Finally Got To Wear That Francis Libiran Shirt!

Last year, I passed by Myth in Greenbelt 5 and bought this pink Francis Libiran shirt only to find out when I got home that it was tapered around the waist!  I did fit it when I bought it along with another shirt, but maybe I did not notice the tight tapering.  Horror of horrors, di ko na siya masuot kasi nga ang sikip pala talaga ng pagkataper - tailored talaga for a slim but tall guy!  I'm not tall, tama lang but I'm definitely not slim!

So ayun, the poor shirt has sat on my locker for a year now while I did my best to lose my belly.  

Finally, last Friday night, after two weeks of killing myself by dieting and exercising, I finally fit into it that Friday morning, pero yun lang, wala pa akong kain nun!  So just imagine if I eat something, baka pumutok na my tiyan!

Anyway, I just went on my normal day, I ate of course and bahala na si Batman.

That night, I wore the shirt again and thankfully, it fit my belly and kahit na umupo ako, di siya puputok (which was the usual problem before!!)

I was really glad I was able to wear the shirt well that night.  The tight tapering around the belly did not actually bother me.  At least now, this shirt becomes my benchmark of how much belly inches I still have to lose!

I did add a polka dot bowtie to accentuate the loud pink color!  J'aime beaucoup le coleur rose! 

Another Barkada Birthday Bash at Omakase

I am quite lucky that my Fitness First ABS-CBN barkada loves to eat out as part of our birthday rotation treat to each one in the group.  This time, to celebrate the birthdays of the mag-ina Jen and Baby, the two chose the Japanese restaurant in Il Terazzo, Omakase.  This was the first time I ate in the place and the food was at par with my other favorite Japanese restaurants.  Malambot and masarap yung salmon sashimi nila and the chicken teriyaki was also ok.  The price is also reasonable so pwede siyang ulit-ulitin.

Still Fixing My Daily Schedule

Ay naku, there are still certain things na di ko nagagawa everyday so I'm still in the process of putting them into my schedule.  The part where I pray the rosary everyday, that I was able to successfully integrate into my schedule.  Ditto to the 30-minute reading I budget everyday.  That way, unti-unti nang lumiliit yung magazine stack in my table.  I should get all through them this October.

So, let's see how I could tweak my schedule this week since there are certain daily 'habits' I still have to do -

Morning
* pray rosary soon as I wake up
* read for 30 minutes
* watch 1 hour of French or Spanish TV, palitan everyday
* Facebook - save 5 facebook pictures per day

Evening
* write a short French and Spanish essay before you start on anything for the night
* statcounter - 30 minutes before I sleep, just check top keywords etc.

Let me get back to this next week to see if I was able to follow this schedule, and then tweak it again to suit my other goals.

Danny Boyle's Words of Wisdom Re the London Olympics Opening Ceremonies

I was reading Fr. Tito Caluag's Sunday column in the Inquirer today where he featured some of the wise words of Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, who directed the opening ceremonies of this year's London Olympics.  

Everyone knew it would be difficult to top the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies so Boyle and his team took the next best step!  They just accepted that as fact and moved on.  Instead of focusing on how to upstage what is the gold standard for these momentous event, Boyle decided to focus on the best that Britain could offer and the incredible wellspring of creativity these islands had.  

Below is my most favorite quote from Fr. Caluag's column -

"In accepting their limitations, in acknowledging others were better than them, they attained the freedom to be creative.  They showed the best of who they are.  They excelled by simply being who they are and not worrying about being like someone else."

I actually enjoyed both the opening and the closing ceremonies of the London Olympic Games.  Yes, it was universally agreed that Beijing was still the gold standard for that, but they were just so entertaining and the humor was just downright pat British that those events were able to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack!  I mean, One Direction in the Olympics, and Annie Lennox!! Worked for me! 

What Advice Would You Give Your 25-Year Old Self?

Every Sunday, I look forward to checking the column of Mons Romulo in the Philippine Star to check out her question for the week.  This week, she posts this intriguing question which is actually fitting for someone my age.  Well, here's my personal answer for it and I was pretty surprised how long my answer was!!

"Learn to love yourself more.  You are not ugly.  You will be more handsome than most of your contemporaries in the years to come so get over that insecurity.  If you can work with a dermatologist early on, invest on one.  Papa was very handsome as a young man and you completely got his features except for his very chinky eyes.

