Me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me


I am so bummed Melinda didn't make it to the American Idol finale. (Insert "but she was the obvious favorite from the onset" and "this is still a singing competition... right?" cliches here) I guess the shock value of Jordin's being 17 (really? she's 17? ahhh shut up, they've been emphasizing that ad nauseam) and the "oh, he's so original" beatboxing antics of Blake outweighed actual gritty talent. Both finalists are good (even great), but I just find not having Melinda there utterly idiotic.

Oh well... I find comfort in the Chris Daughtrys (ies?), Jennifer Hudsons and Clay Gaykens of the "I sold more albums than my winning counterpart" club. I wonder if Melinda's Death Cheater shirt was a message of some sort.




Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma

That new Maroon 5 song they performed on tonight's elimination has been on my MP3 player for over a month now. And I've gone gaga over its fabulous and ultra-chic video... They should build a shrine for Adam Levine's eyebrows... and have to admit I'm a developing a thing for the substitute drummer... Matt Flynn...


I have a thing for drummers in general... they just have a certain je ne sais quois whenever they strike them tomtoms and cymbals. (Actual drummer Ryan Desick is recovering from some shoulder problems)




I am listening to the music like crazy cause when it gets as big as Maroon 5's other singles and everyone starts singing it in public, it becomes lame.

"I still don't have the reason... and you don't have the time..." (yeah baby)




Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi

First of all, I TOO wanted to be like Grace Kelly. I've always believed I was some obscure monarch from Monaco. I just had to get that off my chest.

I love Mika.


He has such a great voice reminiscent of Freddie Mercury and he is the ultimate falsettist, he can make Prince and that Robin Thicke newcomer ponder going all Farinelli Il Castrato just to contend with Mika. His musical style is very much like Beck... eclectic, idiosynchratic, experimental. Most of his songs are sarcastically perky (even campy) and very fitting to his debut album Life in Cartoon Motion... these include his first single Grace Kelly which basically delves into the notion of changing oneself to fit the mold of the popular idea of popular.


With lyrics like "I tried to be like Grace Kelly, but all her looks were too sad. So I tried a little Freddie, I've gone identity mad". This single is pretty much what triggered his international career and widespread rumors about his sexuality. My gaydar does go crazy when I see him, but he refuses to confirm or deny the rumors (ala Clay Gayken), which I respect, everyone entitled to hisher privacy. It is suicide to do so early in his career. The animated/ shake-your-groove-thing side of his music is also evident in other tracks like Lollipop, Love Today, Billy Brown (which sounds like an 80's sitcom jingle) and Big Girl (You are Beautiful) - a personal fave. He is equally great in his other tracks which are more mellow... I could describe it as music DeVotchka might have done in collaboration with Queen... but that would only be partially accurate.




Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo

This is an Italian manufacturer of steering wheels. I have as much knowledge about car parts as I do the mating habits of european tree frogs... I just saw such a steering wheel in a friend's car.




Mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-muu-muu

Remember that episode when Homer decidedly gained weight in order to qualify for disability and in so doing be able to work at home?


I am so feeling like Homer like now. Burn-out! I wonder if there are any muumuu franchises in the country...




(I have to admit that the mo- and mu- parts are lame... I just felt the compulsion to complete the M+vowel list)







.

Labels: blah (3x), i-rate, music

What's the second most depressing day (after Christmas) humanity has ever concocted? Your next twenty faux birthday (add decades as necessary) Mine is still months away... but the idea of adding another candle on the cake just makes me wanna spontaneously combust.
I love Valentine's (That just sounds awfully redundant) Sure, there's the obvious cheesiness, the influx of cookie-cutter red hearts and cupids on every possible vertical surface, the unabashed juvenile expressions of unfounded eternal love and the hard-to-escape, sickening scent of phoniness in the air... BUT what other holiday (or semblance of a holiday) lets you overindulge in the greatest, most important and revolutionary human invention of all time? sweet, sweet chocolate. You gotta love the Mayans and Aztecs for cultivating it... I am willing to overlook the fear inducing notion of Apocalypto and the human sacrifices.

It's gonna go straight to my thighs.


Let's pretend I'm Hiro Nakamura (Heroes, NBC... Yey! I've finally caught up with the TV watching audience of the west) I have the uncanny ability of moving through space and time:

(Insert sound of thunder to convey the actual moment of teleportation)




13 Cardio Songs



Tuesday, February 13, 2007

My phoniness/ BS meter will be ringing like crazy tomorrow. I've seen a couple of teens holding long stemmed roses this morning and it seems an outbreak of heart-shaped red cartolinas has hit the metro... Valentine's is upon us. I'm afraid to tune in to the radio for fear I'll hear some cheesy Barry Manilowish song... It took me 6 electro-shock therapy sessions to get these types of songs out of my brain.

