Gotham’s dark knight

Read my review on the film at my other blog. It’s Websense downtime once more… Sorry that I’m giving only morsels of this & that, I’ll have to rely on my i.ph account from hereon out. But the juicy [juicier?] posts are still here.

Peace out.

i.ph

lo & behold a lucid interval… I bet half of the office populace are procrastinating with a momentary lapse from Websense. Nothing much to say but visit http://www.discipletonone.i.ph/ for recent posts.

Arriverderci!

cells, songs, holidays

Spreadsheets, cells, and more cells. I’m getting pimples, and dandruff on the side from all this work… I mean to ask our ts supervisor if i can use the iMac at the back. Need to delete some mushy songs from “Greg the nano”. I told kuya George to just sync all of his songs; so I’m deleting the ones my ear finds unfriendly. Anything Air supply-ish is definitely bound for the trash bin.

John Mayer has really interesting posts on johnmayer.com/blog. Check out the one on The Goonies. [And if you're interested find a clip of him evading Ryan Seacrest's question by speaking Japanese on YouTube].

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ok, I’ve added a couple of songs and got rid of the puke-inducing music. Good thing sir dj is nice, seeing as iTunes is prohibited on our PCs and USB connections have been disabled. Back when i had a shuffle we can freely use iTunes and getting songs wasn’t much of an ordeal–you simply open other people’s playlists and sync em up. Oh well, this is better than nothing. Getting a free iPod and bending a few rules. Ciao for now.

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post-script

Nice of kumpare Pechay to bring me CDs. Movie marathon this long weekend… Hope the U.S. had more major holidays…

of street-peddlers and musta domestica

My kid is never gonna set foot on an internet shop. If he’s gonna curse, it’s going to be moderate and he’ll learn it from overhearing other people who found it imperative to cuss–not from peers ecstatic over online games. Of course, that’s when [the bigger question really, is IF] I have kids of my own. Anyway, it’s a lazy Sunday and I just finished the darn laundry but I had to get out of the house to evade overhearing our housmate & her boyfriend. I’ve always felt that overhearing other people’s conversations  sucks, either because: Theyre downright trivial, edging on boring. Or they’re interesting, but it’d be rude to cut in.

Yesterday, while on a a Cubao-bound bus from Tarlac, Pampanga, I suddenly remembered this: When I was kid, there were two different peddlers of puto who frequented our “subdivision.” We always bought from the younger one, because the other was a man in  horn-rimmed glasses, donning a Pepe Smith hairstyle and whom Mom saw peeing and getting rid of snot –and defined sanitation by the mere wiping of the hands on his trousers.
That was way back when I was in elemetary. And then, many years after when we’ve moved to a different part of the city, he no longer peddled puto, but TAHO. I didn’t know how to feel. Can you call that a promotion of stature? How did he feel when my mother recognized him as a former puto vendor, but vendor allthesame?

Anyway, I was with Pechay in Gerona, Tarlac for Arimys’ christening. Thank God the next occasion willl be in their Marikina residence. To have travelled that far and endured lunch with a swarm of flies. . . All i know is, IF A BUS IS NOT HOMEBOUND, I’LL NEVER RIDE ONE AGAIN.

 

the Gilmore approach

There are surfaces you shouldn’t scratch, crevices that musn’t be probed–at least, not when you’re unprepared for the find. But in that non-moment–nothing so complicated can be untangled in a millisecond of clarity, what nonsense to declare everything, everything fixed by a single moment–in that non-moment, I was/am brave enough to admit that yes, I loved her. And no, that gundygut no longer figures in my life. I call her greedy for keeping two persons to herself; two women, both unloved by neither lad nor lady prior to her praetorian love. Earlier, when the sort-of-break-up occurred, it’s exactly what Gaiman had said, “(being in love) makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages.”

But months, years after, I find everything so quisquilian; which means dismissing the grim business I put myself through. Because really, I could’ve beeped everything out from my head; but the method I chose, the approach of dealing with the matter was to wallow and brood, as Lorelai Gilmore once suggested. But though I do find everything so trifling, if we cross paths, hypothetically, tomorrow: the lines I have had floating in my brain — I’m not sure I can say them. Or say them right. These are times when we can never trust ourselves and therefore, this not knowing how we react to situations; here we betray the fact: we do not know who we truly are.

So I hope the bitch girl would stop sending forwarded quotes. Like this one: …it’s not the heart that breaks, it’s something else…Faith.
Well newsflash, above it all, I pride myself in saying, I stand undamaged by a brummagem love.

more Greg

I thought all CSI installments are equally good but after a couple of Miami episodes… I kinda grew tired of Horatio’s sideways glance and his under-the-breath one-liner — all before the soundtrack scream, which is awesome, by the way. I should get Vegas and NY instead. I’ve been a Gary Sinise fan since I saw Forrest Gump some nine odd years ago. Oh I loved Lt. Dan; from soldier to social pariah to the man who made his peace with God swimming with only his wading arms. I’ve read Winston Groom, bdw, and mind you, in a very rare case: the flick was better than the novel. But I digress…
The weekend was devoted to [sleep, of course. But in b/w that:] CSI and House MD season 4. I’ve seen episodes 13-16, all after each day it aired in the u.s. but I haven’t seen the latter part of season 3 and most part of season4 so I was re-running them. Isn’t it weird when you’re disappointed to find the actor not as distinct as the character he portrays? I viewed a lot of Hugh laurie clips on YouTube and was sorry to find him so different from Greg. That is a true feat of genius; Hugh created the contumelious House. He’s such a good actor you end up loving the character notches more than the progenitor. Have you seen the season-ender? Holy shit, it’s the the the best. TV at its finest.

on winning a 3rd gen 4G iPod nano after hoping for 18 times in a span of 1.5 years

There is a millisecond of calm sandwiched by hope and mirth, until there it is: an email from Shaun and a screenshot of Random.org results. My name on it. Maglaway ka, baboy! [Yes, J.D. kaw yun].

