This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night...

I don't understand how professional athletes can wear jewelry while they compete. I really don't.

When I was younger, I was very much into sports. Basketball (pretty good at), volleyball (sucked at), table tennis (kick ass), badminton (pwede na), bowling (I think any sport that is enjoyed with draft beer and nachos is the greatest thing on earth).

And when I would get on the court, or the lane, or approach the table, I would always make sure I put my jewelry away. First because there's a big chance that you'll lose that necklace while you're running around and also, jewelry is highly annoying when you're engaging in athletic activity. The necklace bounces around, your hair gets caught in the chain or your earrings, you can't grip the racket well if you wear rings.

So please, someone explain to me why/how these players do it?

Another post about movies you'll never see

The summer is over and I haven't seen The Bourne Ultimatum, Spiderman 3, The Simpsons Movie, Transformers, Pirates of the Carribean 3 (I wouldn't watch this even if you paid me), Harry Potter 4, Die Hard 4.0, that rat movie (I won't even pretend to know how it is spelled), Shrek 3 or Rush Hour 3.

But over the last couple of weeks, I did see the following films:

After The Wedding (Denmark) was nominated for Best Foreign Film at last year's Oscars. It was excellent. A simple story that kept your attention for two hours, kept you interested until the end and made you sit at the edge of your seat without a single gun being fired or a single car chase.

It was simple classic story telling at its best. It's what all movies are supposed to be.

A Touch of Spice is a Greek movie. Greeks are known for falafels, ships, and the Olympics. They are not known for movies. And maybe there's a reason for that.

This movie was touted as a shining example of the best in Greek contemporary cinema. And well, if this is the best, well, they have a long way to go. But the whole life = food, best things in life = spice theme was ok.

Leave it to the French to make well thought of movies. This one was not particularly brilliant, but the character development was so well done. Sigh.

The sad lonely bartend with the ailing father. The sad lonely real estate agent looking for excitement in his life. The sad lonely single woman looking for companionship. The sad lonely soldier looking to regain glory. The sad lonely caregiver who leads a double life.

The Page Turner is another French movie. You have one guess what it is about.

It's sort of like the French version of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Outwardly kind woman brought into your home turns out to be psychopath wanting to ruin your life. Saya.

(Aside: Doesn't Rebecca de Mornay look like a pretty Hillary Clinton? She'd make a great Hillary.)


The producers of 2 Days in Paris wanted to make another Before Sunrise. They even went to the effort of hiring Ms. Delpy.

But alas, this movie is not Before Sunrise. The writing is literally "trying hard" in the Pinoy sense. It tries to replicate (albeit painfully) the amusing banter of Before Sunrise.

In the end what you get here is a movie that reminds you of Before Sunrise and makes you realize what a good movie it was.

I, thank you.

400th post with the word "sex" in it

Yesterday I was at HMV deliberating whether I should start on Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dacalogue, a 10-hour long movie on the Ten Commandments (a 1 hour segment for every commandment). Then I spotted a special shelf for films made by Wong Kar Wai that had Eros, a collection of 3 short films about (you guessed it) desire.

So there I was, walking around HMV with the two DVDs in either hand, thinking "ten commandments or sex, ten commandments or sex." Well... you have one guess which won out.

Eros starts out strong with WKW's "The Hand". Mahusay. (Don't worry mother, it was not graphic at all. It was all in what was not said/shown) WKW had his usual dizzying kaleidiscope effect tienes (if you watch WKW, you will know what I mean and you will know that this is a compliment). The Hand, a simple story about a tailor and his relationship with a courtesan was so well shot, it made you want to weep. Magaling itong taong ito. Watch his movies.

Steven Soderbergh's "Equilibrium" was mildly amusing. Robert Downey, Jr. plays anxious therapy patient with a recurring dream of a beautiful woman. Alan Arkin plays his peeping tom shrink. This gets a grade of "Ok lang."

(Aside: I think Mr. Soderbergh's best movie of all time is The Limey. If you see this movie in your random trip to a video rental place, Metrowalk or just about any place selling videos, grab this film. You will not regret it.)

Michelangelo Antonioni's segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose" aka "The Dangerous Thread of Things" has been called the weakest of the three because it simply is. This one went no where fast. No plot, just lots of naked ladies. Which if you think about it, is pretty much what a 90 year old man like Antonioni would think about desire.

S.S.D.D.

I'm running out of things to write about.

In the course of the last 13 months or so, I've blogged about the things that concern me (i.e. inane news, general day-to-day life in China, movies, alcohol, life at the Perm, at the Firm). And I imagine that after the first 6 months or so, you've gotten a pretty good picture of what's in my silly little head most of the time.

I need a new schtick.

Reasons 32-35 to live in Hong Kong

The following articles are available at the neigborhood tindahan (i.e. the grocery store down the street from my apartment):

32. three kinds of Cotes du Rhone (my favorite French table wine)

33. Australian rib-eye and corn-fed sirloin

34. Stella Artois and Lowenbrau

35. Coke Zero

It's official: hell has frozen over

I woke up (without any external forces) at 7:30am on a Saturday in an unbelievably good mood.

I showered, did my dishes, tidied up.

Ironed two business shirts and a pair of shorts using the ironing horse with a surprising amount of dexterity. (Any amount of dexterity in ironing is an amazing amount for me.)

Dropped off my laundry.

Started my first episode of Life On Mars for the weekend.

Blogged a post with a "real" date.

All before 10 am.

