About heavenliner

a twisted little soul... people see me to be so delicious they sometimes want to eat me...

Questioning Philippines

Posted on June 25, 2013 by heavenliner

A lot of my friends as well as those who follow my blog know that I love Japan. I adore their food, their weather and the strong and powerful yet charming-to-the ear language. People know that I admire their culture, their technology, their fashion and their being so organized. I have high regard to the people of Japan. They are just so nice and gracious.

i even fancy japan's vendo machines. hahaha

i even fancy japan’s vendo machines. LOL!!!

along dotonbori… fashion ba kamo? love my doc martens!!!

Too bad I can’t just go there and spend a nice vacation every time I feel like going there. Being a Pinoy citizen, I am required to process and undergo those tiresome procedures of applying for a visit visa. Being a Filipino citizen, I am not allowed to simply go there and enjoy the awesome weather. The Philippines is not one of those rich auspicious countries with visa exemption arrangements with Japan.

Well I guess, some people are fortunate enough to be born into the right nationality while others have to find their own way. Don’t get me wrong here. I love the Philippines because if I don’t I could have hopped on a plane, gone the hell out and never return. Or if I can’t have that access, I could have packed my bags, join a secluded monastery and never go out.

I am articulating on this because the recent news made me so envious with the Thais. According to news, the Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that effective July 1, 2013 Japan will give Thai nationals with visa exemptions that would be good for up to 15 days.

amazing thailand… i can feel that i will soon be visiting this country again…

With this news, Thailand obviously beat and thumped the Philippines big time! While Thais can go and visit Japan with much ease, us Pinoys will have to settle with the wearisome and mind-numbing processing of visa applications.

I just hope and pray that Japan will grant the same to the Filipinos. But I guess Japan has their reasons. And such reasons are actually in the hands of the Pinoys themselves. Is it the Pinoy culture, the Pinoy urbanity, or the Pinoy civility? While I endlessly adore Japan and start being jealous of Thailand, I guess only us Pinoys can answer this question.

Pagka-sabmit ng rekwayrments diretcho novena para humiling na bigyan ng visa. Bakit Lord?! Bakit???

7th Year Blogging Anniversary

Posted on June 20, 2013 by heavenliner

Truth be told. This blog started in June 20, 2006 under a blogging service of Friendster.com, a defunct social networking site, which became most popular in the Philippines. Then I eventually fully migrated directly to WordPress.com in June 18, 2009.

It’s been seven years and I’m glad to say that I am happy to have maintained this blog up to now. It’s been a great way of sharing my thoughts so let me take this opportunity to thank you for your visits and taking time to read my posts.

To celebrate the 7^th year of this blog, here’s the classic Sesame Street pinball animation featuring the number 7.

Dyaske! Pitong taon na ang blog na ire!

Game of Thrones: A Hauntingly Entertaining TV Series

Posted on June 18, 2013 by heavenliner

It must already be in the hundreds if I have tallied and counted the number of times I uttered the words “grabe”, “shocking” and “galing” while watching the episodes of the great HBO tv series Game of Thrones. These do not include the occasions when I sighed, gasped and screamed while watching it.

The series is so biting and disturbing in a great sense of these words. It will definitely bring sharp chills on your spines. All the elements of backstabbing, manipulation, double-dealing, erotica, greed and brutality are present. The show never holds back!

Unlike a usual TV series where the lead stars are expected to remain alive and be the main and principal characters throughout the whole show, in Game of Thrones characters are dynamic and evolving. It is unexpected that right in the middle of the story, the lead character (who you thought was the lead character) would just suddenly meet a brutal death. Or the character you’re starting to like would unexpectedly become a horrendous iron-handed protagonist. And amazingly, these characters would literally go down and dirty!

For those who have not watched it, I must say that you are missing a hell of a lot. I swear to the old gods and the new that Game of Thrones is hauntingly entertaining. This show definitely ranks right up there as masterworks of ingenuity and wild imagination.

Pugot kung pugot! Patay kung patay!

Acid Rain On Treadmill

Posted on June 16, 2013 by heavenliner

I don’t run. I brisk walk.

Brisk walking is one great exercise. It makes you healthy. But brisk walking outdoors in a place called Metro Manila would actually make you more sick than healthy. The air is so polluted it would be stupid to jog or brisk walk outside. And if tough luck besets upon you droplets of acid rain may even infiltrate your lungs making you even more prone to illness.

That is why a Metro Manila inhabitant like me would rather settle to go to a gym and do my brisk walking on a painfully boring treadmill. Let me be clear that I do not detest Metro Manila the way I have grown to detest the treadmill with growing hatred.

