incessant rambling

many many saturdays back i got invited by le ann to go up to sirao with friends who flew in from manila. there's really no cause for celebration except for friends wanting to get together and escape manila for a weekend. sirao is this place up in the highlands and le ann has a property that overlooks cebu city and the bay. very cool weather. as usual, it was a literal food trip with the unfortunate lechon de cebu as the gastronomic star for the day. good for them, bad for me. i've been trying to avoid having pork for the past few weeks and it's not helping my resolve to have that lechon screaming "eat me! eaaaat me!" i kind of feel guilty every time i get an invite as le ann would refuse any offer for me to bring anything. then again, i provided the entertainment (song, dance and stand up comic all-in-one) so i guess that serves as my contribution to the get together ha ha ha. it was a surprise to see manang busily cooking a feast in the kitchen when we got to sir...

most people look forward to going home. i wasn't. getting to bacolod was easy, having lunch with inday, lito and ron made me smile. but deep inside i dreaded getting on that bus heading to kabankalan. you see, this is the first time papang specifically asked for me to come home. the last time i came home he was in the hospital and i knew that it has something to do with cancer. he had prostate cancer around fourteen years ago and it was successfully removed. but as cancer goes, it's a very treacherous ailment. after fourteen years it has come back to finish the job. this time around, it has gone through full skeletal metastasis and the reality is that there is no turning back time. obviously my siblings had other ulterior motives why they want me to come home, it could rival a telenovela with all the plots and sub plots involved. i simply am not interested as long as no one is placed in a bad position. my dad looked fine, outside. inside, i don't know what he's going th...

January 22, 1936 November 1, 2936 July 22, 2006 February 22, 2006 December 30, 1968 April 30, 1972 Ancestries, death, births, unions, successes, love, heart break. Connections and landmarks marked in time. These are my special dates, ones that may simply be another day to you but means exact moments in time when significant events happened in my life.

three strangers helped me out to get my car running tonight. and they say you shouldn't talk to strangers. my car batteries went kaput when i arrived in cebu a bit earlier this evening. first sign was that the key lock doesn't seem to work. i just changed my batteries with a set i placed in storage for almost a year. apparently, you need to "warm up" to get them running. in any case, three fellows helped. the security guard who went around looking for wires, the starex driver who eased his van towards my car so he can tap his batteries, and another fellow who got singed a bit as he held the wires. all angels. all unnamed strangers. and to think they didn't want to receive any of the money i was forcing in their hand. they didn't have to help, but they did. in that moment, i am so happy and proud for the filipino trait of being matulungin. i hope i can repay that kindness in some other way.

one of the most popular post in this blog is cebuanas.com . for some reason, when someone does a search on the web for "cebuanas.com scam" they end up in my website. i guess my write up about their special romance package caused such a ruckus that they took it out of their website. i felt like doing a sherlock holmes and decided to visit the site to pose as a customer. here's a snapshot of my interesting, grammatically challenged conversation with kai: that's not all, in the course of my "investigation" i stumbled across some literary gems of advice for the foreigner interested in looking for a wife: WHY FILIPINA SEEK A FOREIGN HUSBAND? Filipinas seek a foreign husband because… Filipinas seek foreign husband not just for MONEY, GREEN CARD or a citizenship. It is because they feel that foreigners can make a good husband and a partner. - but the MONEY, GREEN CARD and citizenship must be there as well. they feel that too. They want to marry a foreigner becaus...

surprise when you least expect one is a treat. in this case, a gastronomic treat. i dropped by KFC to get some tummy fillers and was thinking of the oily, greasy but utterly delicious fried chicken but my eye got caught by the flashy display bannering the newest menu entry: Supreme Bowl that comes in two flavors, italian and imperial chinese. i've tried both but i highly recommend the chinese imperial. spicy, sweet and extra garlicky sauce topped a slice of crunchy chicken fillet and rice. the kicker? they added three slices of fried eggplant seasoned just right to compliment the crunchy bite of the chicken fillet. i ordered a regular portion of the new flavor shots in sweet chili or barbecue sauce. a perfect accompaniment to my supreme bowl order if you want more meaty goodness. as the tag line goes, finger licking good!

my colleagues and i had a hilarious discussion of how we use certain adjectives that are appropriate depending on your soshyal class. it started with food and the apparent discrimination when we refer to tanigue ala pobre as poor man's fish when there's nothing cheap about spanish mackerel. spanish what? tonto! that's the english name for tanigue. this apparent discrimination extends to how we refer to rich matrons like elenita binay as voluptuous and the middle class manang "taba", if hapon "tabakiko", in chinese "tabachingching" and in the slums plain "baboy" and adding more insult, "tababoy". sige na lang, sa sobrang voluptuous po nila eh talo pa ang makating higad sa dami ng bewang. if you're rich and anorexic they call you thin, in another language "patay gutom" ka, o di kaya smack the earth. "hampas lupa" po yan. you can replace hampas with "kutong", "amoy", "lamang...

here's the stash i looted from fully booked the other day. saw the trailer of percy jackson the lightning thief and got to do some searching in the web for the series. it's technically under the young adult section. i'm young. i'm an adult. i guess i'm still in that category. synopsis: horny greek gods cavorting with humans and when gods meddle with human affairs someone gets pregnant. err, a lot of bad things happen. i'm currently reading page 299. almost done with the first book. by the way, there are five books. why do i have only four here? well, the fifth one is still hardbound and costs Php 2,200. each of the copy i got costs only Php 289. I'm sure that before i get to finish my stash the last installment should be available. ps September 4, 2009 - i'm done with the whole set. finished. darn. and i still don't have book five. still have to look for a cheap paperback version. September 5, 2009 - i passed by fully booked and bought the fifth inst...