Benny Sings!

What a name. I don't consider Dutch pop artist Benny Sings much of a singer, but oh, such good music! I've been listening to his third album "Benny...At Home" and I just feel like couchjumping... I meant lounging around the house barefoot with a tub of ice cream. Uh-oh.

From his MySpace page: "Right now I'm busy writing my 4th album, and song no. 4 in the player will be the place where I'll upload a new unfinished scetch every month, to show you where things are heading. I'm into disco lately.. Disco to cry to."

Sounds good.

Thanks to P (Pinoy, not Spanish) for the album.

Missing Eu + Pangea anthems

J has been asking me: "Do you miss Europe?"

Well, what do you think? Hint:

Missing Winter, 12in x 12in, oil on canvas, 2008

I had resigned myself to not returning to London for a while. I thought attending the presentation ceremony in March would be a waste of money. But a few months ago, my dad said he wanted to see me graduate.

That means I will tour my family around London and show them where I lived. That also means I can stuff myself with kiwis and plums. I thought about K's offer to stay with them in Zone 4, which is the practical alternative to a Bayswater hostel.

But then later my dad said that though he has never been to the UK, he doesn't want to walk anyway and maybe we should just save our money. The flight is long and expensive. Besides, there are many cheaper and closer places to go to, and we haven't even traveled around the Philippines much. He says we could use the money to pay off the car.

There was a chance to go to Budapest in February for a conference, but I passed it up for something more important...

I don't think I'll be back in Europe for a while.

One of my Christmas cards came back with this sticker. It went all the way to Denmark and back, unopened. I'm not sure if I envy it.

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After watching Pangea Day's Anthems playlist, you'll never see or hear national anthems the same way again

Nuts! + Huli ka!

Ang kulit ng nag-isip ng brand name: nut'n else's WOW MANI. Double whammy!

From erasmusa

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The wonders of technology. Now how to catch this camera snatcher my brother caught on cam...

CNN.com Live + Facebook = social history

Reading my friends' status messages, I know that I'm not the only one trying to fight off sleep during the inauguration coverage! (I counted four other sleepyheads, thank you, 13-hour time difference.) A good number are also using the CNN-Facebook hookup. Now that is power. The streaming isn't perfect. I was lucky.

11:56 pm G is super excited! He's almost there!

12:02 am J: aaaack! Swear him in already!!!

12:06 am K has given in with the CNN-facebook coverage. Argh. Sellout.

12:18 am K is watching Barack's Inauguration (close kami - first name basis eh).

12:18 am I is watching the inauguration, eating American cheeseburgers!

12:35 am J: : CNN on Facebook is so cool!

12:39 am Me: where's a flag when you want to wave one?

12:46 am F says mukhang naje-jebs si Obama habang naghihintay sa hallway bago lumabas for the ceremonies... Ordinary people will probably feel the same way....

Lots of Rick Warren haters.

12:53 am P: holy crap it's aretha!

And Aretha lovers. Funky hat.

12:56 am J is wondering if this will ever happen to the Philippines.

Beautiful arrangement for the quartet. And the United States has a new president! Fanfare, please!

1:07 am Me: and now, the moment we've all been waiting for...

1:11 am "all are equal, all are free, and all deserve their chance to pursue their full measure of happiness" ang ganda!

1:13 am "we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of remaking America"

1:16 am "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"

1:19 am "you cannot outlast us and we will defeat you...for we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness"

1:21 am "for the world has changed. And we must change with it."

1:23 am P is proud to be an American for the first time in a long time. Well, save for the day this man got elected.

Started safe, but later concrete. Eloquent as always.

Poor poet, to have to follow that. Amen, Reverend!

I can sleep now.

Sesqui: Ateneo at 150

This year, Ateneo de Manila University celebrates its 150th year. From the looks of the Sesquicentennial site, I don't feel that a lot is happening and much more coordination is needed. To kick off the celebrations, there will be a President's Forum on January 22 to 24. But what I'm most excited about is the Ateneo Theater Festival slated for 2010.

The 1,000th post

What can I say but thank YOU!

And so I give you Colbert and Lessig..."with some great dance beat"!





Audio remixes here.

Book trailers

I'm a little late, but I don't think we've seen the peak of the book trailer yet. It's an inexpensive way to market books online (and in some cases, too inexpensive). It doesn't have to be fancy. You don't need to shoot it. But you should know what your readers want to see. The Gorillaz do. You could say that some book covers lend themselves to trailers easily. Some genres, too. Bertelsmann gives awards for its book trailers, so maybe they're on to something. Do you think it will catch on here?

O ang sakit

I wish I could narrate the filmic circumstances surrounding the first time I saw this because it's such a great story, but nah, it's too personal. I'm still tempted...

*sob*

Boundaries and Belongings: A Conference on Transnationalism, Identity and Communications

If you missed yesterday, the show's still on until the 24th. But if you miss tomorrow, it's not going to happen again for a very, very long while.


I'll be there to unearth my dissertation (it's still alive!). Details here.

Focal Points @ Renaissance Gallery

See you tonight!

Wrapped Traces +Tate Remixed

When was the last time an art project made you smile?

Mark Salvatus is in Malaysia to continue his Wrapped Traces project. I doubt he meant to induce warm, fuzzy feelings from his participants, but that's what I get just from looking at the photos.

Green Papaya's WOP intrigues me. It strikes me as the kind of program essential for artists in this multi-platform world.

Similarly, I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying Tate Remixed. Art begets art.

The fruits of...

Boredom (looking out at the Jollibee carpark)

Bwiset (couldn't get the darn shell right, so why bother?)

