13:45: watching beck really inspired me to do stuff, so last night, i picked up the guitar, dusted it, sat down to play something, and remembered i can't play for shit. i know maybe 5 chords. hahahaha! but, hey, i managed to teach myself to play a whole song! i learned wish you were here, which is in the top three of my favorite songs ever. maybe second, right after rain song. oddly enough, it was one of the songs performed this morning on rock star. the song selection was great. imagine was there. one of the best lyrics ever written. they even had live and let die, which is the first song with brass and strings that i've ever headbanged to. and of course, there was bohemian rhapsody, which is always fun. tough night. wonder who the lone undeserving person in the bottom three will be?

wait lang... the tips of the fingers on my left hand hurt like hell. i can't type well.

spanish football is back! and madrid went shopping. figo is gone, as are samuel and solari. sad... santi solari was one of my favorites and is one of the most underrated players in the spanish league. their new goods? sisguuud... very, very good. brazilians baptista and robinho. watching robinho on the field makes me turn into a mouth-breather. the kid is amazing. real madrid could get the title back with that kid. but i still say they need better defense.

 
10:21: i got my bedroom back to normal, but now i can't sleep because i'm hooked on this beck thing. beck is an anime about a teenage rock band's journey to fame. that's a crappy description. trust me to write something crappy with as little words as possible. lol. but the show is good. at least good enough to have my brother go through the trouble of uploading and erasing and watching every episode of it on his little zire all night. and we're talking about someone who doesn't like having to read subtitles here.

anyway. back to watching. "i was made to hit in americaaaa..."

 
07:21: i think i'm gonna be sick again. i can feel my resistance dropping. i haven't had any decent sleep this whole week because i've got no place to sleep. the workers are ripping the tiles off of my bathroom (i didn't know the tiles were supposed to be changed) so now my room is extremely dusty again. i try to sleep on the lazy boy, or up in my old room when my niece and my brother's wife have left the house, but i find i can't get much sleep there. i never really did. odd room.

inxs... oh, watching jordis was painful! i am very disappointed as i love that song. aerosmith is one of those bands that i have promised myself not to miss seeing for any reason should they ever come here. dave navarro was arguing that she should have changed the melody. thing is, i wouldn't have changed a note of that bit towards the end. because dream on is meant to be sung that way. you don't mess with that. but i guess when you can't reach the note, then you just gotta do something. i was pretty surprised that she couldn't reach those notes, though. hmm. maybe i've been singing along to too much chris cornell.

i finally got around to reading the new potter book.
**highlight the blank areas if you've read books 5 & 6 or if you don't mind spoilers**
i bawled in the fifth book, although i already knew who was gonna die before i even got our copy of the book. sirius, after all, is my favorite character among the non-students. but i didn't cry at all with this one. wasn't surprised much by what happened. i kind of expected it. harry is getting older. he can't be relying on dumbledore for the rest of his stay at hogwarts. they already said that he has to off voldemort himself. he's gotta learn to do it on his own. besides, they kept stressing that dumbledore was getting weaker. i get the feeling there's more to it, though. with snape, especially. i refuse to believe that he's still serving voldy. i think that when dumbledore was pleading, he wasn't begging for mercy, but begging for snape to do it so that draco wouldn't have to. perhaps i'm being optimistic. if there isn't and things go on the same way they ended, i'll be sorely disappointed and a little hurt, too. hey, i wasn't sorted into slytherin for nothing! if it turns out that snape is really a major schmuck, i think that i shall never use my slytherin knapsack ever again. there was one thing that really surprised me, though. tonks and lupin. that came out of nowhere! my favorite line from the whole book: "what do i care how he looks? i am good-looking enough for both of us, i theenk!" hahahaha!

 
03:29: ok, i'm finally blogging about it. i've been watching rockstar: inxs. there's a whole story behind why no one in this house wants to really watch the show, but i won't get into that. point is, i watched out of curiousity and i'm still watching because of a few contestants.

since the first epi, i've been a fan of jordis. i mean, kicking off with baba o'riley... you just gotta love that. even if she did that fruity hoobastank song, it's still alright. i still love her. ty impressed me when he did cult of personality, but after that, i kinda lost interest. jordis, vocally, may be my favorite, but i don't want her to win. she's just not ... inxs enough. jd may be musically talented and might cut it, but he's an ass and there are times when i really don't like his performances. the only successor i can see among the group, really, is mig. now, i'm not just saying this because he's pinoy. or because he's a distant cousin of a friend who is very close to my heart, and also a cousin of my ultimate local rockstar crush. or because he's a theatre boy (and even played angel on west end). not even because inxs is an aussie band and mig was raised an aussie. i just feel that he fits somehow.

i first took notice of mig when he did all day and all of the night, but he impressed me with walk this way. that is one tough song to learn quick. i've been keeping an eye on him since then and he hasn't really disappointed me. when i heard he was doing baby i love your way on piano, i thought, "hmm. that's interesting." they've been wanting for him to do a ballad. i've always liked the lyrics to that, but there was no one arrangement that i could appreciate. props to frampton for writing the song, but the original seemed to lack something. the covers have mostly been reggae, respectably good, but not really my thing. but this.... mig had me crying. sure, he didn't quite get that last note, but it didn't matter much. the way he sang it brought a whole new meaning to the song and you really felt it. it was so tender, and sweet, and honest, and o god i'm crying again. sniff. that's all.

 
02:24: wala lang akong magawa. someone asked me these questions. thought i'd spread the love here, too.

