The Price Of Clog-Free Arteries And Relative Limberness (Part 1)

The year was 2001. I was hired by an ad agency to write the stuff of fluff, which were mostly for the drug pushers — clients that marketed ethical products.  Freaky subliminal suggestions of corporate miniskirts aside, I was welcomed into the world of antihistamines, acid inhibitors, aspirins, and assigning a person to always sharpen your pencils.  It was in this little organization that my konsyensya made me confront an evil force that eventually would haunt me for the rest of my days, because one day I was assigned to a pill they called Lipostat, and I froze midway a data search.  A phantom presence kind of poked me at the back. 

Phantom Presence: Hey, you.  I am not Ozymandias, but heed my words.  There are two kinds of cholesterol: those of high density lipoproteins and of low density lipoproteins.  One of them will be your density.  HDL is good, but beware the LDL cholesterol. 

Jill: And I’m prone to LDL cholesterol because…?

PP: Do you eat dairy products?

J: Yeah!

PP: Do you eat animals?

J:  You have a way with words, but yeah.

PP:  You eat these things in several combos, perchance?  And fried?

J: ‘Choo even need to ask?

PP: Kid, you’re screwed.

That did not bode well… I’ve always liked food, though I was a pretty terrible novice food chewer, and the elders had a tough time breaking me into the world of eating which used some sort of social system called etiquette.  The elders were many.  They had lots of rules to tick off.  My mother insisted I should chew with my mouth closed.  The Uncle Who Lived Under The Stairs drilled me on how to properly hold the spoon and fork, and employed this freaky mental torture that if the first aunt — Elder Aunt Tactical Genius — were there, she’d take a chopstick and flick my fingers with it for every table faux pas I’d make, like she did back in their day!  Aunt Bebop the second aunt asked me to keep a straight back as I do all these, and with the back not touching the chair!  And Kaiser Wilhelm the first uncle simply told me to finish all my food or else. 

Cool Grandma kept repeating that it’s bad manners not to sample every dish laid out on the table, and that I had to wait until everyone had a turn with first servings (she had a lazy-susaned table) before going for a second helping.  Also, to know your limits… don’t get more than you can eat.  That rule kind of clashed with the one that said I had to finish the rice Mama rationed for me because there was once a plucky farmer who slaved under the hot sun for several months to grow and harvest them.  So I tried to have a go with my mother: “Ma, may I have only six spoonfuls of rice?  That’s all I can take, and I want to show respect to the farmer.  Thank you.”  It didn’t work.

In kindergarten, I met a girl who helpfully offered another version of the rice thing in which, according to her elders, she’ll turn ugly and marry a blobby husband in the future if she doesn’t eat everything on her plate, never mind what that bit will do to her fragile sense of reality or how it’s slightly insulting to their family’s genepool.  I wonder how she turned out.

After the bootcamp years, the rituals became normal.  I grew bigger teeth, and I finally noticed how much I actually enjoyed eating food.  Steam ‘em, fry ‘em, saute ‘em, bake ‘em, stew ‘em or nuke ‘em, you name it.  I love them.  Granted I eat slowly, but I can put ‘em away with little or no trouble.  To this day I like food.  I like going out with friends and officemates who have no compunctions whatsoever on going to random restaurants, ordering big platefuls of stuff that we’ll spend the WHOLE DAY eating in between catching up, and… Ferlebon, Mr. Shuli, Ellie Punk’s Master, and The Girl Born A Month Later?  I just want you to know that you guys are so missed. 

I’ll very much try anything, except for, you know, the truly exotic fares which may include lemurs, warthogs, sea slugs, Komodo dragons, dogs, bats, chinchilla, geckos, newts, worms, chimpanzees… and anything that claims membership in the family Blattidae.  I reserve the right to veto.  Regardless of where I draw the line, I think the broadness of my menu range is pretty good.  Which brings us to my current state: my metabolism’s selling out.  The bad cholesterol count is gaining on me.  And over my head the Phantom Presence loomed, doing a Torrance-y, Bring It On routine in red:  L-D-L!  L-D-L!

I never liked sports, and the good Lord knows I hated PE.  HATED.  I admit I was a lousy quasi-athlete, but allow me the honor of being defensive.  I kind of preferred activities that can be done in a solitary, stationary position, which pretty much tossed out most sports out for me.  And part of PE’s lack of appeal?  The teachers.  They sucked.  On defining ‘suck’: when you decide to teach kids taking your class for the first time, part of your job is to get the students interested in the subject.  I mean, sure, we have different interests, but we all need to take PE classes!  Might be helpful to actually make sense and turn on our lightbulbs as to why the subject’s not elective. 