The second thirteen of the year... I almost wasn't able to make this post. (I've been so friggin busy!!! It's not even funny any more)



13 Songs With Heart in the Title that I Heart... (aka... If I put "Achy Breaky Heart on this list, I'll pull the trigger myself")

1. Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana, In Utero (1993)
"Throw down your umbilical noose, so I can climb back"
Kurt Cobain is a genius. He wrote Heart Shaped Box in five minutes... inside a closet. The song is said to be about female genitalia (see: Sexual Personae, Paglia), but like all great songs, it speaks on many other levels. Courtney Love (Hole), his wife, courted Cobain with a heart-shaped box. The same heart shaped box is now in Love's possession holding Cobain's suicide letter and a lock of his hair.

2. Piece of my Heart - Janis Joplin, Cheap Thrills (1968)
"Break another little bit of my heart now, darling"
Originally done by Erma Franklin, Aretha's younger sister, it was covered by Big Brother & the Holding Company... one of Janis Joplin's early bands. Joplin sang this song at Woodstuck in 1969. Like many great artists, she died at a young age, 27, OD-ing on heroin.

3. Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler, Faster than the Speed of Night (1983)
"I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark, We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks"
I know this ranks high on the cheesiness level. But I love it. Tyler's surgery induced raspy voice, the Bohemian Rhapsodyish feel of the song, the "turn around bright eyes" back-up vocals... This was tailor made for drunken karaoke. The song was supposedly inspired by Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Max Weinberg of Late Night with Conan O' Brien played drums on this track.

4. Heart of Glass - Blondie, Parallel Lines (1978)
"Once I had a love and it was divine, Soon found out I was losing my mind"
All hail Debbie Harry, the badass blonde chick that defined new wave chic. This song sounds a little different from the normal punk rock Blondie songs like "Call Me" or "One Way or Another", they infused elements of disco, the polar opposite of new wave during that time, to create a fusion that infuriated many of their fans. They call it "the disco song". I love all songs with synthesizers written before 1986.

5. Listen to your Heart - Roxette, Look Sharp! (1988)
"I know there's something in the wake of your smile. I get a notion when I look in your eyes"
Gotta love this Swedish duo especially the androgynous Marie Fredriksson. This ranks as one of my fave break-up (or anti-break-up) songs. I wonder if stethoscope med reps ever thought of using this as a campaign jingle... it's perfect, no?

6. Kickin my Heart Around - The Black Crowes, By Your Side (1999)
"Just come out and say it, spit the words out of your mouth. It needs no explaining, cuz we both felt it go south"
One of my fave American bands of all time mostly because of Chris Robinson's awesome voice. For younger readers who haven't heard of him, he is Kate Hudson's ex-husband and... Gavin deGraw sounds a lot like him. They have a soul-y bluesy sound that just makes you wanna sing along to their music (to the best of your ability) Listen to "Remedy" and "She Talks to Angels". This particular track "Kickin..." has some funky "hu, hu, hu, hu" back-up vocals in the bridge reminiscent of Tina Turner's cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Proud Mary". I can't wait for the release of their supposed 2007 album.

7. Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Station (1976)
"Love only breaks up, to start over again. You'll get the babies, but you won't have your man"
If the intro of this song doesn't give you the urge to jive ala Night Fever, you ain't got a disco bone in your body. I just love songs, like this, that combine perky melodies with depressing lyrics.

8. Just Take My Heart - Mr. Big, Lean Into It (1991)
"It's late at night and neither one of us is sleeping, I can't imagine my life after you're gone"
Between the cheesy lyrics, the catchy chorus and the guitar shredding, this is another awesome break-up song... comes off a little suicidal/ end-of-the-world-ish, but we've all been there. The name worked oh so well on Chris Noth in Sex and the City, but I must say it's one of the worst band names to date... I still have no idea why they named their band as such (I wonder if the reason is phallic)

9. Alone - Heart, Bad Animals (1987)
"Til now, I always got by on my own, I never really cared until I met you"
This is my definition of a power ballad. Ann Wilson can sing the hell out of this song, and she can play the flute too! The general feel of the song is stiff and cold until Ann reaches the first part of the chorus. It's hard to believe a woman with such a powerful voice suffered from a stutter when she was a girl. (Ok, so "heart" doesn't really appear on the song's name... but what's a heart song list without Heart?)

