Are you really blogging on Christmas Eve?!?

Yeah, why not? One has to kill time before opening the presents. ;)

All done with noche buena which was relleno, shrimps, potato salad, green salad, two kinds of gravy, apples, grapes, bread, three kinds of cheese, pecan pie, apple pie and champagne. i tried everything. so guess who's on heifer mode.

The barrage of SMS xmas greetings have started coming in and I want to share with you guys my favorite one so far, though it seems more like a new year's one than a xmas one:

"Thank you for another fantastic year with you guys. May we all achieve greater heights, find happines in our everyday life, and continue to strive for perfection, joy and peace in Christ. Another outdoor adventure next year! Merry Christmas. "

This one's courtesy of Elmer. Yeah, I know. Did he actually come up with this one himself?!? He he. Jk.

What are Pinoys looking forward to eat this Xmas?

I got this graphic from the Social Weather Stations website. They are results of a survey questioning what Pinoys are most looking forward to eat this Xmas. And the winner is, surprise surprise, ham! Taken as a whole, it's ham that we pinoys want to eat. Taken separately, Visayans #1 food anticipation is desserts. But Ham is a close 2nd among Visayans. Dessert foodie concentration just might be quite high in Cebu. People in Mindanao don't seem to care much for Ham. They want Lechon Baboy

Ham is the #1 food anticipation across all classes, except class E. They're mostly anticipating "Other Chicken Dishes".

Funnily enough, the rating of ham's traditional accompaniment, keso de bola is quite low.

week reversals

the christmas season has turned my gimmick habits on its head. i spent Friday night to Sunday afternoon veging at home, and since then i've been heading off to all sorts of weekday night social activities. the pain of weekenders doing their xmas shopping is enough to turn me off from any travel. today should be hellish, since it is the last working day before xmas. those banks should be packed.

finally was able to meet up with Premila last night. spent much time looking through her 700 picture collection of Nepali/Tibetan men working in and around Camden. Prem's got this funny all male barkada in London as her network. I couldn't keep track anymore of who was from what tribe or what, or who was part Belgian or part whatever. Jason was a welcome addition later on, and we played a little classic MSK* while finishing up our cans of beer. (Apparently, I'm the beer light-weight)

tonight is the final stretch. most of the gifts have been bought. there's just a xmas concert to attend to, two dinners, a wild party (?), before the calm of the 24th and hieing off to Ilocos

we can help out

there's been a lot of rain down south in Oriental Mindoro, Palawan. so we're talking of floods and displaced people here. xmas is around the corner. let's help make people greet the 25th with more ease and less worry.

got this text tonight:

Ateneo Task Force Noah: Calling on volunteers for Mindoro Floods Relief Operations. Star at 5 pm dec 20 tuesday at the Eliazo Hall Basement. Contact Bobby Guevara / Michelle Juan at 09209225674 for more info. Thank you.

Compilation Lists

A lot of people can be quite anal about organizing their record collection -- ordering it by genre, chronologically in terms of date of purchase, alphabetically by artist, or whatever Rob Gordon style obssession they feel like for the time being.

We have an interesting way of organizing CDs here at home. We have CDs that are removed from their cases and scattered in the various glove compartments of our three cars. There are special CDs that we've placed nicely in synthetic Case Logic containers. And there are CDs that are hopelessly gathering dust in one of those ugly metal towers that seemed like excellent birthday gifts not too long ago. If you ask any of us where a CD is any given time, we probably won't be able to tell you with any surety, which is why come Christmas time we are hard pressed to gather all the right discs at one place. We end up grasping for whatever crumby Xmas CDs happen to be in the vicinity -- this means Alvin and the Chipmunks and Perry Como. Ugh.

To remedy this situation (!), I'm starting to create a master CD or mp3 playlist, if you will, of the holiday tunes I plan to cycle (subject to) my family during upcoming long road trips / living room lounging / crammed bits of wrapping presents. They're not all strictly Xmas songs

So far I've got:

Winter Wonderland - Diana Krall
Grown-up Christmas List - Michael Buble
Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby ( I wanted something that would be the classic core)
I've Got Love to Keep me Warm - Dean Martin
Winter Wonderland (again!) - Ray Charles

You can sneer if you like. He he. Your constructive suggestions though would be more helpful.