You are not freakin' shy!! Just remember who you were in that fateful National Science Fair competition in UP Los Banos in December of 1983 when you practically were friends with everyone - in both the grade school and high school competitions.  You were fearless when you approached each of them even if some of them were older than you by 3 or 4 years! Remember how many people congratulated you when you won, because you knew almost everyone and were friends with them.  Remember how great that felt!  

Stop being a drama queen!  Your life will turn out fine!  Your mother will mellow down and she will become a nicer person.  Your siblings Vic and Michelle will become your best friends and will help you in both your businesses!

Don't stop being fearless.  Remember what you did when you were still starting your tutorial business and how you had no fear going to the guidance counselors of IS Manila and Brent IS to blatantly ask for customers.  You look young but your wisdom and confidence belies it.

Spend more time with the friends you value most.  Most of them will immigrate and you will miss them sorely. 

Take care of the hearts of some of the boys who will like you and love you.  Don't be careless with them.  They will be the nicest and most lovely men you will ever meet for the rest of your life.  They will not hang on forever and deal with your bs.  Remember, life will get easier for gay men as the years pass and years later, it's fine for the public to see men having relationships with other men.

Try to become stronger physically.  Your body has a good athletic built so try to develop it now that it's in its prime. 

Take down everyone's name and write them down.  Facebook will be invented almost two decades later and many of the people you've met and made friends with in your late 20s and 30s will slip through the cracks since your memory of their names is very poor.  So freakin' write them down in your diary, even if it's just their nicknames.  

Start saving now!  DON'T BUY CDs anymore!  A better technology will come out two decades later which will render that obsolete.  You will become a good saver so better to start you cancer fund now, twenty years earlier.

Keep your diaries and some of your souvenir programs. You will transfer houses several times and they will get lost in transit.

Invest in the stock market now!!  You are a very objective person when it comes to money and you will hit the bonanza in some of the stocks that you've invested in."

True Blood Is Still My Favorite TV Show of the Week

 

HBO dominates my programming choice for this week! Spots 1 and 2 go to the two last episodes of True Blood for this season, which I both saw this week.

Here are my favorite TV shows for the week ending September 28, 2012 -

#1 HBO -True Blood - Bill becomes 'Lilith'

#2 HBO - True Blood - Edgington bites a fairy

#3 HBO - How To Make It In America - the story becomes interesting as their model friend sleeps with Bryan Greenberg's ex-gf

#4 HBO- Radio Days- Woody Allen's bittersweet homage to radio 

#5 HBO -Bored to Death - father likes son-in-law

#6 CNN - Open Court - feature on Steffi Graf and the other German players

#7 Nat Geo - Locked Up Abroad - escape from Mexican prison as a woman - Escaped?  I Do! 

# 8 Nat Geo - Air Crash Investigation - SAS collides with a CESNA in a foggy Milan runway

#9 -BBC World - One Square Mile: Tres Fronteras - the Amazon triangle of three countries, Peru, Colombia and Brazil

#10 - Jack - Big Bang Theory - bachelors party

Austin Butler: Vanessa Hudgen's Main Squeeze

Austin Butler is one of the reasons why I was hooked on watching The Bling Ring last night.  His character was the only guy among five members who formed themselves to while away the time after school.  They end up stealing high end stuff from the houses of Hollywood stars.

Movie Review: The Bling Ring (L'amour Du Risque)

I was channel surfing tonight and I chanced upon this movie in the Diva Channel entitled The Bling Ring.  I actually didn't know the title of the movie when I saw the first few scenes but I was just so hooked on what I saw, I decided to google the movie's title.  After doing some research, I found out that this one was a true story.  I like how they paced the movie and since this was a Diva Universal production, there is not so much gore or death, although I was thinking that some of the scenes seemed juvenile.  Anyway,this movie is about teen thieves who break into the houses of the rich and famous and steal some clothes.

Samuel Theis: French Actor in Un Village Francais

Samuel Theis plays a German soldier who helps the French Resistance movement in the French TV drama, Un Village Francais.  His character is currently flirting with the primary school teacher of Villeneuve and both are trying to do the best they can to thwart the Germans. 

Marie Kremer: Une Actrice Francaise

One of the interesting characters in the French emission Un Francais Village, is played by Marie Kremer.  She is the primary school teacher of Villeneuve and she is in love with a German soldier, who is helping her and the Resistance.  She is actually playing a very dangerous game!

