoted to shoes, "they were not sandals, they were manolos." take that, tatum o'neal.

honestly, for me, the main draw of SATC the movie are the other girls. i'm curious about the plot trajectories of charlotte, miranda and samantha. charlotte evolved from an uptight pollyanna to a sympathetic wife and friend. though i'm still confused how she was able to support her lifestyle in between husbands when she was not working. i had to review the prenup episode for that in the third season and got nothing except the macdougals would pay more for the birth of a son. miranda may still be sarcastic and cynical but somehow managed to forge a celluloid life resembling a dose of reality. and there's the lovely miss jones. who ever thought it was a good idea to turn smith jerrod into a tv star and transplant dear samantha to LA ? there wasn't much footage of stanford blatch in the movie, another blow. my favorite gay bff has given me these words of wisdom from the fifth season, "people judge. others do arts and crafts. we judge."

all in all, both SATC the series and the movie reminds all of us of the beauty of molding friendships and relationships. friends are always there to rescue and to spoonfeed soup when the going gets really down. one of my favorite episodes was the one where samantha appeared on miranda's doorsteps and offered to baby sit brady.
miranda: "you want to baby sit? i can't believe it."
samantha: "neither can i. but here i am, mary f----n poppins."
samantha and a screaming baby was quite a site and yes, if there's ever a sequel to the movie, i want to see more of jerry jerrod aka smith jerrod in samantha's life.

deciphering the gap

sometimes at work or in any social scene in the london network, i always overhear various points to ponder. why there is such a huge edifying divide amongst the different colors? why are individuals bound by stereotypes? if our professional hive is multi-cultural by nature, how come most people cannot embrace the most minute of differences? what's the paranoia all about?

i admit it's difficult to picture life at its hardest and its poorest when one has romped in the niceties of first world living. but i've grown up seeing and observing poverty. cutting my teeth in the grade school situated next to urban tenements and getting exposed to the after-effects of the daily ravages of an inefficient government where only one percent of the population benefits from institutionalized corruption have left even the most avid nationalist disenchanted. a blue-collar reality in RP leads in more ways than one to a pauperized existence. there are no food stamps, no job seekers allowance from the government, no comfort-housing, no free health care. but despite all the knocks and the rippling effects of escalating rice prices, the populace persevere through the hardships.

although heralded to uplift and feed both the body and soul of a nation, the hardworking pinoy who became part of the diaspora walks the fine line in the diurnal struggle to a disparate continent. to most and to some, that remains an arduous task. work is not only humdrum and uninspiring but also a battle of wills that brings nothing but grief and anguish. the transplanted worker toils for more than a few extra pennies. probably because growing up surrounded by grinding poverty was a tougher reality than a dicken's tale.