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Monday, January 31, 2005 After Abarat Book 2, reading "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. The pages are yellow, brittle, and a bit hesitant to turn. Reading's a crawl, though in a saccharine-good way, like a 100kph cruise out of town.---------- Been listening to Cold Play's "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face" for the nth time. For no reason at all really. Just sounds ... cool, you know, all attitude and all that. Whatever. Ahh... there it goes again. ---------- Just happened on "A Day In The Night Of A Stripper" (seriously), the blog of a teacher by day, a mother of four in the afternoon, and a strip entertainer by night. Her husband is fine by it, though he can't stand the private lap-dancing ministrations. If I were in his shoes, the joint would probably be levelled by now. Err... I'd pick the cash register clean first. ---------- I still think Mazda 3 is the hottest thing around. Err... next to the wife. I really hope she lets me buy a Playstation 2. Strictly for Saturday downtime only. Promise. ---------- The new year's resolution is fast faltering. Drastic measures required. Like lobotomy ... or a surgery of the same sort. ---------- Today's message tone is from the Adam West's Batman. The cliffhanger announer goes "Tune in next time ... same bat time ... same bat channel." I get a kick everytime. And yes, I admit to sending SMS messages to myself when I'm bored. Or when nobody's looking.
posted by Alexis at 9:32 PM I must've made such a frickin' freak show of myself at the corplan, my boss' boss, with thumbs up all the way up to her boss' bosses and their bosses, promised to give me a raise starting this month, instead of August, which is an eternity away. Hmmm... Did I close my eyes singing "Whatever We Imagine"?... ---------- (On a side note, with another bonus being pipelined to our ATM accounts ... err ... as we speak, if I were any more addled, I'd mistake this company as a charitable institution.)
posted by Alexis at 9:01 PM I survived my second company corplan. Set against an inviting backdrop of bayview serenity, we all, well, most of us anyway, made fools of ourselves to last us a lifetime. All the way to the next. Survived, yes, but definitely not unscathed, as far as ego plus scarring plus bruising is concerned. For example, singing James Ingram's "Whatever We Imagine" at the top of our voices, arms linked, swaying to and fro as the musical cheese lolled by (believe me, some fucking dared close their eyes as they sung. Yes, you guessed it, the guys in the accounting department). Yup, whatever Leonine pride I had those two days starved and sulked and pined to brooding dark, nefarious thoughts. Friday night happened. Migraine happened. The six pack pair of San Miguel Light brewskies grew forlorn and desperate as they waited, almost in vain, in suspended animation in cold storage. I unpacked my hammock and hoisted it between two coconut trees, which, next day later, became the buzz among the lame and the outdoor-allergic amongst us. Yeah. Like I give a damn. My roommate proved my salvation, apothecary to the rest of us who cannot take anymore cheese served wholesale. He brought his Playstation 2, the bastard of bastards, the serum to my migraine cum malaise. My feeding mosquito companions buzzed their regret as I traded the hammock for a PS joypad. The beer flowed, the brandy too, Snoop Dogg rapping in a loop. Friday night ended on a Saturday morning, sober, but game over-dazed, the master of ceremonies obliterated by alcohol of varying proofs, escorted the girls, gravity and beer and brandy colliding, back to their rooms, slept soundly, soundly courtesy of a roommate who brought empty beer cans to animation just by snoring. Saturday. Saturday I got home, travel-weary but bulalo-filled and fulfilled, a little past 10. I survived a voluminous serving of cheese only a man can endure.
posted by Alexis at 7:03 PM Sunday, January 30, 2005 Got this from He Who Sings, Neil Gaiman is coming over to the Philippines. This is big. This is major. As in, a blimp, an airstrip, as in Richard Chamberlain admitting he's gay. Yea. That big.
posted by Alexis at 7:04 PM Weather-faded, black straight cut levi's jeans. Navajo boots. White shirt with the dramatis personae of Alex Ross' amped mojo Kingdom Come printed on it. A Greenpeace sack-cloth napsack. Chemical Brothers churning out ye ole big beats into my ears. Zero fad. Damn, I feel good.
posted by Alexis at 6:54 PM Thursday, January 27, 2005 Off to Punta Fuego for a little company powwow. Frankly, I wouldn't really give a damn. But I do. Because I had to drag my butt out of bed all the way to work at five this Friday morning. Then hop on the bus that would take us miles away from civilization, even the nearest trace of it. Then leave tomorrow afternoon. My favorite days, irrevocably denied. This is borderline human rights violation. Someday, I will have my revenge. And, yes, heads will roll. Hmmm... mental note ... Heads ... will ... roll.Ahhh... I feel better already.
