did you feel that?

oh, man, that was scary --- LA got hit by an earthquake!

i was trying to help my friend edgar edit his website and suddenly the floor felt like it was lifted from under and the building shook in a matter of seconds. scary - real scary.

after a busy day, all i was looking forward to was a quiet evening. take an hour or so to post my daily update and consider it a day, but... the ground shook!

good thing i was almost finished with the website and was about to start this post. but with the ground shaking, i now have to gather myself again and try to remember what happened the past 24 hours.

since my last post, i have had only 6 hours of sleep. duh.

last night, my friend kasia had her birthday celebration at caliwok. we were there for less than an hour. the place was packed! while there, i saw kasia parade in three different costumes and saw how great a singer bobby solis was. he has an amazing voice. he sang michael buble's feeling good and nailed it to perfection.

my friend tony came with painter matt relox, whose paintings i will post sometime this week (not the paintings but pictures of the paintings - yeah, i know!).

we went to denny's from caliwok and stayed until about 130am. i had their chocolate shake (because i saw in&out while driving to denny's and had a sudden craving for choco shake) and fries - it wasn't really good! in&out should have been better. but after matt picked the tab, the choco shake started to taste a little more tasty :) thanks dude!

today, we met with sisters erlinda and evelyn granada. the sisters are film and concert producers. after i had my car brought to the dealer for the 60k (yeah, i drive a lot!!!) maintenance, they picked us up and we went to tgifriday's in cerritos towne. we went at 12noon and left at 6pm! in those 6 hours, you can only guess what sort of stuff we talked about. lol.

by the way, the lovely sisters wanted me to tell you that bernardo bernardo will hold a show at O BAR in cerritos on june 19th. will post more details as i get them. the dvd release of florante's recent concert will also be released soon. and the movie they produced called green river is now on dvd and netflix - rent it out, it should be good!

... and the earth shook!

is it yey or yikes?

angels & demons took the top spot at this weekend's box office by narrowly outearning star trek by roughly just $3 mil. jen aniston's management flopped resoundingly - oh well.

and lakers beat the rockets! whoa!!!

dirty pretty things

i discovered a gem of a movie last night.

the past week has been one of the busiest weeks i had at work - and i don't see it stopping until the end of july. but at least i got work to worry about, eh? so, am not really griping... just trying to write a lead to this post :)

anyway, i was home early last night. 9pm i was there in my couch, slumped in front of my tv with nothing much to see. and it's partly my fault why my tv has been basically transformed into a display item in my living room these days - lol.

last month, in the spirit of the recession, i had my cable downgraded from the middle basic to the basic basic programming - meaning, i only get the local channels, one cnn channel, food network (like i care), national geographic, and more than 10 spanish language channels! oh, betty la fea is on one of those channels, and every night at 11pm, i religiously sit through an hour of moving images pretending that i am following the story. so funny, i can still remember how chinchin does betty's voice in the filipino version.

anyway (again!) lol. i was supposed to go out and meet with a friend but i got lazy. i didn't wanna do my laundry... oh, i could have gone to edwards and watch angels & demons but i thought i'd just defer it until next week, that way i could sneak in to terminator or star trek - i did not tell you that, k? lol.

so, there i was... more bored than bored - it's that bad, lol. so, i hopped in my car, drove to the corner video rental and rented this 2002 audrey taotou (she's amelie) film called dirty pretty things for a buck! :) it's in the corner of bellflower and somerset blvd, if you are curious...

i so wanted to watch this movie for the longest time and i finally got to see it last night. and boy, was i floored! the movie is amazing!

french beauty audrey stars as senay, a turkish immigrant living illegally in london. she shares an apartment with okwe (played by the handsome - and one of the best actors ever - chjwetel ejiofur), who is himself an illegal immigrant from nigeria. they both work in the same hotel until immigration agents started pursuing senay whom they rightfully suspect of working illegally.

the movie is a gritty and disturbing thriller set amidst london's illicit body parts trade and the woeful existence of illegal immigrants who are subjected to numerous acts of abuses.

director stephen frears (the queen) has masterfully created london's underbelly that is not so far different from a city one would be all-too familiar with. there's the crook hotel manager who runs the illegal body part trade and a taxi operator who always gets afflicted with std. there's this disgusting sweat shop operator who forces his employees to perform oral sex on him or he will report them to immigration - what an apalling character! of course, there's a hardworking whore with a heart of gold, too!

okwe and senay navigate through this dreadful existence with almost a singular goal: to be able to save enough and get away from it all.

i was up until 3am today watching this masterpiece. it's got a satisfying conclusion (although my sentimental side wished it was something else) that drew me to ponder on how okwe's and senay's story would have played out at this point if it were real. i know, i always lose myself in the movies i see.

watch it on dvd. you'll not be disappointed.

who hearts new york?

unbelievable!

it seems like all noted critics are racing each other to come out with the worst review for tom hanks' angels & demons. joe morgenstern of the washington post likened his experience watching the movie to that of being inside a vacuumed chamber. what!?

i will still watch it, though.

so who hearts new york?

well, i was listening to kcrw's evening news tonight when they featured this beautiful story about a young marine stationed in afghanistan who was caught fighting with the taliban in his pink boxers.

my friend sally will love this guy. printed on the boxers is the tourist trap "i love ny" phrase.

here is the picture that graced today's New York Times... there's something surreal about the picture. so unreal. i bet the photographer who took this will be nominated for a pulitzer!
















here's the story i grabbed from the dailymail.


Taking on the Taliban in pink boxer shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops is not regarded as conventional military uniform.

Especially when the shorts declare 'I love New York'.

However when Zachary Boyd, 19, was woken up by a Taliban assault on his platoon he only had time to grab his weapon, helmet and body armour before springing into action.

Zachary Boyd had been asleep when the firefight erupted in the mountains of Afghanistan. So he only had time to put on his helmet, body armour and grab his weapon

Most of the time his appearance on the Afghanistan's frontline would have gone unnoticed by the eyes of the world.

However, Boyd managed to pick the day when a photographer was on hand to capture him going into battle in the pink boxers, red t-shirt and flimsy footwear.

The image of the fight at Firebase Restrepo in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province later ended up on the front page of The New York Times.

'I knew he was a boxer guy. I knew that for sure. I did not know they were pink, and I didn't know they said, 'I love New York,' father Tommy Boyd told his local Texas radio station WBAP.

'After I saw the picture I just laughed for about five minutes.'

On seeing the picture, Boyd's father said: 'I knew he was a boxer guy. I did not know they were pink, and I didn't know they said, 'I love New York'. Boyd, right, joined the Army because of the September 11 attacks

Boyd phoned his mother Sheree Boyd to warn her that he might be in the paper. 'He said: "I hear the Times is what they put on the President's desk",' she said. 'Then he told us, "I may not have a job any more after the President has seen me out of uniform".

'It was typical. He has always been an interesting little character.'

Boyd, who graduated from Keller Central High School in 2007, decided to join the army because of the September 11 attacks.

He was promoted to the rank of Army Specialist last week.

*****




















the mom was on radio and it was such a lovely interview. she couldn't keep herself from laughing at what her son did.

she shared that zach will turn 20 on sunday, may 17. happy birthday dude!