Obi Wan would applaud: “Basta ganyan!  Just do it.”  Nike wasn’t even using that campaign yet, so it was likely the teaching styles were ripped off the perpetually smelly-looking drunken master played by Yuen Woo-ping’s dad as he trained a yet-unwrinkled Jackie Chan to be a lean, mean killing machine.  Only we didn’t sign up for kung-fu.  And I did not want to turn out like Jackie Chan — I’d want life insurance companies to take me seriously!  Excuse me for not seeing anything zen-like in the PE lessons, and I had no issues with other masters killing our school’s masters that I felt compelled to master superior jumping jacks or the 39th position in modern dance so I can whup their asses in revenge one fine day.  Did the teachers really take a valid PE course, or were they randomly networked by that tights-clad PE matron who came across like a bad Cyndi Lauper wannabe?  Imagine the recruitment pitch and qualification process:

“Huuuy. I know you’ve been losers all your lives and probably gave up math when you ran out of fingers to count with… yes, I know you tried your best, honey — saw you take your socks off — but y’all counted to eight and back perfectly!  And I’m not really sure these accreditations are of genuine Recto standards like mine is?  But I’m willing to overlook all that ’cause you and I, we’re cut from the same frarority!  You can hit a ball, right?  How about with your head?  How about running around the gym like rabid dogs until I or my big boss throw you a bulalo?  And shouting your lessons in a really nails-scratching-on-a-blackboard voice modulation, botching up fancy calisthenics-related pronunciations along the way?  Great!  Here’s a job for ya.”   

PE could be better, right?  I had the impression the teachers were merely winging it.  And it did not help that they’re some of the least attractive people I ever saw.  For Pete’s sake, we’re talking about physical education.  How can anyone in her right mind be convinced to incorporate exercise into the daily regimen when its advocates proudly display bad skin, paunchy guts, and saggy butts in all their glory, in addition to embodying the most heinous hair and fashion statements EVER?  It was too… no.

On the other hand, we did relish in the hyperactive things that were fun to do — dudes, the good ol’ days of tree climbing, mock Musketeer swordfights, cartwheeling, handstanding, walking on old paint-can stilts, and the countless times scaling over the balcony and going around our grandmother’s first-story shingled roof.  Oh, and doing our best to perfect the strategic sway that was supposed to minimize the sting whenever the folks catch us and test our butts.  These things happened with increasing regularity until I turned thirteen (and then, as they said, the Deluge.  And meaner bras that nearly rendered the respiratory system unconscious). 

So far, not many of my grade school classmates answered an affirmative when I asked them if they ever slid down a bannister at home.  I saw it one time from a skit in The Electric Company and many times on Scooby Doo.  The year I turned seven, I found it was very doable on Cool Grandma’s wooden bannister.  Although there was this boy… we’ll call him Alf — temporary apologies to Gordon Shumway.  He was our answer to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and did everything short of kissing a crocodile: wrestling a fierce teacher, stepping on a test paper he flunked and then eating it, and chewing a metal paper fastener.  I guess our childhood was pretty normal, after all.  Anyway, he looked like someone who’d have slid down a bannister.  But he transferred to another school before I could ask him so I’m not sure.

I hit third grade and our mother unceremoniously shipped us off to a new school.  It was a totally different culture — we could wear any color and kind of shoes and socks we liked, the moh pit exercises were the “don’t color outside the lines” variety, the English language primers had beyond PG-rated stories of aswangs, manananggals and tiyanaks… and no ego-mad, confiscating-happy school patrol brigade!  The canteen there had bottled softdrinks!… they did not taste like un-carbonated sugar water.  It also stocked Clover Chips and Potato Chips and 20 different bubble gums and Voltes V cheesey corn puffs and anything full of tapioca starch and shortening!  Yum.  And the teacher, during class hours, talked about us having boyfriends and girlfriends, never mind most of us were just nine! 

In the midst of those prepubescent ‘The Rules’ sessions, I did my best to hold on to fond memories that were struggling to transfer themselves onto new brain cells.  We had sandwiches by Jorge (preferably pronounced HOR-heh), the vending machines with the manangs, the trays of yellow cups and a plastic sheet over them… and who could forget the Exterminator, who used to haunt that corner on the second floor elementary building for high school students taking a shortcut or underaged potential pairs, dealt with class deviants, and sometimes went by the shorter, more kid-friendly nickname of… ‘Terminator?  On good days I call her ‘Termy, but not to her face. 

But the new school’s teacher elbowed these thoughts aside with her earnest manifesto, systematically calculating likelihoods of future relationships, like Kuya Germs.  My head hurt.  What an avant-garde curriculum, I thought.

Why am I bringing these up?  Because, while ignoring my penchant for segueing to multiple topics at inopportune moments, they make up a background.  Because during this short time, I discovered another activity that totally ate up whatever I ate up.  Extreme synchronized rope jumping!  At the time, it really looked extreme to me.  I mean, I didn’t even know Chinese garter from a Chilean one so I was totally wet behind the ears.  How it worked was, two rope masters stood about eight to ten feet apart, holding between them a looong jump rope — one of the girls had this really great makeshift rope, a gray insulated cable about a quarter inch in diameter and about five meters long to vary the play.  How it’s done is, the rope masters swing the rope steadily, and jumpers jump in.  After warm-ups, two or three jumpers go in — sometimes we witness jump-offs.  The jumping part looked fun, but I kept chickening out in the beginning because the cable jump rope was only making this frightening whipping sound effect interjected with impacts on concrete: WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!  I did not want to get whapped.

