I Remember Tiffany

We had an awesome lightning storm last night (more than 60 strikes per minute), and the rains continued till this morning. The AM stations ran out of news to report, so I switched to my favourite classical station. The crawling morning traffic, the pitter-patter of rain on the car roof and windshield, classical music on the radio; suddenly I'm transported back to Manila. I'm driving along Ayala Avenue. It's the morning rush hour, and traffic is bumper-to-bumper. I'm listening to 98.7 dzFE FM - The Master's Touch, and any moment now, Tiffany will be on with her soothing voice and perfect diction, dispensing nuggets of knowledge and trivia about the pieces she's about to play.

Ah, those were the days. I've since lost touch with the guys at dzFE, and last I heard, they're not doing too well. Since they're a non-profit station, funds are hard to come by and they had to cut down drastically on broadcast hours to reduce operating expenses. Their lease is almost up, so the office and the transmitter atop a building in Makati have to move very soon. I'm not even sure if they're currently in operation or not.

Movie 2007.03.04 - The Stepford Wives

It's a good thing we watched The Stepford Wives during dinner time. To watch the movie on its own would be a total waste of time. The only redeeming feature of the movie is the superb acting from Glenn Close and Nicole Kidman. The plot is interesting, but only for 5 minutes. The whole movie is one long joke. You wait and wait and wait some more for the punchline, and once it's delivered that's it.

The movie imparts some tricky food for thought though. Would you tolerate your bossy over-achieving wife or jump at the chance to get yourself a Stepford Wife? I say if it's Nicole Kidman, she can boss me around all day long.

Mr. Iron Chef Final (1995)

Surprising that a geek who does minimal cooking enjoys watching Iron Chef every Saturday night on SBS. Then again, Iron Chef is not just cooking. The reality-TV ambiance, the over-the-top host, the hilarious commentators - Allez cuisine!

Tonight episode is quite special. It's the 1995 Mr. Iron Chef Final between Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba and Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi. The event is made all the more special because it's Michiba's birthday AND it's the last time he's competing in the Kitchen Stadium. At 65, he reckons it's time to retire. On a side note, Chen Kenichi's also celebrating his 40th birthday a few days later.

For today's battle, Chairman of the Gourmet Academy Takeshi Kaga picked beef to be the secret ingredient. A small smile plays on Michiba's lips as beef is one of his more familiar ingredient. Chen Kenichi would probably prefer pork, but I'm sure he'll manage. Both chefs are gunning for four dishes each. The preparation and cooking are fast and furious. At 15 minutes to go, the end credits started rolling. What's going on?! No explanation, no nothing. Just like that. Hmm, will just have to wait for next week's fix.

Book 2007.03.03 - The Magdalene Cipher

If you've read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code already, you can safely skip The Magdalene Cipher. I can assure you both are so-so. Jim Hougan's novel basically has a timing problem. First half of the book is slow and dragging. Starting from second half is non-stop action and travelling - from Langley to London to Zurich to Channel Islands to Madrid back to London to Paris to Zernez.

What the main protagonists (and antagonists) did during all these stops is not that important. All you need to know is the ending. Basically, Jack Dunphy discovers that the CIA is merely a front to cover the clandestine activities of the Magdalene Society, an ancient order whose purpose is to bring about a unified Europe under the rule of the lone heir to the Merovingian line. While Dunphy searches for the truth, the powers that be is hellbent on stopping him. Dunphy eventually locates the last descendant of Jesus and Magdalene, and helps him escape from his mansion-prison. Without B12 shots for his anemia, the anointed one eventually dies, and with him, the Magdalene Society. The end.

My Kind of Rat, Flushed Away

I have watched quite a number of animated films, and I have to say Aardman's creations are one of the best out there, in terms of plot. Wallace & Grommit, Chicken Run, and now Flushed Away - I love them all.

The movie tells the story of this uptown rat by the name of Roddy (Hugh Jackman) who was flushed down the toilet by no-good sewer rat Sid. In rat town down the sewers, he meets red-head Rita (Kate Winslet) and convinces her to bring him up top to Kensington. For her troubles, he'll give her a real ruby (from his master's jewelry box) to replace the one he broke. While on their way on the Jammy Dodger, they were chased by The Toad's (Ian McKellen) rat henchmen Whitey (Bill Nighy) and Spike (Andy Serkis), assisted by Le Frog (Jean Reno) and his French ninja frogs. Rita and Roddy eventually reaches his Kensington home. As agreed, he gave her a ruby, plus an emerald for a Jammy Dodger II.

Back at the sewer, The Toad and Le Frog finally captures Rita and retrieves the master cable of the floodgate control system, which Rita has been using as her belt. While watching the World Cup finals with Sid (England vs. Germany), Roddy realizes The Toad's diabolical plan - to open the floodgates at half-time when everyone is using the loo and flush away all the rats in the sewers, then repopulate the underground city with his tadpoles he's keeping in the ref.

Naturally, our intrepid and dashing Roddy goes down the toilet again, reunites with Rita, foils The Toad's plan, and saves the day (and the rats). The slugs were so happy they were singing praises. As for Sid, he decides to stay up top permanently. Last scene shows the owners coming back from vacation, and Roddy's owner Tabitha brought along a new pet - a cat.

For some weird reason, I find Rita strangely attractive. (Is it the low-slung jeans?) She has the face of a rat, but what a personality! Decisive, aggressive, sensitive, vulnerable, smart - she's my kind of rat. Ginger in Chicken Run isn't too bad, either.

