pulchritude

pissed with pete sampras for not even mentioning his ex-girlfriends in his autobiography, i have been downloading a few of kimberly williams-paisley interview videos. a radiant beauty from new york, the bride in steve martin's father of the bride and courtney thorne-smith's sister in according to jim, kim was my favorite pistol pete romantic entanglement. now a parent to two boys (in a funny coincidence, just like sampras) and married to country singer brad paisley since 2003, she has written a children's book with her dad, contributed to women's mag such as this entry, directs short films and still acts. such depth.

ben is good enough

i'm gripped with a whole range of emotions in coping with michael jackson's passing. he's such a huge filipino icon. there are other big hollywood stars. but for me, they're not important enough celebrities if they're not huge in the philippines. that is my gauge. kylie minogue? girls aloud? no and no. they may not be from hollywood but they're immense stars in my present terrain.

as a child of the 80's, i was a captive to michael jackson's music and his dance moves. when he was ostracized by his scandals, i thought to believe otherwise like any jaded filipino. nah, his detractors were merely exaggerating. i could understand the root of all the plastic surgeries. who wouldn't want the perfect nose? nobody told him that he was already perfect when he was a young kid singing a homage to a rat?

of all the cities that could have given him a platform for a comeback, it was london who grabbed the opportunity. fifty concerts was mind-boggling. his management was wrapped in greed. but hey, O2 Arena is just a train ride away, a ticket would always be in the offing.

it's comforting that i haven't tuned in to news channels for years, i don't get as much information overload about this sad event. it's nice reading postive stuff about him especially as prescient as this post. hope that article would stand the test of time. this article is also handy. it made me recall the aga muhlach's dance moves when he was a bagets newcomer.

and alas, a neighbor just decided to play michael jackson's discography so loud it feels like a purok bayanihan fiesta back in puentebella.

exploring the mysteries of kindness

it goes beyond conundrum that people with such errant displays of profanity and invective behavior got friends. i always entertain my queries when viewing photo galleries. lady one and lady two are super duper, pinky-swear close? but lady one is a bitch and lady two, although not exactly that refined and gentle, is at least down-to-earth. then comes another photo and another gush and sigh. lady one and lady three are friends. period and not question mark. easy, they feature similar abrasive demeanors. however both splash self-effacing giggles when the flirtatious moment beckons. nonetheless deep down, especially with lady three, is a daily occurence of lamentations about the crooked system that grate rather than spruce up one's fine day. gabriela silang was heroic and so were all the katipuneras who fought for freedom from imperialistic oppression. while flordeluna, mara del valle, esperanza merely cried buckets of tears. they're pushovers, ready to be trampled upon by the word go. but as their names were in the titles, they had the last laugh. while the villains were sworn to eternal damnation.

kindness may offer the usual exasperation. but being malignant paves the path to a rightful abhorrent comeuppance.

don't forget to wear sunscreen

before we even bask in its fantastic benefits, summer would be over before we know it. with the longest day for this year already encrypted in the memory bank, it's time to savor the rays and forget about the countdown to fall. but thorpe park is such a beauty. now where's the i-pod?

strawberries and cream

debilitated from the din and chaos of trying to find my missing scrapbook, i sought refuge in the entertainment portals of the web only to get deluded by the banality of the exercise. as i was occupied surfing, i missed the conclusion of the rain-soaked US Open. i didn't mind a david duval win, i wouldn't deny that to a former world number one but an unknown (at least to me) lucas glover lifted the trophy. tiger came close but unable to close the gap. i couldn't wait for the british version in turnberry in barely a month's time. just the thought of being in the same time zone as the tournament is an enormous relief. fingers crossed for my sked's to be in synched.

this fortnight however belongs to wimbledon. per usual, i'm skipping the fixed stare of southwest london. there are tons of other tv channels but i can't escape from the free papers or an 90 year old lady discussing with me serena's form. tennis is an english invention. so basically, wimbledon is the traditional home and the sport's biggest tournament. expect the highly-patriotic brits to go mental with murray now ranked number three but who withered in the clay of roland garros.

