OLD
I'm getting old. I realized this over the past few days. And I'm really getting annoyed. Not because I'm getting old, but because of what happens when one is getting old. My family from back home, including Ilyn, planned to tour Laguna last Wednesday. We would go first to Magdalena to visit a priest who was an old friend of ours, then off to Paete to check out the handicrafts the place was known for. I was very excited because it would be the first time for me to visit these places ever. Magadalena was just OK. Our friend was there, but he couldn't see us because he was busy giving a seminar to a couple who were planning to get married. It was allright, as we just turned into a sort of sight seeing strip having never been there before.
We then went Paete, passing by the towns of Victoria, Kalayaan, Pagangjan, and Lumban on the way. At Lumban we passed by Caliraya, a man made lake that had been turned into a resort. We then passed by Kalayaan and saw the place where we were to have lunch, Exotik Restaurant, which serves all kinds of exotic dishes like Bayawak, Deer, Sawa, Baboy Damo etc. I've been hearing about that place for a long time and I've always wanted to go.
At Paete, we had planned on buying lots of stuff for the house. We had a car with us so it would be no problem to buy as much as we needed without worrying about hauling all that stuff back home and commuting via public transpo which is always a pain. As I was buying a couple of chicken figurines (a collection I'm starting), I realized I had left much of my money back home. All I had was less than 2 thousand pesos. We still had to buy stuff there, eat, gas up the car, pay the driver, and go to the grocery on the way home. I was horrified. There were my folks and Ilyn, looking at me for today to be worry free and now we had to seriously curtail what buying we wanted to do and just save the money for lunch and gas. I was seriously pissed. At myself for being so stupid. They weren't too hard on me, saying that like Magdalena, we just take this as a sight seeing trip. That sort of made me feel better, as the trip itself and seeing a lof of new stuff was nice in itself.
Ilyn and Me at Exotik Restaurant, Kalayaan, Laguna
We were able to grocery a little bit at the end of the day, and I was able to come home with lots of cool cheap ass comics (Killraven Graphic Novel drawn by P Craig Russel for 20 pesos!! [US$ 0.35]). By the time we got home I was left with only 40 pesos in my wallet. Haaay.
Last Thursday me and Ilyn went to Manila to attend a going away party for Karel, one of my college classmates. It was going to be at Makati at 7:00pm. I normally don't go to such things because its going to end very late and I have no place to stay in Manila. But Ilyn and I decided to stay at a hotel and make it the first night of our often delayed honeymoon. We decided to stay at New World Renaissance, which is a pretty high end hotel (5 stars by my reckoning) and part of the Marriot group of hotels worldwide. At first I didn't want to because I knew it was going to be very expensive. But Ilyn called up the hotel to inquire and we were both surprised to find out that it wasn't that expensive after all. It was still more than what I usually paid for hotels, but what the hell, I always wanted to stay in a hotel like that with Ilyn, and often wondered what it will be like.
Needless to say the hotel was absolutely AWESOME. When we checked in, I had to first go and meet Leinil because there was a Superman cover that we really needed to finish right away. I'd go to his place, ink the cover then go back to the hotel to freshen up before the party. When I got to Leinil's I was horrified to learn that I had left all my inking tools at the hotel. I was horrified. I was now starting to get really REALLY annoyed with myself. I just went back to the hotel and finished it there and Leinil said I could just email the cover to him when I got back home the following day. It was allright because we could still meet the deadline that way.
The party went great! We had it at the W Grille next to Glorietta 2, just walking distance from our hotel. We met up with old classmates Perry, Jeca, Jenie, Karel, Bhing, Jun and a classmate I haven't seen since college, Christelle. I also met Felix, who I've only met so far in our batch mailing list. The highlight of the night was seeing Jenie ride the mechanical bull. I heard Perry and Benjie did too, but Ilyn and I had already left to watch the midnight screening of Matrix Reloaded.
Benjie, Me, Ilyn, Jeca, Perry, Jun, Christelle, Karel, Jenie, Felix
I thought the movie was really cool. I loved the French speaking guy. He was so funny. He really stood out. However, the obviously CGI'd Keannus and agents really wrecked the movie for me. I mean, a lot of those effects shots with people looked so obviously fake. Didn't they see that? It already bothered me a lot to see a CGI'd Orlando Bloom as he jumped over the troll in Fellowship of the Ring. And that was just a split second. Here in the Matrix you can see those obviously CGI people a lot more for a LOOONGer time. They even slowed down the action for some shots which made the fakery look even MORE obvious, specially when that agent jumped on a car and demolishes it. Why can't they just have done what they did in the first Matrix and used REAL PEOPLE? They can just use their improved technology in the years since the first Matrix to make even more awesome effects shots without having to use stupid CGI people. Bah. What a waste. I expect the Wachowski Brothers going back to this movie maybe 10 years from now and redoing all those stupid effects.
I worked on inking the cover the following morning. I finished it before noon and we checked out and went straight home. At the bus I realized I had left my eraser at Leinil's place. Again. AGAIN I FORGOT SOMETHING. But this was no biggie. I could just get erasers at the local store in San Pablo before heading back to the house. I sent the cover off that afternoon.
I'm really pissed that I'm starting to forget a lot of things. Am I really just getting old, or is it something else?
Last Sunday, Ilyn's family went to the beach and I hitched along for the ride. A lot of people have been telling us how great the beaches are at Laia in Batangas. Ilyn had been there before when she was very young, and she does remember it to be a very nice place. Even Celo, my local foreign exchange guy tells me that he goes to the place and he loves it. He even shows me this awesome rock face where he had his picture taken.
I went home with a really bad sunburn on the back of my neck but it's allright because I had a great time playing in the surf. I hadn't done that in more than 10 years and I thought, what the hell was I thinking? Why did I stay away so long? We noticed the waves were starting to get bigger and bigger as the day went on and people started to get off the beach. Well, I just kept going! I can't count now how many times I got slammed down on the sand helpless by the huge waves but it was so much fun. It had started to rain too. That would be the last sunny day in a while. The following day it rained ALL day. And its no wonder....a typhoon that came uncharacteristically from the west of the country had been approaching us all along. There in the map you can see where I am from the red dot. The power had been going on and off all day today because of it. It's dark, it's rainy and the wind would kick up once in a while. As I feel the burn on the back of my neck, I can't believe how hot the sun had been just a few days before.
At the prodding of my college classmates who want to see how FAT I've become, I got myself a cheap ass webcam. Look at the pic on the left as it will change every few minutes. NOT! he.he.
