17:13: thomas's birthday last night. it's funny. i hadn't seen thom and arni since thom's birthday party last year. it's turning into some sort of annual reunion. it was like the exact same party, only one year later. same caterers, same food, same table settings and flowers and all that. pretty much the same guests, too. thomas has food and tables ready for about 50 people, but no more than 3 tables are ever occupied. when thom's girlfriend asked him where everyone was and who he invited, he just paused to think and didn't say anything, at which point she screamed at him "you didn't invite people, no!" hahaha... our theory is that he's given a budget and everything is arranged for him and that pretty much all he has to do is show up on the night itself.

anyway, this time around richie and rina weren't with us. rich just got discharged from the hospital. he hadn't been feeling well lately. turns out his cholesterol level is way too high and now he's on a strict diet. richie z on a diet... he'll never live.
people, we are talking about a guy who gets his picture taken with bacon because he loves bacon so much. i remember that he once blogged about how he orders a double cheeseburger meal from mcdonald's, takes the fries, puts it in the actual sandwich, then adds some barbecue sauce on it. the guy eats fast food everyday. richie sans cholesterol? i don't see it happening. i only hope rina can keep him in check and keep him healthy.

joining us at thom's party this year was abby. i hadn't seen abby since they graduated from college, but since we last met after the 8-year gap, we've been going out a lot. in fact, in this past week alone, we finished a total of 2 bottles of red wine at my house on thursday, an equivalent of over 2 litres of red horse and 1 bottle of san miguel premium at 2 different bars on saturday, then at thom's party, more beer, some goldschlagger, and a variety of vodka-based drinks. yup. she's not the same innocent abby we used to know, but she sure knows how to party.

other additions to our table at thomas's party this year were thom's cousins, josh and migs. migs apparently plays guitar for a local group. he's a cool kid. thanks to him, i may have found a drummer (possibly the perfect drummer) for tinola. although now i hear our bassist just quit all his bands as of lunch today, so i don't know how that's gonna go.

it was nice to hang out and reminisce about the things we'd do and our screw-ups and famous one-liners from college. it's also good to see where everyone is now. thom seems to be taking school seriously. arni's career as a rapper looks like it's about to take off soon. richie's killing himself with cholesterol. abby and i are slowly turning into alcoholics. and karen cannot stand living in her grandma's house but is quite happy with ted. i hope joey, karl, jel and the others are just as happy.

Labels: hang-out stories, trips and long weekends, updates

 
01:59: in a continuing effort to cheer my friend up (and because it was her birthday and i had missed the dinner party she held on saturday), we went out for a very late dinner. a new year means new things and new places, so off we went to this new place that just recently sprang out of nowhere - proud mary.



to be honest, we ended up there because no other place was opened at 22:30 on a sunday night. the place was practically empty, we weren't even sure they were open. only one other couple was there, dining two tables away. we later learned they owned the place. still, the place was quite nice. we didn't regret going there.


if there was one thing we learned in college, it was to look at things with a critical eye. my friend and i immediately started commenting on the decor and the design of the place. there's an area in the front with couches and coffee tables and magazines. almost like a reception area at a spa, i thought.

in hindsight, our local neighborhood bar has sort of the same set-up. it's just more grungy. proud mary has more of a lounge feel.
we were told that it's not completely finished yet. next week, they'll be bringing in the tv's to be placed against the wall. they've got wi-fi, too. coolness!

i'd imagine it's a great place to dine and watch the lifestyle network or discovery travel & living or some such channel. and the staff is friendly and accommodating, too. my only real complaint was that the music ruined things. the atmosphere called for longue or chill-out or starbucks-type music or even pogi jazz. i didn't mind the fact that they had the radio on, but at least put it on wave 89.1 or crossover 105.1 or something more suitable to the atmosphere. i know it's a sunday, but leaving the radio on rj?? i swear, every new (i should say old) song evoked a new facial expression of horror mixed with disgust. but enough about that. let's talk about the food.
i had just had dinner so all i ordered was a mango shake and a banoffee pie. if you like your banoffee with chunky bananas, you'll probably like the way they do it. personally, i'm in it for the toffee, which was rather good, but i felt there wasn't enough of it to balance out the chunks of banana. the mango shake was similar to what you'd find in bizu. it's practically liquid mango. yummmm!
i forgot what the dish was called, but my friend ordered a fried pork dish, which was pretty tasty.
the menu was interesting and i'll make it a point to come back. there are a number of things i'd like to try, like their crab meat soup, or the scampi pasta.