posted by Alexis at 1:16 PM Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman. And three third-stringers from Hollywood's third-stringer pool of talents to complete the cast of the upcoming comics-flick Fantastic Four. What gives? The suck-o-meter just went ballistic.Which reminds me, the Kingpin may love all that bling, and black may be in, but black he is not.
posted by Alexis at 6:29 PM Tuesday, January 25, 2005 If you've seen that TV Commercial where the celebrity endorser zealously, yes zealously, mentions the 3-syllabled product name like a vinyl record recently liberated from a nasty pre-pubescent, 8 times FengShui-compliant in a span of 30 seconds, minus the oh-so many times the product label actually appears on screen, then you've just seen a glimpse, 30 seconds of it, into my bleak, hair-raising dark side.Brand name. Brand name. Repeat six more times. Then, some of the really poor souls who can't imagine life outside the newsprint, the 30 second spot on radio and TV, who think an ad award is an achievement over and beyond the pyramids of Cairo, ask me where my creative integrity hid during the conceptual stage when this brand name mantra/monstrosity came into being. Err... What creative integrity? I must've missed that one way back in college. But the mercenary in me flips and does cartwheels to near-vomitting with glee in this particular instance. How so? One Chinese proverb I've seen on a shirt (Ha! The t-shirt can be quite the repository of wisdom), steeped in profundity, comes to mind -- "Double Happiness." The client must be extremely delighted, close to peeing his pajamas, oh ok, make that close to tears, whenever his 30 second cure to brand recall anemia airs everytime on TV. I, on the otherhand, get to frolic and cavort in sheer monetary abundance every 15 days when my ATM account gets replenished yet again. My sign is Leo. And I choose my battles wisely. If it's any consolation, I didn't really buy my dear endorser's polyanna act.
posted by Alexis at 9:56 PM Clive Barker, spookster of the highest order in my book, does Disney. They bought the rights to everything Abarat they could possibly lay their hands on, the movie, theme park, the multimedia rights, the kitchen sink. For $8 million grand. And no Pixar magic in sight. These are strange times. (I wonder how "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" is shaping up in the gloved hands of Mickey Mouse? Screwed. Without doubt.)
posted by Alexis at 8:48 PM Monday, January 24, 2005 Snatched from BBC News online, link courtesy of Warren Ellis' dotcom.Lek looks nervously at the Patong sea shore as he describes the passengers who climbed into his tuk tuk minivan late at night on 6 January. "Go to Kata Beach", the seven foreign tourists told him, after agreeing on a 200 baht fee. He drove a while, but then felt numb all over his body. Looking around he saw the cab was empty. He had had what he thinks was an encounter with the ghosts that many say are haunting the beaches and resorts on Thailand's Andaman coast. And the religious charms he wears around his neck are not helping him overcome his fears. "I can't get over this. I'm going to have to get a new job. I have a daughter to support, but I'm too scared to go out driving at night," he said. Lek's experiences are by no means unique. Other apparitions which have been reported include a foreign woman, whose screams echo through the night from the wreckage of a hotel that was particularly badly hit. A security guard on the site has already left his job because he could not bear it anymore."
posted by Alexis at 6:24 PM Friday, January 21, 2005 A leisurely cruise on two legs along HV dela Costa street. A little way off, a lone cigarette vendor unpacking his carcinogenic wares. His eyes suddenly affixed, in a trance, drawn to the nether-region right between my torso and the groin. Too much lard there. Lactobacilli-Shirota strain and company.That's it. That's it for striped shirts ... horizontally striped shirts. --------- Remote past. Before Athkins Diet became a buzzword among overweight hopefuls. Or the Subway Sandwich guy testimonials. There was tuna. One can a day. In vegetable oil. Nothing but. Nothing else. The smaller the milligram content on the label, the better. And gallons of coffee in between. I lost 20 pounds in a little over a month. Everyone suspected the use of substances that would put me behind bars for good. Wrong. It's just tuna. Yeah. It's pretty hardcore. ---------- Officemate : Whoa. You're getting fat! Alexis : Err... I have a figure to keep. Officemate : And what figure is that, aver? Alexis : Father figure. Officemate walks out. Oh, joy.
posted by Alexis at 7:03 AM Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Franz Kafka:"Happiness consists in having a goal, but not advancing towards it." I concur.