1. What kind of plant would you be (if you had to), and why?
>> catnip! i love driving my cat nuts. =D

2. Is there any song that you cannot phsically stay put while listening to, and, if so, what is it? what do you do when it makes ya move?
>> i've mentioned this here before. my brother and i had this ridiculous deal where we both agreed that whenever we would hear the song babe by styx, no matter where we were and whether we were with each other or not, we would stand up (if we could) at the chorus, raise our right fists and pump it in the air while stomping our left foot to the beat of the chorus. we would do this for at least 10 seconds every time, or for the whole chorus, if we feel like it. i am told he never cheated and did the move whenever he heard the song. i never cheated either. we did this for years before we called it quits after hearing the song together.
another song is time warp from the rocky horror show. i do everything... the jump to the left, the step to the right, the hands on the hips, bringing the knees in tight, and the pelvic thrust. this is almost a reflex developed when they staged the show in 2002.

3. Have you ever had stitches or a cast? If so, how many times, and for what?
>> nope, never had a fracture or anything major. the closest thing i've ever had to getting a cast was getting my face covered in plaster bandage to make a mask, and my only scars are from mountain climbing and from my cat.

4. When was the last time you had ice cream in a waffle cone?
>> i always choose waffle cones when the option is available! last time i had one would be about five months ago, though. now i'm craving.

5. What single activity--not including eating, sleeping, or other basic bodily needs--takes up the majority of your time?
>> listening to music


your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions. I get to pick the questions!!!
3. Only respond if you are willing to answer ANY question asked of you.
4. Update your blog with the answers to the questions asked of you.
5. Include this question and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
6. If others comment asking to be interviewed, you will then ask them 5 questions.

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23:12: been tagged? read on.

got tagged by ulan and i'm supposed to answer these questions. so here we go...

1. What are the things you enjoy doing even when there's no one around you?

>> laughing at any funny thing that i've just read, seen or heard. then i realize that i must look silly laughing by myself, so i end up laughing harder. lol.
>> reading.
>> listening to music. and singing along to it, sometimes.
>> watching tv and videos.
>> writing.
>> hanging out at some coffee place and just chilling.
>> watching a movie by myself


2. What lowers your stress/ blood pressure/ anxiety level?

>> having a cigarette.
>> doing some breathing exercises i learned from haidong gumdo.
>> i used to have a ball that i would kick around, until i kicked it too hard and lost it in the neighbor's yard.
>> i used to sing out loud to calm my nerves. i'd start with the first song of a musical and keep going until i either finish the entire soundtrack, or my time is up and whatever moment i had been dreading arrives.


3. Tag five friends and ask them to post it in theirs.

>> hmmm... older little girl, the cad, sanny, sanity lane, johann.

brewed by lifecafe  

 
22:23: my niece and i were talking about tracie thoms and how lucky she is. who the hell is tracie thoms, you ask?

tracie thoms is the "other new cast member" in the rent movie. she will be playing the role of joanne jefferson, the african american uptight lesbian lawyer. everyone knows who rosario dawson is by now because of all her previous work. but there wasn't much buzz about tracie thoms coz ... who is she anyway? if you've been checking out the new shows on star world lately, you might have heard of wonderfalls. they just aired the pilot last week and it seems like an ok show. something i'd watch, at least. anyhow, tracie thoms plays the waitress friend. i think. i didn't catch her character's name.

so, what i like about this girl is she's a renthead. a fan, like many of us. she auditioned. and auditioned. and auditioned. and almost always made it, but never quite got there for some reason or another. but now she's there. immortalized on film, to boot. she's great. she seems very down to earth. very funny, too. and yeah, she can sing. here's a transcript snippet from her video entry on the movie's blog:

"it's like, i'm like a renthead. and then somebody called me up and said 'hey renthead! why don't you be in the movie? would you like that? would that be fun for you?' i'm like, 'but... but... but before i was st--- you know, standing outside, tryin to get... in, to see the rent, you know? and now you want me to be IN the rent?! i don't understand! what happened? who owed me a favor?'"

 
21:16: late last night, i watched gothika*. after the movie, i hung out in the living room, listening to some cd's. at around 3 or 4am, our sliding door opened by itself. i'm not talking an inch or so open, i mean an opening big enough for a person to walk through. just as i was about to stand up to shut the door, a picture frame got knoced over. i think i stared at the door for about 5 seconds before i got up to close it. i'm sure it was just the wind or some such thing, but given that i had just seen gothika, i was pretty spooked.


*i may have missed something. can someone please explain to me why it's called gothika?

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19:54: i know i'd said i'd write a review on two plays, but ... i don't really feel like it. heh.

it's a time for new beginnings, i guess. i'm on medication and a controlled diet for the next couple of weeks. no alcohol, no caffeine, no salty foods, no msg, no canned meats. that's really rough, considering in this house, the maid serves canned stuff half the time. i can't even eat sausages or ham or anything of the sort. and she keeps forgetting i can't eat the stuff. at least once a day, i scrounge for a muffin or toast or something i can take to go with my medicine. i miss coffee. and chai tea latte. and pepsi/dr.pepper/coke. i miss chips. got my new glasses, so that's helping me to battle the dizziness a bit better. also got a new phone, though i still need a new sim. i am now singing for two bands. lead for the jazz band and back-up for the rock band. i get to sing my brother's songs. it's hilarious. but i also get to sing a lot of other stuff i've always wanted to sing, so it's fun.

a young girl sent me a message on myspace because my profile said i was a jazz freak. she introduced me to the music of eldar. nice name, don't you think, tolkienites? eldar. i wondered if his skills fit the name, so i googled him. pocha. eldar nga talaga. he's an 18-year-old jazz pianist from kyrgyzstan. he started playing piano at age 3 or so, just from watching his dad and following. the kid is amazing! he is a combination of art tatum and oscar peterson. it's mind-blowing. his cd is definitely at the top of my wishlist. have a look and listen here and tell me what you think!

brewed by lifecafe