Counting Blessings

Despite some setback in life and love, there are still a lot of things to thank for in 2009.

My family’s been blessed with good health. My parents are already approaching their 70’s (my Tatay just turned 70 actually) but they’re still strong as a horse, thank God. My family’s also living a happy normal life. Normal is good in today’s fast-changing world.

I was also able to direct my first short film in 2009. It’s still in post-production stage with major comments from my superiors but I did accomplish something I only dreamt about when I was a kid. I guess that’s something to be proud of. And while my future in film directing is hazy, the important thing is I tried (sacrificed 2 years of my life actually) and after all has been said and done, it was all worth it.

A more important realization in the process of making the short is the reality that I’ve been blessed with really good friends who are selfless in offering their help because of their belief in me. Or maybe because they’re my friends and friends are supposed to help each other! I’ve often complained that the reason for my non-existent love life is because people only see me as their best friend but never their partner. I take that back. Being somebody’s partner would be cool, yes, but being everyone’s best friend is way cooler. I mean, who would have thought I could produce and direct a film just for being a good friend? Cool, right?!

Still single since birth in 2009 but it doesn’t mean I was loveless. Yes, I fell in love again. Yes, it was one-sided again. And yes, I got my heart broken again but no regrets. Falling in love in the early months of last year is one of my recent happiest memories. Somebody’s inspiring me again these days and because I’m not lucky in love, the person also happens to be committed so we all know the rest of the story. What’s important though, is that I’m still capable of loving despite years of broken-heartedness and rejection.

2009 was also a year of firsts. It was my first time to go to Boracay and Palawan. It was my first time to go parasailing, to snorkel in deep water and to swim in a lake. I will cherish these firsts forever and will cherish more the fact that I did all these in the company of friends, of friends for keeps.

Lastly, I returned to Direk Lolo’s unit in 2009 and feel so much grateful to be accepted back. I’m the unit’s prodigal son having left after SCQ Reload & Qpids to pursue film scriptwriting, then leaving again after PBB Season 2 to pursue film studies. This time, I would like to believe that I’ll be staying for good and will do my very best to return the trust and kindness the unit has given me. I think I can now say that after almost 10 years of working in the network, I finally found home.

(But since I will always be a wanderer, I will show them that while I may not be the most loyal person when it comes to work, I do give all my heart and soul to every work assigned to me. I hope that would suffice.)

Thank you, 2009 and I'm nervously excited as to what 2010 will bring!

10 Resolutions for 2010

1. Lose weight.

I will enrol in Gold’s Gym Waltermart or Slimmers SM North in January and live a healthy life.

2. Stop being tactless.

I will be more sensitive to the feelings of other people. I will know when to keep my mouth shut and be less "igat".

3. Learn to swim.

I will enrol in Lozada or any swimming school during PBB break and finally learn to swim.

4. Save money.

I should buy my own house in the next 5 years. I should also save enough to fund my next short film, hopefully in 2011. Pasensya na, ambitious! Haha!

5. Finish short.

I will finish editing my short film in the first quarter and not fear if the finished product sucks.

6. Read more.

I will read a good book at least once a month starting with the film book I asked Michiko to buy in Amazon in 2007.

7. Go out with friends more.

Work should never be an excuse. I should go out & reconnect with friends at least once or twice a month. I will be a good friend to everyone.

8. Lessen internet time.

While very difficult, I should only surf the web two hours a day – one hour after waking up & one hour before sleeping time.

9. Learn to say no.

I will not say “yes” when I don’t want to say “yes”. I will not be guilty to say “no”.

10. Stop procrastinating.

There should be no more “later na lang” moments but not to the point of stressing out over everything.

Good luck to me! Happy New Year! :)

Other Wishlist!

Aside from my book & DVD wishlist, here are other things I wish to have this Christmas.

1. flip flops (9 & 1/2 shoe size)
2. cross trainer rubber shoes (9 & 1/2 shoe size)
3. laptop earphones
4. gym shirt
5. spa gift certificate
6. casual shorts (32 waistline)
7. belt for jeans
8. black back pack
9. black sneakers (9 & 1/2 shoe size)
10. board shorts (32 waistline)
11. external hard disk (250 GB or higher)
12. Japanese slippers
13. laptop cleaner
14. big 4r photo album