posted by Alexis at 10:32 PM A fanboy's wet dream holy grail DVDlicious uncontrollable saliva dribbling synaptic whoop ass heartache special bladder bursting infanticipation. No. It's a lot better than that. Sin City. Absolutely faithful to the illustrated original. Too faithful. Like the t-shirt print says, "so good, it hurts." Yeah. Or something like that.
posted by Alexis at 9:18 PM Monday, January 17, 2005 Currently listening to Prodigy's latest, which has retained its I.D.-slash-signature as an adrenaline-propelled audal joy ride from first to last track. The very few electronica that has saber-tooth fangs.---------- Currently listening to a sort of best of album of Tori Amos. Piano and a little irreverence never really go out of style. And I still think her music video of "Boys For Pele" is beautiful. And drop the Delirium-of-the-Endless cum goth thing already, please. ---------- Currently listening to Rush Hour, a compendium of street driving music, the CD cover says, but more like, the Queer Eye CD on steroids. To the garbage bin of memory this CD shall go. Not like Gwen Stefani's new album. She may not be as high-flying as Bjork, but the versatility of one song to the next is as varied as the local adobo. To those who have moolah to spare, I recommend it. ---------- Currently reading Abarat Book Two, Days of Magic, Night of War. Half-way finished. The slow pace of reading is deliberate. ---------- Currently following Superman-Batman, comics by Jeph Loeb and Carlos Pacheco. Bear with me. Batman and Superman, due to a major overhaul with the time continuum, the world's finest, as these two are often referred to, rule the planet. Tinkering with the time-space continuum is a tired old idea and becoming pretty lame real fast. But Pacheco's art is still one of the best out there. ---------- Currently trying to understand the concept of Bit Torrent. Question is, where do I begin? ---------- Currently, keeping tabs on the NASA space expedition to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. The Huygens satellite pictures are coming in. And they look a bit like pictures of Mars. Which is, in a way, anti-climatic. ---------- Currently reading Time's People of the Year. And it's not some eminent pulitzer, nobel-prize winning genius. The award goes to ... bloggers. Cheers.
posted by Alexis at 9:26 PM Fresh from the net, late breaking news from the heavily commercialized news center of the world, CNN. The banner headline reads : "U.S. PLANNING POSSIBLE ATTACK ON IRAQ." Er ... What else is new? ---------- News from the hallowed, hushed halls of CIA HQ, the Pentagon. This one's delivered fresh to you by the venerable news agency Reuters. "U.S. Mulled Gay Sex Weapon." is how the headline goes, followed by "The Pentagon proposal called for drug to spur homosexual activity among the enemy." Adding that, "the proposal called for developing chemicals affecting human behavior 'so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely affected.'" Fortunately, or unfortunately, whatever comes first, depends on where you stand actually, gender sensitivity, open mindedness and all that, this sooo American G.I. response to chemical warfare has been rejected. Because this news practically sells itself, we move on to... ---------- Another attempt at non-lethal weapons, US Military-style, one that won't see the light of day, sadly, because ... "it involved creating 'severe and lasting halitosis' to help sniff out fighters trying to blend with civilians." I think CIA lab rats will do well as moonlighting guests in "Who's Line Is It Anyway?"
posted by Alexis at 7:56 PM Thursday, January 13, 2005 There's obsession on one hand, and fetish frickin' weirdness on the other. I don't know where dot-dot-dot-philia falls, or if it belongs in a special category all to its own, but anyway, here's a whatever-the-hell-for list of the more peculiar ones I find rather unusual and generally unhealthy. Err... be warned, though ... watch out for falling debris.---------- acrotomophilia - Love of amputees apotemnophilia - Desire to amputate a healthy limb cacophonophilia - Love of harsh sounds canidaephilia - Sexual attraction/orientation to canines chasmophilia - Love of small places coprophilia - Sexual pleasure from feces ecdysiophilia - Love of watching people strip ergophilia - Love of work gerontophilia - Sexual attraction towards the elderly Hoplophilia - Sexual arousal from firearms and weaponry klismaphilia - Sexual pleasure from enemas lygophilia - Love of darkness Macrophilia - Sexual attraction to Giants or large thing Mysophilia - Love of feces necropedophilia - Love of young dead people Scopophilia - Sexual pleasure from seeing things xyrophilia - Love or attraction to blades and razors zoophilia - Love of non-human animals ---------- Footnote. There is a site out there in the net where macrophiliacs regularly chat, interact and announce garage sales. They exchange bowel-loosening fantasies of fornicating some dinosaur fossil or a museum replica of it. The depths of human sickness can be bottomless.
