incessant rambling

today i met two super villains. REPULSE and DEATH MACHINE. One had the ability to cast an invisible forcefield that had a perimeter of 6 feet around him, no one can stand close enough and last longer than a few seconds before they are engulfed in a hallucinogenic effect that mimicked a spaced-out drugged feeling. the other left a deadly trail of destruction, every thing he touched was stained by his mark that infects your clothes, your hair, your skin. ever stayed in a club for two minutes and have your clothes smell like smoke? i swear, my clothes still had traces of his bio stench despite the one liter can of lysol i used. at floral scented pa ang lysol. di pa rin kaya. i had to rub, and rub, scrub and drown myself in hot water to get the scent off me. nag perla na ko pero pumuti na lang ako andun pa din ang smell. now imagine REPULSE and DEATHMACHINE combining powers. atomic bomb effect. i have never seen so many people run off and clear a path every time the evil duo approa...

the devil has white hair and wears adidas i was on my second lap around the ayala complex and lolo passed me three times already. i swear i heard him scoff at me. and i swear i heard him mutter... "sissy". and i swear i can hear his evil-max-alvarado laughter long after he's disappeared from view. pak you lolo! paaaak youuuuuu! that of course happened only in my head, except for the part where lolo passed me three times on the road. i really didn't feel like getting up from bed at four so i can keep my promise to jackie that we'd go running together. not when i spent the better part of my night vegetating in front of the TV watching movies. by the time i parked my car behind immaculada, i was awake - blame it on a bottle of Lipovitan XL, i definitely needed the extra caffeine boost to get me warmed up. mami: anak, gusto mo taho? anak: mami tama na taho, tumataba ka eh. mami: anak, kabag lang to. ayala is unfamiliar territory. most of my runs were do...

Mango-Graham Crackers-Almonds combo, Yogu i've been eating so much frozen yoghurt that i probably don't need botox injections - my face is frozen. with that said, what is common among yummy yo, red mango, white hat, fruit farm, yogo boy, creamee d'lite and yogu? froyo places that sprouted across the metro in a frenzy fad to cater to the demand for a "healthier" option to ice cream. except that it is really not THAT healthy. but who cares? it's the illusion of eating healthy that has hundreds of people flocking to these places for their sugar fix. yes, froyo is saturated with sugar and the only difference between softserved ice cream and froyo is that it comes with agents that break down the lactose and gives it that "sour" taste. heck, with one serving i can actually pick up a six-pack of chamyto or yakult and have the equivalent of the entire human population in one sitting. yes, all seven billion of live bacteria shirota strain that helps ...

have you ever been that close to dancers that you can feel the whip of wind from flowing dresses? Entwined, so near yet so far Dreaming i paid two hundred pesos to get a photographers' pass that allowed me to sit in a cramped corner right beside the dancefloor as i observed the competitors of the 2010 IDSF World Dancesport sashay across the floor. Face Choreographed Disorder it was exhilarating to feel the energy from the competitors as they moved through a number of dances in as many categories. it was interesting to note that they have juvenile, adults and a special category called teacher and student category. Happy Feet except that it was pretty obvious that the "teacher and student" category is reserved for elderly matrons with their favorite dance instructors as partners. pretty tactful, you wouldn't want to call that category as "expired" or "aging". Love is Bloody Red Pretty In Pink seriously? they shoul...

i have a friend who hates to be alone. not me. there are days when i just want to wander alone in the mall, visit my favorite coffee shop, grab a cup and read a book. today was different though. wished i had someone with me when i watched "red". that way i could have chuckled, laughed and chortled with someone else. laughing "alone" is a bit looney, even for me. eat love and pray was overrated. perhaps i expected too much from the movie, and yes it fell short of certain "expectations" although i did say i liked the general message. it was a very cerebral piece that probably didn't translate well into a movie. a writer with thoughts running through her head would have a book better express the nuances of the story. "eat love and pray" can't possibly translate all these via images. so why the digression? because RED is nothing cerebral. it was imagery at its best and it loves to make fun of itself. who would have thought that peop...

i thought that spanish "tapas" meant an array of small bite sized appetizers that one consumes when drinking an alcoholic drink. very much the definition of "pulutan". my other thought is that "tapas" would be similar to chinese coldcuts, or starters. in the most technical of definition, my understanding is partially correct. "tapas" really is anything as long as it is small and served with your drink. interestingly, it doesn't even have to be spanish. more interesting is that our notion of "tapas" as main course is not entirely correct, the spanish refer to that as "tabla". eating "tapas" has a certain tradition attached to it, contrary to the thought that it is a starter or an appetizer, when one consumes "tapas" you continue until you are full. a night in town in spain "to go for tapas" mean going from one bar to another, order your drinks and eat "tapas" on the side. trad...

