the midweek round-up, 10.11

I can't get enough of that guy who's napping flat on his face. For serious. I can look at him all day and ponder existential questions. Really. (Source: Huffingtonpost.com)

And just like that, it's October already?! Oh, wow. Time flies. We're eleven days into the tenth month and in those eleven days: the Ateneo Blue Eagles won their elusive four-peat, Sunday Inquirer Magazine transitioned from a weekly to a monthly magazine, the Philippine Azkals finished second in the Long Teng Cup, we lost Steve Jobs, I was compared to Charice Pempengco while having my picture taken AND I actually took that Graduate Admissions Test. Kind of a packed first few days, huh.

Caught Raya Martin's Buenos Noches, España! at the Spanish film festival in Greenbelt last night with the girls. Can't say I enjoyed that (walked out of the cinema some twenty minutes into the film because I was starting to feel physically ill, literally) but then again, don't we all need movies like that to get all introspective about cinema -- what is the point of filmmaking? Was there something wrong with me as a member of the audience because I wasn't able to appreciate that? Will anybody be ever ready to sit through a 70-minute film with those sort of visuals and that sort of audio? Is there any other sort of success other than to make your film understood in the best way possible by the most number of people? Etcetera. To compensate for the nausea, we had drinks at Cervezeria instead. Drunk on a Monday night! FAB!

10/15 EDIT: A PHOTO!

L-R: Cy, Almi, Ice, Me. Scarf is not my fault, for the most part.
This photo nicked off Almi's Facebook, thank you! :)

Anyway. Speaking of movies -- what I did enjoy, however, was Anna Faris in What's Your Number? -- especially that British part. Hilarious! Caught that one in Rockwell on Sunday with Andrea, who treated me to my first Cocoa with Rock Salt and Cheese at Happy Lemon. I'm officially in love.

Work note: Today, we welcomed our newest researcher Ana into the fold -- here's to meeting new people and keeping all the old ones :)

Also -- the Azkals played a monster 4-nil game at the Rizal Memorial against Nepal tonight! Phil Younghusband scored 2, his brother James scored a fantastic goal from just outside the box at the 29th minute, while Matthew Hartmann put in his first goal for the country at the 89th minute. Good game was GOOD.

(Note to self: Nearly done with 2011 (what the fuck, did I just write that??) and I'm looking at at least 2 more huge projects before the year ends. Excitement abounds!)

new tv: the lying game

Yet another show with twins. YAY.

Sutton and Emma are twins separated at birth, and the question is: Why? I love Sara Shepard's (also of Pretty Little Liars) story formula: A secret, and a bunch of girls trying to keep it. As we all know, Girls/Secrets=OTP.

Also, it helps that the girl who plays both girls (Alexandra Chando) reminds me a bit of Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy -- the head tilt, the pauses, the inflection. Stellar. Main boy Ethan (Blair Redford) reminds me of Caleb (Tyler Blackburn) from PLL, and the requisite girl posse also reminds me of PLL, but then this is a Sara Shepard show, so.

In summary: SO SOLD. Hanging tight, and loving it.

an unsolicited letter to young girls who like girls

This image is from Tumblr, and is originally from here.

Saturday afternoon, overheard in a table full of twelve-year-olds:
Girl 1 to Girl 2: Ano, may crush ka sa girls?


Dear kids,

Here's where I say: It doesn't matter, don't let anyone tell you otherwise -- yes, you can like that girl/that boy/whoever you want.

steve jobs (1955-2011)

Steve Jobs: Innovator, visionary, icon. 1955-2011

Woke to news this morning that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had just passed away. Such a heavy feeling. Just how big is this loss? Time Magazine stopped their presses on the issue they had just put to bed that afternoon and called an emergency meeting to devote a new issue to Jobs. If that doesn't make the hairs on your arms stand, I don't know what will.

I'm not what you can call an Apple fan -- my first Apple purchase was the iPod touch I gave Andrea for Christmas a few years ago. I bought myself an iPod classic soon after, then bought Almi's iPod nano as a gift to my brother -- and that about ends my list of Apple products. (10/10 EDIT: Ugh, I forgot about my sister's iPod touch, and our not-so-brief obsession with Tilt to Live! Haha! Still no Android equivalent, boo.)

I have iTunes on my non-Mac netbook -- an old version at that, since I'm too lazy to get an update -- and have since warded off my desires for an iPad or a MacBook: Too pricey, would probably burn a hole in my pocket for a long time, and, as my girlfriend often reminds me: What do you need it for? (For the record: She's right. I get by just fine on Windows, an old Nokia qwerty phone, and my trusty Android tablet.)

But more than his products, to me Steve Jobs is primarily an inspiration -- a man diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, he lived SEVEN YEARS MORE (a whole lot longer than his doctors expected, at every front, A MIRACLE) to introduce the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad -- and to inspire an entire generation.

This generation includes me. Thank you, Steve Jobs.

Here's a link to his famous 2005 commencement address to graduates of Stanford, and my favorite passage from that speech:

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

I'll be sure to remember, sir.

that beeconomic guessing game!

Take the quiz, change your life. FOREVER.

It is rather unavoidable for one to have inexplicably stress-filled afternoons, but here's a fix we discovered just this week: That Beeconomic newsletter that lands in my inbox every afternoon.

Allergic to Groupon offers? Impulsive online buyer with a recently activated PayPal that you've been trying NOT to use? Well. Good thing I've devised a guessing game so you could still enjoy Beeconomic's, um, out-of-this-world offers. (No, seriously -- out. of. this. world.)

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Beeconomic, I'm just a regular email subscriber who reads these things instead of letting them go automatically into the spam folder. Haha. :) All in good fun guys!