NOTE: My blogging via email feature has been mysteriously disabled hence the non-appearance of this post which was supposed to go up yesterday. Sheesh!
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The past few nights that I've been unable to sleep and in no mood to tackle yet Michael Moorcock's Modern Times in the Solaris antho, I've instead been watching DVDs that have been gathering dust for several eons now in my pile. Aside from the Star Trek reboot which I watched (and late reviewed) recently, I've finally gotten to see and be bedazzled (and befuddled) with Inception and last night, a lighter treat with How to Train Your Dragon.
A couple of weeks ago I tried watching Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels but can't really get into the mood of things -- I seriously think that Jack Black is desperately trying hard to be funny that it becomes O.A. already and couldn't stomach the thing any longer. Same goes for the Seth Rogen-billed The Green Hornet reboot which at times showed promise before immediately becoming bleak again.
I'm trying to watch the reimagining of Sherlock Holmes, the 2009 film which cast Robert Downey Jr. as the eccentric and bohemian detective Holmes, and Jude Law as his partner-in-crime Dr. John Watson. My watching of the film has been interrupted several times already but from what I seen in the first 20 minutes of reel, this movie shows much promise.
Pitch Black is also waiting on the wings along with the remake of Robin Hood. I know I have Jumper somewhere stashed and there's a copy of Superman-Batman: Public Enemies and Superman-Batman: Apocalypse in the HDD Plus, lots and lots more CDs, DVDs, and films stored in the HDD so there are a lot of movies that are still out there for me to watch.
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Today is Ikai's third day to school and she was supposed to go to her new school on her own (via the school van, of course). Unfortunately, when she realized that her Auntie won't be accompanying her, the little one bawled and my sis-in-law had to frantically get dressed so that she can take Ikai to school.
Unfortunate but not unexpected. Elvie accompanied Ikai last Monday and yesterday, it was her Auntie's turn to go with her. We've been coaching Ikai that come Wednesday (today), she would be going on her own since she's had two days to familiarize herself with the school, her classmates, and her hatid-sundo school van (she does have to wait for an hour after class for the van to bring her home as economics dictate that better to run on a full load than just one passenger). Last night over dinner, I again reiterated the said arrangement and she suddenly looked at me, alarmed, and blurted out, "Bakit?"
Uh-oh, that was signal that she wasn't going to like going to school alone. But I had hoped she would get over that but that was not to be. My wife reported she cried and cried that she didn't want to go to the big school and wanted to go to the small school. That she wanted her Auntie to go with her.
Hopefully, the rest of the week, and the rest of the schoolyear won't be the same. Ikai has to get used to the new environment and hopefully she'll grow to like going to school even on her own.
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It was a busy weekend for me and the family.
Last Saturday, we took a 3-hour trip to Barangay Luya, San Luis, Batangas to share in the celebration of our friend's mother's 80th birthday. The over 100 kilometer trip involved 3 kilometers of uphill-mountainside driving on a narrow, winding, and irregular road. And since I didn't knew the way up, we asked that we be fetched in the nearby town by a driver who knew the way and the quirks of the road. It was narrow that when you come across another vehicle on the road, one needs to yield to the side -- which was either already the mountain-face or a cliff.
Our friend, Lily, wasn't home as she's currently working in Canada but her sisters and the rest of their relatives were there to make us comfortable and offer us the hospitality of their mountain retreat.
After parking the car, we still had to walk a few meters on foot to reach their home which was situated on a plateaued-out area. It was an amazing thing to see this house built on rock literally and I could already imagine how cool the nights would be if you lived there.
I was equally surprised by the so-many guests already getting their fill of the feast and booze when we got there. We arrived around 11:40am and on the way up, men-folks lounging in a kubo called out to us to tell us we were already late. Indeed, we were late as it seemed like the whole barangay turned up for the birthday celebration. It was a party indeed and it was a blast complete with buffet setup, a debutant's cake for Nanay, along with a band they hired all the way from Lipa. They even raffled off prizes that were a hit with the guests.
While the place was crowded, it wasn't as hot as I expected it to be thanks to the trees and greenery that surrounded the place.
We stayed for something like three hours, had our fill of the food (loved the rich macapuno ice cream - dirty-ice-cream-styled) and then went home. Of course, it was another person who drove big red car down the mountain.
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Bibliophile Stalker reports that copies of The Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 6 are now available at Fully Booked. Hopefully I can slip off a few minutes this afternoon from a Desk affair to get myself a copy at Fully Booked Greenbelt (if the book's there in the first place).
The first printing of the book sold out minutes into the book launch held at the end of last month. Either the publishers only printed a few copies or there is indeed a growing population of spec-fic folks here in the P.I. I would like to think it's the latter.
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I did say that the recent weekend was busy, right?
Well, after the mountain trip last Saturday, on Sunday we had another affair to attend to. This time, a family affair, as my cousin Alec (who I've not seen since he was two or three years old) and his wife were celebrating the christening of their daughter, Rieka Ragandan (yes, another R-person). And I was given the honor of being one of the ninongs.
Due to church commitments, we were unable to attend the church baptism held at the church at Remedios in Malate and opted to be on time for the reception at the Kamayan resto fronting Robinson's Place - Ermita.
It was an impromptu family reunion as both my parents were there along with the rest of my cousins (father-side), especially Tita Reggie, one of Ikai's favorite playmates. My cousins' parents, Tito Eddie and Tita Baby, were there as well, flying in that Sunday morning to attend the christening of their apo.
It was a fun, little affair and as always, I stuffed myself moderately (2 return trips plus 1 trip back for dessert) and enjoyed a quiet little afternoon.
Welcome to the Christian world, Rieka! And congratulations to Alec and his wife, Grace!
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Similar to my predicament with the Solaris antho and Sherlock Holmes (as discussed above), I am not yet through with the current episode I'm playing on Zeus: Master of Olympus.
I'm stuck on the final chapter of the Hercules's Labors episode but haven't had the time yet to devote on gaming. I would dearly love to move on to the next episodes, namely The Peloponnesian War and The Trojan War which, as far as I recall, I haven't played yet in the entire time I've owned the game.
Due to wear and tear over the years, my Zeus CD is already cracked. I already made a copy of it (the game was purchased years before they introduced secuROM that prohibited disk-copying) for personal use, of course, but most recently, I copied the game onto a USB drive. Since I now use a netbook to play the game, it made sense to use a flashdisk.
I successfully installed another old game, Dungeon Keeper 2, on the netbook but it was a different story when I played it. Conflicts between the on-board video graphics and the old-school 3D graphics of the game didn't sync so while the game loaded, there wasn't anything to be seen on the screen. Even at the lowest graphic detail, the game didn't display correctly so I gave up and uninstalled the game. Hopefully, I can find a patch one of these days to work out the display kinks.
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Time to get back to work, folks!