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Just finished rereading the Nick Hornby's book of many music sneers and humor, High Fidelity. I first read this just two or three years ago, when I was fresh out of college. I still don't get most of the musical references (though I DO know now who the lead singer of the Wailers is!). What I find most amusing is how his observations about his relationships are things that I can now identify with. Been there, been that in pinoyspeak. I used to find Laura such an ass. . .

When one is a little younger, one can't understand why older people can be so retarded with their romantic relationships. At a later age, one figures that one really is just a little crazy, like everyone else?

Jack Black and Catherie Zeta are perfectly cast as Barry and Charlie, but John Cusack is a bit too handsome, as has been observed, to really be a "loser" like Rob.

technology enabling information gluttony

I discovered from bloglines.com that there are two individuals who subscribe to my blog's RSS feed. well one of those individuals is me. who could the other one be? wow. i have a fan.

actually i haven't figured out all the ins and outs of bloglines.com but it's a great way to keep track of blogs and when they're updated. i used to have firefox launch ten tabs of blogs that i wanted to read. now i just look at my bloglines feed list, where i now keep track of 45 blogs more or less. could you otherwise imagine opening 45 tabs?? he he. technology enabling information gluttony.

* * *

I thought I was gonna end up with a loser night last night but that changed quickly. Kel and I had to share a car so the plan was for him to drive to Ortigas Center (where he had a meeting and two gigs) and for me to take a cab to Makati Sports Club for swimming training. BIG MISTAKE. Seems like everyone is doing their Xmas shopping now. Pucha. I ended up in the dumbest taxi queue on the planet: Basic Taxi in Shangrila Mall. Was able to practice matrona-style evilness and ring their main number. Hello. Where's the fucking dispatcher?

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The night was saved coz I trooped over to catch the Dicta License gig at 12 in El Pueblo. Recently saw Dicta during their album launch of Paghilom and they were pretty good again this time around. I'm tired though of hearing Ang Ating Araw (over played for me), and enjoying Daloy ng Kamalayan and Enemy more in their set. They played four songs, w/c is about the right number considering my limited rock stamina for a band.

Also heard Itchy Worms (galing ng Hanggang dito na lang ang masa lyric song, whats it called); Mojofly (so-so), and Sponge Cola. Sponge is one of those bands whose name I've heard for a while but I can't associate a melody or song to. I wonder why I've heard a negative comment about them in the recent past. They were good. Their drummer (Charlie? edit: Chris pala) he bangs dem drums hataw. Overall sound dynamic balance ok naman. Vocalist ok na ok rin. And guitars too. Bassist? Hmm. I don't know how to evaluate them really. It was a fan girl night. Screechers and bobbers, esp. for Dicta and Sponge.

Butch and Patching came over and brightened my night. So I didn't get to swim; heard some good music. Loser night transformed.

Maximo Foucault

after planning to watch from Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, I finally got to watch it in Gateway with Tina. I thought I was doomed to have to catch it via pirated DVD, but I was pleased that Teens came through the last minute with a YM message earlier this morning.

Everyone has made comments about how technically it was limited, and how the story was good. I won't go into that anymore. What I'm going to say though was that I found it pretty obvious that Maxie is played by a straight boy. He wasn't gay enough.

I'll give the film credit in that it didn't overplay the gayness of Maxie (part of the reason that they picked a straight boy to portray the character), but Maxie was still missing a certain playful defiance and self consciousness that characterizes young gay boys. It's pretty essential that the Maxie character will make you relate to his coming-of-age pains. We all have yearned for that someone we couldn't have once upon a time. I wasn't brought into that portal; didn't work for me. It didn't seem real I guess. You know who had the gay sparks? The moreno kid friends of Maxie. Check out the scene: Representing Thailand(seems gay), Venezuela(seems gay), Philippines(seems like a straight boy playing a gay guy)!

Not being gripy here. It's just an honest observation on my reaction. No regrets watching this movie.

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Other pursuits. Started reading first chapter of Foucault's The history of sexuality. Finally, echoes of what Maita and to a certain extent Bobby have been talking about. Photo taken from amazon.com