Not Happy, Swatch!

My Swatch Jelly isn't even a year old, yet it's plastic strap fastener broke already. I've just about had enough of Swatch and its flimsy plastic parts! First Swatch I bought, it had to be returned to the store three times for replacement because the plastic tabs holding the battery case kept breaking off each time. Next Swatch I bought is an Irony, so that is still holding up well. The next Autoquarz Labirinto is fully-encased in plastic, so there's nothing to break. Now, this Jelly is one thick chuck of a watch. Who would've thought that it's the plastic clasp that will give way?!

I hope the local Swatch shop will fix it, or else I'll be forced to fly to the Duty-Free shop in Changi Airport.

Borat in Moonlight Cinema

Had my first taste of Moonlight Cinema, although given a choice, I still would've preferred Movies in the Overflow. For one, the Overflow has bigger space to accommodate more people. It also has less trees obstructing your view. Transport-wise, I would say Olympic Park is still more accessible.

Tonight's film is Borat a.k.a. Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat Sagdiyev, a native of Kazakhstan, who's travelling across USA to document the American way of life. Halfway through the documentary, he discovers Baywatch, and goes off in search of C.J. Abandoned by his producer, he travels alone to California to marry his love, the virgin Pamela Anderson. (Yeah, right.)

The plot is not that important here because the whole anti-Jew movie is just a string of hilarious outrageous skits in the tradition of Jackass. It's like these scriptwriters sat down, contributed one segment each, and another guy strung them all up, and so Borat the movie is born. The skits?

• Borat gets a lesson in American humour a.k.a. How to make "Not!" jokes - Not!
• Borat meets with the feminists a.k.a. Why feminists are always in a foul mood
• Borat learns how to drive a.k.a. Women should be allowed to drive, too
• Borat buys a car from a dealership a.k.a. Gypsy-killing Hummers don't come with pu$$y magnets
• Borat joins a gay pride parade a.k.a. A guy with a rubber fist dildo is most probably a homosexual
• Borat goes on news TV a.k.a. Don't mess with the weatherman
• Borat performs at a rodeo show a.k.a. Kazakhstan is no. 1 exporter of potassium
• Borat mingles with the boyz in da hood a.k.a. What's up wit it, nigg@?
• Borat takes refuge in a Jewish B&B a.k.a. Sleeping with the enemy
• Borat visits a gun store a.k.a. Protection against the J3ws
• Borat gets a lesson in dinner etiquette a.k.a. Don't show family pictures when teenage son is nude
• Borat enjoys Southern dinner a.k.a. How to use the toilet properly
• Borat hires a prostitute a.k.a. Alabamans don't like African-American prostitutes
• Borat goes shopping in antique store a.k.a. Pubic hair is not legal tender in America
• Borat hitches ride with frat boys a.k.a. Tommy Lee was here
• Borat attends a Pentecostal prayer meeting a.k.a. Jesus loves all, amen!
• Borat proposes to Pamela a.k.a. Pamela doesn't like being kept in the dark...in a sack

To its credit though, Borat made me laugh out loud, which you probably couldn't do in a proper cinema. There's way too many funny quotes to list here, and even then I'm not gonna list them as most of them are not appropriate for kids' ears.

Book 2007.02.28 - JPod

Finished JPod today. First time I read a Douglas Copland book is Microserfs. That was when Microsoft was the big thing. I usually finish off a book pretty quickly, but for some reason, I still haven't finished Microserfs. After reading JPod, I now remember why. Douglas Coupland tries too hard to be an uber-cool techno-geek, I'm a bit turned off by his writing style. Sure, he knows his techie stuff and the geek culture, but does he have to flaunt it? My other complaint about JPod is that it is utterly devoid of any plot. You have this bunch of autistic antisocial geeks coding some game for some company, and that's about the main plot. Filling up the rest of the 450 pages are just faithful accounts of what food and beverages they consume, the childish pranks and inane games they play in their cubicles, the mandatory office politics and office romance, etc. To make the book thicker, the thing is peppered with pages of pi to the hundred thousand digits, a list of 58,894 random numbers, letters to Ronald McDonald, a list of 974 three-letter words officially allowed in Scrabble, some pages off an English-Chinese phrasebook, random text in gigantic fonts, etc. I mean, what do I care if the main character's mom has a grow-up in the basement and his Dad is an aspiring extra and a ballroom dancing fanatic on the side? Do I need to know that his boss has a crush on his hottie mom, and was later dispatched to a fake Nike sweatshop in Shanghai by their Chinese gangsta friend? So what if his colleague John Doe's real name is crow (small c) and his dyke mom is called freedom (small f), who tries to seduce the main character's hottie mom, but was later convinced to become a bimbo by the Chinese gangster? If you want to be confused some more, read the book.

Almost Six Months Delayed

My blog, that is. What's the point of keeping a blog if you can't keep it updated? Normal days are ok, but when I come back from an overseas trip, it takes me months before I can put in a week's worth of travel blog entries. It gets worse if I do frequent travelling. I just don't know how the other bloggers do it. They must be employing ghost writers or something. Updating a blog is easy, but making it interesting and relevant and full of nice pictures is not.

Anyway, my second-to-the-last entry is still stuck at my US vacation last September 2006, and since then I've been to Jakarta, read a few books and watched tens of movies. So today, I've decided to start fresh. To h3ll with continuity. It's not like hundreds of people will flame me for the time warp. Heck, not even all my sibling read my blog. I'll just have to work my way backwards until the gap is filled (whenever that might be).