Brisk walking on the treadmill is a mental game for me. Aside from shaping up my delicious mortal chassis, brisk walking on a treadmill for me is an exercise of mental toughness. It is because brisk walking on a treadmill is so god awfully boring. There’s nothing more dreadful than seeing the seconds count down and being fully aware of how much time is still left and the calories you have shred off was actually just equivalent to a spoon of mayonnaise.

To ease the agony of boredom and win the battle against this mentally tormenting machine, I have sought the service and assistance of musical artists particularly of the dance-electronic genre. Now I shape up and step on a treadmill with matching beats. My walk has gone interesting since the pacing and distance of each stride depends on the beats of the music on my earphones.

Music of Alexis Jordan has been an often tune in my playlist every time I step on the treadmill. She’s got great selection of songs with varying fast beats. The most recent one that I truly enjoy listening to is ironically entitled Acid Rain. This is the Acid Rain that will definitely not hurt at all. Now, boost up the volume and start listening!

Lakad na!

House Rules by Jodi Picoult: A Worthy Story With Sloppy Ending

Posted on June 12, 2013 by heavenliner

I am glad that my first Jodi Picoult is the House Rules. For one, there are only few novels I have that in which the story was written from the point of view of several characters including a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome, his brother, his mother, his lawyer and a detective.

The way the story ended for me was a bit of a disappointment. It looks unfinished. When I read the last page I thought there must be some page missing I even checked on the binding of the manuscript to see if some page were torn out. Imagine after spending hundreds of pages learning and understanding the characters all of a sudden the author stopped and decided to abruptly end the story without patching up how an equally complicated scenario would be settled.

Nevertheless, the writing technique of Picoult is impressive. Her switching into different characters after each chapter and her portrayals of these personalities in the novel were impeccable. I particularly liked the character of Theo. I liked him because he is the most human being in the story. If Picoult would write a novel that concentrates more on this young man’s life, I would definitely read it.

Also, full credit should be given to Picoult for the superior research she has done on the topics the story tackled – asperger’s syndrome, autism, psychiatry, forensic science, law, litigation procedures, etc. And the way she presented the details of these striking topics were also very impressive. She was like peeling off the skins of an onion meticulously layer by layer.

Though with such a sloppy ending, House Rules nailed it in terms of being informative, entertaining and insightful. I definitely was entertained because I would just toss it away (when my Asperger’s syndrome attacks) and would not finish reading it if I did not enjoyed it.

Nakakareleyt ako dun sa bida! Hahaha!

A Massive Thanks To A 70’s to 80’s OFW: A Father’s Day Special

Posted on June 9, 2013 by heavenliner

Thanks to an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), at a very tender age I know the taste of Baby Ruth and Hershey’s chocolate bars. Thanks to an OFW, I am one of those young lads who owned a Japanese electronic game set called Atari. Thanks to an OFW, my pubertal apparel includes United Colors of Benetton shirts, Swatch watches and Adidas shoes.

Thanks to an OFW, my taste buds are no stranger to the savoriness of Spam and imported corned beef. Thanks to an OFW, at an early age I was exposed to a wide range of cassette-tape music from sweet soothing tunes of Carpenters to pop-beats of Boney M. Thanks to an OFW, even before the existence and coining of the words “balikbayan box” I know the epidermal comforts brought about by Ivory bath soap and Jergens body lotion.

An enormous thanks to my father for all these.

tatay joe in saudi arabia

I know these are all mundane worldly materials and I should instead thank my father for giving me an urbane civilized life. He may have passed away a long time ago but I know my father knows that I’m thankful for that already. So I’m giving myself a chance to express my deep gratitude regarding these specifics.

Hapi Paders Dey Tatay! Misyumats!

Modern Bowel Movement

Posted on June 8, 2013 by heavenliner

I hate winding up with thriving colonies of molds and mildews bonding together like concrete on my bathroom walls and floor. That is why habitually, routinely and tirelessly I would scrub my bathroom and my toilet.

Early today while I scour, soap-up and wash my toilet which I consider to be a medieval form of torture, I remember taking photos of public restrooms during my recent trip to Japan. It come not a surprise that this highly urbanized country has technologically advanced and sophisticated toilets. They transformed the basic toilet facilities into ingenious comfort room devices.

To prove my point, here’s one photo of buttons to press of a modern Japanese public toilet inside a mall when I answered a call of nature and do a number two.

Notice those patterns of raised dots? Those are Braille, making this toilet blind-friendly.

