first time to gym in a long, long, loooong time 😉
Monthly Archives: February 2013
wherein we wander into artsy fartsy territory
when i was looking for hotels to stay in siem reap, some friends suggested 1961, an art cafe hotel gallery space exhibit space slash slash slash artsy fartsy place. this is owned by loven and faith, a pinoy couple and would have been perfect except that we were traveling with a big group and the place is not that kind of touristy hotel. it’s more for the crazies like carlo and me. and jetro of van gogh is bipolar.
nevertheless, we made sure to visit this place while in siem reap. the hotel is located towards the end of the river in a quiet side of town. there were exhibits on display when we got there but since we went at 3 in the afternoon, there were no people around except for a russian photographer moonlighting as a tour guide named olga who i spoke with, and a few others. this place is just awesome, just standing there made me want to pick up paper and start to draw. or a hammer. very quaint, really nice space and actually reminded us of home. chos. Continue reading
wherein we were being educated at the war museum
the war museum in siem reap, cambodia, was nothing like the one in ho chi minh in vietnam. it looked like some plantation grove from outside and one could see it was really a war tank graveyard once you get in.
we were met at the entrance by a middle-aged man with a slight limp. he introduced himself as rottana (pronounced rotna) and explained he will be our tour guide. he asked us if we knew about the history of cambodia and clearly we knew very little so he started to explain about his country’s travails much better than any history book would.
luna resurrected
here was luna when i bought her in august 2008. she’s a mac book pro 4,1 a1260 model with 2.5Ghz intel core 2 duo, 250gb hd and at that time, i stuffed her with 3gb 667 MHz DDR2 sdram. we had a great time working together but like all gadgets, they do have a life span. my extended warranty took ample care of luna for three years and we enjoyed at least 3 lcd and dvd replacements, and a new trackpad and keyboard.
my luna started to get weak in the knees about a year ago. basic surfing had become a bit laggy and photoshopping 16×20 ft tarp images have been challenging. the battery would only give me about 15 minutes of juice before it went kaput so luna became a desktop computer coz i had to keep her plugged in. ALL THE TIME. eventually the battery died about a few months ago.
i thought of buying a new machine last year. the idea of a smaller, lighter laptop was tempting but i thought luna and i still had more to go. i especially love her matte 15″ screen. watching movies without worrying on viewing angles is apparently important to me! haha
first i purchased a new battery at the local apple store. although my first one gave me 5 hours of juice, this one would only give me 3 hours from a full charge but at least luna is no longer a desktop unit.
then i went to google. Â came across the iFixit website and it regaled me with parts replacement for the penryn model (late 2008, early 2009 mbp models) and how to install them yourself. at first i was bent on purchasing from the site but later checked on amazon.com for price comparisons. there were some good reviews on items and at a lower cost than ifixit so i ordered a new crucial 256GB solid state hard drive, a 4GB ddr2 sodrimm ram (to boost my memory to its max 6GB ram limit), and the Goonies dvd (very important and necessary purchase).
i would like to thank the academy…
the oscars show is fast approaching. and on the eve that we arrived in cambodia, i learned that my friend, jerrold tarog, was nominated for his musical score and editing work in chito rono’s the healing. as i was about to congratulate him, i decided to see who was nominated for best production design this year. i expected el presidente and thy womb in the category but i was pleasantly surprised to find my name in the list.
id like to thank the academy for this. it’s such an honor to be nominated amongst this awesome pool of talents in both indie and mainstream movie categories for production design (as to why there should be a divide in categories, i guess there’s just more love to share –such an optimistic remark).
practice lang sa thank you speech ko sa oscars. chos! hahaha 😉
cheers to films and friends nominated and recognized: the guys behind tiktik: the aswang chronicles– direk erik matti, co-nominee peter collias, producers dondon monteverde and dingdong dantes, artdep adrian espanola and dunn ledesma, kitch napigkit and cherry fortes, buboy crauz and his team. dop dix buhay, janice de belen; to thy womb with direk brillante mendoza, larry, tanya, tito odie flores, ms nora, sir katz; alagwa with bianca balbuena, bwakaw with ferdie lapuz and tonee acejo, adolf alix jr and ben tolentino in mater dolorosa, my friend coco martin for sta nina (chos!), slumber party with rk bagatsing, harley alcasid, carlo mendoza for bwakaw and el presidente, shayne sarte for a mother’s story. and jerrold tarog of course 😉 congrats sa lahat and thank you pmpc
full list of nominees at starmometer.com
temple run
i thought i had it down pat.
on a whim and circumstance, i decided to purchase tickets for the whole family early last year so my dad’s wish to see cambodia would be granted. at that time, my dad was undergoing radiation therapy for his prostate cancer in manila and carlo and i just came back from ho chi minh city in vietnam. it would have been one where the family travels outside the Philippines together also because we’ve never done that before.
my dad was thrilled with the plan and it put his mind off things but it would still be a year before we could go. unfortunately, my dad never made it to see the temples. he passed away last august.
in his memory we proceeded with this trip. and seeing the beauty and majesty of this place, it breaks my heart a little (no, a lot) to not see him enjoy the sights, be with us in photos or to take his arm and help him up the corridors.
this trip is actually more emotional than i thought it would be.
payong, i saw a fisherman’s cap for sale at the angkor national museum this afternoon and i thought of you.
labyu, payong.
Food and Art Part 1
Last week we had an interestingly artsy fartsy series of events we didnt see coming.
On february 7, thursday night, bianca balbuena, production manager and assistant director in some of jerrold tarog’s films and now producer for pepe diokno’s latest project, in which i and carlo are a part of, invited us to a screening at the UP of her recent producing stint off cinema one originals festival, ABERYA, starring will devaugn, mercedes cabral, iwa moto, and best supporting actor, nicholas varela, a sound recordist in real life and the ex-boyfriend of bianca. long sentence, i know.