posted by Alexis at 10:36 PM Of infinity. Of sprawling space. This empty blog space stares back at me, reflecting its bareness, a vertigo not unlike Nietzche's quotable quote about our personal and private abyss. The blankness is utterly mind-wiping. A tide of words keyed-in in frantic haste should diminish this blazing clinical purity. Leukophobic bastard is what I am today. Agoraphobic, too.
posted by Alexis at 6:25 PM Wednesday, January 12, 2005 I have always wondered why it is we of Christian faith, rock solid or otherwise, who are almost always afflicted by bodily trespasses of the supernatural kind. Given today's super evolved media, from cable TV to broadband net telecasts, I have never heard or seen any of our Asian brothers who believe Allah, Krishna or Buddha to be the ultimate good ever hijacked of their mental and physical faculties by rouge paranormal entities of ill-intent. Should I research more on this? Er ... I think not.---------- Malays living on the precarious gap that lie between urban and forest wilderness dread a malevolent being who prey mostly on child-bearing women. They believe this being originates from a stillborn child or women who die while giving birth. After such a death, certain precautions are taken to prevent it's victims from ... rising again. One site recommends the following: Put glass beads in the corpse's mouth so that it can't shriek. Place eggs under the corpse's armpits or pierce the palms with needles so that it can't fly. The cries of a baby is its death-dirge signature. Malays call it the Pontianak. Any relation to Tianak? ---------- Oh, a new job order. Que horor! ---------- Supernatural ... not so super. Xzibit, yes, the rapper dude of MTV Pimp My Ride fame, had this to say about things that go bump in the night ... "Black people don't really see ghosts or aliens. People who see aliens and shit, they never see them in urban settings. Aliens don't fuck with the hood, you never see some brother saying, Oh man, and then there were some lights, and it just came down.' "Niggers don't see aliens, niggers don't never see ghosts, either. Black people are dealing with too much shit. "It's always somebody living in a trailer park with three teeth, a trucker hat, howling, 'We seen the light.' I lived in South Central (Los Angeles) and none of them motherfuckers dare come this way."
posted by Alexis at 5:08 AM "a"
posted by Alexis at 5:05 AM Thursday, January 06, 2005 Palooka-LocoSaw the music video of Fat Boy Slim's The Joker, featuring little feline furball city with its little feline furball denizens. Fresh from divorce, and in spite of it, Norman Cook hasn't lost his off-tangent taste for making great music and their video counterparts. Thank God. ---------- Pro-Pork Pro-Pork advocates defend the much-maligned pig. Versus all the vegans and pesco-vegetarians of the world. Dieticians and nutritionists challenged to come up with prima facie evidence that pork actually causes stroke. After all, has there ever been a pig that died of heart attack? ---------- Tom-Fetish Infanticipation of Spielberg's take on War Of The Worlds. Drooling, involuntary shaking, perspiration and all that. The Jules Verne flick stars one of the two Toms that's becoming staple on Steven Spielberg films, Tom Cruise. The other is not Tom Arnold. ---------- A Giant Returns Hayao Miyazaki returns with Howl's Moving Castle. A runaway young girl in an old woman's body finds refuge in a castle that moves about on insect-like legs powered by a demon. It has must-have all over it. ---------- Comics Come-Back Thanks to the gravitational pull of the uncanny comics scribe el paborito, Warren Ellis, the finest form of literature is back on my menu of cursory monthly purchases. Starting with Iron Man and Quit City. Yup, the comicsphiliac is back in the fold. Oh, goodie.
posted by Alexis at 11:59 PM Wednesday, January 05, 2005 6th of January.Best and worst of 2K4 here and there. 2005. Year of the wooden rooster (will have to do research on that ... and yes, I am hardcore superstitious). The year el nino drops in for an unwanted visit ... again. And its raining pretty hard outside. Strong enough to obscure the Makati skyline in the middle of the day. Strange. What will the weather prophets and doom-mongers say this time.
posted by Alexis at 8:08 PM Yes. The coach threw the towel down the canvass the moment year 2005 became a reality. I am in a current sorry state of nicotine deprivation. But, fortunately, a tag team of fever and a root canal, with the possibility of another, is making the umbilical transition a whole lot easier. Here's one new year's resolution I hope holds up. Beyond 2K5. Fingers and toes crossed.
posted by Alexis at 7:51 PM |
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