Joss Stone is my guilty pleasure. She's soulful, young, beautiful, and talented. There's this one Tuesday night when I was supposed to cook pasta for our monthly departmental lunch meeting at work. I have all ingredients laid on the table and I was vibing for some musical inspiration. Without even thinking, I fetched the TV remote and landed on Princess Diana's birthday celebration as I was channel surfing. After a few others played, the presenter cued in Joss Stone for her rendition of Queen's Under Pressure. It blew me away! I found myself grooving while my eyes are transfixed at the TV screen. I was even waving the chef's knife in my hand like I was one with the crowd in London. She effortlessly breathes emotion in her music while commanding the huge stage with her bare-foot presence like a nymph or a muse straight from Greek mythology. I found the song's intense moments to be the part where she goes "Why can't we give love..." and "just one more chance..." Watch the footage below and you be the judge.
Another thing I find myself doing more and more each passing month is watch Music Station on Animax. Last Friday, they had a beautiful lady named Stephanie as guest. She's pretty. She looks like a ramp or commercial model. No, she looks like someone a country would send to bloody Miss Universe or some other intergalactic beauty contest. And she has a long pair of nicely shaped legs. The hosts boast that she has a very superior vocal range capable of doing 5-octaves worth of melody. Bah, big deal, I said. When she sang, though, she does ridiculously high pitched tunes without even contorting her face to show signs of effort! I mean, WOW, freaky! Again, indulge me by watching the video footage below.
One other thing I still do is watch MTV. Not Mxy. The original MTV. I was chilling last night, waiting for Sandman to come and visit, when they aired this music video of The Editors in their SubTerraNean segment. You know how artsy music videos could be. Been that way since like eternally. Some producers put in a lot of work to come up with a unique concept. This one, entitled "Smokers Outside The Hospital Door," is like a mini-movie. Wait for the moment when the girl gets chased by the coastguard while she's rowing a wooden and see what she'll do. Damn, I've been dreaming of doing that for as long as I can remember!
If you grew up in the eighties, you'd have prefected the craft of drawing their logo onto every flap, inside cover, or armrest of your school folder, notebook, and school chair. You'd have owned or at least drooled over an action figure version of the mighty robots. You would know or have at least heard of the fabled energon cube and how it looked like. In an instant or without even being requested, you could do your rendition of the sound these machines make when they "transform."
The moment I saw the movie trailer from a few months back, I made a resolve to watch the shit out of this movie on its first screen day. Tickets were booked via sureseats and rest was frickken history!
If you notice, there aren't much speaking parts for the robots in the trailers so it left much to be looked forward to on the movie. Would they even talk? You bet! Optimus Prime's voice, which I only much later found out, was done by the same dude behind the animated series, Peter Cullen. Reason enough to leave me feeling very nostalgic.
From the crisp images to the appropriate soundtrack, intricately complex CGI animation, believable action scenes, hot leading lady, plausible plot, and the HUGE final battle scene, this movie assaulted every aspect of my hard-to-please-and-perennially-criticizing inner geek.
On TV, from the footage of the Transformers press conference in South Korea, Michael Bay told that he intended for the film to appeal to the non-fan as well as the fan. When asked if there are plans of any sequels, he said that it all depends on the powers-that-be but he's up to it. Booyah!
I enjoyed the film immensely and I plan to watch it again and again and again.
Oh, and I have posted the following tracks at the man-blog forums about a week ago. Enjoy!
I had this teacher back in high school who was told to be dating a commercial model from the Gard shampoo commercial back in the days. Word had it that model-guy went to her house one night to pick her up for a dinner date. After a short while of having the guy wait, she came down the flight of stairs from her room leading to the living room area. She was dressed splendidly. She was more than pretty. She was beautiful. She has this air of street-smart confidence about her. Model-guy, probably feeling relaxed, had his leg hoisted over the arm rest of the couch, beaming and all smiles, probably more than happy that she gave an effort to look elegant for their date. She, however, was disappointed. She just hates it when people drape their legs over couch arm rests.
I could not anymore recall her name, for the light of me. I could just remember her face. She has the charisma that would never translate to her having something against what most would only consider trivial. She also has the mature woman look that could easily be the subject of more than half of the male population of the entire secondary school's wet dreams, both asleep and awake. There are teachers who effortlessly become the hapless focal point of adolescent urges and this particular teacher's on the top bracket of the list of "Most Eligible and Hottest" secondary school teachers in the region. The list of course never made it public and was even regarded as fictitiously made up by one blogger with supposed "naturally-almond-brown-since-birth-colored eyes." Her beauty is a fact, though.
Going back, it gradually ended that night between the two. She did not get to be with him for long. Word was she did not even go out with him that night.