10. Groove is in the Heart - Deee Lite, World Clique (1990)
"My supperdish, my succotash wish (Sing it Baby) I couldn't ask for another"
Whenever I hear this awesome song, I always get the feeling Austin Powers or Andy Warhol will appear out nowhere to dance. It's groovy baby. Three DJs make up the band headed by vocalist and psychedelic fashion extraordinaire, Lady Miss Kier.

11. Foolish Heart - Steve Perry, Street Talk (1984)
"But will my heart play the part of the fool again, before I begin.."
This came off Perry's first album after he left Journey.
Cornball undertones - check
Talking to inanimate objects - check
Perfect post break-up, entering into a new relationship song.

12. Victim of a Foolish Heart - Joss Stone, The Soul Sessions (2003)
"Now she's back to rekindle that old flame, she's got a different angle, baby... but she's playing the same old game" Gawd, this white girl can sing! I instantly fell in love with her music after I heard the joyous Super Duper Love. She is very Bohemian, almost always singing barefoot in performances and she's a vegan too.

13. Heal me, I'm Heartsick - No Vacancy, School of Rock OST (2003)
"Father, free me. Mama, woman, feed me"
No Vacancy is the fictional band of Adam Pascal in the movie. Adam played Roger in Rent: The Movie. He has a stellar voice. School of Rock is a great movie. Directed by one of my fave directors, Richard Linklater... starring two great comedians, Jack Black and Joan Cusack... a loose Sister Act storyline infused with The Ramones and guitar solos... The first known movie where Led Zeppelin allowed one of their songs to be included in a soundtrack (after a petition spearheaded by Black and Linklater)... What's not to like?

If you want mp3s of any of these songs, just e-mail me at:

alternati_sheol[at]yahoo[dot]com

My Valentine's to anyone.

I wonder how can I teleport back to the fourteenth... It's not written in the Hiro Nakamura manual. hmmm...

Labels: area 13, boo-freakin-hoo, holidays, music

There is a shampoo ad on TV that aired earlier this year with a song that I got obsessively hooked on for some reason. The commercial wasn't anything especially interesting, just a guy and a girl on a bench. But the song, that drasted song was so catchy. I googled lyrics, song titles, artists to no avail. I looked at forums dedicated solely to this enigmatic song. I even contemplated sending a mad e-mail to Unilever. It was that serious.

I never believed in shampoo commercials. I am using "believe" here instead of say "like" or "appreciate". They are extremely deceptive. First of all, dead things can't possibly be healthy... they can be peaceful or decomposing. Imagine reading "for shinier, more peaceful hair" on a bottle. Noone, without resorting to expensive chemical treatments, could possibly have natural hair so soft and straight, it moves like fine chiffon. Plus, the models are always happy... perky... chipper... you'd think they were selling anti-depressants, or liquefied prozac infused into the shampoo absorbed by the scalp through osmosis. A lot of people buy into it (myself included) especially if they have a catchy song that comes along with it. This wouldn't be the first time rich people got richer by selling crap in a nice easy to grip bottle.

Last friday morning was serendipitous. I left my radio on the night before and I was still half asleep when I heard that song. What is it about finding something you have been painstakingly looking for when you aren't even trying?

(Wait a sec... Jon Stewart just put Amy Sedaris on the Seat of Heat, What is it about Jon Stewart? *sigh*)

...

(Ok... I'm back)

Where was I? ah yes... THE shampoo song wafted into my unremembered REM dream. I usually laze in my sheets for close to half an hour before I rise, but on that particular morning I was on my feet in a microsecond rummaging through my drawers for a pen to write the title of the song. I was lightheaded from my abnormally fast arousal, so I did what any lethargic nocturnal creature would do, I crawled back into my blankets and came to work late... again. What is it about the invisible adhesive between my back and my bed? If I could work horizontally, I probably would. But then again, horizontal jobs usually involve sexual favors, grease and hydraulic jacks, or losing your eyesight under the Sistine Chapel. I think I just found a deeper appreciation for my vertical, sometimes inclined, job.

At the office, I stole some paid minutes to download the song on my office computer. "Applewire" worked invisibly behind the Photoshop presentation I was finishing. In less than 3 minutes, the song that took me three weeks to get over was flooding the office. What is it about ownership, even through felonious means that can satiate the most insatiable person? I must have played that song a gazillion times over the course of two days. It got old really fast, I never noticed how hollow the song is until I etched it on my ear drum. What is it about losing interest when the enigma is lost?