ACET results 2009 + Endearmints

Drama, comedy and stereotypical characters. It's almost scripted. The first few seconds after the (literal) unveiling of the ACET results at Blue Eagle Gym.



Panalo lines: "BMH! BMH!" (Management Honors), "Waitlisted, 'tangina!", "ME, pare" (Management Engineering)

Old school paper results and other photos here. Is there a need to post these results when you can access the results from the ADMU site? Yes. There's human error in encoding. At least one person who passed did not see her name on the official site because of typos. Seeing the list as printed became her validation. The obvious solution to this mess? Upload the PDF of the results. No messy database needed. Adobe Reader's search function should work fine enough. And if you really wanted to be sure, you could scroll down.

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Picasa won't let me rotate it, so...

Sweeter than it is minty.

Eliseo's @ Areva, MMLDC

Hello and goodbye again to B, who was kind enough to give me a DVD of his film (on rotation again on CinemaOne). I missed the last time he was in town, so I made sure I saw him the past week.

In an effort to escape the color-coding scheme (a misnomer as all Metro Manila residents know), we went up to the hills of our wonderful city, Antipolo.


As a balikbayan, he found it harder to make the trek down because there are new cafes where you can hang out instead of going to the capital to chill and take advantage of free wifi. We did not, however, go to such cafes. We went to Eliseo's, the restaurant at the Areva Pavilion of the MMLDC on Sumulong Highway. I had never been there before, though I studied at a nearby school. (Or perhaps I had been when it was still Valdez Farm...can't recall).


I ordered the Kani-Unagi salad (P145), which tasted good, just as expected. B thought the serving was small for the price.


I had Iced Latte (P85), which I thought was reasonable for all that cream. B was sure he ordered mango cheesecake but there was only strawberry cheesecake (P110) which was more of cherry cheesecake with strawberry syrup. Not a lot of cheese there, so it was forgettable.



There are more food choices on the menu. I'll definitely come back to try them. It's the kind of place you'd want to have a family lunch on a Sunday.

B in his lucky shirt

It was rainy, so it was no exploring that day. But the place is the kind of verdant, rolling landscape that's peaceful and relaxing. MMLDC is available for a wide range of events from conferences and seminars to teambuilding, weddings and debuts to other recreational activities. There's even a residence hall. The aviary is supposed to be quite good. And there's a fancy jeep called The Shuttle, which does just that: go round and round the area.

High-calorie Filipino dessert drinks

You gotta love taho (above), beancurd in a watery caramel sauce, and sago't gulaman (below), tapioca and jelly, also in a watery caramel sauce. You normally use a spoon for taho and a wide straw for sago't gulaman.

Red Bull Art of Can grandslam

It's official: Pinoys are the most creative people in the UAE. Filipinos place first, second and third in competition--without a Pinoy in the jury. Read it here: Smart Art

[via paintings.ph]

Mind the bad hair

You could probably make a film about every year of Beethoven's life. Copying Beethoven (2006) is about his last. A very round Ed Harris plays the great composer, an eccentric genius who takes random showers in this fictionalized story. Somehow Harris doesn't disappear in the character (though an IMDB user thinks the opposite), unlike Gary Oldman. Diane Kruger as Beethoven's copyist Anna is youthful as the part requires, but has a distracting American accent (which is very odd because she is German). Director Agnieszka Holland (Olivier Olivier, Europa Europa) plays it dark--the lighting, that is--just as it would have been in those times. What people did before the copy machine was invented is tedious now, but the effort makes great work even more remarkable. Beethoven's erratic nephew Karl and Anna's sweetheart Martin are just side characters whose stories are not resolved. This is for classical music lovers, but not for everyone else.

Chelsea Market & Cafe @ Serendra

The place seemed very popular, so we had to see what Chelsea Market & Cafe was all about. It was almost 130pm but we still had to wait for a table.


Inside, you'll get the deli-resto feel, with eclectic decor. It can get very noisy. I like the uniform of their servers, both male and female, best: black tee, brown leather skirt/apron and hi-cut footwear. The complimentary focaccia was served with a whole (or half?) head garlic that's been immersed in olive oil for quite some time. I love the blue water glasses. And it's not everyday that you utensils are heavy.

We had rosemary chicken and crispy bacon salad, which was very good. It's has a creamy dressing and generous with the cheese and nuts. The fritto misto collection (below) has fried artichokes, lemons, asparagus (not so young) and calamari, served with sour cream and tomato dips. I'd say it's fine, but more of an appetizer.




We tried out the 10" smoked salmon and greens pizza, which tricks you into thinking that you're eating something healthy (with all that cheese, I doubt it). The pizzas also come in a larger size.


For drinks, I split a carafe of strawberry iced tea with my mom. My brother had a carafe of regular iced tea all to himself.

Chelsea also serves pasta, soup and cheese fondues. You can also get cakes here (280/310 per slice), as well as wines, cheeses, specialty meats. Is it worth a return trip? I think so.

An aside: Hooters is open on Rozas Boulevard. My brother's 12-year-old friend had her birthday there (whose idea it was, he doesn't know). He says that the food is great, but the girls appeal to foreigners, not Filipinos. I see...

Anywhere but home

As the season traditionally ends today, here's a photo send-off for the holiday not spent in one's house.

Show me some energy

It's heartening to see green trikes at Bonifacio Global City. Let's hope they're not just for pogi points.


Passing through a street in Mandaluyong, I was amazed to see the electric meters of the entire street so high up the ground. It's supposed to prevent tampering and illegal connections. Never thought reading the meter could be this interesting.