Author Archives: paderewski

laundry therapy, musings, save the earth

luna resurrected

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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.  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).

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, musings

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.

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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 😉

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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

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laundry therapy, travel

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.

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filmmaking, food trip, movies, musings

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.

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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.

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, musings, sketch

on the boat

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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.

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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.

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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!

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food trip, musings

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!

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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.

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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!

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Rocci Chocolate Kitchen is located at the Zone strip, malugay st corner buendia, Makati. Tel No 840-2085.

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food trip, laundry therapy

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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food trip, musings, sketch

roku ramen

there’s a nice little ramen place at the 5th floor of the oracle building in katipunan, where serenitea and sizzling pepper steak is situated on the not-so-ground floor.

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the place is called roku, a japanese ramen restaurant. eaten there twice now and their food is alright but reasonably priced. most of the dishes were below 200 and may fit the budget of most of the students on katipunan.

i do have to confess my only reason for posting about roku was because i thought my phone camera’s hdr function was awesome and the interiors looked amazing haha im rockin a galaxy note 2 so yeah, hdr is awesome! 😉 well, there was another reason for carlo and i to go back to this resto but we’re not saying what 😉 cheers!

roku is located at the 5th floor of the oracle building in katipunan, quezon city. and im being redundant 😉 cheers!

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musings

out at sea

it’s been awhile since ive been on a ship. back in college my first trip was on april of 1995 when my grandfather invited me to join him on a trip to manila when he planned to buy a car from a 2nd hand dealer. i was fresh out of high school and the only university i took entrance exams for and passed was the UP. my parents and aunt encouraged me to “check it out” so my dad helped me pack a very big bag with most of my things because if i do find myself liking UP, i would go straight to enrollment and start my first semester in college.

the trip to manila took almost three days on board the negros navigation. my grandfather booked a cabin room and i snuck in and slept there with an ordinary ticket. it went well except during meals where my grandfather could eat at the designated resto for cabin and suite passengers while i had to pay for meals there because of my ticket and p80 per meal was really expensive then.

20130214-172807.jpgafter my first semester i was excited to finally take a break and head back to mindanao. ive never been away from family this long. a friend and i purchased a tourist ticket to superferry on october 1995. we lined up at sm north to get the tickets, which were printed using a dot-marix machine and inserted into a sleeve with sharon cuneta’s face on it.

And so began my frequent trips to and fro cagayan de oro via ship. sometimes i stayed in the tourist section (air-conditioned semi private bunk bed style accommodations, sometimes with curtains) or aircon deluxe (not so private bunk bed style accomodations, sharing bed with strangers and no divisions between your bed fellow and you except for a handle bar). on occasion i took the cabin room when with friends from university but it was a tad too expensive at p2000 with meals.

i do remember riding most of the major shipping companies william lines, gothong lines, and aboitiz superferry, before the big merger and the three companies became known only as WG&A Superferry, still with sharon cuneta on the ticket sleeve. also remembered when trips to manila became faster. from 3 days, the trip from cagayan de oro to manila now took only 1.5 days!

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one time while on the ship in the middle of the sea, the movie playing all over the tv screens was james cameron’s titanic. talk about irony! this was then followed by dolphy’s titanic spoof, tataynic, which was shot in a superferry boat.

i stopped taking the boat when airplane fares got cheaper as cebu pacific came into the picture and began offering promo fares, including their famous piso fare promos. id book 6 months to a year in advance for tickets in june and december and never took the boat again.

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it may as well have been 10 years ago since i took the ship and i was pretty excited to join carlo in his event dressup aboard 2Go from batangas to caticlan (boracay) (on what used to be a cebu ferries boat). i learned from one of our clients that wg&a has long been gone. negros navigation has acquired the aboitiz superferry group and restructured the brand to 2go, which was originally a courier service company. the amenities and design have been upgraded. we have cable tv onboard! also ive noticed the phone network signals are better out at sea today than it was 10 years ago. i have signal! erratic yes, but signal nevertheless.

ive long invited carlo to take the boat with me to mindanao but he’s always declined. with this trip, he’s converted and maybe we might just book ourselves on 2go next time en route home 😉

bon voyage!

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movies, music, musings

Les Misérables (2012)

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LES MISERABLES the musical the movie. we waited for this all christmas long and it’s finally here. lots of things i may or may not need to comment on. but no fun not saying them, right? the golden globes is right to grant hugh jackman and anne hathaway best actor and supporting actress respectively but i think they should have at least nominated eddie redmayne for his fantastic portrayal as marius. beautiful voice and his scene on empty chairs and empty tables alone was worth the admission price.

and they were also right to give the best director award to ben affleck and not to tom hooper if only because of his excessive use of closeups. what’s up with that? also, some of his staging in the film is too literal–the pavement shines like silver, the streets are full of strangers, rain will make the flowers grow? we get it!

anne hathaway was awesome but something about her winning reaps of accolades and awards may have hampered my appreciation for the performance. same thing happened with jennifer hudson’s effie white. when she got to “and im telling you, im not going,” i expected to cry buckets and i didnt. shame.

the design was awesome, the textures reminded me of perfume: the story of a murderer where you could smell the streets of paris. even that little detail of dirt on marius’s rump when valjean carries him off into the sewer is just awesome. but i hate that painted eye in the optical shop signage by the barricade. you didnt see it? it was the “eye” of God (bring him home scene)

the weakness of the film may be due to the nature of the musical as a stage production. the transitions could be much smoother, story telling wise, and despite this being an adaptation of the musical, they could have added a bit more score in between scenes.

having said that, i forgive russel crowe’s singing voice because he did try his best and his acting was still effective. i love the 2nd half of the movie when marius and enjolras started plotting out the futile rebellion. i love the new song that fleshes out valjean’s purpose in life. i love samantha barks here because i hated her in the 25th anniv concert. i love the young cosette and i love gavroche. kudos to sasha baron cohen and the typecasted but lovable helena bonham carter. and it’s awesome to give love to colm wilkinson, who passes the candlesticks to the new valjean.

i am aware of hugh jackman’s singing prowess and despite him not being a natural tenor, he owned this and more. the imperfections of live singing created so much more depth in his performance that i wish he could have a breather of space in his camera framing to make it perfect. still awesome!

dont get me wrong though. i was trying my best not to belt out enjolras’s parts lest i earn the ire of my fellow theatergoers. at the end of the day, i still love this musical. the movie is imperfect but i will still watch this adaptation again and again and again. and in a year’s time, i will love this movie more than i did today.

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