All the kids were, like, go in there already, you wussy!  So one day after eating my 54th Voltes V cheese snack, I succumbed to peer pressure and did it.  Yes, I whined. Yes, I got whapped.  But I made it alive!  At home, I asked T2jim and Dozer_021 to work the rope for me so I could practice.  But Dozer_021 was just 19 months old then, so at the risk of her getting flung by the rope to another household and me having to explain why her collarbone looked askew to our parents, we solved the problem by tying one end to a tree. 

Then mother changed her mind and I was shipped back to where I came from just after one semester — maybe the teacher’s philosophy scared her, too.  And so I introduced the long rope to the old classmates. However, in my absence I forgot just how serious ‘Termy, the SPs, and the usual maximum tolerance were.  My jump rope was confiscated, and thus ended the possibility of myself being the greatest no-hands rope jumper in the world.  Anyway, the point is those were good times and activities discussed in above monologues were probably the reasons why the metabolism was like clockwork, ‘were’ being the operative word here.

 

Jump to 2005.  It’s been two years since running sprinty errands at The Ultimate Challenge. No sibling is on hand to make me scramble for stuff that demand competition.  I don’t get to run after jeepneys anymore, either, because there are no jeepneys in Poor, Poor Village.  I get winded running up and down stairs, which has never been a problem before… and I have an elder’s pacing speed?!  Then it hit me.  Hel-lo. I am an elder!  The LDL level approached Code Orange, and DSTS made me face another force of evil that I will dread for the rest of my days: the treadmill. 

(To be continued)

Wint O Green LifeSavers Are Scarce

And I want more.  They’re like a cross between energon cubes and catnip, except they’re round, with the hole in the middle.  How come all we have here are the tubes of fruity flavors and boring peppermints?  Import more of the spearminty flavor, please.

Smart move, they’re stifling the suspense for now by not talking.  You know, this should be standard practice.  Hopefully it’s catching.  And while it’s not likely I’m turning to Pollyannaism, I just want to enjoy a bit of quiet as everything falls into place.  Things will happen soon enough, and there was at time when a certain Physics adviser wisely advised us to shut up so we can solve the problems.  Makes sense.  So we ease into cruise mode — I guess they’ll just surprise us one day — but for now, it’s comforting somewhat to resume business as usual.  If additional comfort is needed, we turn to Mike Wazowski and the usual Fleetstreet stuff.

And there are things needed to be done before all four of us break from the huddle: a gunk of Glenn Frey From Oz’s legal stuff, a PowerPoint presentation, a print ad, a press release, a newsletter, a website, babysitting people who are no longer getting freebies, a video script, several chairs and an overhead swinging light bulb for possible interrogation seminars, and a set of pegs, cables, and duct tape for roping off our area.  Maybe peat, moss, and camouflage, to hide from incoming detour agents in Office Space (note to trademark and post our slogan on an overhead billboard: “Not now.” Or, “Don’t make another step.”  Or, “Look at the cow.”  Or, “We never liked the Fugees.”).

Twink is getting married (yay).  I am happy for her because I’ll always remember and make tangents from her answer on how she dealt with her biggest disappointment so far.  Twink’s boyfriend is a nice man with very kind eyes.  I made the guy’s acquaintance only this year on my birthday, around two months since Twink started working with Curly, Muffy, Jinkz, Aloysius, and me.  As it happened, the day was on a weekend, and DSTS and I decided on a quiet dinner for two.  On the way, Twink got on the bus we took.  She naturally has a perky personality, I guess, and talked about showing us her apartment, and maybe around her area if we liked, and she said her boyfriend will be there so she could introduce him to us, too.  So DSTS and I were like, what the heck, would you both join us for dinner?  My treat, of course, but we didn’t need to mention the occasion, and it was an interesting enough evening.  Afterwards we met Twink’s sister and brother-in-law at their apartment, who said we looked kinda young, which wasn’t helped by the fact I wore my sneakers, which I usually do especially after work.  Back home, that bit might probably tickle most people pink, but we’re here, and it’s usually not a compliment when people in China say you look young — alternative doubt-filled comment: you don’t look your age — when it’s said in relation to your work.  So later that evening DSTS and I discussed enhancing our age visually; I seriously considered growing a moustache and a beard, maybe sideburns.  And DSTS will let all his hair fall off, and he’ll walk like he has a bunion on one of his toes.

Last Sunday, the temperature took a drop as it tends to around the Mid-Autumn Festival.  It’s been pretty warm, though, probably the warmest September since I’ve been here.  And lately it’s been raining nonstop, and I took to putting some favorite notebooks, pens, and, on occasion, travel documents in Ziploc bags as to not repeat what we went through when DSTS had a soggy experience with his backpack containing our passports.  Twink filed for a leave of absence weeks before for today so she and her boyfriend can have wedding pictures taken.  But she was in the office this morning because the clouds were gray and there was a slight drizzle.  Then around 10 am to 1 pm, the sun peeked out of the clouds and for a while I thought she went ahead with the leave because we didn’t see her anywhere, but actually, she was kidnapped by Glenn Frey From Oz again to translate the legal stuff we were talking about. 

