The Paostian Deal

Save the colonialism plaguing the nation for all eternity, has this country become more confused to the point of hilarity as well? I'd like to pitch in and say no to a senile country:

I shall never wear polo to a mall again. Ever.

Another effective-slash-bit icky marketing.

Goo. Eruption. Vanilla...

Large. To. The last. ... slurp.

Each time somebody says "kumakain ng oras", I always run vivid pictures in my head.

And it looks like I'm right. Sorta.

If you see a bigger one, with spoon, fork and knife as hands, please please please give me a ring.

That's it. For those who are (and will be) inviting me to watch screenings of any sort of this ruckus: I will have to DEMAND free tickets, free ride from and to the house, free pizza, free fruit shakes and 3-5 throwpillows (plus the largest portion of the couch, should you decide to lock me up in your houses. And if I ever I do accept your invites, know that I am doing it out of charity and basic masochistic friendship).

Bright side: At least the material is consistent with the subject. That's effective advertising--something I'd wish I'm good at.

There live a family of dragons in Makati. There's Heljon, the doctor by day-barista by night father; Mavia Ezze Ngera, the stewardess mother; and Kaycee, the long-bodied eccentric son.

This year is finally Kaycee's coming of age and, as a clan tradition, he gets to ask his parents for The One Greatest Gift. And, as another tradition, as it is to be The One Greatest Gift, only one parent should be able to give it. Yes, a contest: The one who loses dies a gruesome death. The winner gets to meet Oprah. Such is the reason why dragons of their ancestry avoid having kids at all costs. Now why and how China missed out on that moral, no one really knows...

And so the quest for Kaycee's One Great Gift began. Ravaging towns, ransacking Malate, ruining Tubathaha and interrogating MMDAs, Heljon and Mavia have searched and searched for the cursed thing. Nothing else but their lives are at stake, and both clearly have no plans of dying before the De Venecias and the Macapagals piss and make up... --kiss, I mean kiss.

"Bummer. How will they do it...? Lethal injection? Gas chamber? Sarah Geronimo's Forever's Not Enough on an endless loop???" Heljon was beginning to worry. While considering pulling a Bin Laden to postpone his apparent doom, he luckily chanced upon Froilan The Whiz in one of his pit stops. He immediately consulted his dilemma to the modern wiseman, and the rocker-lover-sage, confident but sincere, tipped him to find the legendary One Ampao, said to contain magical coupons that could grant its finder any wish. "That's it!" Heljon thought, "That's my ticket to survival! ... And Shakira!!"

Little did he know that Mavia had already sought Froilan's help. And hadn't the old man, on his 30th mug of gin, slipped on her bribe for him not to tell Heljon, the lagging hubby wouldn't have stormed out Pegasus to catch up on Mrs Sneaky... And if he knew the instinctive her, there's only one place she'd overturn if only to find the One Ampao.

SM.

Drop that brow. You know you love that mall too. Here, I got pictures of their/our adventure:



Finally, the competitors found the One Ampao. And all hell broke loose, putting EVERYONE to a stop in showbiz-y amusement...

Of course there are those who could care less:

I'm not sure how it ended up for the couple. I lost interest when we passed by Lapid's Chicharon. But, so as to give some kind of ending to this idiotic story: I could've been the winner when I saw Kaycee on my way out...




P.S. pics:

Here's a lovely quote:

"If you run out of reasons to live, remember that someone else's life may never be complete without you in it."

Truncated, the piece is lovelier when understood for its reality:

"If you run out of reasons to live, remember that someone else's life may never be complete without you in it...

... like the BIR, Citibank, Meralco, Maynilad, McDonald's, Jollibee, the MMDA, your mom's bank account and the posonegro."

Have a fun week (of bills and VAT) ahead! :-D

Thanks for the, uh, effort, but whoever thought of this as inviting in any sick way should take a crash course in basic aesthetics. Or environmental sanitation. Or maybe just hang himself.

I mean, how scary and ICKY can you get?

---

This is the right way to do it. Poke your market's loin-ish, carnal interests and you can get at least a thousand counter "hits" a day--no matter how sad your spot in a mall foodcourt is. Perverted... and cheap! Sounds real satisfying. :-D

Now I know why men love bowling.

No wonder as a kid I only got one new pair of shoes a year... which also probably backs my theories on why I ended up in a school by a wet market in highschool. Sighs.

Take a very long and appreciative look, for this will NEVER happen again.

Yes, I scored actual freaking points in bowling! Where, when and HOW can that possibly happen to a sports dunce like yours truly--I do not know. Call it sheer luck and cuteness. And do you see that? DO YOU FUCKING SEE THAT?! A STRIKE!

Of course I had to go back to my magnificent idiotic bowler-self some hours later...

... but who cares--I scored! Real points! AND THERE'S AN X! I got X-ed! Fabulous letter. Killer. ;>

It's weird the things that remind you of childhood. While you try your best to keep memories of fashion-victim-ness, bad hygiene and rabid puppy love tucked securely under your goody drawer, things tend to pop back into your life--not to drag you back to shame, you're not that pathetic, but simply to... pester you with the thought that you WERE indeed pathetic.

Case in point: the much-hyped, boombastic-kudos-for-very-effective-marketing flick Cloverfiled. I saw it yesterday while waiting for movie dates who clearly wanted to finish office hours more than hangout with me. And I gathered I wasn't the only one who was made to wait. It was only half past 5PM but the moviehouse already had a considerable amount of carbon dioxide. Someday, do-gooder employees will simply fall into coma and the world will be a much happier place...

