a taste of death

an email alert from mission metallica woke me. it directed me to a quicktime link (buffers, how very lars *pay up, my devoted fans* ulrich) for a first listen of the first single from their latest effort entitled *the day that never comes*.

it sucked.

i can only hope this is one of those songs and one of those albums that, as the idiom goes, grows on you. what kills this hope is rick rubin, producer extraordinaire whose method is, and this is lifted from wiki:

“Gapless Albums’ which are albums with songs that segue into each other, such as Minutes To Midnight by Linkin Park, South of Heaven by Slayer, and Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

so if that song sucked…

looking back, st. anger never did grew on me. load and reload got cool over time, but not st. anger, a product of hatred therapy and the no-pro-tools bullshit made sound it sound like a garage recording which, ironically, should have been done on garage, inc.

what hurts is that i’ll be buying the album anyway. i hope metallica cashes it now. some rock bands age like wine – rollignstones and the kind, even jimmy page made it to the olympics closing ceremony. but metal bands? when gout kicks in and hair starts falling, death is the only hope. and in ten years or less when albums are already given for free, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.

and now that i’m awake, better start packing for cthulhu.

goggles….check

fins…check

virgin sacrifice…check

there is hope

i waited until the words wouldn’t come yesterday and watched peter jackson’s *king kong* and finally fell asleep at the sofa. the breadwinner arrived at 4.30 ayem today –  and my asking if she works for TBWA ny failed to connect. she left again by 9.

so i slept the whole day, breakfasting around noon on toasted bread and instant coffee and slept again. somebody doorbelled wrong which woke me up just in time to shower and go to times square. lunch was a snickers bar come 5.30 peyem. 

amazing race to columbia u and back to downtown and by this time my mind is reeling from the hunger.

of course, we waited for 1 hour and 15 minutes more after hordes of other hungry people beat us to the line at a noodle bar. the ramen was so-so, even teriyaki boy does a better job but the pork buns were deadly – half were pork fat – the kind that dribbles down your chin when you bite into it. the flavor was a winner too – something like asado but not as salty. while waiting, i grabbed a pale pilsen named *censored*. then i glimpsed a familiar label but wasn’t sure. lo and behold, they serve san migule. 9$ is plain robbery but after all the walking and the waiting, it was all worth it. 

i’m now ready to meet cthulhu.

 

some fantasies do come true

when there’s a wheel

one of those weekends when i got peeled off from the couch for some much needed cardio. basically walked until i had to catch my breath. stole some pics at the skating area, famous for peeps with tililing. some bikes too.

wheelers of the world, unite!

the hair, the hair.

on the side, is this very discreet bike.

a bling that would put damien hirst to shame.

not one…

…but two.

tricycle drivers, a dude and a dudette.

crime deterrent?

not really.

whatever the chain can’t protect, the enterprisers will take.

lock this, clima.

eq is a killer app

upgrading to 3g and saying goodbye to Harmonia was a painful decision to make. i went through my mind all the pros and the cons and finally eq won. so i kept her. i would rather wait and get a new one for free from at&t once my contract expires (there’s an additional 100$ if i’m getting the 3g now and ang naman kapal ng pez ko if i ask for the money from the breadwinner. and not that she can’t or won’t which all the more lends to being a bilmoko.)

or, maybe just wait until december if santa brings a sackful of 32gb? 

so. 

what i did was to tidy up Harmonia, loading with as much interesting apps as technologically possible and sanitizing the files especially the music – the requisite metallica, beatles, and now madonna (but only the greatest hits) among other favorites.

the movies, i only have two.

16 gb is okay, but i’m still deciding if ever i could add *nosferatu* or *the cabinet of dr. calighari* or maybe both before her memory turns to fuck. which makes december very, very exciting indeed. insert evil, evil laugh here.

the attack of the zits

high school days are here again.

for some strange reason, zits are appearing on my ugly face, uglyfying it even more. seven on my last count like some unfinished connect-the-dots game. theory 1: the long hair which is far from being hypoallergenic. theory 2: the sleep pattern of sleeping at 2 plus in the ayem, waking at 7 and sleeping again from 9 to 12 noon and a siesta at 3 to 5 in the peyem. 

the pesky ones are those near the areas that should be shaved. when razor meets zits, there will be blood. and pain of course.

and i thought that banana joke is really true.

sibuyas

all news reports that i gather through inquirer.net worthy of making the onion cry will be chronicled in a category titled “sibuyas”. 

 

i am a ma-ma-material boy

joy bought a couple of tickets to the gunshow…no to madonna, this october at the madison square garden.

when the tickets arrived via fedex, snapples, my proofreader and mistress of subject and verb agreement said that for every metallica fan, a madonna worshipping gay man lurks inside. i disagreed. she reminded me of a TBWA christmas party years ago. no treats for this very bad girl.