The general air in Office Space caused Twink to send for vibes from time to time if it was a good idea to file for an extra five days in addition to the October national holidays the locals were entitled to every year and not worry about anything.  She’s getting married after all, and need to go home, take care of documents filed to the government, visit the spiritual adviser recommended by the parents, consult the calendar some more, meet friends and greet relatives and get nice food and perhaps have a nice honeymoon, and girl, I know how you feel.  These with the sitch at work is kinda de ja vu for me, and work shouldn’t surprise us so much anymore.

Anyway, Big Daddy should be off again sometime soon, and hopefully we survive for the extra five days without Twink, who is a very far cry from Curly and in fact takes care of A LOT, from translations and reports to coordination and admin stuff.  We have to do something about Glen Frey From Oz, though. He’s getting a little too attached to her these days; he might fall apart during those five days. 

Plan lots and use available stuff wisely, we must.  On other mentionables, my hoard of relatively useless stuff now has audios of Chomsky on war and The Cure: MTV Unplugged; PDF files of books on sentence diagramming, direct mail marketing, advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and Acrobat Pro, The Island Of The Day Before and JLA: Secret Origins, and video files of The Flight Of Dragons, The Bandwagon, and Vertigo.

The hoard will soon have video files of The Cure: MTV Unplugged (seeing Robert Smith and Co. pluck strings, light candles, pound on bongos and blow on kazoos is so much more satisfying than just listening to the MP3s) and what is supposedly a William Faulkner adaptation retitled as The Long Hot Summer.  This is before Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and Paul Newman married Joanne Woodward after making this movie.  Also starring Lee Remick, Orson Welles, Angela Lansbury, and… hum.  I forgot the name of the actor who played Joanne Woodward’s brother, Orson Welles’s son, and Lee Remick’s husband.  Must remember names, or must content oneself with long substitutes.

Annotations In Long Hand

June’s probably not the best of months, but mid-June saw the birthday of T2jim. He reportedly had a lot of cakes, too, a couple of them courtesy of Elder Aunt, Tactical Genius, who had an excess supply from Red Ribbon that time. Gaad, Red Ribbon cakes! I miss Red Ribbon cakes! Of course there was the standard family dinner with the favorites on the menu. I’m guessing at least there should be spaghetti, gambas (a repeat request, but I don’t care, they’re great!), some beef, a chicken dish or a bucket from the Colonel (T2jim may live happily were he allowed to ingest poultry for all time), and Coke!  As always, I munched along, vicariously. Happy birthday.

End of June was definitely no picnic for almost everyone in a certain Poor, Poor Village commune floated as if lost in an M. Night Shyamalan story, all the while mindlessly yelling, “Aliens!” brought about by the larger, melanin deficient species. In a nutshell, we waited. And waited. And waited. And, wai-TED. And… zzzzzzzzz…

Wha…? I’m still here.  Anyway, there was this rolling snowball, and then, phoom. A weird development left a great, green-blue mushroom cloud in its wake. In our little world, Curly, unfortunately, was the chump, the Achilles heel, the weakest link, the one who couldn’t ingeniously harpoon fish with toothpicks in the shallows or hunt wild piglets or choose the right songs or possess a wrinkle-free rack to compensate for all those.  We’ll be seeing you with proletarian nachos sometimes, Curly; we give thanks for all the chores you left behind. And then there were four.

Cathy and Franc finally tied the knot. Thanks to the chaos, I couldn’t get to see them do it. I’m really happy for these two; Cathy happens to be also known as the Ang Silaw-Silaw Dragon of the coolest chicks ever to hit CAFA who belong to the strange sect of The Extraordinary League of Midnight Snackers. Her super powers include extreme neatness using tech pens on vellum paper during those blasted drafting classes, self defense using a tripod, and brain cell optimization (of the four of us, she’s the only one with a built-in disk defragmenter). She also possesses the best logic and sanity. 

Cathy and Franc were together for like, forever — they’ve been steadily dating since high school and have been tested through times both good and bad; I speak for the rest of us that we’ve been looking forward to what we only thought was inevitable!  It’s about time, and best wishes to you guys. 

I felt bad about not being able to attend for a number of reasons, but most especially because in addition to being one of the best pals anyone can ever have, Cathy gave me my verbal invite back in October 2005, and I even postponed a leave of absence set for May just to see them take the hot seat for a change.

There were two main reasons that led to this situation, first of which was back in May, Big Daddy required me to attend a trade show happening on August. So I had to apply for a business visa. Those ever accommodating people at the consulate, however, picked June 30th, the day I was supposed to be in Manila already to make the wedding the next day. When I got the interview date, I debated calling up Cathy to let her know… then I thought I still had this 50-50 percent chance if I get denied. I might still shoot for chance passenger. Then a week before the week, the Cloud of Supposed Foreboding loomed over Poor, Poor Village and the Ancient Ones announced a Ritual Disassimilation. On June 30th! I held a mug of tea when Big Daddy announced what D-Day was and he thought I lost my marbles when in response I looked up and muttered, “Is this, like, a sign?!”