with regards to good looks, federer was listed along with roddick and safin as tennis hotties in the london paper. i know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but isn't that a bit too glory-hunting in all intents and purposes? if a fan wants to latch on to some sports or movie icon, it's the money in the bank personalities; the harrison fords, the tom cruises, the lebron jameses, the alex rodriguezes and yes that guy from the swiss alps tennis academy. but really, is federer at par with roddick and safin based on close-up smiles?

now, aside from martina hingis (who was born in the former czechoslovakia), name other swiss big name tennis player past and present? marc rossett? and other than nadal, name other spanish tennis players past and present. sure, carlos moya, tommy robredo, sergei bruguera, emilio sanchez, juan carlos ferrero, fernando vardasco, albert costa, alex corretja, arantxa sanchez vicario, conchita martinez. so switzerland, a country known primarily for its skiers has produced the gentleman champion of all champions who chose a ridiculous costume for this year's campaign? the swiss guy's game and fortitude are above and beyond all others in his era. whereas sampras had to contend with the rock star personality of agassi, and the grit and determinations of chang and courier. those were only his countrymen. todd martin, the guy he beat in the '94 Aussie Open was not even in the frame. edberg, becker, ivanisevic, kuerten, muster, rafter. thank goodness for one rafael nadal in preventing a few final's walkover the last few years. it's deflating that the player from majorca is injured but we all know that nadal is more than capable of beating space man, even in wimbledon.

and for the locals including all writers and even my loving chef, individual sports only becomes boring when the athlete (sampras, woods, schumacher) is not from the united kingdom. but when it's jenson button, who cares if its 95% car, 5% driver.

when love happens

my aging process

today i hit mid-thirties, on the dot. how does that feel? ancient. was it only twenty years ago i felt so young? some things never change. honey still sends me a card, or a present. i still lose a baby almost every year. induced stillbirth is not for the fainthearted. my parents come to mind because mommy was the most thoughtful person i ever knew and my birthday is right smacked into a patchwork of events with dad's death anniversary and his birthday. rubbish, sentiments repudiate the courage that makes us resilient. i'm not great with smokes and junkies, or running around the mawkish grounds trying to concoct sense out of a spiteful and over-indulgent populace. i'm exhausted, even at this moment. all i want is crawl under the sheets and read how a whitbread prize winner views my country with such haughty air. but there's rugby today at twickenham.

smile for the cameras.

relax, go back to alpha. what? what the crap is that?

thanks for all the wonderful, inspiring greetings.

you make my day peeps! now, i've got to do my pedicure.

london grinder

Books -- i'm sifting through the bibliography of James H-T. ghosts of manila is exquisitely written. the metropolis is portrayed in all its grim and gory underpinnings. but every city has its dark sides.

Television -- House's fifth season is on sky. Bear Gryll's is in the planner as well. i was so late in the catching up with the beauty that is The Wire, i tuned in a year after it's last regular episode. a brilliant show that was not accorded it's proper laurels during its run. the best drama series ever according to Time magazine. Lie to Me, for tim roth and kelli williams of the practice. George and Cecil, for the guilty pleasures.

Food comforts -- i'm just a nando's person. but i like the choices at the O2 center and Westfield. enticing.

Music -- eminem's relapse plus my usuals. i'm filtering blur's discography in a jiffy for the hyde park reunion.

Most romantic turf in london -- the national gallery grounds. the river thames. but anywhere really, as long as there's a special someone to hold and to cherish. how cliche.

jubilation

this is great. for the first time in seems like forever i was able to view a basketball match in the tiny bedroom telly. the lakers won the 2009 nba championship! it's a tough ask to keep in track with basketball in the UK when the only paper that covers basketball is USA Today. i've been a lakers fan since i was six and magic johnson was the guy and los angeles was the city of dreams. for the past few years, the NBA was only covered by channel five. it's not available on cable or anywhere, perhaps only in streams and it takes severe dedication to be up in the unholy hours just to catch a regular season lakers match. this brings back memories of following the live coverage through radio 21 years ago. but the games were transmitted in more reasonable hours.