Oh and yes, the title of the song... What is it?
"Let Me" by Orange and Lemons (I'm not a big fan of this band especially after they ripped off The Chandeliers... but hey Mr. Tambourine man... play me that song)

Now, if only I could figure out the title of the song in that Bailey's ad... The one where a short haired woman in a bar, after touching a glass of this yummy concoction starts spreading the "dance fever" to the people around her.


New Tenant
Plugging my new tenant, Stumbling Through Life With Grace, I rented her out before already but her blog was undergoing a renovation... Check out her redecorated blog.

Labels: BE tenant, idiot box, music

This is my second third meme. Snglguy tagged me this morning and I like this meme although it's pretty difficult to select just 7 songs! I was so glad cheH tagged me with the same meme! This means, if my math is correct, that I'm entitled to 14 songs! haha


The Tag Goes:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal/blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

I enjoy lots of different types of music so imagine my dilemma in picking just 7... I mean 14. So, I've decided to pick 9 foreign songs and 5 local ones that have a sufficient amount of air time on my Winamp player.


The Foreign List:

1. Edge of the Ocean - Ivy (Long Distance, 2001) = "There's a place I dream about, Where the sun never goes out..."
   
2. Good Morning Baby - Bic Runga (Beautiful Collision, 2003) = "Between an overload of information, And a striving for pure dedication..."
   
3. Sparks - Coldplay (Parachutes, 2000) = "Did I drive you away? I know what you'll say, You say, Oh, Sing one we know..."
4. Strange and Beautiful - Aqualung (Strange and Beautiful, 2005) = "I've been watching your world from afar, I've been trying to be where you are..."
   
5. Maybe Tomorrow - Stereophonics (You Gotta Go There To Come Back, 2003) = "I've been down and I'm wondering why these little black clouds keep walking around with me..."
   
6. Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros (Takk, 2005) = "Smiling, Spinning round and round, holding hands, the whole world a blur but you are standing..." (Actual lyrics in Icelandic)
   
7. Swan Dive - Lennex (Part Math, Part Euphoria, 2006) = "Weightless, I've made my decision..."
8. Original Fire - Audioslave (Revelations, 2006) = "The original fire has died and gone, but the riot inside moves on..."
   
9. When You Were Young - The Killers (Single, 2006) = "You sit there in your heartache waiting on some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways..."
   

The OPM List:

1. Blanko - Session Road (Bakit Hindi?, 2006) = "Blanko, walang laman ang isip ko, Blanko, bulag at para para bang tuliro, Blanko, walang halong biro..."
   
2. Oo - Up Dharma Down (Fragmented, 2006) = "Di mo lang alam naiisip kita, baka sakali lang maisip mo ako. Di mo lang alam, hanggang sa gabi inaasam makita kang muli..."
   
3. Ewan - Imago (kami nAPO muna, 2006) = "Hindi ko alam kung bakit ka ganyan, Mahirap kausapin at di pa namamansin"
4. Manila High - Kala (Manila High, 2006) = "Paikot-ikot na parang circo, nakikipaglaro sa perang pangkain mo. Nababaliw na yata ako, buong araw kong sinayang sa kauupo..."
   
5. Gusto Na Kitang Makita - Session Road (2000) = "Parang ang bagal ng takbo ng panahon pag wala ka. Alam kong walang dapat sisihin na ako'y nandito at nandyan ka..."

Karma (6x) Chameleon
Now, the fun part of doing memes... hahaha. I need to tag 7 people. I'm curious what the following bloggers listen to so I am gonna tag:

• J - Voices in my Head (Revenge of the memes!)
• En - Me, Myself and Eileen (hahaha, I did it again!)
• Jin - Teh oThEr siDe of [Jin] (enjoy!)
• Marc - Digital Playground (to help with your blogger's block)
• Kat - Kat's Scribbles (I'm pretty sure I'll see a couple of songs in there by The Cure! hehehe....I'm curious what other songs you and your band like)
• The Nashman - Random Thoughts (I'm not even sure if you're gonna do this... haha)
• Iskoo - Out of Specs (so we'll know what's in that MP3 player of yours)

I took this photo last week. This is a photo of one of the office's bathroom doors. I wasn't really sure what to do with it... until now.

Labels: memes, music

Yesterday evening, I met my married friends Rai and Cheerie. It was a pre-birthday celebration for both of them. Rai's is on the 11th of September, he was dancing and getting drunk when 9-11 happened. Cheerie's is on the 13th, and when she was pregnant with Asti, we all hoped he'd be born on the 12th but it was a gestative impossibility. The great thing about Rai and Cheerie is you never felt like a third wheel when you were in their company and we never ran out of things to talk about.