June 30th, the Men manned the surprise chopping board while I wasted the whole morning at the consulate in charge of the southern provinces. Most of the interview time was spent lining up with the herd and listening to the Americans’ fluent but appallingly toned Mandarin. 

I was denied a visa on account of I “don’t have strong enough ties.”  The consulate officer snapped he couldn’t process my papers right after I answered a negative to “Any kids?” You know, before this, I didn’t know not having kids yet would be detrimental to one’s pseudo-career. I was kinda frustrated on the matter, too, because not only was the application an example of extreme highway robbery, I also hated queuing up for hours only to be told that my intentions did not seem like non-immigrant-like. Dude, I could not be more non-immigrant-like than I am.  Short of sounding sour-grapey, though as much as American pop culture will always entertain me, living with that culture itself is a different thing altogether, and not every Philippine national wants to live there. I don’t speak for everybody, ‘kay, but at least for me, I don’t.  I’m too set in my ways!  In fact, DSTS had to try every trick in the book to convince me that Poor, Poor Village is not that different from my routine then.  And for this trip, I could not pack my husband in my cabin luggage and I have to hang out with people who are five times my size!  The horror… what if we were fish? 

When I got back to the office, no one seemed to be depressed or anything, until Twink tells me Curly and some other people at the office were herded into a room and they all came out dazed and a bit sad they need to go away but nevertheless feeling like they won a lottery or something.  Curly and I had the final talk in which he says he accepted everything and there are no hard feelings.  Um, Curl?  You’re a nice kid.  But from Spoiled Brat, Gladys Chomper, Twink and myself to Jean-Luc Picard and Big Daddy, the consensus was you kinda suck with the job.  But we’ll miss him; he was to our team as Kirk was to Stars Hollow.

Big Daddy suggested I go home to try applying for a visa there, maybe I’ll have better luck.  Having seen the very long lines that form somewhere in the Manila Bay area on week days, I’d say my visa would be ready by the time I had we established my twelfth strong tie to the Philippines.  Mid-July, I crossed the border and managed to secure the stupid visa there because the local consulate picked August 24th for the next available interview… the show would be half over by then!  Good thing there’s an office in Kowloon Bay; technically, a business visa application there is still legit. There’s also less people applying for visas in Hong Kong, the better for my share of enclosed space.  It happened the consular officer I had to contend with was friendlier, too. 

DSTS was thinking I probably didn’t insist enough during the first interview. After three queues for five hours in those shoes?  Believe me, I sure as hell have.  The second consular officer gave me a “howdy-do” after which he grills me with info on what my husband does, how long he’s been here and which one got here first, him or me — the only thing I appreciated here is all questions on this round proved that DSTS was their lame excuse on my first try. 

Several answers more and Consular Dude resorted to trick questions to check if my answers were consistent. Then after further mind messing, he said they’ll process my visa, but I’ll be given the standard three month single entry after which he promises I won’t get a hard time the next time I apply.  Nuh? Don’t do me any favors, <insert icicles here> pal <here, too>.  I had to stay there for a couple of working days until the passport was done and sent by courier back to me during which I had to trek several times to meet with a Big Head for more design layouts and text proofing. 

And still a few days later, the third floor’s Mommyjet said goodbye as Daddymel needed to depart from Poor, Poor Village to seek the Great Buffalo where many men have gone before. We had a farewell dinner and Daddymel received tiny shoes. Take care you guys, we wish you all the best.

On the 28th, despite heavy downpour and a paranoid and totally unethical travel agent, DSTS heads for home yet again to fix certain matters that need fixing. I’ll be all by my lonesome most of the time.  I’ll probably have to talk to myself more often.  Or maybe a dog named Sam will keep me company.  Anyway, most friends know DSTS is like an Osterizer when it comes to chewing his food with precision efficiency.  I’m not.  But for some reason, he eats pasta more slowly than I do.  As it happens, I can consume a ton of pasta in one sitting as long so long that it’s not served with cream sauce. So while he’s gone, in the interest of convenience, I’ll be eating out during rush lunch breaks, preparing salads (no heated oil) and long term adobos (no onions) for slower days, and alternate those with pasta dishes (no cream sauces) on better days and the evenings. It’s kind of like camping. And Lock & Seal is my best friend.

PS — A happy baptismal to Jinkz’s third kid, Jinkz Nigel, and a happy birthday to his happy mama, Mrs. Jinkz.

