incessant rambling

i was chatting with a student of mine who happened to be online. i kidded the fellow that they were probably cheering because school got canceled due to the transport strike earlier in the day. that didn't prepare me though for the answer: "there were 44 of us sir..." in a class of 50, it was very interesting that majority of my students made an effort to be in school. i felt what seems like regret when i learned about that, you see, i was in school when i got the notice that classes have been suspended. (click on read.more) if i made the effort to get my lazy ass walk up the stairs i would have met with my students. unofficially of course, but i would have still given a lecture just to account for their desire and effort to be present when they should be heading home. that in itself, is an inspiration to give more when less is expected. i owe them that much.

sumilon deserve another break in this blog. the last write-up sometime march 2007 was more of a travelesque-narrative-thing that require a magnifying glass to appreciate the pictures. this time around, am letting the pictures speak for itself: the docking bay, sumilon island trekking around the island. resting under the shade of a leafless tree. right. really smart. but nice pic huh? (click on read.more to see amazing photos of the island) the sandbar shifts with the season, now you see it, now you don't Sumilon is 180 km South of Cebu and is about 2.5 hours of reckless head-spinning driving. My companion got to enjoy the scenic view of undulating waves that shimmer in a picture perfect bright day - I had to keep my eyes on the road for the silly kids that dart accross the road out of nowhere, or the slow sleepy tricyle drivers that has forgotten the meaning of time. Oh yeah, the occassional chicken or dog makes an interesting obstacle course. Lazing by the Pool on Top of the Hill...

just before the official "start" of the rainy season, we decided to travel to fantastic badian (south of cebu) for an overnight beach trip. we didn't plan much but we ended having a real blast exploring the private beach property owned by the Gica's. i guess you can say it's a bit of an accomplishment to get papa dodong to come along as he's never been on a beach / swimming trip for more than four years (that's what he said...) it's just nice to see mama inday enjoy the swim a.k.a. dyesebel. (click on read.more) it rained a bit during the first day towards the late afternoon, on the other hand i love the feel of raindrops on my skin while floating on calm waters. so this is how a prune feels when it's all crinkly he he he. having cool companions made this trip a lot easier, no frills, no fuss just pure enjoyment! this is a trip worth planning again!

white gold in cebu city is a landmark. known primarily as the premiere chinese restaurant during the 70's and 80's before the old structure got burned down and they moved across the street to their new building. with majestic, ching palace and a number of other chinese restaurants coming up in the late 80's, white gold never recovered that prestigious title as "The Chinese Restaurant". although it has lost it's gastronomic attraction (not the flavor though), the burnt hollow structure of the old white gold is an architectural interest specially with it's curved high walls and windows that frame emptiness - specially nearing dusk or evening. the wide empty space between the walls look like a good location for a fashion editorial project or a good venue for an al-fresco event. old white gold at night (click on read.more for pictures of the old and new white gold) fortunately i got an invite for dinner at the new white gold last week and i decided to take sna...

it has been a while that i get up early in the morning to get ready for "official" work. i guess that's the trade-off when you're teaching. yup, you read that right. i'm teaching - not the usual corporate training that i do for clients but teaching in a school. when you've handled demanding senior management officers of multinationals for corporate training you tend to think that everything else should be cakewalk. when you've done negotiations with corporate clients involving hundreds of thousands and millions for new work contracts you probably think that you're the hotshot. obviously, i have forgotten how it is to be a student. (click on read.more) it was purely an accident that i found myself offered an opportunity to teach in a local university. DON'T even compare my salary as a corporate stiff or a consultant to the salary of a teacher. i haven't even discussed my salary with the group and i've already handled a full week's worth ...

WARNING: this post is totally politically incorrect. if you have issues about body odor then don't proceed to read this item. ok last warning. don't go any further. you're still here? oh well... you see, a friend buzzed me online to complain that someone was emitting serious gaseous energy while she was attending church service today. she first thought that she was having an out of body experience until she figured out that she was just nauseated from an airy terroristic attack . forgot to ask whether the gaseous attack was from the failure of deodorant or a result of methane emission from the nether regions (aka "fart") it is common knowledge that a "fart" has some form of combustible methane. that is why it is a dangerous activity to light a cigarette when you're in the loo. ka-BOOM! a perfect reason to stop smoking in the john. alternately, another form of gaseous attack is a bio-chemical reaction of the germs in the armpits that create the pungen...