By the way, ten minutes to the movie, an Assumptionista stood from the side-front seats and walked out. I wondered why--I mean, it was only some monster-less party scenes that were on, you would think she'd be happy about it. Seconds later, my mind was appeased: A guy stood from a few seats away from her's and walked the same way. How could I have not known better? A colegiala watching a monster flick by herself, on a late Thursday afternoon? DUH. So not cool. Well maybe they already had seen it on dibididibidi, and just so happen to see each other seats apart in a dark, spacious room. Hence the walkout. Hence another contribution to the short-time industry.

Those two are like the "protagonists" in the film: A couple who secretly screw on trains and carnival rides, pretends to be JustFriends in public and waits for a monster to destroy the city before admitting doing the dirty on a ferris wheel by the sea. No wonder Godzilla's long-lost sister stirred from under the sea and wreaked havoc. She must hate hypocrites. And I digress.

So, Clovierfield. I'm still recuperating from the extreme dehydration after puking my insides out due to migraine. Take 99 capsules of Bonamine before watching this monster flick. Really. It's like doing Rialto with a thousand people with halitosis. This is why I first-person-PoV films are my least fave. The only consolation in Cloverfield was that it was the least cute guy who held the camera for most of the film...

The monster. Nothing in the flick explained what it was or where it came from--unless the last scene that showed the sea and some "odd" waves the size of a palm for a second was a hint, in which case it probably wasn't because... because... well try pressing your palm against a cinema screen and see how it measures, smart ass!

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I got from that creature was a stingy memory of our guidance counselor in grade school. They look almost the same. Wait for that second last sequence where it was given a close-up and you'll see a precious memory of my childhood. Her name was Erlinda Manaois, and she had these distinct features reminiscent of a bullfrog.

Frog. I was given the nick "Froggy" back in my early teens. 'Coz I sounded like a frog, they say. Still do, actually, only now I can incorporate a Kris Aquino or a Tony Braxton twist when needed.

Back to the film. Uh... well, that's about it: Two secret lovers fight, a monster that sweats a la Gremlins pops out in the open, some attempt at heroism by saving a girl stabbed with a rusty metal through the heart on the 47th floor of a crumbling tower, everybody tries to stay alive until the end-credits--fails--and you end up with vomit all over your shirt. If you're lucky, some motivation to clobber that lady who kept "commenting" on the scenes. It is, after all, a monster flick that... that kills time. (But could you really blame her? She was bored!)

Sadly, Cloverfield's hype failed to give it justice. Towards the end of the 90 minutes I felt more and more like that girl who fell asleep while doing the dirty a la Lassie. Strangely, I kept yawning while I was supposed to be holding on to my seat. Then bam--end credits. FINALLY, some music half worthy of a movie ticket.

I suggest you watch Clobber..., erm, Cloverfield, at the comfort of your very own Lazy Boy. And don't forget Bonamine. 100 capsules. (Take the first one now, I'm sure you need it.)

Spare (bowling): All pins down with two balls; To knock down with the second throw the pins left standing after the first throw; Knocking down all remaining pins in the second ball or delivery.


They always say there are two sides to a story. If I don't know any better, in your greatest story--your life--those two sides are called "good" and "bad." If you're Ricky Reyes, it's "taray" and "lost." If you're a dumb jock, "cool" and... "not cool." To stupid colegialas, that's "OMG!" and "Oh. My. God.," depending on what coffee shop or mall restroom you catch them say it. For the sake of sanity, let's just stick to the first one.

Good and bad. I've had my fair share of both. More often than not, it's other people who categorize it for me: Either they dump me for being "bad," or suck up to me for being "good." But when I'm lucky, I get to use a weighing scale and assess my life ratings myself... Never a fun job.

"Good" and "bad." You know you've had your shares yourselves, with one almost always overpowering the other. But that's okay. Getting over taxes is already exhausting; striving for the proverbial balance between yin and yang could be fatal. On the other hand, it was never wrong to try and make amends for mistakes no matter how far they date back in your history.

Some of us had lived every moment for personal glory, and in pursuit of more we began neglecting all the other opportunities to do... "good." I remember times when I wasted my capabilities and missed scoring those pluses. I screwed up big time, sometimes hurting others and even losing people... and I could only look back in regret. The only valid excuse I'll ever have, I guess, is that I was too young to be a hero, a Samaritan or both.

Everybody misses out on chances to be "good"-- at times unconsciously, at times deliberately. Like... bowling. Even if you rolled the ball once with inhuman strength and killer precision, there's always the chance that at least one pin will remain standing to laugh back at you. You get disappointed, pissed or frustrated, but hey, at least you get one more chance to spare and squiggle a few points to your box. And that's just a game.

I sin. We sin. We... miss. The best news is, while we only get two balls in bowling, we have more chances in life to try and spare. It may not entirely cancel the minuses of your past, but at least you can truly feel... happy... about something for once and, together with your conscience, be able look at your detractors straight in the eye--smiling or grinning, your choice. You can do it for yourself and for others. And really, the immediate rewards are the best ones....

Like the smiles of children currently fighting unfair battles...


The sudden but very welcome excitement in a room that's otherwise fearful and gloomy...


Sighs of relief from those who thought they'd been abandoned...


Feeling again the warmth from the people you missed and those you care about, after time played its part, plus very surprising calls from those whom you never expected would... Not to mention, the welcoming touch of new hands-to-hold on the sides...


And finally realizing that you are capable of something worthwhile... for you and for others. (Thanks to Celeste Ubana and the Friday Club for the photos.)