Banana Fana Fo Fums

Fangirl alert is on for the months that will bring more of mainstream comicbook titles to widescreen yet again.  Spidey’s cast is a proven winner, can’t wait for that.  X-Men snagged its heavyweights, but too many disappointments outweigh the pros.  I’ll be looking out for the installment for old time’s sake, though — still the undefeated Melrose Place Marvel title in my opinion.  But the new Superman movie should be interesting… Kevin Spacey is Lex!  How whee is that?  I’m finally feeling the love after going through all those years with Icemagistrate running down details every free period that Nicholas Cage was gonna turn up in tights any moment, receding hairline and all, and directed by Tim Burton.  Yiii.  I mean, Tim Burton films are GREAT, and so are films with Tim Burton in it, but Nicholas “Bella bambina, I ditched my real surname ’cause I can be a Hollywood box office king ’cause of my talent and not family connections” Cage as Superman?  Aargh.  Okay, I liked Matchstick Men (because of Sam Rockwell), The Family Man (because of Tea Leoni) and Lord Of War (because Jared Leto was in it and no matter how many doped up guys he plays on film, I’m afraid to me he will be, forever more, Jordan Catalano, that stupid but adorable ass). 

Then again I said the same thing about Michael “Beetlejuice” Keaton and somehow Tim made him work (and Beetlejuice is a classic).  But dudes, could you honestly visualize Nicholas Cage as the Man?  He is either mopey or an asshole in films.  Superman is neither; more importantly, he should have a nice hairline.  How would Cage look with a cowlick drooping on his airport for a forehead?  It’s just… no.  And never had I feelings of utter loathing for the Salkinds (aka Shuster and Siegel’s Merciless Milkers) until then — it was as if sacking John Haymes Newton (he was a great poster boy!  Honest!) from Adventures Of Superboy and replacing him with Gerard Christopher wasn’t enough pain already. 

As for what’s currently available, I don’t follow Smallville, too many personal issues to work out — wussy Clark’s too luscious, Lex is too involved, and Lana Lang’s some sort of schizoid.  You may not agree with me but listed below are my personal preferences.  And much as I respect the classics, I can only go back as far as the 70s for Superman.

Best Superman film/TV incarnation so far: Christopher Reeve, Superman I, II.  People were a bit skeptical when they announced him as the next Man of Steel, what with his delicate classical features and all.  But he showed them.  By the time III and IV came out, the special effects people were on arrested development, affecting Supes’s action sequences.

Best Clark Kent film/TV incarnation so far: Christopher Reeve, Superman I, II.  The geekiness.  The voice.  The dorky suit and hat.  He’s got them all down pat.

Best Lois Lane film/TV incarnation so far: Teri Hatcher, The Adventures Of Lois & Clark.  She’s a big pain, yes, but she convinced everybody that Clark would be stupid not to be crazy about her.  A nice surprise for everyone given the most prominent of Teri Hatcher’s TV roles prior to this Lois was Penny, the airhead in MacGyver.

Best Lex Luthor film/TV incarnation so far: Michael Rosenbaum, Smallville. He’s been badly twisted by his scary dad, runs circles around the people, and is capable of cold and calculative murder.  Not exactly brilliant yet, but hey, he’s just in his twenties here.  Lotsa potential.  I was seriously considering John Shea (The Adventures Of Lois & Clark) — a megalomaniac disguised as Metropolis’s Bruce Wayne, and Sherman Howard (The Adventures Of Superboy) for the insane creepiness factor.  But John was too debonair and Michael’s Lex’s violence factor beat him out, and Sherman’s goofy factor was bigger than he was creepy.  His Lex combined with the show’s younger jock version (Scott Wells) now reminds me of Stiffler.   

Worst Superman incarnation so far: Dean Cain, The Adventures of Lois & Clark. He makes me feel his discomfort every time he dons the tights.

Worst Clark Kent film/TV incarnation so far: Gerard Christopher, The Adventures Of Superboy. Haven’t seen a smarmier-looking Clark than this version.

Worst Lois Lane film/TV incarnation so far: Margot Kidder, Superman I, II.  Okay, I’m… being shallow here.  And maybe a jigger influenced by the toothless loon episode.  But this is classic comicdom, and people are entitled to be shallow!  Who said acting ruled — just look who producers cast as Storm!  And Barb Wire!  Anyway.  I first watched Margot as Lois in II, when my mom… or was that Aunt Bebop?… who with a couple of friends managed to convince the theater staff that I was old enough to watch the movie with them and not throw a tantrum for snacks, or pee during the show, or ask too many questions about the film that will elicit passionate shushing or worse.  The memory is hazy.  I do remember the Goth-Punk Trio scaring the hell out of me, especially the woman.  She picked this guy up… CRASH!  And she seemed to loom over me during her close ups… even her make up looked painful.  Anyway, after deciding that Christopher Reeve really is Superman, my then parental guidance agent said, “Look, Jill.  That’s Lois Lane.”  That’s Lois Lane?  I didn’t like her.  Soon after that an uncle rented a video of Superman I and I still didn’t like her.  Hard as I tried, I couldn’t root for her.  I had more sympathy for the crevice that swallowed her up.  It’s a similar reaction to when I watched Lori Petty in A League Of Their Own… okay, I get it — she’s vulnerable underneath that prickly exterior… but durnit, girl, STOP WHINING. 