I was at their hotel room sometime around 9 in the evening. I haven't seen them for about a year, they live now in Manila, but still I felt like I just hung out with them yesterday. Bert arrived. After catching up with the latest things Asti did and work and whatnots, we were headed to Cactus Bar. Rai was a regular there during our college days. He was/is an amazing bassist. Think of the songs of Kala and you'll get not only a good idea of the music his band played but also of his personality.


Syd Barrett Would Rock and Roll in his Grave

We were extremely disappointed by what the bar is now. It used to be one of the places-to-be, everyone dressed to kill, great local bands, beautiful people... beautiful music. Now, mediocre is an understatement. I haven't been checking out the local live-band scene lately, my friends and I now go for the bar with background music kind of scene. I guess its one of those growing-up things.

The other so-called happening places now are usually jammed with incoherently noisy gangster wannabes. I could appreciate, and even really like, some aspects of hip-hop culture like music, clothes and expensive jewelry (I am irked by people with no African-American heritage saying "bling"). However, the whole need for stabbing, unlicensed guns and a thirst for violence escapes me. I thought night outs are for good times and not visits to the hospital emergency room, I guess they changed definitions without me knowing.

Thankfully, Cactus Bar wasn't one of these places. It just became bland and boring. The torture did come, but in another form. The oily-haired, looks like he just came out of bed vocalist sang Another Brick on the Wall... terribly. This was an insult to Pink Floyd. I get the "image" he's trying (or not trying) to portray, but c'mon, take a bath for pete's sake. The greasy hair looked good on Ethan Hawke when he sang I'm Nuthin in Reality Bites, and you dear... are no Ethan. When the vocalist did Elvis' Suspicious Minds we paid the tab and left. How many songs must he murder?


A Hop, Skip and Jump

Across the street is 18BC, another buzz worthy bar during the golden era of barhopping aka our college days. It was a viable contender of Gimbals for the yuppie demographic then. Gimbals is now closed... a big loss *sigh*. It didn't seem as full as it did outside. We spent just a short while in the outdoor waiting area when a group of Koreans left. As we sat on the same red metal chairs, it felt like a time-loop... Nothing about the place changed. Well except maybe for the fact that the crowd was 50% Korean.

Koreans come to Baguio in droves! Mainly for a cheap English language education. Cheerie is an English tutor and we talked alot about the misadventures of the profession. How it all starts with a point-point teaching methodology, and later a barok type of English defined mainly by the use of nouns and verbs and the absence of prepositions and grammar. Bless these Koreans for giving us another source of employment. I find them a pleasant people always smiling and very fashion forward. I have yet to make a Korean friend to know what they are really like. All I know about them are the Koreanovelas I don't watch.


Space Flower and Access Band

Space flower is an amazing Ska band. Each band member, nine of them, wore suits and did something different with their head. One had dreads, another a semi-combed-over mohawk. One had a golfer's hat, another a fishing hat.


The vocalist looks like a chubbier Alan Cumming (fabulous shades included). As I've learned from a friend, any song can be Ska-ized(?). They did a couple of Bob Marley songs, some Frank Sinatra, some originals (really good), and some pop songs. When they did Lady is a Tramp, Cheerie and I wanted to get ur hair done and "dress to the nines" and use phrases like "I do declare".

Access Band is as much a staple in our bar scenes before as beer was. That night they did their memorable renditions of Half Crazy, Universe and Bongga Ka Day!.

We were so glad we changed bars. We left while Space Flower played Putre-ska's Manila Girl appropriately changed to Manila Boy to match the vocalist's gender. And on the other side of the road on our way to the hotel, we heard another ghastly rendition of a rock classic at Cactus.


Chasing Cars

On my taxi ride home, a dog out of nowhere was chasing us. I've always seen this strange canine behavior on TV but I never actually saw one. He chased us the whole length of Legarda Road. It made me think that a dog chasing a car was much like a generation gap. You hear about it but never really know what it is until it chases the taxi you're in. My mental juxtoposition of the bar scenes during my bar-hopping days and the current one made me realize I'm old(er). However, thanks to 18BC I'm comforted that the spirit of my bar era is still in a way, alive.

I hummed Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars in my head as I watched the BMW infront of us with its top down. I felt like I was in a 007 chase sequence and I was a back seat passenger in the villain's car.


18 BC Bands:
Space Flower Friendster Page
Access Band Friendster Page



Oh yes, before I forget. I was tagged by J. I'm gonna make this long post even longer!