DVD Wishlist

1. Tokyo Story (Director: Yasujiro Ozu)
2. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Director: Milos Forman)
3. Annie Hall (Director: Woody Allen)
4. Osama (Director: Siddiq Barmak)
5. Rear Window (Director: Alfred Hitchcock)
6. Blade Runner (Director: Ridley Scott)
7. Bonnie and Clyde (Director: Arthur Penn)
8. Double Indemnity (Director: Billy Wilder)
9. Drunken Master II (Directors: Chia-Liang Lu and Jackie Chan)
10. 8 ½ (Director: Federico Fellini)
11. The Fly (Director: David Cronenberg)
12. The Godfather 2 (Director: Francis Ford Coppola)
13. Goodfellas (Director: Martin Scorcese)
14. It’s A Wonderful Life (Director: Frank Capra)
15. Miller’s Crossing (Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen)
16. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Director: Woody Allen)
17. Raging Bull (Director: Martin Scorcese)
18. The Searchers (Director: John Ford)
19. Singin’ In The Rain (Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly)
20. Some Like It Hot (Director: Billy Wilder)
21. Seven Samurai (Director: Akira Kurosawa)
22. Tsotsi (Director: Gavin Hood)
23. The Sea Inside/Mar Adentro (Director: Alejandro Amenabar)
24. The Barbarian Invasions/Les Invasions Barbares (Director: Denys Arcand)
25. All About My Mother/Todo Sobre Mi Madre (Director: Pedro Almodovar)
26. Cinema Paradiso (Director: Guissepe Tornatore)
27. Fanny and Alexander (Director: Ingmar Bergman)
28. Rosetta (Directors: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
29. The Sweet Hereafter (Director: Atom Egoyan)
30. Million Dollar Baby (Director: Clint Eastwood)
31. Letters From Iwo Jima (Director: Clint Eastwood)
32. Whale Rider (Director: Niki Caro)
33. Closely Watched Trains (Director: Jiri Menzel)
34. The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Director: Jean Renoir)
35. The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie (Director: Luis Bunuel)
36. Nowhere in Africa/Nirgendwo in Afrika (Director: Caroline Link)
37. The Child/L’enfant (Directors: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
38. The Son’s Room/La Stanza del Figlio (Director: Nanni Moretti)
39. Eternity and A Day (Director: Theo Angelopolous)
40. The Eel (Director: Shohei Imamura)
41. Taste of Cherry (Director: Abbas Kiarostami)
42. The Mourning Forest (Director: Naomi Kawase)
43. Flanders (Director: Bruno Dumont)
44. Oldboy (Director: Park Chan-Wook)
45. Uzak (Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
46. Devils On The Doorstep (Director: Jiang Wen)
47. Humanite (Director: Bruno Dumont)
48. Paradise Now (Director: Hany Abu-Assad)
49. Eastern Promises (Director: David Cronenberg)
50. Bella (Director: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde)
51. Hotel Rwanda (Director: Terry George)
52. The Hanging Garden (Director: Thom Fitzgerald)
53. Sanxia Haoren (Director: Zhang Ke Jia)
54. The Return/Vozrashcheniye (Director: Andrei Zvyagintzev)
55. Monsoon Wedding (Director: Mira Nair)
56. The Circle (Director: Jafar Panahi)
57. Not One Less (Director: Zhang Yimou)
58. Cosi Ridevano (Director: Gianni Amelio)
59. Fireworks/Hana-bi (Director: Takeshi Kitano)
60. Gomorra (Director: Matteo Garrone)
61. II Divo (Director: Paolo Sorrentino)
62. Lorna’s Silene/Le Silence de Lorna (Director: Dardenne Brothers)
63. A Room With A View (Director: James Ivory)
64. Do The Right Thing (Director: Spike Lee)
65. This Is Spinal Tap (Director: Rob Reiner)
66. The Silence of the Lambs (Director: Jonathan Demme)
67. Hannah and her Sisters (Director: Woody Allen)
68. Toy Story (Director: John Lasseter)
69. Tell No One (Director: Guillaume Canet)
70. Man On Wire (Director: James Marsh)
71. Happy-Go-Lucky (Director: Mike Leigh)
72. Burn After Reading (Director: Coen Brothers)
73. Wendy and Lucy (Director: Kelly Reichardt)
74. The Edge of Heaven (Director: Fatih Akin)
75. Ghost Town (Director: David Koepp)
76. The Bands Visit/Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (Director: Eran Kolirin)
77. Afghan Star (Director: Havana Marking)
78. You, The Living (Director: Roy Andersson)
79. Still Walking (Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda)
80. The Hurt Locker (Director: Kathryn Bigelow)
81. The Song of Sparrows (Director: Majid Majidi)
82. Sin Nombre (Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga)
83. Precious (Director: Lee Daniels)
84. The Last Station (Director: Michael Hoffman)
85. Amreeka (Director: Cherien Dabis)
86. 35 Shots of Rum (Director: Claire Denis)
87. An Education (Director: Lone Scherfig)
88. The Damned United (Director: Tom Hooper)
89. Goodbye Solo (Director: Rahmin Bahrani)
90. Revanche (Director: Gotz Spielmann)
91. The Maid (Director: Sebastian Silva)
92. Up In The Air (Director: Jason Reitman)
93. Inglorious Basterds (Director: Quentin Tarantino)
94. Invictus (Director: Clint Eastwood)
95. The Messenger (Director: Oren Moverman)
96. A Serious Man (Director: Joel and Ethan Coen)
97. The Prophet/Un Prophete (Director: Jacques Audiard)
98. Three Monkeys/Uc Maymun (Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
99. White Ribbon/Das Weisse Band (Director: Michael Haneke)
100. Where The Wild Things Are (Director: Spike Jonze)