there have been two unpropitous trip to the finals for the lakers since the shaq-kobe act of 2002, one in 2004, when a star-studded team was swept by the pistons. last year's loss in the finals against boston was simply painful. the boston celtics? the same boston celtics that was the scourge of the eighties? but the june 2009 series is different, it's the month and year of redemption. i'm not that huge on kobe bryant. but he's the leader of this select class of lakers. this is his team. even shaq sent a twitter.

i'll get a lakers widget. for now i will navigate the photo gallery.

well done.

letterings

prepositions are always my downfall. my paragraphs are so brief that it's easily apparent when severe grammatical errors are not corrected. i'm still amending sentences written years ago. my ineptitude is killing me, it's becoming such a hassle. although the blogosphere is ever forgiving, the readers might be critical. i'll learn to be more attentive. hopefully.

i've been stamping watermarks on my blog photos since last night. until yesterday, adobe was only used to remove blemishes in my facial features. i totally abhor the moles in my face. i remove them in the pictures whenever i get the chance. as for watermark, the elements of my qualms and misgivings are posted in this piece and the watermarked photos on sleb blogs didn't look too bad at all. i'm still rectifying the fonts and italics as of this point. i read silly celebutante columns, gawk at their pics and feel guilty afterwards knowing it would serve me in good stead to do something more productive. jonathan ross' interview with hugh laurie comes to mind. while his good friend stephen fry twits, he prefers to sshh. but stephen fry is one damn good writer. the highly-versatile pundit and performer could construct a sentence with such mesmerizing beauty and currently helps me write better poetry with his literary folio, an ode less traveled.

huffing and puffing

did i sleep the day away? although the clock's hands are showing quarter to ten in the evening, daylight seem to peek from the window. oh yeah it's summer and no matter how fleeting, i'm glad the sun is back. it has been a such downer with all the grey clouds and inundation for a week. my chores are not done. yet i still want to go back to bed and sit back with a book in hand or acquiesce to my favorite task of watching all the judai-ryan videos.

the tempest is out of the itinerary. it's a version for the nipper kins and with this bipolar weather, open air shakespeare might not be the right path to quench my thirst for straight plays. i'm back to the drawing board in the selection process. i have to pick a stage production that will not burn a hole in the pocket. all i've been clicking so far are either sold out or not to the boss' liking. musicals are out of the question due to western testosteronic perceptions. sometimes i hear colleagues in scrubs mention west end musicals in hallway conversations and i can only listen in earnest. good for them, i don't have that kind of latitude. but i have someone to talk with about sonic youth and hear my laments about disparities of the wealth of nations. au contraire with juno and ms. cody, i don't think sonic youth produces anything akin to noise.

nightsleeper

still beaten down to a pulp, i'm quite perplexed about my enormous after-work activities. i should be snoozing by now, ready to be awakened by the sounds of silence, ready to conquer and face the beaten path with the generous souls who are arguably two of the most admired people on earth. but here i am in the midst of tasks galore continuing to drudge at almost midnight, touching keyboards, hanging clothes, wrapping presents.

i'm tired.

languor

fast editing is the way to go but the routine this week is quite frazzled. through random clicks i've discovered a few tautological misappropriations in this blog. however since i'm so knackered and it's only midway in this cluster of penitence, i'm passing until the weekend. this very post is also repetition. it's crucial to be careful and keep the parchments in check.

my flesh is so drained of energy at this point. i've done the errands, modified the dietary regimen, refined the telly planner, gained headway with the calisthenic programme. it's a pretty cutthroat spin amid the tube strike and the rain. albeit the downpour hasn't stopped my ventures at the neighborhood post office. i miss the ray of sunshine. i really do. but mad max is in the background and mel gibson was so hot in 1979, skinny jeans and all.

