The Fat Man Today

Because I don't always post surveys at Blogger, and because I haven't worked on a survey in a long time, I present to you kids the 2008 survey (courtesy of Oryza the Genius)! Everybody's supposed to have an obligatory year-end post(s), and since I haven't posted anything the past few, let this be the start of (hopefully) a series. 1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? >> Put up with people patiently. :D 2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? >> I've never done resolutions before. Mebbe it's time I did. Huh. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? >> I am not that sure. My sister might have. 4. Did anyone close to you die? >> Nobody that I know of. 5. What countries did you visit? >> That depends. In my imagination, I roam around a lot. In real life, I am a desk jockey. 6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? >> Gee that's...

Of all the cool gifts I got this year, this was undoubtedly the coolest: My copy probably has a different serial number and far, far less Japanese characters in the background. The Murakami Diary for 2009, which came from my dear eldest sister, who got it for ₤9.99 according to the receipt I found in the book, much to her chagrin. So here I am, with a diary whose theme involves one of the few giants in contemporary literature. This is a good thing, this, because in my opinion, I lack practice and skill in writing short and meaningful paragraphs. This diary has a small slot for each day of the year 2009. Every time somebody gives me a notebook or a diary, it ends up gathering dust in one corner until I finish the current notebook I have with me and find the need to continue writing on a new leaf, so to speak. Add the fact that most of my writing is done via the computer these days, which explains the dearth of decent hand-written works from myself for around three years an...

It's the 24th and I haven't even done my shopping or most of my work for that matter. I have also not for the past two weeks, done any serious workout. I expect to greet 2009 a little bit flabbier than I was last year. But hell. It's the holidays, and despite any misgivings, we all need to get together and enjoy the fact that at least once every year, everybody's given the excuse to shovel fattening pieces of ham and edam cheese down their gullets and guzzle some good alcohol. So what the hey. Merry Christmas, folks, and may it be a truly good one for all of you - especially those of you who really need it. As my gift to all of you readers, here's a nice animated short I picked up from wandering around the 'net the entire night. It isn't Pixar in terms of story quality and pacing, but what it lacks in that department, it makes up for by being very, very cheeky. I know at least of one person who will truly enjoy this. You know who you are. Merry, merry Chr...

It's Christmas. The weather's slowly turned chilly; you see more and more people out with their jackets, and there's a crispness in the air, like the slow, silent crumbling of Graham crackers, or the slow popping of popcorn in the microwave. But you can't hear it. Out there, in the street, there's gaiety and fanfare, without really being fanfare because fanfare is always planned. The kid carolers, knocking on your door and throwing rocks when you act the scrooge. Bright lights, big city lights, all throughout the avenues, and you know that just down the street from the church you can pick up a steaming bibingka or puto bumbong with niyog and luscious butter. In the pulpit, the priests are getting ready, celebrating the reason for the season and telling us that the son of God is at hand. On the other hand, stores have advertisements and hawkers telling everybody that Christmas means a variety of sales from both retail and wholesale just so you can make your loved ...

I love crooners. Seriously, who wouldn't like the way crooners, well, croon? I've been in a very crooner-ish mood lately, thanks to someone very dear. So since I can't find a version of this song performed by Sinatra (the king of crooners), go go Buble: Everybody's making Christmas wish lists. So far, two people have been asking me about what I'd like for the season, and I've always given the same answer. Nothing. Because I don't make lists for Christmas. Give whatever or give nothing, it doesn't matter. The thought that counts and all that. Bah humbug, I have a cold. In the spirit of my very un-Christmaslike mood, though, let me make a list of the things that I do not want to get for Christmas: shirts - Last year being the exception, I totally detest getting shirts for Christmas. Or birthdays. This is like the most basic staple of gift-giving, and it gets annoying , mostly because people usually don't know what style of shirt you like. O...