proud mary is located towards the end of tomas morato, just before you reach the abs-cbn compound.


after dinner, we went to kozui, a quaint cafe(?) that serves mostly green tea.
being a fan of chai and green tea, i've always wanted to go there, but never truly found the opportunity to do so. besides, it always looked so intimidating from the outside. i imagined it would look a lot like a chinese restaurant, not unlike le ching in greenhills back in the early '90s. not so. think of it as starbucks, only everything is lime green and everything on the menu is made of tea. and i do mean everything. take their cakes for example - green tea cheesecake and tearamizu (i'm a sucker for corny food names, i'm sorry. i figure this would go well with binalot's calamansi flavored iced tea, kalamantea. nyahahahahaha!).

the idea of having nothing but tea on the menu seems daunting but because green tea is so mild, it does go along with pretty much anything. they have different kinds of green tea and oolong tea, mixed with all sorts of flavors. so far, i have tried an ice blended green tea with butterscotch. i loved it. my friend ordered something with mint and lime. loved that, too. having just come from dinner, we were unable to try any of the food. but there's a lot more to kozui. they've also got cool merchandise for sale.

and the place itself is simple and inviting, not to mention the music was good. heheh.



on the second floor, they've got a nice, quiet area where i am sure i'll be spending lots of time in, either chatting with friends or quietly reading a book by myself.


i honestly wish kozui had more branches. so far it's just this one branch along tomas morato, across from mocha blends.

my review on kozui? i love it!!!!! if you're a tea person, i'm sure you'll love it, too!

(i aoplogize. my friend said if i was to blog about this, we would need proof that i was actually there. with everything around me so japanese, i couldn't help but do the pose.)

Labels: hang-out stories, raves, updates

 
14:42: that was one pretty crazy storm we had. the number of mango trees in our neighborhood has dwindled. sad, really. i remember looking out the car window as a kid, observing how the branches of the mango trees on either side of the street would extend to the center, making it seem like we were driving inside a cave. i loved it.

enough nostalgia. here's what happened before, after, and during the storm.

wednesday. classes for thursday were already called off. i had planned not to watch at freedom because of my interview the next morning, but my friends texted to say that they were watching. late set. they started at around midnight. i missed cha's set to go home early, but i had fun anyway. angela was there and my friends met her.

thursday. my interviewer called to reschedule due to bad weather. good idea. power was gone by late morning. by around noon, the typhoon was in full force. wev and i inspected the damage at around 2pm. we took photos of the destruction. i'll upload them when i get the chance. the typhoon brought down the trees. broadway and 10th were impassable. it was difficult to get around even on foot. we were closed in. already, i was bored shitless. some of my friends were at bruce's, or so i assumed. they wanted me to go there, but i couldn't. the signal was down and it was impossible to send any messages. we were running low on light. the maid had gone to buy candles, but there was only one candle left in the store. wev, jan, rian, paige and i stayed up and played games as long as we could with what little light we had. they gave up at around 10pm and i was still wide awake.

friday. still no power. wev was gone by morning for a davao gig. we made plans to escape boredom. paige went to eastwood to hang with friends. jan went to work. i took rian with me to greenhills. my plan was to hang in starbucks, where i would have enough light to read neverwhere. the place was full. no seats. we walked to bruce's where it was already dark up the stairs and the guard had to light our way all the way to the 4th floor. we hung out for about an hour, attempting to re-build an already finished 3d whodunnit puzzle, then rian and i went to get dr. peppers at the grocery and have dinner somewhere. when we got back to bruce's, obbie was there. we played card games. i suggested going to wilson where they had a generator. we waited for abbey, played scrabble, then left for wilson when abbey got there. jack and his friend were there, waiting for poker buddies. they let us hang with them. rian played with her cousins and the rest of us put the puzzle together. obbie and i give up on putting the frames together. we played cards instead. we ended it at past 2am, when the poker boys, kizzi included, had gone home.