In Kidder’s case I think all the swooning in II got to me.  And it’s not that Kidder’s not pretty or sexy — here she demonstrates with a pose, if you please (and try Googling for her images why don’t cha).  Was it the intense stare?  Those bangs?  Not sure.  Weird.  The processors just couldn’t fully equate why Christopher Reeve’s Clark/Superman should bother rewinding Earth (must be the same writers who were responsible for the Somewhere In Time space continuum concept) to get her unsquished.  At all.

I can’t speak for the Lois in Smallville ’cause I stopped watching the show by the time she got there. 

Worst Lex Luthor film/TV incarnation so far: A tie.  Gene Hackman, Superman II; and Scott Wells, The Adventures Of Superboy.  Many may not agree with me on Gene, who’s an actor I like.  But he shouldn’t have accepted this role.  He was dressed more like The Joker than the Lex, he had hair that didn’t dramatically fall off at some point, and he was about as diabolically scary as Richard Pryor in III.  Lex is the arch enemy, dangit, and he was NOT portrayed with respect in the big screen!  In fairness, Gene’s Lex Superman I did not get enough meat in the role like everyone else ’cause it was a movie in the introduction mode (the most exciting thing for me there was probably Clark running next to the train), and then in the second Superman movie Lex was more of just a foil for the scary exiled trio, the stars of the show.  They were so cool, and the Phantom Zone mirror prison thing was so bizarre that the idea was rehashed for Supergirl.

As for Scott’s college-aged Lex in The Adventures of Superboy, he was just plain idiotic.

Will definitely be checking how Routh, Bosworth, and Spacey bat up.  Haven’t seen soap actor Brandon Routh anywhere but as one of the college boys who picked up Madeline and Louise at the Bangles concert on Gilmore Girls, first season.  Kate was in Blue Crush, Remember The Titans, and Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!  I hope Bryan Singer followed the script in which Diana makes a cameo picking up Clark at the  Daily Planet for a little talk at Stonehenge.  That’d be a nice touch. 

Then again I’m not expecting much from the man who chucked several pegs off the X-Men characters’ IQs, and… is that James Marsden again?  Kind of attached to Singer now, is he.  And he’s part of a love triangle AGAIN.  Let’s review his repertoire: Second Noah, Disturbing Behavior, X-Men, and The Notebook.  Just what is it that makes you so love-triangley, Marsden? 

My comments for now: Supe’s kinda bulging slightly on the sides (whoo, luuuv handles), the red parts are toned, and the costume seems a bit out of proportion.  What’s the tiny ‘S’ for?  Small?  And cheese and crackers, there’s another ‘S’ near his crotch.

I recently upgraded my secret identity to reflect that DSTS and I are indeed joined at the hip and the National Geographic Channel.  Personally I prefer using my own ID, but we both kind of belong to an archaic system in which government and non-government organizations might find lotsa loopholes to make me jump through upon the coming of a heinous age of Arroyopocalypse in an alternate reality future.  This just won’t do!  People deserve to have their welfare protected, to be informed that their middle names are NOT their mothers’ maiden names so those chowderheads at the embassy will stop making me write mine like so for my passport, and to have standards improved so people can opt for the luxury of an extra and unnecessary black Macbook to toy with.  Anybody with great moral fiber and the brains to amend the Charter, please raise your hand.

[SFX: Buzzing flies]

Heniwoo, my maiden name is now my new middle name.  Guess what the proletarian officials at the border will now insist I write under ‘given names’.  Teachers, hope ya stop messing with the definition of middle names so we’ll have cool and enlightened government officials in a decade or two.  My mother gave me a four-letter name for a reason, glammit. 

I’m on the lookout for a manually operated, downsized version of the food processor, the one I usually see in home TV shopping channels, ’cause I want to indulge in fresh salsa anytime I want to without having to heat the mixture every time I make it to kill the germs — and most of the tang — in the process (plus the chopping board at staff quarters must be all of eight years old.  Steelwool or no, there must be some life forms persisting to flourish in there). 

Part of the fun is the hunt.  I’m all up for flavor and am open to live a little dangerously to attain the taste… just not that dangerously (warily eyes the first-ever mouse, the creepy-crawly kind, recently caught in the proletarian aluminum rat trap).  I also regard food processors utilizing complicated sets of blades with extreme caution , especially once Yayis regaled us with accounts of gushing blood upon getting slightly punctured (or was it her mom) with a similar thingamajig during dishwashing, but out of concern for the palate’s wellbeing, why the heck not try risking some hemoglobin spillage every now and then, I say.  Sure.  Let’s do it. Mini food processor, if you’d be so kind as to show yourself in Poor, Poor Village, I’d be much obliged to ya.

Absolutely No Place Like It

One cold day in December, DSTS harrumphed and proclaimed, “By George, Jillybean, dark sister of Dune, forsooth thine and mine non-refundable ticket left for this moon.  Shouldst we tarry and hie ourselves home?”  It’s the end of the year and we’re behind quota but what the heck, most everyone else were going away, anyway.  Insanity must be catching.  So I agreed… we shouldst.