Kung Fu Panda - Live Action Clip! darn, i gotta learn that wushu finger hold! and if you have no clue whatsoever as to what i said then it's about time you get off the couch and head off to the nearest cinema to catch Kung Fu Panda! oh by the way, the video posted here shows Master Shifu (hint: watch the movie) as a baby red panda. yep, Shifu is not a raccoon, he is a red panda! watch his great move: HEAD BUTT! PUNCH! POUNCE! (click on read.more) this got me laughing though i totally don't understand any japanese. i want a red panda pet. now. master monkey, master viper, Po, head master shifu, tai lung

If i were to compare the movie The Happening to having sex, i would say that it would be the thespic (aka "theatrical") version of a premature ejaculation . It was all over in the first few minutes. Short and sweet should have been nice, but this one was loooong and painful. Nope, no second wind here. It's just NOT Happening. (click on read.more) The movie. I'm talking about the movie . Focus people. But... I like how you think hmmm? Anyways, it was just not satisfying at all and if i pulled out a cigarette after the movie i'd be more inclined to torch the bed, errr the movie house. I felt like i got duped paying for this one. I can officially claim that M. Night Shyamalan is a fluke. His career spectacularly started and ended with the Sixth Sense. Don't watch this one. pleez.

who need words when you have pictures to tell a story? at least i have one less place on my must-visit list in cebu. Badian is roughly about 110k Southwest of Cebu City and you get there via the Carcar-Barili National Highway. From Barili it's a short drive to Badian. interestingly, Badian is the town right after Moalboal, another famous destination for diving enthusiasts. The drive is an hour and a half but can extend to about three hours if you're with uhm... senior citizens . if you start by 7am you'd be on the beach by 9am max. (click on read.more) i think we beat the governor in doing the mid southwest suroy-suroy (travel tour), we bought Luis' Chicharon from Carcar, Ice Cream from Molave Milk Station in Barili, Inasal Bisaya Manok (Native Roasted Chicken) and Puso (steamed rice wrapped in palm leaf) in Alcantara, Lechon (Roast Crackling Pig) with Kinilaw nga Nangka (shredded young Jackfruit pickled in coconut cream, vinegar made spicy with chili and other spi...

you know that it's not flattery when someone calls you "bird brained". that's considered an insult of the smallest proportion. a recent study reported in USA Today disputes this common belief when researchers in Japan found out that pigeons are smarter than 3-year olds. Want to find out more? Click on read.more for the rest of this beerdy report. The study apparently show that pigeons are better than self-recognition when shown a video of themselves as compared to children of up to 3 years of age. reportedly, they are also able to recognize a Van Gogh versus a Chagall. GREAT! if you're 3 years old, but you don't want any beerdy beating the crap of you in a quiz bee if you're pushing 40. duh, coming up with a research on pigeon-human intelligence is more than bird-brained. it's a no-brainer. on related nonsensical rambling thoughts, a number of obese individuals groan and complain that their blubber store remain stuck to hips, thighs and asses even if...

i had it figured out in my head. 200 furious labor-inducing bike pedaling is equivalent to one dimsum. seventy pedals to a minute, total of forty minutes and that would be 2,800 pedals divided by 200 and i'd have made enough space for 14 dimsum dumplings. blame it on Kung Fu Panda, but today visions of dimsum fueled my craving for lunch. dimsum platter: pork siomai, quail egg, mushroom and shrimp before the Grand Majestic Chinese Buffet, Ding Qua Qua is a favorite joint for my MSG fix. They specialize in dimsum and dumplings but their JY Square place offer buffet lunch (Php 188) with a pretty decent spread. I started off with Fungus Soup (for some reason Athlete's Foot kept popping in my head) that was surprisingly tasty and resembled bird's nest in texture and flavor. I got a portion of stir fried tofu and vegetables, a bit of pata tim, chinese roast pork and beef brisket. The chili sauce perked up an otherwise bland tofu whereas the beef brisket tasted like beef kaldereta...

On Paolo Coelho's* website, he often posts questions from readers and provides an answer. The title of this post is one such question based on his book Eleven Minutes that chronicled the life of a brazilian girl that found herself in Geneva working as a prostitute. (click on read.more) "As a young man I often traveled forty-eight hours with the bus from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires to see my idol Jorge Luis Borges. The person sitting next to me laid down his complete life confession because he knew that we would never see each other again. Such a mechanism exists with priests, psychoanalysts and prostitutes." - Paolo Coelho i have a confession. as a young man in my college days, i accompanied a cousin who just got back from the US to a brothel in Makati with the simplest reason that he was horny and wanted to get laid. it didn't help that our driver / security translated "can we dance?" to "kantot tayo!" - try saying that in Mars circa 1990s an...