6 Random facts about me:
1. I answer try Yahoo! crosswords everyday.
2. I hate the beans they put in halo-halo.
3. The first novel I read is The Prince of Tides.
4. The one I'm reading now is David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day.
5. I have a Spice Girls cassette tape. (don't ask)
6. My left hand is rapas. (a straight line running across my palm)

This tag ends here. I saw this meme on a lot of my regular reads already. Breathe a sigh of relief fellow bloggers...

Labels: B-days, baguio, memes, music, nyt-out, quarterlife

Mount Pinatubo

A friend of mine told me there was a lake on the crater of Mount Pinatubo. I gave her my fair share of "owss..." and "stir...". Being born skeptical has its down sides.

All I remember of Pinatubo is the ashfall and the lahar. I was in grade school when it erupted and the gray snow on the grounds of Saint Louis Center was as unusual as a tourist NOT wearing one of those black bonnets with "BAGUIO" knitted at the front. I remember also going to Bulacan for Semana Santa and we passed by Tarlac. It was raining then and the tires of the family car were halfway in a gray pool. The first lahar I ever saw. I had to take some home with me in a mineral water bottle.

(Ending my Flashback)... That was all I ever associated with Pinatubo until I saw this picture.


This is Pinatubo's crater now. My friend was right, there is a crystal clear (often times) lake approximately 2.5 km in diameter. I don't know yet how to get to the crater, but I think you have to hike and camp based on the other pictures in this album from Oggie Poggie.

Before the lake became a tourist attraction, It was a hazard in 2001. Basically, it was a huge catch basin and in a decade accumulated 210 million cubic meters. An Oxfam geology research team found out that the crater walls couldn't carry that much weight especially at a weak point named, Maranot's notch.

The numbers potentially affected totals 7,600 families of some 39,000 people. The level of the water was within 5 meters from the rim before the government decided to act. Ayta (I think its spelled Aeta) tribesmen built the canal over 22 days using only hand tools – picks, shovels and wheelbarrows – because there are no roads to bring earthmoving vehicles to the summit and the unstable ground ruled out the use of explosives.

The SPAN article here. Once again, the government waits til the last minute to act. At least they did this time and prevented another catastrophe... The government usually are like cop cars on TV, they always arrive when someone did the saving already.

But I sure wanna go there and check it out. I wonder if you could swim in the lake... (I don't know how to swim so this is wishful thinking)


Mount Pulag

Another mountain I wanna visit, and hopefully this year. We are planning a trip to Sagada and Banaue by the end of the year and I'm hoping we could squeeze in Pulag in the itinerary. I have seen too many photos of my friends standing on a grassy mountain side, with windbreakers, bonnets, mufflers and that "I'm on the top of the world (Luzon)" look in their eyes.

Mount Pulag is the highest mountain in Luzon, 2,922 m above sea level (Imagine 6.5 stacked Petronas Towers , or 120 stacked SLU Otto Hahn buildings). It is the second highest peak in the Philippines. It has wet weather all year round and is said to be extremely cold. It was declared a National Park in 1987.

If for anything else... I wanna see a sunrise on Mount Pulag...


And a sunset...


Photos from Kiko.



Apo

The tallest peak in the Philippines. I have no aspirations to scale this mountain yet, probably after Pulag and after intensive training (arrgghh.. just the thought of exercise and gyms makes me wanna reach for a cigarette) Ok... ulterior motive, the real reason I mentioned Apo is to rave about the new tribute C.D. for Apo (Hiking Society, not the Mountain... err... not exactly)

I downloaded tracks on "Applewire" (doing the quotation marks action with my hands), I wanted to try it out first. Earlier this year, I wanted to buy Ultraelectromagneticjam, The tribute CD to the Eraserheads they did. It had some good tracks but most were so-so, glad I didn't waste my hard earned pesos on it. On that C.D. I liked the Spoliarium by Imago, Alcohol by Radioactive Sago Project and Maling Akala by Brownman Revival. Let's face it, no one can recreate the teenage angst Eraserheads had during the 90's. Its a tribute album, tribute being the operative word, so instead of trying to redo the song, its better to interpret it in the style of the band singing it, and the three artists I previously mentioned did just that.

I can't name any Apo song, however when I hear them, I know the lyrics... what's up with that?

This Apo tribute named "kami nAPO muna" is a good compilation. It starts with Parokya ni Edgar's Pumapatak Na Naman Ang Ulan. Chito Miranda has such a great amount of charisma (he is like a filipino Billie Joe Armstrong during the Dookie age) He can sing out orders in a tapsilogan to a waiter to the tune of Toxicity (System of a Down) and get away with it. I'm getting sidetracked...