Books Wishlist

1. What Happened to Anna K. by Irina Reyn
2. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
3. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
4. Disquiet by Julia Leigh
5. The House On Fortune Street by Margot Livesey
6. Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw
7. Lush Life by Richard Price
8. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
9. The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert
10. Say You’re One Of Them by Uwem Akpan
11. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
12. Snow by Orphan Pamuk
13. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

14. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)

15. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)

16. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)

17. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)

18. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)

19. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)

20. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)

21. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)

22. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)

23. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)

24. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)

25. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)

26. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)

27. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)

28. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)

29. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)

30. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)

31. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)

32. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)

33. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)

34. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)

35. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)

36. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)

37. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)

38. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)

39. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)

40. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)

41. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)

42. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)

43. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)

44. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)

45. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)

46. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)

47. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)

48. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

49. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)

50. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)

51. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)

52. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)

53. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)

54. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)

55. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)

56. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)

57. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)

58. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)

59. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)

60. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)

61. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)

62. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)

63. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)

64. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)

65. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)

66. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)

67. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)

68. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)

69. Money, Martin Amis (1985)

70. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)

71. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)

72. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)

73. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)

74. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)

75. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)

76. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)

77. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)

78. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)

79. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)

80. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)

81. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)

82. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)

83. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)

84. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)

85. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)

86. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)

87. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

88. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)

89. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)

90. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)

91. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)

92. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)

93. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)

94. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)

95. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)

96. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)

97. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)

98. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)

99. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)

100. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)

101. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)

102. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)

103. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)

104. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)

105. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
     
     

The Amazing Race 15

I was finally able to see TAR 15's first episode. Is it already too late to make a prediction? :) Anyway, I predict dating couple Meghan and Cheyne to win The Amazing Race. Poker players Maria & Tiffany, gay brothers Sam & Dan, and best friends Justin & Zev (who has an Asperger Syndrome) make good reality TV as well.

ETA (01/01/10): I was right! They won! :)

PBB Double Up!

PBB Double Up premieres tonight, 7:30pm, on ABS-CBN! Please WATCH! :)

Here are my pictures with some housemates entering tonight. (PLEASE don't post these in the forums!!! :D)


Paul Jake Castillo


Princess Lieza Manson


Yuri Okawa

PBB Double Up will air everyday after Dahil May Isang Ikaw. There's also PBB Uber airing before Precious Hearts Romances and PBB Uplate airing before sign-off. NOOD KAYO HA! :)

Survivor Samoa!

There are 20 castaways this season so there are less chances of correctly predicting the winner, but if the main arch of the season is whether Russel H succeeds in his diabolical plans as seen in Episode 1, then I predict him OR the one who silently distrusts him (Betsy) to win the game.

Season 19 Picks to win


Russel H


Betsy

As for the pilot, okay lang. I wasn't expecting that much since the two previous seasons were pretty lackluster. I'm more excited for the next All Star season that's currently filming in Samoa.:)

ETA (01/01/10): I got it wrong. Betsy was the 2nd castaway voted out and Russel only came in 2nd. Not to take anything away from Natalie but I think Russel deserved the title, though. :)

Coron TV

I did some random video blogging during our 2-day Coron getaway. LOL! :D

This is the first video of the series.



Just go to my You Tube account for the rest of the videos. Haha!

First!

I have to document this for my sense memory. I did a lot of things for the first time this year.


I went to Boracay for the first time. Fellow netizen Rev treated his friends to a Bora getaway during his birthday. I'm a lucky one! I had so much fun in Boracay, I will definitely return! Thanks Rev! :D


I went para-sailing for the first time. It happened in Boracay too. I'm scared of heights but I did it! I don't think I will do it again though, unless I'm in the Amazing Race. It was scary kind of fun! :D


I went to Coron, Palawan for the first time. College friend Gen celebrated her 30th in the island. Coron is simply breathtaking! Feeling ko nasa video ako ni Jason Mraz ng I'm Yours the whole time. Coron has that feel! :)


I went kayaking for the first time. Wala nga lang picture at sorry kung ito pa talaga ang picture (HAHA!) but this is Capo beach in Coron where we did kayaking. :D


I dipped in a hot spring for the first time. This was in Maquinit Hot Spring in Coron. Grabe, it was sooo hot indeed, but very relaxing. Siguro mas okay kung malamig ang weather satin.


I snorkeled and swam in deep ocean and lake water for the first time. May life jacket nga lang but still, you have to give me credit for it! Haha! It was one of the most memorable experiences I had! First time ko rin yatang maligo sa lake. Hehe.

I hope I can still experience a lot of good firsts before the year ends. I also realized that despite some hardships, I'm still fortunate and blessed. Awwww. Thank you Jesus! :)

If you're on Facebook, click on the location for the web address of the rest of the getaway photos:
BORACAY
CORON