hmmm, i have no patience to explain what this video is. just watch it and then READ my comments. - warning: it can cause hyperventilation from filipinos. click on "read.more" if you get the chance to watch this ad from youtube , you'll find a number of indignant reactions from Filipinos who consider this ad to be racist. the biggest irony of it all is that most of their posts are in spanish. i guess you can take a filipino out of his country but you can not take away the indio part. that aside, there are some interesting things to note about the advertisement: we don't wear the "salakot" anymore, nor do we swing from one tree to another. (believe me, a friend taking up her masters in manchester got asked that question). but the harsh reality is that 80% of the philippines is still considered rural, and another half of our population without access to electricity (pero may cellphone) and basic services (schools and hospitals). on the brighter side, the ad sh...

"Shet kaaaaa!" "I haaayyyteeee you!" "Peste ka uy!" - you're a pest! that's just a sample of the less colorful offline messages i got when i logged on to yahoo messenger. apparently, this was caused by a recent post (hint: click to read) on my blog. i mean, why would a post about food pics suddenly cause such response from some of my readers? apparently, for some reason or another, people are stuck at home or at work with tummies rumbling at the sight of food in all it's edible glory. (click on "read more" for uh... you know... more of this post.) it's all said in jest though. if anything, i've accomplished part of my objective to replace Ace Durano as the underrated secretary of tourism. well, make it Cebu in particular. my private impersonal thoughts are apparently fodder for a growing list of people who end up in my site looking for sex, food, beaches, bitches (that's according to the site meter reports that catalog s...

i've done the rounds of buffets in the city: from the international selection of Tides Shangri-la Mactan to Indian or Barbecue Themed Marriott spreads (thanks to Moi!), to the more recent choices from El Viento of Marco Polo or the enormous breakfast spread in Waterfront. The Great Majestic Buffet. Laaaami ah! there's only ONE place i haven't added to my list of buffet must-try: The Grand Majestic . with the exception of Marriott that regularly serve themed buffets, all the other places offer a selection of international dishes. Grand Majestic is anything and everything chinese. click on read more for hunger-inducing pictures! Scallops Dumpling, seasoned perfectly with chili paste, ginger, lemon and soy sauce. Jelly Fish Salad, tossed in vinegar, pimiento strips and garnished with sesame seeds. I love this dish with century eggs! Salted Egg and Tomato Salad - red, firm tomato cubes tossed with pickled salted eggs. Went very well with the steamed lapu-lapu fish fillet. Clas...

every filipino movie require an advanced screening for a perfect opportunity to film screaming fans streaming out of the theater with platitudes of praise for the actors. in the spirit of such inane exercise, i sent maricelian spies to list down some controversial quotable lines from the recent premiere of Caregiver, starring our very own mega star Sharon Cuneta: "Ang galeng ni ate shawie! Esfeyktacular!" "Tagal namin naghintay para sa felikula na toooh!" - sana tumagal pa lalo, like forever? "Ang ganda pala sa London! Bagay si Ate Shawie dun! Naaaay! Taaaay! Nasa TV po ako..." - o hala kung sino man ang ang inutangan ng hinayupak na to, alam nyo na kung nasaan sya: sa TV. "My gosh, I can related to her eksperyens! I'm a caretaker too!" - ah, the cemetery caretaker? "Ang TABA NI ATE SHAAAAAAWIE!" - itigil ang kameraaaaaa! sigaw ni direk. last i heard, the legion of sharonians did a lynching in meygamall just like what happened t...

Peter Defty inspired this series of pictures. At the risk of intellectual plagiarism, I'm calling this the Grass Series. Abstract painting using the camera as a canvass to paint light pictures. Some post processing done using Adobe Photoshop to increase saturation and contrast, the gradation of green hues was created by deliberately moving the camera using a slow shutter speed.

There is a tale of a Welsh man that goes about the coast doing an odd sort of dance with a camera held in one hand. Let's just say that Peter Defty is just an ordinary photographer with an extra ordinary perspective. The results of his work is best described as abstract, he uses the unique characteristics of aperture and shutter speed in photography to paint light pictures. General perception of people about photography is the caught-in-the-headlights look captured in their driver's license, everything in sharp contrast and detail. light painting is all about moving images trailing imprints for as long as the lens is open. I suspect this is how drug induced hallucination must look like, slightly out of focus but certainly a "trip". Cebu city lights flickered past as I rode a bus coming into the city from Moalboal. Inspired by a write up about this abtract artist in Digital Photographer Philippines, I pulled out my camera to try and capture light impressions of common...