unfortunately, this is not an article regarding ricky martin. nor is it an attempt to revive his dead career. i'm talking about the new KFC shaker shots. it's actually just chicken popcorn that's placed in this nifty new container where a handprint is marked on the side. you grip it and give it a few shake then you have your flavored chicken popcorn. it comes in three flavors, barbecue, cheese and garlic parmesan. my fave? i'd say the barbecue flavor. now, if they come up with a gimik and have the restaurant staff do a jig when they shake the pops that would be an interesting sight. then again, haters would be quick to label it as sexist and demeaning, just like what happened to cebu pacific. then again, it's still a nice idea.

i've never seen so many men wear pink. then again men would do anything for breasts, more like run for it. and that's exactly what men, women and children of all age and shape did - unite for a cause, the october pink fun run for breast cancer awareness. it was hard waking up at four am when i got to sleep at around 11pm the previous night. more so with the thought that i was going to hit the road for a fun run. sure, i've done longer runs but that's usually done around 7pm when it is generally cooler - never mind the smoke, cebu is still tolerable even late in the day. in fairness, the run is probably one of the "safest" i've attended - with a couple hundred doctors running as part of the event, they can collectively accomplish short of nothing but a miracle if something did happen. good thing nothing bad happened. just a lot of happy runners. though i have to say it was probably the longest 3 kilometers run that i did. all 38 minutes of it. i jog...

if it ain't broke, don't fix it. then again, when people challenge commonly thought notions you have out of the box thinkers, people that pave the way for newer things to happen. admittedly, some end up as a horrible disaster but there is that one chance that something may just turn out right. ask anyone and the standard "tinolang manok" recipe would be a hearty soup of green papaya and malunggay mixed with chicken pieces and flavored with garlic, patis, salt, and pepper. A generous portion of ginger is used to infuse the clear broth with an aromatic fragrance. variations will use sayote, otherwise known as chayote squash instead of the green papaya and malunggay is replaced with chili leaves. to give the broth more of a lemon twist, people use tanglad (lemon grass) together with the ginger. apparently, kuls is taking the common chicken tinola to the next gustatory level by using kangkong instead of manlunggay. surprisingly, i found chunks of red bell pepper ...

i have this sneaking suspicion that the Philippines consume more kilos of pork per person compared to the rest of the world. our love affair with "baboy" is best described by our obsession with lechon. we crowed with delight when anthony bourdain tagged our lechon as the best roasted pig in the world. if you don't know anthony bourdain, well, let's just say that he is a famous geriatric gourmand that shouldn't be eating pork in the first place. what makes lechon, or more precisely, cebu lechon, different from other regional versions is the fact that the meat is well seasoned and flavored through and through that you rarely need any additional condiment or sauce. but this post is not really about lechon. it's about roasted liempo. liempo, otherwise known as pork belly is a common staple in most roadside rotisseries that also serve roasted chicken. seasoning the liempo is straightforward with a basic soy based marinade before it is skewered and roaste...

apparently, the foot IN mouth disease is not relegated to the trio-tagapagpayo a.k.a. press liaison officers of PNoy who has done a number of announcements that were later recanted or contradicted by PNoy himself or the other members of the circus band. but when senior members of the church fall in the same category of categorically denying previous pronouncements, they fall dangerously close to crossing the boundaries of show business. we have thinly held tolerance for church meddling in politics but priests as showbiz chismis personalities? we can only tolerate that much. CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar is proving to be adept at doing a showbiz denial tactic when he refuted his earlier announcement that the church can possibly excommunicate PNoy for supporting the RH Bill. despite the fact that a transcription of his previous interview clearly said that it is a remote possibility for the excommunication to happen. if that's not enough, church officials are "urgin...

"noli me tangere" as written by the Philippine's national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, has been translated in many languages of which "An Eagle Flight" or "Social Cancer" has been used as titles for this novel. A quick web check show that the original latin title literally translated to "don't touch me" or "touch me not". more interestingly, a definition from wordnetweb defined the phrase as "a cancerous ulcer of soft tissue and bone". surprisingly, the definition embodied the novel's premise of a church as the source of the social cancer with it's double-faced presentation as dispenser of faith hiding its hypocritical nature. damaso, as one of the main antagonist in the novel is a respected priest albeit a cruel one. his authority over the people is absolute as he uses the church as his weapon and despite appearances as the shepherd of the "native" flock, he has a terrible disdain over the indios. th...