We got to the UP early so we had dinner across the street from the theater at the ROC. awesome food and interiors. Loving the high ceiling, especially.
Clockwise from top left is tomato soup, bicol express bagnet, awesome herbed tomato and garlic roll up pizza and a beef stew (very good).
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ABERYA was written and directed by christian linaban who hails from cebu. I would have enjoyed the film more if the sound were better during the screening. The film lost a lot of the mood and atmosphere to draw its audience into the world of love, sex, video scandals, designer drugs and circumstance. I learn later on that Pepe diokno had previously tweeted saying the film had the best sound design there is hence, it explained why i couldnt immerse myself into the film. Maybe i can catch it again in a better theater, which makes it also imperative that the UP film center (now called the UP film institute, but im old like that) must really upgrade its sound system, acoustics and put in a better and permanent digital projector.
on the boat
im pleasantly surprised the effect of sea breeze and being on a ship have inspired me and afforded me time to write! In the last 24 hours ive posted 3 articles with photos and currently reviewing and editing 3 more prior to publishing. That’s more than what ive done in the last few months.
im also surprised to find myself writing more about food than my design work haha actually, im currently dishing out articles using my phone so i only have access to photos of food we’ve eaten via my camera phone. Years ago most people would say grace before eating. Now they post on instagram before praying. Most of my design materials are in my laptop so ill post about the new eq lapu lapu commercial and tide’s newest commercial with vic sotto, plus the relaunch of breeze detergent when i get back on land.
carlo makes it work
will be leaving for cambodia soon so i hope to write more about that. purchased tickets last year hoping my dad could make the trip but he passed away last august so we’ll be keeping his wishes alive by proceeding with the trip. thank God cebu pacific air agreed to reimburse his tickets after we filed an appeal and submitted a copy of his death certificate. carlo and i will be travelling with my mother, sisters tina and ana, aunt temay, and cousin mia, plus a friend of tita temay.
by march, my art department team and i will be busy shooting pepe diokno’s 2nd feature, Above the Clouds. We’ve already done locked in most of the locations so far and the artdep will resume preparations when i get back from cambodia. Let’s see if i have time to write about it while shooting.
We’re almost back on land so ill be missing the bunk beds and the food here aboard 2go. Also excited as my family from mindanao will be arriving in the morning! Wohoo
Cheers!
Rocci Chocolate Kitchen
Our favorite preshoot dinner tradition is eating bagnet at Stoops in malugay street, Makati. Fat and full one night, we noticed a new cafe in the strip 2 shops down from Stoops. Glad we decided to stop by!
The interiors in that small space was quaint but modern. The belgian chocolate wafer biscuits were really good that we decided to stop and have those with coffee before heading home.
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The chocolate bars they had available were also amazing. so far, we’ve tried the  decadent brownies: cookie dough (topped with chocolate chunks on a moist brownie made with dark belgian chocloate) and dark chocolate (dark belgian chocolate baked in rich brownie and topped with walnuts). Kada kagat napapa-wow kami ü We loved their selections. Took a photo of their coffee and hot chocolate menu.
They had little red notebooks on the tables where guests could write a greeting or a short rave review. I decided to leave a sketch 😉 yey!
Rocci Chocolate Kitchen is located at the Zone strip, malugay st corner buendia, Makati. Tel No 840-2085.
PINO
carlo and i wanted to have a not so ordinary dinner one night so we headed off to pino at teacher’s village. this is near the bayantel office in maginhawa street.
we’ve eaten here before when i steered our production staff to dine here after researching online for vegetarian restaurants because we were running out of options in feeding our vegetarian director from mumbai. a quick call from ex-vegetarian jerrold tarog led to links which led to this resto.
the vegetarian choices were awesome, very simple but extraordinary in their execution. i had the stuffed tomatoes, some had the portobello mushrooms and so on and so forth. they ran out of tablea cheesecake that night so carlo and i swore to come and maybe taste everything else they had to offer.
and so we did. the place was half full when we arrived. impressed with the mix of cooking styles and ingredients but our choices that night had us at bagnet. we ordered kare kareng bagnet with bagoong rice, tempura oysters with wasabi and something (basically three of our favorite things in one dish; awesome), sinigang na salmon ulo sa miso and bayabas, and their home-brewed iced tea. also ordered the tablea cheesecake, which was available that night, and the turon with ice cream.
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we were surprised that the oysters were too salty for our taste, probably the batter. that was a big letdown. everything went downhill from there. the bagoong rice made sense with the kare-kare but it made the dish really salty, adding to the fact that they also served bagoong on the side. their bagnet was sadly only lechon kawali status. we could have a gorgeous mound of real bagnet at stoops in makati for p90, less than half of what they were charging us, instead of this poor offering at pino. the kare kare sauce also tasted like it was reconstituted from a ready made powdered mix.
the sinigang was almost not that salty yet the miso had already rendered the stock salty and the chef’s heavy hand had rocked that boat with additional salt.
the iced tea unfortunately was too sweet and i had to thin it down with service water. for something that was a home-brew, their iced tea tasted like nutrilicious, a commercial premixed iced tea.
the dessert could have been the saving grace but alas it would not be so. while the cheesecake was not bad, it wasnt particularly mindblowing as id hope. the turon was better (but i hated how it was plated).
we normally wouldnt mind paying for a rather expensive meal if the food was good. this did leave us with a bitter taste in the end as it was not cheap at all to charge to experience. will have to think hard if we’re ever coming back because in fernez to them, the vegetarian fare was good. too bad.
pino resto bar is located at 39 malingap st.,teacher’s village, quezon city
benjamin padero 