My entry to Overheard in New York

Jona strolling down Broadway by herself somewhere in Morningside Heights....

Jona approaches man sweeping in front of generic deli.

Man: Neee-hao!

Jona looks at man but otherwise ignores him.

Man: Hey, Nee-haaaaooooow!

Jona walks passed man.

Man: Neeeeee-haaaww!

Jona turns, looks at man and yells: "What the f*ck are you saying?!"

God I miss New York.

Laying off the sweet stuff

I was at an MCLE (mandatory continuing legal education) class a few months ago and the woman next to me, a friend of a friend, offered me some candy.

I politely said no.

The next day, she offered me chocolate. Same response from my end.

On the third day, for merienda, she handed me an ensaymada. I declined yet again.

At this point I could sense she was getting frustrated with me, so I explained, "I'm not a big fan of sweets." (Which you wouldn't guess if you took one look at me.)

My seatmate obviously thought the same thing and then asked, so what are you a big fan of?

"Sinigang."

Portion control

I can't seem to figure out how to cook one serving of something. I always end up with three meals (sometimes three days) worth of anything I prepare.

And so tonight, for the third time this week, tenderloin tips.

One can do worse.

Adobo on my mind

There is nothing like good, greasy, three day old adobo. The kind that has partially disintigrated due to the heating and re-heating of the last few days.

Since I grew up in a Visayan household, I prefer my adobo "light". As in literally light colored. Not too much soy sauce, heavy on the suka and the patis.

I remember a long time ago, R. and G. (not married yet), C. and I went up to Baguio for a few days and stayed in K.'s house. I had asked my mom to prepare a half a gallon (And I mean literally half a gallon -- we'd use an empty ice cream tub as a container) of adobo we'd survive on for the trip.

By day 3, it was the greatest thing on earth.

The strange things you remember on a cold rainy day.

Happy Birthday, Lolo Ting-go!

Today is father's birthday.
I cook-ked him his favorite carrot cake
Wishing his home coming, more earlier.
Doesn't he?

--Anonymous

This immortal passage was on a Japanese-made tupperware C. used to bring to school.

Inmates Do The Algorithm March

What you get when you combine the bored inmates with the Algorithm March.

Algorithm March

I am crazy silly about this now. You gotta love them Japanese folks.

What if you had a thousand inmates with nothing to do?

Stuff like this makes me really proud to be Filipino. This is f*ing brilliant.

What do all these places have in common?

Felix, The Pen


Spoon, Hotel Intercontinental


Amber, Mandarin Oriental (The Landmark)

Pierre, Mandarin Oriental

Nichollinis, The Conrad


Grissini's, Grand Hyatt



Toscana, The Ritz



L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon



The Verandah, Repulse Bay

When nothing is something

(Sorry A. in Phnom Pen, this is not a philosophical post. It's about soft drinks.)

The Coca-cola Company has come out with yet a new variant of Coke and Sprite. They call it Zero. The tag line is "real taste. zero sugar." As you might guess it's diet Coke that tastes like real Coke. The Coca-cola Company has finally realized that they can't fool around with the formulations of their existing products, and if they want to, they'll have to come out with a new product. (Seriously, what got into them when they re-formulated Coke? That was definitely a low point in history.)

Both Coke Zero and Sprite Zero are for those folks who want a sugar free cola, but don't like the taste of Diet Coke (marvelous) or Diet Sprite (I would rather choke on my own vomit than drink this stuff).

The verdict is in -- Coke Zero is pretty good. Tastes almost like the Real Thing. I'm still gagging on Sprite Zero.

Kaaaaanin

I love rice. I really do. Newly steamed rice, fried rice, garlic rice, pusit rice (Dad, remember the pusit rice?!), aligue rice. Basta may kanin.

When I was 8 we travelled to the States and my mother was worried about me eating because I made this declaration (as one is prone to do when one is 8) that I needed to have rice with every meal. Good thing we stayed with relatives throughout most of the trip so there was rice!

Now we know that carbs are evil and should be avoided. But I still cannot get enough rice. And the rice in Hong Kong... amazing. Ang sarap kumain! The stuff always smells heavenly. Everywhere you go the rice is really white and really soft, but never wet or gooey.

Hay, kanin.

Home early

The last time I was told to go home because of a storm, I was in law school. It might have happened when I was in the Perm, but that would have been a one off. There are no uniformly applied regulations in the Philippines covering typhoons and when they are considered so strong people at work need to go home.

Come to think of it, there are no uniformly applied regulations in the Philippines at all. (But that's for another post).

So anyway, I'm home early today. Which is great and no one is complaining, but to be honest I thought the People's Republic of China had a better system for letting people go home early from an average work day. Actually I thought there was a system. There isn't any.

What happened was we got this e-mail that said, go home, it's typhoon signal no. 8. And I guess the entire working population of Hong Kong got that same e-mail at the same time, because all at once, people crammed elevators, buses, trains, trams (there was not an available taxi in sight).

Good thing it wasn't raining when this happened. Could you imagine the chaos if it was?

1, 3 then 8

A couple of days ago my secretary S. chatted me up on the weather.

She says, "Jo-nah, hopefully we don't work tomorrow. Rain very strong. If, typhoon number 8, then we don't work."

I say, "That's great, S., but it's only typhoon signal 3 now. There's still quite a ways to go."

S: No! After 3 is 8.

J: What?

S: It's 1, 3 then 8. No 4-5-6-7! 1, 3 and then 8!

And they say the Chinese are good in math.