Pet peeves die hard or, in most instances, they never die at all. Ever.
My pet peeve is when people ungratefully hand me over their jeepney fare that I in turn should pass on to the driver without them saying thank you. I've got nothing against taking people's dirty coins and brushing against their gunky hands. To pass on public transport fare is after all a duty everyone inside the jeepey or FX is bound with. The sacred protocol that those of us who are either too lazy to drive our own cars, too miserly to spend on gas and parking, too passive to learn to drive, or too poor to afford even a bike for transport are constrained to keep to. Saying "bayad," a two-f*cking-syllabled word, is just as long as "thank you," and being grateful is the least you could be among those people who have equally paid for the same right to conveyance. I'd understand if the thankless were in a deluxe section of a jeepney where their fare subsidizes my own. I will even avert eye-contact from them, staring at my feet, as I take pleasure in biding their command. The deed of handing over somebody's fare for them translates to a favor done in their behalf---instead of personally going all the way forward and back a narrow jeepney's low-head-spaced aisle more so for those who sit at the far end of the jeepney. They give an alibi that people who hand over their fare do not even hear the spoken "salamat" anyway so they might as well do away with the bull crap niceness gesture. It was not about people hearing the giver's gratitude that mattered in the first place, rather that the person feels grateful for even the simplest of deeds because that's what separates the refined from them condescendingly pompous smegma-class. That's how low these kinds are from my perspective. Lower than scum-level. Smegma: the dead remnants of life even before they even had the chance at a life.
Expressing gratitude should not be something beyond the capacity of any normal person's proper upbringing which all the more makes it hard for me to rationalize why the societal sub-class of them bitch-assed ingrates still exist. May their traits all die together in mass-genocide with those who unthankfully borrow lighters from total strangers and those who treat restaurant attendants like dispensable slaves.
It was more thrilling to fill in the promo card with the needed 21 stickers than finally getting to ultimately own the planner. The black synthetic leather cover makes it manly but the layout of the inside somewhat veers towards the feminine. The pen is mighty nice, though.
I do not think I will ever use it. I'll save it for my sister who had one in 2005. I think she'll like it more. I'll keep the pen, though.
Often, the prize of something we work hard for do not seem to live up to what we expect of it. Sometimes, it's just so plain in close scrutiny making it seem to be not worth the trouble.
It was once said that finally having the prize may not be as rewarding, even after so much expended effort. It is actually not the prize that you ultimately win from the exercise. It is much simpler than that.
We all have grown accustomed to it. Some on receiving moreso than giving. I know of those breed who just wait and pretend to be kids, ridding themselves of the grown-up's burden to give not even in the spirit of the Christmas Season. Some give because they want to give. Some take this time of year as an opportunity to rid themselves of white elephants, making their homes less cluttered of redundant stuff.
Some part with gifts with a kind of theme in mind. I did so two years ago with officemates. I gave them all toys: girls with small dolls that breathe sweet scents when their cutesy heads are squeezed and boys with Scooby-Doo or Shrek soft toys. Reason being, it might have been long ago when they last opened up a gift and got a toy. I told them I wanted to take them back to the forgotten times when our needs were simple and toys gave us joy. The year before that, I gave dream catchers. I got one for my birthday that year and it has improved my sleeping aetherscape with pleasant and forgettable dreams in place of recurring and irrepressible nightmares. One recipient of the gift, though, hung it by the window of her office to maybe rid her window of bad dreams. Her window! Whatever the reason was, and I pray it is not of lame stupidity or cluelessness, I think I shall never ever know as I have made a resolve to not even care or give a shit.
Some take the giving a notch higher by really thinking about what to give with the particular recipient in mind. It takes more time and effort to consumate. Careful planning and execution is key. Kudos to them who may only give the ladies bracelets but in the process took them hours to look for those kinds that are intricately made and whose likeness are actually wearable.
Good thing I've no nieces nor nephews nor godchildren yet. I had a hard time looking for a gift for a newborn last time. Took a look at toys and ended up bookmarking ones I wanted for myself. I ended up getting her crib stuff that I think are more appropriate. Then there was this good friend's nephew who I remembered would want anything dinosaur-related so I got him a robotic raptor whose bigger version I'd also want for myself.
It's not so much on receiving, for me. Really. Honestly. It's hearing shrieks of delight and seeing a different glow in the eyes of those dear to me that makes me not care so much on the cost of giving. Getting something back, that would only be an unexpected and welcomed bonus. The unconditional friendship and love I get from friends and family would have already lasted me a lifetime anyway. Add to that, the gift of life to continue on experiencing joy, triumph, passion, and success.
On that note, as the season had already passed, I'd like to wish one and all better success with the next and coming years.