PS: she just caught the missing hyphen between “madonna” and “worshipping”. still no treats until she takes the gay remark back.

found porn

while surfing inquirer.net found the following news story in the span of 2 minutes.

don’t tell me these are not funny. i’ve always said that the onion doesn’t stand a chance in the philippines. we don’t have to make shit up to be funny.

apple, linksys, cisco, timewarner

you can all suck my dick you fucking incompetents!

let’s see who will laugh last when the cult of the steampunk rules this fucking world.

no country for fired men

a man in businesswear sleeping on a bench outside a breakfast place. that was on sunday. 

today, he’s on one of the stairs two houses down horizontally sleeping. the same attire but longsleeves now untucked.

the countdown to longhair, unshaven beard and the stink of depression and hopelessness begins.

corporate america has just kept its poise while a minion has been swept under the rag of greed.

we can only pray that this doesn’t happen to us.

tssmr: vicky, christina, barcelonaa

short and sweet this spain’s tourism seduction where the psycho sexual bullshit of trying to be artiste’s are unmasked.

“the piano has been drinking…”

…and my glasses named “Tiresias” is demanding a mandatory retirement after serving me since second year collage.

P50.00 from a sidewalk vendor at our town’s supermarket – actually an optometrist’s sale. after four lense changes and a gazillion repairs not excluding the ever depandable masking tape for nerd appeal (or to be accurate, sex repeal), i think she has the right.

she also outlasted the oakley mistake, that overpriced and overhyped brand preferred by mr. palengke. i shudder at the thought (my karma for not wearing pink in the 80s).

so. candidate number one is muji, if ever the times sqaure store carries something that resembles what hunter s. thompson would wear.

candidate two is this:

ray-ban opticals. this better be worth a mythological name.

truths

• there are still electronic companies whose support is not 24/7/365 despite the fact that this is the year 2008

• while returns are usually unquestioned, it’s the returning that is a pain

• sometimes the best reason for returning something is the truth – like, it looked really hideous inside the house

• it’s best to trust what your gut tells you than listening to all the bullshit a salesman can spew

for the record…

…because joy doesn’t have a journal, analog or otherwise: promotion.

at the rate this is going, we will never get to have kids.

if males can conceive i’ll be giving birth by october, but no.

meanwhile, i don’t have shit to treat her dessert.

80 proof of inspiration

the quest for the end needs a little help.

gods, i miss sa guijo and the batcave at palanca (no, neither bistro nor gweilo’s).

instead of the prosecution of george w. bush for murder…

…which is taking forever to be available at the library, i got the second installment from jeff somers.

one of those books that are produced with the hollywood in mind and are fit to be devoured in half a day.

titles i’m taking out next time when all the waters have been drag:

• by george

• the learners

• infected

and of course the latest by vincent bugliosi:

it’s helter skelter, 21st century style!

now back to the oven.

digitally yours

there’s much ado about a press photo that seemed to be photoshopped for added drama.

spot the fake one.

exhibit 1:

exhibit 2:

both were retouched. in exhibit 1, a fourth missile was added. although exhibit 2 takes the picture, as kodak would say, further.

one of those days

this should be in my handwritten journal, but i’m making an exception due to a bottle of wine consumed in less than an hour with the sun still up.

i baked a measly 108 words today. on the good side, a single right word is better than a thousand wrong words. on the bad side, the shame! 108 words? that’s a fucking 15 seconder commercial, something i used to chew for breakfast. 

i might delete this comment in the next few hours.

gods, let me finish this.

new orphans

got tanned last weekend – 12 noon horsing around the boat for rent at the park. because i spent 5 days without going out except to return books at the library. and the wife somehow knew. some rude chicano dude – just when i thought that nothing could get worse than the failure to communicate, here’s someone who needs to go to charm school. of course the ladies of the group did not let it pass. no tip and a verbal complaint to the manager. lesson? never fuck around with the famished, exercise-challenged, overworked accountants.

two new books, the first is a hugo finalist and the first chapter i’ve read at barnes around february.

the second, a booksale staple, one of the mushroom books that creeps up here and there like the bonfire of the vanities and any book authored by andrew m. greeley, one that i’ve been meaning to actually try to read. both at 50 cents each from the thrift shop at the corner.

now the backlog of reading looks like this:

tesla is on the halfway mark, the neil gaiman thing recently finished while cheering for france to smash the US only because bush has the temerity to really attend a competition, like our very own mike a. the bible is for, well, if the devil can afford to quote the scripture, surely i can read it too? just to check if the actual verse is worded as “a rending of garments” or “a rending of clothes” in the new international version.  

oops…back to the park. one musician is a puzzle. apart from the instrument that’s being played (some kind of string/percussion hybrid thing), it’s also her gender. is she a dude that looks like a lady or a lady that looks like a dude? take a closer look. we never found out.

wtf?

i don’t normally care what’s on tv. except that it’s the olympics and it’s being held in china and with all the controversies thrown in, i think it would be a good show.

guess what?

