Mahasa will be playing at 6underground this tuesday, May 2nd, at around 9pm. Also playing will be bands like Silent Sanctuary, Pumping Pluto, and Dahon, among others. You can get in for a hundred pesos, which entitles you to a free San Mig light or a glass of iced tea. Say hi - di kami selfish, we'll invite you over for a shot or two or three while the alcohol lasts (so long as the corkage for a bottle of Tanduay isn't exhuberant)

Paris is out of American Idol. The world rejoices.

... and by the world, I mean ME.

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I'm gonna be cooking tinola for dinner. I hate tinola. I don't understand how chicken and vegetables floating in bland soup can become such a popular dish. A packet of instant mami has more flavour than a potful of tinola. Luckily, we've got a whole drawer of McCormick spices to give that sorry excuse for an ulam a little spike! Speaking of food, there's a cooking show on Lifestyle Network that I can't help but applaud - Everyday Italian. It's like a true to life version of the movie "Woman on Top", but instead of Mexican cuisine taught by Penelope Cruz it's Italian cuisine by the beautiful Giada de Laurentiis.

Isn't that so much easier on the eyes than Mario Batali (Molto Mario)? Though you see her eating all the time, Giada manages to retain a fabulous figure. And eating is a big thing with me. I love a woman who can put away as much food as I can and still look good afterwards. The show isn't all about looks. The food is good, too. Ranks about the same as Molto Mario since her ingredients are often hard to find in local Groceries. That places her third on my favourite cooking shows; 'Good Eats' at number 1 and '30-Minute Meals' as close second. And though everybody loves Batali's antics and funky shorts, 'Molto Mario' falls down to number 4.

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Whether they're single, dating or married, men will always have porn. If you're male and have no porn... you ain't no MAN.

Just a little something I did over the weekend. Since 'The Da Vinci Code' is al the hype I thought of doing a few ambigrams. They're a little rough but try to figure out what they say anyway.

In my dreams I am the wolf No culture No clan I go where I please I do what I dare But dreams are only dreams

I don’t believe in luck. I stand by the belief that if something is wrong in your life it is, in some measure, your fault. But then… why, then are events unfolding they way they are?

In the span of one month so many doors have been opened to me. Opportunities left and right. It’s surprising… overwhelming. But… suddenly there’s pressure. Pressure from family. Pressure from friends. From within. From without.

And I know that the choices I make now will weigh heavily on my future. And I know that the moment I take one path, all the others will be closed to me. There will be no going back. I feel like Indiana Jones in the room of the holy grails… except that there is no carpenter’s cup. No obvious answer.

And if that wasn’t enough, there seems to be a sickness in the household. Not a virus, nothing medical. It’s more of a psychological illness, and a contagious one at that. There’s a feeling of tiredness looming in the air. Lethargy. Reticence. It feels like entropy. Like the winding down of life.

And there’s also this sense of foreboding. Something is going to happen. Something bad. I can’t sit still for long simply because I’m filled with anticipation. With fear. It’s debilitating.

I want to leave the house, but at the same time I am drawn to it. I feel like I should be there when it happens. Whatever “it” is. Maybe I can stop it. Or at the very least bear witness.

I pray that I’m just being paranoid. Unfortunately… I tend to be right when it comes to gloom and doom. I’ve survived more than I should have. More than I care to remember. I know trouble when I see it. We walk arm in arm.

I did a tarot reading. And no, I will not tell you that I got the Tower, the Devil or the Death card. In fact, I didn’t get a single bad luck card. My reading showed success and wealth and material gain. What worries me is that it also portrayed sacrifice and suffering. But not for me. For everyone else.

The summation of my reading is this.
I am on the path to glory… and will trample anyone who gets in my way

Warning: Comic Book Geekery Ahead

I'm a fan of the Japanese manga style. Clean cut lines. Smooth curves. Perfect tone shading. Inventive use of foreshortening and perspective. Incredible consistency... But at some point it gets too formulaic.

When it comes to manga, most readers wouldn't be able to distinguish between a frame from Spirited Away and Steamboy. But if you ask that same person if Andy Capp and Bettle Bailey are drawn by the same artist it's an instant "NO!"

That's why I still look to Western comics. And I'm not talking about the popular Marvel "muscle-fest" style. I'm for Doonesbury, Bazooka Joe and The Far Side. I'm for Bill Watterson, Jamie Hewlitt, Genndy Tartakovsky, Sergio Aragones and Scott McCloud. The comics that breathe "style" in an industry that is slowly straying from its traditions.

But sometimes you get something that is a neither one nor the other. A little old, a little new (something borrowed, something blue). One of them is "SCOTT PILGRIM" by Bryan Lee O'Malley. It's a graphic novel series, now in its third volume, whose style is a marriage between American cartoon and Japanese manga. This is just the type of thing I want to be doing. Deceptively simple, yet full of depth. A comic that isn't just a showcase of fancy poses and complex fight scenes. A comic that tells a good story. Maybe someday. Hopefully soon.

Oh, and the 3rd Scott Pilgrim book will also feature a 2-page guest comic done by one of my favourite comic artists, Josh Lesnick. His works inlude Wendy and Girly, two of the craziest comics on the web. Lesnick isn't just an artist, he's a pop culture sensation!


all images hosted by Photobucket.com

*for those who'd like to know a little more about the references I made in my post, here's a list of the artists and their works.

WORKS	ARTIST
Spirited Away	Hayao Miyazaki
Steamboy	Katsuhiro Otomo
Andy Capp	Reg Smythe
Beetle Bailey	Mort Walker
Doonesbury	GB Trudeau
Bazooka Joe	Wesley Morse
The Far Side	Gary Larson
Calvin and Hobbes	Bill Watterson
Tank Girl, Gorillaz	Jamie Hewlitt
Power Puff Girls, Samurai Jack	Genndy Tartakovsky
Groo, Mad Magazine	Sergio Aragones
Zot!, Morning Improv	Scott McCloud

Scott Pilgrim image taken from http://scottpilgrim.com/
Otra, Winter and Marshmallo Cat images taken from http://go-girly.com