Me: Saan banda rito mga dress socks nyo, miss? Lady: (gestures to her ID badge that read: "I'M DEAF")
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Their inventory line consists of various articles, even the likes of popcorn, gummy bears, slippers, hair products, undergarments, and various styles of clothing for almost all occasions. The list goes on. That's Bench. The supplier of all my boxer briefs from time immemorial.
This afternoon, I went inside one of their stores looking for socks. Mine's all soiled and I need fresh ones to last me until Wednesday, the day I get my clothes from the cleaners. I approached one unsuspecting sales person and asked where I could find them. The lady, about 5'2 in height, shoulder-length hair, charming and pretty, clean-looking and pleasant, was everything a helpful sales person ordinarily may look like. She then aimiably pointed at the ID hanging from her neck that read, "I'm Deaf." Without hesitation, I transferred all the articles I'm holding with my right hand to my left and lifted my jeans and pointed at the ankle socks underneath my Chucks. She nodded and guided me through the maze of shelves and racks until we came to the sock-section. I mouthed a heartfelt Thank you to which I got a smile in return before she shuffled her feet to go back to her post.
As I was paying for my purchases, I still can't get over that fact that Bench was considerate enough to have physically challenged people in their payroll. I wish other stores would follow suit. It gives the company character and warrants a whole different level of respect from their customers.
Admiration aside, I bet I can never live without some of Bench's stuff and never had I been inconvenienced in any of their stores. If only they could take out their glaring names from most of their clothes. It's a bit of a turn off sometimes. Quality and design-wise, their products are almost always already above par.
In Christmas, I only get to become Saint Nick. Not that everybody isn't Saint Nick with or without the jiggly red satin wrapped belly, the unruly beard, and the inevitable hoe-hoe-hoe-camel-toe spill. It's a fact: we all get under the hypnotic spiel of the sadly sang carols, the repetitive and characteristically poorly-constructed rhyming lines, the plight of its long-dead characters, of giving unless you want to be left out since it is after all a season of giving and only giving. Not just taking as taking does not count. Giving! So give!
Give for your chakras to pulsate, for your hair to naturally flow, for your scalp to not have dandruff for all eternity, for you to have a great career in front of you despite you screwing up your previous 17, for your babies to grow up within the path of the just, for you to not grow bald at earlier than 60, for you to still get a raging hard-on at 70 by natural means, and for you to sustain it for more than 2 hours if need be.
It's the season for your folly, um, or was it fanny, or did that go like, um, sex... nevermind!
The songs. The carols. They're the real culprit. Their real message reverberate at a low frequency, not noticeable to most human auditory senses, saying buy all the crappy little paper caddies, paper-clip dispensers, coffee mugs, coaster sets, magnets, pens, photo frames, this-book-belongs-to-the-library-of-blank stickers, 3-for-P100 hankies, lighters, note-pads, personal pocket diaries, mouse pads, fancy earrings, yada, yackity-yack, yada. And yes, your peers might not even use them but it IS the season of giving. The carols do not whisper give something meaningful and close to your heart and something which you think they would actually need! No. It merely said give. So give we'll do.
We do it year in and out. In a vicious cycle we can't seem to get our asses off from. We do it because the carols say so! Believe me! The next time you go into a store and start hearing some in-or-outro to a supposed subliminal song, hum a track, say a rock song, or, if you are keen enough, fish out those mp3 player earphones from your pockets and crank up the volume to anything at all! Even those lame emo songs! Anything to keep those waves from planting seeds of purchase-inducing thoughts into your pitiful mind!
Trust me on this. For the love of everything you consider to be true and of pure intentions. Do. Not. Listen. To. The. Carols.
At a considerable distance from the amusement park's paved lot, we could already make out about a dozen or so various trade-name buses neatly tucked in the diagonal parking slots. Did all schools in this part of the country declare today, of all days, an EK Go-Fest?! Come one, come all! Seeing the buses and anticipating a crowded venue was one thing but being with the elementary school kids takes the matter up a whole different level.
One thing is them all going berserk and clumsily running amok.
Then there's the noise that only little kids could make when they all talk simultaneously. It's not so piercingly shrill but, in unison, it could make walls crumble, metals bend, and Gatorade drinks lose all its ions.
Then, there's the smell. That distinct smell only humans in the 6-to-12 age-range are capable of effortlessly emitting. Add all these three observations and you could already imagine how it nauseatingly felt to be surrounded by critters while waiting in line for our turn on the rides.
What the f*ck are we doing in an amusement park on a weekday, anyway?! Taking a leave from all our otherwise grown-up and busy work-lives to be child-like and juvenile and possibly face the fear we wet our pants with when we were younger. It's the children’s Free Country. The Neverland of the masses and the here-third-world born youth of supposedly both the physical and mental aspects (as claimed by the young-at-heart in an effort to devise a work-around to them, or us, rather, aging).