Alas, the flight home did not end with me going home directly to my toasty nooks in the Tobacco House of lupang tinubuan, the better to take care of leftover work.  Going home went about several days later, and after those several days we still needed to check in between for stuff and more stuff.  Manila’s not the best option but there we were.  It’s noisy, it’s loaded with annoying strangers who may mug you, but it’s been like a second home since I was three years old.  And until I leave for Poor, Poor Village again, I am happy.  In my own way.  Really. 

Work cleaved to us for the first for days — there were these assessments, and e-mail, and visa, and catalog, and style guide, and durnit, can’t I just leave these and not worry about getting sacked in January.  There went the teeniest chance to see the Goblet Of Fire film in which they removed Winky, Dobby, and Rita Skeeter in a jar.

That Metro Manila Film Festival is a sneaky thing.  You know what happened to ensure I do not ignore it?  They have Mulawin the Movie.  It’s a sequel thingie where Aguiluz and Alwina somehow get separated again.  Now we see a scene with Alwina waking up in… Lireo!  Why, that’s semi-wimpy Amihan!  And Pirena is still EBIL!  GAWD!  Now I have to think about moving with the throng just because my campy favorites have parts in that movie. 

Because of all the work since the episode where Danaya turned into a rat, I missed the rest of Encantadia.  But I am satisfied with the ending helpfully narrated by Dozer_021 in which Pirena returns to take her place with her sisters after getting Imaw’s staff (dirty!) to see the truth behind all the, er… paglilinlangs.  The best part was all those annoying Starstruck characters DIED!  Including Lira!  Mua-ha-ha!  And now Danaya gets to become queen and even Pirena agrees.  So there.

Not to disappoint me for ending may favorite best-dressed objects of snark, we’re now presented with a prequel-sequel called Etheria.  The writers are now mining the He-Man/She-ra compendium.  Etheria revolves around Cassiopeia’s prediction when she was a teen that when the last sanggre is born, a previously defeated, warlike race called Etherians will come back to defeat the peaceful fairies (who propagated the age of Encantadia).  Which is a hoot, because Lira died, she didn’t have a kid at all.  But Cassiopeia must’ve heard about Dolly and took a hair from Lira to clone the last sanggre.  Isn’t that like, cheating, just because you foretold the key was the last sanggre and she died?  And the actor who played the younger Cassiopeia speaks straight Tagalog.  Beats me how she grew up to have Cindy Kurleto’s accent.  Wha-… Cassiopeia is the half sister of Queen Dawn!  And Queen Dawn was half-Etherian!  Queen Dawn’s name is Mine-a!  But Cassiopeia is the rightful Queen!  The first!  And Mine-a will be the Second!  Okay, that makes Amihan just the third and Danaya the fourth.  Empire’s kinda young, and its future might be handed over to a clone from Lira’s hair?  Which is played by that pretty Starstruck kid who plays creepy characters on movies and TV shows.  And there’s a Sex Bomb dancer modeled after the legend of Atlanta!  Just my luck… costumes still look great.  How the heck can I subaybay this series, hum?

My family and DSTS’s mom are fans of Jewel In The Palace.  It’s a TV Koreanovela that was popular in most Asia based on a historical character who was revered as a female physician.  But she started off as a great royal cook.  I watched it and it is interesting… kind of like a cross between MacGyver, Eat Drink Man Woman, Knots Landing, and a chapter of world history.

Speaking of food, I already had relleno, ice cream cake, bibingka, and sisig.  Here’s to getting some more.

Also attended a couple of family gatherings and a wedding of two friends who’ve been together since college graduation.  The traffic was horrible (we didn’t make the ceremony after spending a couple of hours on just two main intersecting avenues), but Bai and Yayis, you guys looked great.  Tata, Em, and Dony… where were you guys? 

Dynamic Noyce introduces a new guy who seems nice.  Hoping for the best, girl, I think he’s okay.  Intrepid Cath’s just as frustrated as I am on the guy-being-dependent-on-the-girl-for-directions-when-they’re-together-and-driving thing.  I hope to try and squeeze in more get togethers with friends if I can, I really miss talking with y’all while I’m stuck over there.  Believe me… only you guys understand that my semi-autism is not such a bad thing.  Sorry, you get no prize.  ‘Cause we’re tight.  Aight?  Getting into the spirit of the holidays, I hope we’re still rocking even when Friendster becomes holographic. 

DSTS is The Punisher on his birthday.  I’m just saying, it’s fine to help other people, but don’t push it, man.  As of today, cruising is off-limits (watched some CSI lately?).

Finally rewrote the blog entry, I Did, which disappeared about two months ago for who knows why.  Not the same as the original, but there you go.  Some Friendster-endorsed blog writers talk of the same thing happening in their blogs.  Anybody osmosising and fixing this yet or do we resort to propagating bulletin chain letters in faux Latin, just lemme know.

I guess in spite of everything I do NOT welcome to be with me on this vacation but do tolerate out of what goodness that’s left in my heart… it’s really great to be home in December.