chosen quotes from playing with water

"In Britain, a state linked to itself by televison which almost everyone watches, by newpapers millions read, glutted with opinion polls and phone-in programmes and protest marches and all the democratic ways of ensuring that there actually is such a thing as a majority national opinion about almost anything, such phrases (the will of the people and national sentiment) mean something. But how is consensus to be reached in a nation divided by eighty major dialects and eleven main language groups, linked by no reliable telephone network, where travel is laborious and often dangerous? A nation which in percentage terms reads little but comics if it reads at all, and from sheer forceof habit mistrusts its own Press. Loyalties are to family, to barkada, to gang, to community, to ethnic group" ( playing with water page 143).

at the time of writing of playing with water, as i've gathered from the bookend notes, the late 80's rate was 25 pesos to the dollar and thirty pesos to the pound. the book is a very enlightening read with apt descriptions of the promdi life and all its extroverted predilections. the chapter on manila's underbelly was not favorable. it was noteworthy that the author could namedrop every gang and syndicate that was the crux of tabloid headlines in the past two decades. but what do we expect from a metropolis that is not only a third world country's capital politically but also financially? manila is the center of being for most of the citizens. as for the telephone network, i was already twenty-two when our tiny cul-de-sac got access to a phone line. but then i grew up in the province, where life was slower and more mundane. i can't believe how hard it was to communicate in my youth. in this age of cellphones with quirky ringtones, text is the most overused form of interchange in the mallrat era, quite understandable as actual calls from a mobile cost a dismembered part of the anatomy.

for further readings on the book, this new york times article is a useful and polished reference. but did tiwarik really turn into a portobello golf course? and thirty years after discovering my sweet-natured homeland and its people and a few sunsets after decamping tuscany for austria, does the author still linger along the coast of "nowheresville by the sea" for a third of the year?

"But whatever i may mourn, it is revealingly not resident in any landscapes of my past. I do not miss the smallest heather-tufted mound of the English scene. I do not care if I never again see the South Downs, the tennis courts and patios of Beckenham, the hills and hopfields of Kent. Neither do I wish the dank water-meadows of Oxfordshire, de-poplared Binsey, ivy clad alma mater" (playing with water page 45 and 46).

toddler pics

every photo posted in the web is fair game anywhere, in the social networking sites, in the blogs. remember that facebook copyright furor a few months back? i'm still quite skeptical and engulfed in inherent sense of foreboding for every publication of photographs. this nostalgia box is shared with perturbations for friends and family.

i'm not big on birthday celebrations past the age of 21. although, i haven't actually thrown a lot of confetti from my second birthday onwards, hardly any soirees with cakes and balloons. looking at the pictures, who are those kids on my second birthday? i know lea and mina. but who are the other children? a few photos seized from the childhood album bring to light a few basic elements for quiet contemplation.

den's rappel

such a picturesque view of london.

i'd really like to use the p word to describe my shrieking fear of spiderman tendencies but as it was obscured with a bleep sound in one HBO show, i'd rather not. damn, i'm so chicken. but this is one brave girl, a fascinating superwoman of our times. den's rappel is to raise funds for myasthenia gravis research, a commendable project indeed. she already does her bit of helping the sick and the needy by merely showing up at work. but this? nevertheless, she's an experienced mountaineer, this is merely child's play for her.

on my part, i couldn't thank den enough for the glorious company and for always texting me back whenever i'm falling into a needy trap. cheers, sweetie, to borrow terms from your poster, your gastrocnemius and rectos femoris muscles may provide relief to the myasthenia gravis association. but you're a shining beacon to us all.

hoover-day afternoon

before running to the shops to top-up our power key. i've just got to scan a part my late 80's reading. oh those adolescent years when i didn't have the care in the world. in a few days, i'll be this ancient, wrinkly hag, quite driven to nostalgic and elegiac mood swings and bits of comfort eating. aagh, better stop gorging my carbo-loading amenities or i'll succumb to more fear and loathing of this imperfect universe.

breathe out heavily

missing muse concert this year is such a bummer. i woke up two hours late to book the tickets which was expected because i stayed until the wee hours for the nba finals. a two- hour delay is huge when booking concerts especially one as adroit and gifted as muse. a band that certainly don't need hype to sell concerts. glasgow is the only venue available and the mister reckons it's too far. fine. nil complaints.