NBC, the media company that has the rights to the olympics didn’t broadcast it live as the plan is to do a primetime show peppered with commercials. 

all videos posted on youtube cannot be seen.

wtf, indeed.

as one commenter on the new york times website aptly put it:

“I am Chinese American. I am so excited about the Games. I don’t drink, but I did bring Tsing Dao beer to the office to share the excitement with my coworkers and DRINKED! Just sad that I can’t watch it live. Shame on NBC. You guys criticize Chinese government for censorship. You too, you censor it for commercial reasons, but still censorship. I just hope they don’t cut off too much tonight for commercials. But that could be my wishful thinking.

— Posted by GM”

yes, it should have been “drank” but he got the point about censorship. i hope everybody takes seriously a blogger’s suggestion to start a petition against NBC.

on the flip side this is no surprise. the US can only police the rest of the world except itself.

now, on to another 1,500 words on the story that’s waiting so i can have the right to buy some tsingtao when the breadwinner comes home.

kids, don’t try this at home

what i don’t do with books, i do with wine. that is, judging a bottle by its cover – name and artwork. i wouldn’t know shit about wine even if my life depended on it so i don’t pretend to pick something, look at its vintage and provenance and try to read the fine print. instead, i stick with the trusted sauvignon. the rest depends on how the label grabs me.

the wine shop at the corner replenishes stock weekly so there’s always something for the eye, and when it’s chilled enough, the stomach.

thus, two bottles for the week, from california. the designers must have been sampling the content before designing – no way these designs can wrap itself on an italian bottle. unless of course the kinds that land on the coolhunter.net.

why wine?

because i’m fed up with the piss sold as beer. one time, i tried a combo that works – taking a double shot of jack for every bottle of bud. it works but is insane, given the cost. so, red wine it is. fuck gout, when there’s some anti-oxidants to be had. and a nice-looking bottle too.

masks, capes, and red briefs

sunday at the met. thanks to bank of america who supports the museum, we got in for free and managed to see the superhero costumes before it wraps up this month. the exhibit is a no-photo affair but because the flag of the republika must be raised high, i snatched a few shots. the batman suit was the one worn by bale while the ironman armor was the one donned by downey, jr. or so says the literature. the spiderman costume was cool too except that the guard was too close and i don’t want to risk it. we also roamed the museum after, covering indian and chinese art this time (the least populated unlike the egyptian exhibit area).

on the way back, i saw a secondhand book about my current obsession, nikola tesla. 10 dolyares for a very well-thumbed, pulp covered paperback.  joy bought *wicked* from the sorriest looking old woman on the block who doesn’t seem to belong there – her manner of selling each books has all the hurt in the world and the wife said that she believes she’s selling her personal stuff because she needs money this very day. when we paid, she can’t even talk audibly. 

what more but food to end the day? two blocks away from the house is a noodle house. we’re ready for the winter.

the times they are confusing

joy got an email from her former office. the ridiculous amount that she’s been offered last time has been made, well ridiculouser. i don’t know what will happen. i don’t want to think about what her decision will be.

in tongues of babel

the aircon broke down last night.

what’s out of the ordinary is that the technician (a chicano dude) who repaired it this morning bid me farewell in tagalog. “paalam na.” i have to process it in my sleep-deprived brain at least twice.

they say that over 200 languages and dialects are spoken here at any given time. somehow i believe that to b true.

somehow this is true and consequently not funny

the onion, america’s finest news source ™ grabbed my attention with this article. full text at: 

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/worlds_worst_person_decide_0

stories like this make me think that for all its brilliance, the onion wouldn’t fly in our beloved republika ng pilipinas simply because our news stories are not just funny but bizarre bordering on fortean proportions. browse this: http://www.forteantimes.com/ and compare with today’s headlines at inquirer.net.

the avclub also has an interview with mike mignola at: http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/mike_mignola

right. i’ve got too much time on my hands.

so much time in fact that i’m reliving high school days by listening to death (leprosy album) on pandora and youtube. death is to nikola tesla as metallica is to thomas edison. i  miss my tapes and the record store at the province where all sorts of pre-slayer bands can be had for 50 pesos. headbangers of the web unite!