Ok, so it was evil to pass judgement on the critters but years make me forget of the ways of awe and thrill and carefree-ness all bundled up in a beautiful human state of life that's only just beginning to unfold. The nexxus we have all broken free from either by brute force, choice, or natural means.
The realization, though, does not negate the fact that they all stunk like they were sun-baked by the sun-god Ra himself! Falling in line with them was more vertigo inducing than the ride! Hell, more than the Space Shuttle or the Anchors Away rides combined!
People process thoughts at a pace: one after another. They could either be simple or complex, oftentimes formless. Some with hyper metabolic rates have a thought process pace that is faster than others. Crazies have random thoughts that do not go through normal processing and the pace could overlap giving it no sense at all. Pluck a single thought, give it form through words, mesh it with other related thoughts, and you get a blog.
I want to be lots of things, mostly fictional. Sometimes I space out thinking I'm cool and smart and witty, and I think I'm doing a great job having others think that way, too. And I know you think all these are just crap! I'll drink to that! Cheers!
<h2 class="sidebar-title">Top Hits Jukebox</h2>
<p><center><b>click on a track below</center></b></p>
<p><center><embed allowScriptAccess="never"src="http://pre-made-playlists.50webs.com/player.swf" menu="false" quality="high" style="filter:none" bgcolor="EEEEEE" bgcolor="000000" width="260" height="300" name="index" allowScriptAccess="never" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="playList=http://pre-made-playlists.50webs.com/poqbum_playlist10001.xml&ShowPlaylist=1&ShowEQ=1&firstTrack=40&initVol=100" wmode="transparent" /></embed></center></p><p><center><a href="http://www.poqbum.com">Click HERE to get a Music Player</a></center></p>
If you grew up in the eighties, you'd have prefected the craft of drawing their logo onto every flap, inside cover, or armrest of your school folder, notebook, and school chair. You'd have owned or at least drooled over an action figure version of the mighty robots. You would know or have at least heard of the fabled energon cube and how it looked like. In an instant or without even being requested, you could do your rendition of the sound these machines make when they "transform."
My pet peeve is when people ungratefully hand me over their jeepney fare that I in turn should pass on to the driver without them saying thank you. I've got nothing against taking people's dirty coins and brushing against their gunky hands. To pass on public transport fare is after all a duty everyone inside the jeepey or FX is bound with. The sacred protocol that those of us who are either too lazy to drive our own cars, too miserly to spend on gas and parking, too passive to learn to drive, or too poor to afford even a bike for transport are constrained to keep to. Saying "bayad," a two-f*cking-syllabled word, is just as long as "thank you," and being grateful is the least you could be among those people who have equally paid for the same right to conveyance. I'd understand if the thankless were in a deluxe section of a jeepney where their fare subsidizes my own. I will even avert eye-contact from them, staring at my feet, as I take pleasure in biding their command. The deed of handing over somebody's fare for them translates to a favor done in their behalf---instead of personally going all the way forward and back a narrow jeepney's low-head-spaced aisle more so for those who sit at the far end of the jeepney. They give an alibi that people who hand over their fare do not even hear the spoken "salamat" anyway so they might as well do away with the bull crap niceness gesture. It was not about people hearing the giver's gratitude that mattered in the first place, rather that the person feels grateful for even the simplest of deeds because that's what separates the refined from them condescendingly pompous smegma-class. That's how low these kinds are from my perspective. Lower than scum-level. Smegma: the dead remnants of life even before they even had the chance at a life.
It was more thrilling to fill in the promo card with the needed 21 stickers than finally getting to ultimately own the planner. The black synthetic leather cover makes it manly but the layout of the inside somewhat veers towards the feminine. The pen is mighty nice, though.
We all have grown accustomed to it. Some on receiving moreso than giving. I know of those breed who just wait and pretend to be kids, ridding themselves of the grown-up's burden to give not even in the spirit of the Christmas Season. Some give because they want to give. Some take this time of year as an opportunity to rid themselves of white elephants, making their homes less cluttered of redundant stuff.
In Christmas, I only get to become Saint Nick. Not that everybody isn't Saint Nick with or without the jiggly red satin wrapped belly, the unruly beard, and the inevitable hoe-hoe-hoe-camel-toe spill. It's a fact: we all get under the hypnotic spiel of the sadly sang carols, the repetitive and characteristically poorly-constructed rhyming lines, the plight of its long-dead characters, of giving unless you want to be left out since it is after all a season of giving and only giving. Not just taking as taking does not count. Giving! So give!
One thing is them all going berserk and clumsily running amok.
