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