I'm A Burberry Boy

Vic also got this Burberry bag today! I've been a fan of Burberry since Christopher Bailey updated their dated look. We had to get these stylish 'bayongs' since when you go shopping nowadays, the stores don't give you plastic bags anymore, you'd have to have a big bag to put all the things you shop for. 

Lovin' This Prada Bag!

I know it's kind of shallow and a bit obscene to be obsessing about bags these expensive but I was very excited when Vic got this bag from Prada today. He knows very well how much I love these nylon Prada bags especially the ones with these quirky designs!  They certainly fit my personality perfectly!  We had to buy these types of bags now that plastics are not used anymore here in Quezon City. 

Kuala Lumpur Pictures 2003

I actually thought I posted the pictures of my recent trip to Kuala Lumpur.  Apparently not since I was supposed to put these old picture with the newer ones.  These ones were taken in 2003, during my first trip there.  It was around April of that year.  If you look at the pictures, they look exactly the same as what you can see in my recent pictures!  And of course, more importantly, I still had a great time now as I did then!

What One Thing In Life Can You Always Count On?

This was the question posted in Mons Romulo's column today in the Philippine Star.  Well, I've always counted on God having my back at all times - that if something that I want to happen does not happen, it just means He has cooked up something better for me. That's why sometimes, when things don't go my way, I just look at it differently, normally, in a more optimistic way - very difficult to do - but I've found out that He's always had my back, at all times - and that the time I spent worrying, was really, just a waste of my time!

God Knows Who You Are

I'll begin this musing with a quote from Hebrews 4:13, "He knows about everyone, everywhere.  Everything about is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from Him to whom we must explain all that we have done."

O di ba?  Because of these words, I realized, bakit ko pa itatago ang pagkabading ko?  He knows I'm gay.  He created me for heaven's sake!!  So bakit ko pa itatago?  Feeling ko nga, it's just  other human beings who want to feel holier than thou who want to tell me that God does not love me, that God does not love gay people.  Oh well, shove that up yours because I know He loves me and that He too created gay people to find out if straight people can treat 'abnormal' people' like me as if they they were their own brother.  If your idea of heaven excludes certain groups of people JUST BECAUSE of who they are then your idea of heaven may NOT BE God's idea of what heaven really is.

Crime Investigation Asia's Story on A Former Miss Malaysia My Top TV Show of the Week

 

Well, it's back to my normal TV schedule this week with crime stories topping most of my top 10.  Here are my favorite shows for the week ending September 14, 2012 -

#1 Crime Investigation Channel - Crime Investigation Asia - Miss Malaysia

This story was about the teacher who was murdered by her lover, a former Miss Malaysia.

#2 Crime Investigation Channel - Crime Investigation Asia - Mas Selamat

This story was  about the terrorist Mas Selamat who escaped jail in Singapore.

#3 Diva Channel - Elizabeth: The Golden Age

The second Elizabeth movie starring Cate Blanchett.  Love the costumes!

#4 Crime Investigation Channel - Justice Files - child molesters

This episode focused on the law that made it mandatory for policemen to inform the public about child molesters in their midst.

#5 Crime Investigation Channel - Medical Detectives - Sands of Crime


#6 Crime Investigation Channel - Medical Detectives - As Fault


#7 - Biography Channel - My Ghost Story Asia - dormitory

This episode was about this male spirit who lived in a girls dormitory.

#8 Biography Channel - My Ghost Story Asia - Miss Malaysia uncle

#9 Biography Channel - My Ghost Story - park ghost maid 

This episode was about some friends who went to a park and one of their friends saw a ghost behind their car.

#10  HBO - Life's Too Short - Warrick meets Helena Bonham Carter!

JM de Guzman: Shirt On Shirt Off

I just composed this blog post to show actor JM de Guzman during the Gawad Urian Awards where I met him dressed in formal garb and during the Cosmo Bachelors Bash where I saw him, well, shirtless!  Fun in both occasions!!

Traipsing Round Malacanang Palace

I found the following pictures in my own Facebook account.  These came from my friend who took these pictures from his own camera.   It's a tour we did of Malacanang Palace.  We did this when President Arroyo was still in power - and she did say hi to us - but we were too tongue tied to ask for a photo op from her!  Sayang talaga!!

I did enjoy this tour a lot!!  I should tour the Philippines more next year, kahit Manila lang nga e!  I feel there is so much to discover!!