I don't really remember when I started drinking alcohol. It was either during one family reunion way back when I was still a kid, or during a night out with the family where they made me taste wine. I remember disliking the bitterness of beer, but like coffee, it was something you eventually get used to. I was introduced to hard drinks back in high school thanks to a friend who decided to drag me to his neighborhood buddy's weekend drinking session. This was also my first (I think) Starbucks experience. This kid, though, has a pretty good head start. I've reached an age, though, where I'm beginning to feel the effects of the drink on my body. Blame my year in Mindanao where I was straddled with pansies who adamantly refused to indulge in hard liquor (I love those guys with all my heart, but hell). Blame the weight I lost (hopefully, weight that I will keep lost). Or blame the theoretical deteriorating state of my liver, which I try to lighten by imbibing gratui...

I'm talking about this face, gringos. Manny gave the Golden Boy such a beating that it'd take a week for all those bruises for him to heal back to his usual good-lookin' countenance. The good, the bad, the ugly? Manny's all three - a good boxer, a bad-ass fighter, and an ugly mug. Bad Left Hook gives a really good eulogy to De la Hoya's boxing career in this post . I never got to see the fight, but I saw the HBO specials on their training (Freddie Roach looks like he's slowly losing it out of the ring), and I saw the news reports. Pacman was Yoda, De la Hoya was Count Dooku. No contest, literally. I like that bit where SC points out that the entire time, De la Hoya knew what he had to do - he was a really good boxer, after all - but they all just kept on coming to him way too late in the game. That's always a scary thought, man. I mean, how much do you think you can take from life when all the good ideas, all the winning combinations, keep on hittin...

I can honestly say that I never ever should have read through the entire Watchmen series because it has furthered my understanding that I might never fully enjoy the upcoming eponymous movie the way it was meant to be enjoyed (and if we're to take 300 as a template, that would be tantamount to something like no brains + more testosterone please). Here's a nice interview with Dave Gibbons, the man who drew Watchmen , and his reactions to the upcoming film. I have to say, it's pretty heartening to hear him talk about it so enthusiastically, although there's the possibility that with Alan Moore ditching rights to the franchise as far as the film is concerned, Gibbons will be getting a bigger piece of the pie. However, there's this really nice (and admittedly old) video of Alan Moore and his take on why his comics (or most good comics, in general) can't be turned into movies. Check his blood-curdling reading of one of Rorschach's journal entries in the ...

I was doing a little bit of research in PhilMusic and the Yupangco forums when I came upon a really interesting thread in the former discussing why the general rock n' roll community had this tendency to look down upon the musical genre / niche emo. I know shoegaze is fast becoming the trend in the pop music scene (and along with emo, I have a pretty strong dislike for it), but the fact remains that emo was bashed by not one, not five, but almost all of the resident rock cultures from dreampop (the precursor of shoegaze, bitchez) to prog metal, so this was a rather intriguing topic. After all, emo is still a form of music, and PhilMusic is the melting pot of Pinoy music on the 'net. But the one thing that not even that admittedly educated discussion thread could do for me was establish the roots of emo and emocore, so I did the next best thing and checked Wikipedia. Near the bottom part of the entry on emo, there was this short paragraph that caught my attention: Gerard...

When I think, I write. When I write, I am forced to think. It's a rather vicious cycle. I just finished re-reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World , and despite having read a plentitude of the man's works, I still have to say that this is his pinnacle.  The plight(s) of two nameless protagonists whose stories converge as the novel draws to a close is both heartwarming and, at the same time, heartbreaking, and works like a strong depressant injected straight to the jugular. I have this habit of sitting down and staring into space after reading a particularly thought-provoking book, and twice now has Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World affected me in this manner. But the one thing I love most about it is that it accepts death in the most dramatic of ways, with a cigarette inside a Toyota Carina, with Bob Dylan in the background and a slow and smooth slide to eternal slumber. Sweet and tasteful, but without all the drama. Don...