it was grand to see kobe being kobe again. dwight howard and the orlando magic are the surprise finalist. lebron james is like the king of basketball, the favorite of my high school classmate bilog (hope he wouldn't kill me for this namedrop) . lebron and his team cleveland were outclassed by stan van gundy's sturdy crew in the eastern conference finals. when i first saw howard during the beijing olympics, i was wondering why he was the starting center rather than chris bosh. i was informed by the brothers, that he's actually a star. so pardon my nba ignorance and the lack of basketball interest in this part of the globe. football has such a grip with this nation and the world that the nba finals are not even in the papers.

basketball is the excuse for most friends and acquaintances indifference to football. "oh, sorry, i'm a basketball fan and i'm not interested in football. " they would mutter. "so did you happen to catch the nets beating the heat at the O2 arena?" i'm met with a blank stare. i'll probably get shot by saying that RP is not even that good in basketball -- china, korea, japan have the height and the might in the region. it's standard cliche that our height is perfect for football. how tall is aaron lennon or kaka? i'm barking at the wrong tree. let's talk about katrina and hayden.

flat line er

when carol hathaway left county and flew to seattle in haste to meet up with prince charming, i thought, that was it, i'm not going to tune in to any more er episodes. but nine years later, despite a drop in the ratings and the advent of other medical dramas such as grey's anatomy, i was still an avid viewer. i might not have caught every episode but was still acutely aware of the story arc of every major character. death was a recurrent theme for some of the leads, dr. green yielded to brain tumor whilst doctors romano, gallant and pratt all passed away in horrible circumstances. some moved to other states to make fresh starts while carter plied his trade in africa and developed amyloidosis leading to end stage failure of his remaining kidney.

there were several romantic hook-ups. some of those i wasn't really keen on from the beginning. abby and carter seemed like a sweet pair but that break-up letter was pretty brutal. the nerve of the guy. however between the two, abby was able to conquer various stumbling blocks to find bliss with a hot croatian while carter returned to county, got a transplant and inaugurated the joshua carter building. his marriage situation however seemed vague. his wife travelled all the way from paris and for her to leave the next night?

but er's strength is not merely dependent on staff triumphs and imbroglios. the medical plots drive the series through a decade and a half. the struggle between life and death, the worst case scenarios, the debate between medics and surgeons, the blood, the amputated limbs, frank and jerry, anspaugh, weaver, romano-- so many names, tons and tons of exigencies that had been etched in the fiber of our viewing habits. it's sad there are no more new episodes. i would love to see a few bits of brenner. but in this age of flux, we all know it's time to let go.

congenial lot

it's a kind of reading matter that befuddles my consciousness. so this is how a posh, educated englishman view a pinoy countryside? published in 1987, Playing with Water by james hamilton-paterson offers a glimpse of the dreariness of the philippine bucolic life. i'm not even halfway through the book, but i could absorb the gist and the theme of the travelogue. i know the philippines is fifty years behind in some aspects but it's not as depressing as it is pictured by some foreign writers. ok, the lack of health and home insurance, the prevalence of feudalism, the dearth of clean water are some dodgy aspects of our heartbreaking poverty driven lives. but i don't sense depression amongst our people. i, for instance is irked with the gossip habit of our neighborhood in our subdivision. but that is what keeps the community going so the majority need not focus on the lowly-paid manual labor that they have to plough through in order to eat the next meal. in the uk, there's a generous welfare state but i could still sense a melancholic ambience amongst the denizens. whereas a communal pinoy noontime habit of eat bulaga or listening to the rhapsodic opinions of the radio announcers on bombohanay bigtime already puts a smile on people's faces. we may be poor but unlike the well-indulged west, our gemutlich society is something to behold.

coaster ride

saw was petrifying and suffice to say it was my first roller coaster ride ever. what was i thinking? i boarded eight hell raising rides when i'm the most squeamish person in the world. i couldn't believe i actually took part in the queue.

i need to talk to ofie.

anyway, happy birthday, babe.