Other tracks I really like are Ewan Ko by Imago (this band never disappoints me and Aya de Leon's voice is to die for), Awit ng Barkada by Itchyworms, Nakapagtataka by Spongecola,, Doo Bidoo by Kamikazee and Panalangin by Moonstar 88. Most of the tracks are really good, these are just my pick of the litter.

I'm gonna buy a copy of this next pay day, I allow myself one per pay day.


C.D. available in local stores and on Amazon:
Ultraelectromagneticjam: The Music of Eraserheads
kami nAPO muna: Tribute to Apo Hiking Society

Labels: filipinowledge, music, travels

What is slower, more frustrating and mind-numblingly boring than watching paint dry?

My internet connection. The wi-fi service we have here at home sucks... big time! (I'm not saying what it is... but it isn't SNART) After the choppy connection a few days ago, today, it is totally down. Customer service is, of course, not gonna knock on our door anytime soon.

So... desperate to send some CAD drawings to Ma'am A for a split-level house I was drafting for her, I've resorted to a more archaic method... dial-up. I had to switch back to the old Yahoo! format just to access my mail. The Beta was just too much for my 28 kbps connection.

While waiting for my e-mail attachments (which took forever), I played minesweeper, which as I've come to realize is THE most infuriating game ever created! I have developed an aversion for yellow smileys. I played a gazillion games (Files Attaching: 50%) My minesweeper success rate: 0%. The smiley with X'es for eyes when you hit a mine is just plain sadistic!!!


Finally sending the e-mail, I dared to blog. My blog took (yes I timed it...) 10 minutes and 17 seconds to fully load on firefox. I had a bloghopper advise me once to truncate my long posts and reduce the images I upload so that my blog would load faster on dial-up connections... now I know what he meant (but knowing how stubborn I am, it won't happen)

You have to give me credit for "fighting spirit"... despite the ghastly connection, I was able to blogroll a bit, leave comments and now post an entry. SNART needs to fix the problem post haste!

My only consolation tonight is that I have a Bamboo concert live on my radio. Thanks to 97.1 WLS. I discovered this Manila station when I was looking for 96.7 K-lite. Thanks to this station I can listen to live rock concerts in Manila, which sadly, are rare here on my pine covered plateau. Bamboo are (is?) singing songs from "Light, Peace, Love" ("Truth" baby, and "Much has been Said") and some from "As the Music..." ("Masaya" great track) and some old school tracks from Rivermaya of the 90's (214, Kispamata, Elesi... the good stuff)

I saw Bamboo on concert early this year and the new funky Bamboo (the vocalist) is a demi-god! And... (All hail!) Ira Cruz (bow before him!) can make that guitar sing better than anyone in the industry to date.


My dial-up connection isn't half as bad when you have Bamboo in the background... If only I could win a game (just one game!) on blasted (pun intended) Minesweeper.

Labels: blah (3x), filipinowledge, i-rate, music, nyt-out

I never liked Jessica Simpson. Celebrity divorcees seem to gain insta-fame after the break-up. Jennifer Aniston post-Brannifer makes a zillion movies, Nicole Kidman sans psychotic- nearly- killed- Oprah Tom Cruise goes off to win an Academy award. Anyways, back to Jessica... I love her new video "A Public Affair". Not because of the disco throwback (ala Kylie Minogue), not because of the darling Christina Applegate... but because of the rollerskates!


Flashback: I remember the Burnham Park skating rink. Burnham is one of our major parks (like a less glamorous, smaller NYC Central Park). In grade school me and my siblings would skate tirelessly around that concrete rink. We did it without helmets, knee pads or elbow pads. I learned to skate on one of those metal skates that had leather straps. It didn't have shoes attached to it so you used the straps to attach the tetanus skates on your regular shoes... Those skates were heavy and extremely painful. It had protruding screw heads that left marks on your soles. I still have a scar on my knees from learning to skate.

In highschool, The skating rink was one of our main hang-outs. Baguio was so much better then, less people, lesss cars, less traffic, less pollution... We'd were casual clothes under our uniforms and it was straight to the rink after dismissal. It was the Saturday afternoon place-to-be then. That's where Boys' High (exclusive Catholic boys school) and Girls' High (exclusive Catholic girls school) converged. We'd skate until night, the rink had halogen flood lights. There was the occasional awesome skater who did twirls, axels and led caterpillars (The awesome skater skates backward and holds onto another skater, other skaters would hold onto the hips of the one infront of them creating a rolling Conga line and the awesome skater would lead us into zigs and zags and number 8's)

There were two other rinks then, both in Camp John Hay. An indoor skating rink (aerobics center on weekdays), It had wooden tongue and groove flooring that made you vibrate when you skated across the grain. There was also an outdoor skating rink at Scout Hill. (Baguio residents... I know you've been there)

Skating, unfortunately, has become obsolete here. The Burnham skating rink is now used for bikes and concerts (not done simultaneously... although that would be a fun idea) The Skating rinks at CJH are now demolished. They turned that once free-for-all recreational area into a semi-exclusive country club. Exclusivity sucks. Country clubs suck.