But again, as with everything, the silver nano hangs in the balance. Should i keep it? It has non-monetary, therefore, sentimental values. But I also need cash…plan on paying a few months rent in advance so that I’d have some savings for the next several pay-outs. [Savings or shopping money? I'm dangerously bent on the latter]. Or I could sell it and open a bank account. Passbook, not atm accessed money. Ha.

Indecisive, indecisive… Ah the curse of the balanced-brained.

Although, suddenly I’m afraid my other “hopes” will be denied since He just gave me this major one. The results I’m waiting for will be out on September… Lord, let me hope for this twice as hard… It’s your call if I’m worthy.

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on Hugh Laurie:

In 1996, Laurie’s first novel, The Gun Seller, a spoof of the thriller genre, was published and became a best seller…

Laurie admires the writings of P.G. Wodehouse: he explained in a 27 May 1999 article in The Daily Telegraph how reading Wodehouse novels had saved his life.

Hey, self: on your next bookhunt, scout for those.

good one, greg

Dr. Terzi: This is Dr. Sidney Curtis from the Mayo Clinic, he’s also agreed to help with the diagnosis.
Dr. Curtis: [shakes hands with House] Dr. House.
Dr. House: “Curtis on Immunology” Sidney Curtis?
Dr. Curtis: [pleased] Oh, you’ve read it?
Dr. House: Nope, but it is keeping my piano level.

cheezum o pringles?

There is a dog-eared photo: three girls each holding a pack of Cheezum in front of a closed door–the ambivalence of mischief and shyness on their faces. One is wearing “dragonfly” sunglasses, as they called it.

Kids always want that: equal distribution. That’s why I always get a pack of fruitella for each nephew or niece; else if you bring them a pack of jellyace they’ll end up arguing how to divide it and the youngest of the bunch is likely to get tricked and cheated… But wouldn’t you agree, that a bag of chips is yummier when raided by five little hands? Now, I’m alone most of the time with a bag of potato crisps for my solitary consumption–as a kid, you’d want that. But when you’re transported into the vortex of adulthood you realize that abundance does not equate to contentment. Now a bag of chips is just too much, marginal utility is easily diminished and I end up getting a clothespin and sealing the half-eaten pack. Where are the little hands fighting to grab a fistful? Or the little mouth to consume the last morsel and crumbs?

I miss my siblings. Most of all, I miss Carol. I miss her because she’s now a mother, and therefore, not the little sister I knew. I miss Carlo because he’s now a father and no longer the brother I fought with [there was a hostile time between us, his pre-teen years], the child who’d never use euphemisms and subtlety or tact within Ma’s earshot: “Yan nanaman ulam?” “Wala nanaman kami pang-tuition?” And yet as he grew, he was the one who best handled money, who gave mom a few bucks everyday from his badminton earnings [while I was then a senior college stude and eventually a bum for a couple of post-graduation months]. Which calls to mind a very disturbing dream I had, years ago: Carlo & I were having an argument, and suddenly his head hit the edges of the wooden bed in the room and I saw his face from having the eyes of a conscious mortal, to a pair of orbs seeing, reflecting, a void of nothingness. Upon waking, I made a mental note never to make decisions or take action whenever belligerent.

I miss my little sister Christianne. I hate that I’m missing the phases of her growth, from infant to toddler… the new tricks my wacky little brothers are teaching her…how she can recognize a song or a melody from a tv commercial… how she would shout and get your attention when she realizes you’ve left her unaccompanied for more than twenty minutes…

I’m worried she might not have the same childhood we had, although I’m glad she would not live in penury as we did then…but again, i admit poverty or the lack of apparent wealth to a child teaches valuable virtues to a person. But anyway, what’s important is that she grows up to be happy and loved.

She may not have 5 hands in her cookie jar, but the current count: 2 little hands. Baby Gream and Baby Sridama.
Two nephews one year her junior. Not bad.

A toddler aunt. Cool.

in a brood of six

[a week before father's day]

Calvary

Last night, as lightly as a drunk man can manage
You tapped your youngest child in the crib. Asleep.
And from her supple skin to your weary forehead
You made the sign of the cross.

One night, months ago, when that same child
Was a mere concept beneath my middle-aged mother’s womb
You disowned her (Downing a couple of beers for courage),
the sixth child to come sixteen years after the last.

Many nights ago, when I was a child
Sister woke me up in a fit of fear
We have to go. Now. And from there, father,
I never came back to being your child.

But one night after a few too many wars
and reconciliations, I sat at my desk and felt
the absence of anger. The dissolution of blame.
And I am writing it down, lest it escapes me:
Because I do not love you too well father, I forgive you.