I was nuts about the right most button (in the photo). When I pressed it, an artificial sound of flushing waiter played on a speaker inside the toilet to disguise what otherwise obnoxious tune my butthole is producing.

Hay tek na pag pupu.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Posted on June 2, 2013 by heavenliner

My super friend Karen has always urged and pushed me to read The Girl Who Played With Fire written by Stieg Larsson. She is also the one who told me to read the equally gripping first novel. She let me borrow a paperback copy that she also lent from the original owner who is her equally super good friend Buffie. This borrowing affairs and urging to read has been more than a year and a half ago.

Yeah, that’s how long the book has been with me kept inside my book-filled cupboard. All throughout those times, I wanted to read the novel but I could not push myself from starting to read it because I know from experience that when I start reading a Stieg Larsson I need to have a lot of free time since it would be very difficult to put the book down.

I should not be busy with anything else. I know for a fact that I would need a lot of free time because when I read the precursor novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo my work schedules and house chores were messed up. My house and my schedules has gone cluttered because I cannot give in to the moment when I would stop reading and let my thoughts wonder what would happen next in that compelling novel.

I finally got the free time this week, thus, has finally finished reading The Girl Who Played With Fire. And I was right when I said that I could not put the book down. The novel was simply a precipitous cliffhanger! Larsson’s technique of hooking you throughout the novel was just flawless. His plots were truly unpredictable and had always been out-of-the-ordinary. The Girl Who Played With Fire is everything and more I expected after loving The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Kamanghamangha!

Chinito By Yeng Constantino

Posted on May 26, 2013 by heavenliner

I don’t need to hear vocal fireworks to make me decide if a song is impressive or not. That is why I like the fresh, vivacious and gorgeously basic beat of Chinito sang by the prolific Yeng Constantino.

I like Yeng because she seems to possess a preternatural gift for turning clichés into light yet deeply affecting songs. In the song Chinito, Yeng exhibits both weariness and innocence in her voice yet manages to convey hope and despair in equal measure.

As for the music video, it’s very Asian! There’s a little of Korean, Japanese and Chinese in the video yet it is very Filipino. I can’t remember which Filipino music video has impressed me this much in the past. I can say that this is one cute, impressive and intricately well thought type of concept for a music video. Even the brilliant choreography is something to be praised about (love the cool snapping shoulders).

I wonder how non-Filipinos would receive this music and its video…

Kyut, kyut…

A Piece of Heaven At The Gates Of Hell

Posted on May 25, 2013 by heavenliner

It was eleven thirty in the evening. I woke up drenched in sweat for I forgot to switch on the air conditioning unit before I fell asleep. It’s already the third week of May and yet the scorching summer heat still lingers here in Metro Manila. With this roasting temperature, I am starting to believe Dan Brown when he wrote in his latest novel Inferno that found in Metro Manila are the gates of hell.

I tried but could no longer go back to sleep, I slipped into my old blue jeans and put on a freshly laundered singlet. I proceeded outside the streets of “the gates of hell” to find anything that will cease the torridity off my body.

About a hundred meters away from my flat while walking through Vito Cruz Street I found an eatery. It’s about to close but I begged the attendant to let me in for I want to order, guess what? Answer: Halo-Halo.

Yeah! There is a new Teresita’s branch here in hell-gate Vito Cruz!!! It’s no longer just in the far away hell-gate Tomas Morato!!!

teresita’s in vito cruz street, manila

alone inside this refreshment parlor, i did not hesitate taking these photos

these ladies must be canonized not as saints

these ladies must be canonized as saints or angels by the vatican

Of course I ordered the “Special” version, i.e. with “minatamis na langka” (sweetened jackfruit) only worth Php 95. It’s not the generic Filipino halo-halo neither the typical Razon’s halo-halo. Instead it’s of a grandeur version, that is, with heaps of chunky-to-the-bite banana, brutal portions of glutinous macapuno, the sweet viscous lumps of tasty langka, smooth shaved ice with super generous amount of the vicious and sinful leche flan. I swear to God they have the tastiest halo-halo in all face of heaven, purgatory and hell.

don't be fooled by the lucid and incomplex look of this halo-halo. heaven is lodged beneath those shaved ice

don’t be fooled by the lucid and incomplex look of this halo-halo. astonishing heaven is lodged beneath those shaved ice

After paying my bill and start to walk back to my unit, I realized that Tesesita’s Halo Halo is something that can be compared to a piece of heaven and that I am actually glad to be living here in the “gates of hell”.

Makasalanan sa sobrang sarap!

Nengkoy

ruminations & travesties of the favorite yet naughty son of Nengkoy

Author Archives: heavenliner