Teens now are too eager to grow up. If only they knew that that age is best experienced as teens. They rather go to bars than to "skating rinks". I can't stand bars with loud underaged kids.

What I'd give to have the skating rink back.

Labels: baguio, kids-r-i, music, quarterlife

...always get me down. What is it about rain that makes you lethargic and incapable of disengaging yourself from the warmth of your bed? What is it about rain that makes you wanna watch sappy romantic comedies? What is it about rain that makes you grab the stool you sneaked out from Otto Hahn, and then stand on it so you can reach up to the recesses of your uppermost closet shelf to retrieve your shoebox of mementos of failed relationships that are too difficult to dispose of... and then flip through them while you go through a range of emotions via your winamp player, starting with a nostalgic selection of: "Yellow" (Coldplay), "Wish You Were Here" (Pink Floyd), "Nobody Does It Better" (Carly Simon), "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Rollin' Stones), "The Scientist" (Coldplay), "I Miss You" (Incubus), "I" (6cyclemind), "Walking After You" (Foo Fighters), "Come To My Window" (Melissa Etheridge), "Brick" (Ben Folds Five), "Just Another" (Pete Yorn), "Come Around" (Rhett Miller).

To a more "senti", tears-forming-in-the-eyes- and-flapping-your-hands- to-fan-it-dry playlist of: "A Song For You" (Donny Hathaway), "Home" (Michale Buble), "You Don't Know Me" (Jann Arden), "Goodbye My Lover" (James Blunt), "Everything" (Lifehouse), "I Can't Make You Love Me" (Bonnie Raitt), "Tattoed On My Mind" (D'Sound), "Feels Like Home" (Chantal Kreviazuk), "New York State Of Mind" (Billy Joel), "Blower's Daughter" (Damien Rice), "Pwede Ba" (Soapdish), "More Than Anyone" (Gavin Degraw).

And then a playlist loaded with contained anger, repressed sorrow and resentment: "Oo" (Updharmadown), "Never Really Love You Anyway" (The Corrs), "Waiting In Vain" (Annie Lennox), "Cool Off" (Session Road), "Don't Speak" (No Doubt), "Walang Kadala Dala" (Sandwich), "Tumatakbo" (Mojofly), "Kung Ayaw Mo Huwag Mo" (Rivermaya), "You Oughta Know" (Alanis Morissette), "Tensionado" (Soapdish), "Colorblind" (Counting Crows), "Fools Like Me" (Lisa Loeb), "Scar" (Missy Higgins), "Bleed For Me" (Seether feat. Amy Lee), "My Favorite Game" (The Cardigans), "Criminal" (Fiona Apple), and capping it off with "Glory Box" (Portishead).

Rain rain go away...Little Chester does not want to open this shoebox again.

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, music

Whenever I think of UdD, the image of a disoriented Meryl Soriano with smeared mascara running through a deserted hallway always comes to mind. That video of "Maybe" is intense. This indie band with a sound midway between bossa and trip hop impressed me. (I'm starting to sound like I'm giving a music review.. anywho...) There's an originality in their music lacking in the pseudo-rock bands we have today.

OPM is a misnomer. Original Pilipino Music is rarely original (or any music written after the 70's for that matter). Since the decline of rock in the PI by the end of the 90's (The Eraserheads Era), I've staged a personal ban on OPM. We have numerous pop singers reviving the same music over and over and over without an ounce of improvement and in most cases comes out as a futile attempt at an imitation.

Despite the scarcity of originality, the OPM rock scene is excellent though, great rhythms, written lyrics and a plethora of choices. Love the playfulness of Imago, the funkiness of Bamboo, the melancholy of 6cyclemind, the antics of Sandwich and the unabashed honesty of Session Road. Also, there's a cebu-based band, Sheila and the Insects, that released "Quick to Panic" whose video I mistook for a foreign one, their music sounds alot like Bloc Party but very up to par.

The UdD video of "Pag-agos", a girl walking down a deserted Makati Avenue (i think?!) meets a twin/look-alike/clone, is also quite interesting. And their songs, "Oo" and "Hiwaga" are equally great (I'm running out of positive adjectives. blah) Armi Millare has an awesome voice.

etc etc etc...

Labels: music