so saturday continued on to my house. we played cards by candlelight and talked until morning. jan made us breakfast, some wicked hotdogs, when she got home from work. we kept talking and joking around. we talked about our first meetings and first impressions of everyone in the group. then we talked about our grievances with every person. throughout all of this, i was hugging the pikachu stuffed toy. it smelled really nice, for some reason. it's ridiculous. anyway, abbey and obbie left at around 3pm, after rounds of catch phrase and waiting for bruce to wake up.

catch phrase obbie-isms

answer: mother, may i
abbey: it's something you say to your female parental unit when you want to do something.
me: may i!
obbie: sex!
me: duuuude... female parental unit! what the hell kind of sick fantasies do you have?!


answer: hardware
obbie: it's... uhm... you know, tools.... when you want to...
abbey and me: huh?
obbie: it's (extending his arm and making a fist)
abbey: hard?
obbie: it's harrrd!! and you (begins a pumping motion with his hips, apparently trying to show that he was wearing something)
abbey and me: (totally not getting it) bwahahahaha

 
10:42: my friend is gonna kill me for this, but i'm too sleepy to have a conscience right now. =D

little little girl (9/27/2006 10:33:48 AM): hay finally!! nagsign in din..nakuu..tong mokong na to..ssplitan ko na to eh!! X-(
lifey (9/27/2006 10:34:13 AM): :|
lifey (9/27/2006 10:34:18 AM): inamin din
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:18 AM): what??
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:21 AM): what??
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:27 AM): wala naman..oh..WAIT!!
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:32 AM): what i meant was!!
lifey (9/27/2006 10:34:38 AM): oh, suuuuuuuure
lifey (9/27/2006 10:34:42 AM): cover up
lifey (9/27/2006 10:34:45 AM): =))
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:48 AM): di ba..when you say i'm gonna split..ibig sabihin you're gonna leave..
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:52 AM): di ba!!
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:34:55 AM): i swear!!
lifey (9/27/2006 10:35:21 AM): iba ang "split na 'ko" sa "si-splitan ko 'to"
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:35:33 AM): well..mali lang ako ng conjugation..
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:35:34 AM): !!
lifey (9/27/2006 10:35:41 AM): freudian slip...
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:35:48 AM): NOO..
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:35:51 AM): no talaga!!
lifey (9/27/2006 10:35:53 AM): nuninuninu...
little little girl (9/27/2006 10:35:57 AM): :((

Labels: hang-out stories

 
15:15: from east to north west, to west, to south and out of manila. bridgeview, where we met angela and they were treated like royalty even before they played a pretty good set. to kc's, then to my house, where i had to pack for the beach trip. to martin's, where i learned to play bridge and teamed up with bruce and we tried to read each other's minds without much success. we slept at 6am when we were ridiculously laughing at any and every little thing because we were so sleepy. woke louie up so he could get ready to leave for martin's. slept a few hours until jon and charles got there. had breakfast when mark arrived and we headed for batangas.

nasugbu, where we cleaned house, cooked, ate, swam, tossed around a disc, drank, and played cards. mark, louie and i laughed at the others because we couldn't join them. everyone laughed at louie because ... well. if he had a hug counter this past weekend like i do on this blog, he'd probably have a higher hug count than i do right now. butt cramps galore on the ride back to manila, but we did get back safely. i made it to my family dinner where the first thing kizzi said to me was "you're brown." i had wine, wine, water, water, water, coffee, a damn good sandwich with three kinds of damn good mustard, lasagna, and some kfc. there was also an evil looking cake, death by chocolate, but my stomach was regrettably filled to capacity.

ayos!

Labels: hang-out stories, trips and long weekends, yuloys