bury me in this dress

I’m watching doramas again. I guess that means I feel better. I’ve had Antique Cake Store for quite awhile now. I downloaded episodes 1-3 first but a more interesting drama was released so I kind of lost interest in Antique. The rest of the episodes, 4 to 11, I bought from buruburu so I could complete the series. But I just remembered that I didn’t burn episode 3. I figured I could always download it again but it seems that it’s not available anymore. I didn’t watch that episode back then so erasing it was a stupid thing to do. Now I have no choice but to skip it and watch episode 4. I just hope my CD-Rom doesn’t act up again.

I just found out that the dorama Friends will be shown on GMA 7. I haven’t seen that dorama yet but I don’t want to watch it Tagalog-dubbed. Blech!

Couldn’t sleep (Argh) so I’m reading my blog links. Neil Gaiman thinks that the Philippines is the world’s most enthusiastic country. Cool. And this one is for Louie since we’ve been oo-ing and ahhh-ing over the pen Mr. Gaiman used. I got this from his journal.

The pen I’ve mostly been using is a 1950s Omas flexinib. If you want one like it it’s cheaper to find old flexinib Watermans on eBay. The ink I’ve mostly been using is Mont Blanc Bordeaux I got in Singapore. It’s not my favourite ink (I’m not a big Mont Blanc fan) but it’s a decent colour and I love the bottle design.

That pen sounds expensive. Haha.

Ack! Neil was with Poppy Z. Brite. She’s one of my favorite authors. I like her better than Gaiman in fact. Ack ack ack! She’ll never go here but if she does, I’ll be the first one in line.

Enough about Mr. Gaiman, I actually went out today (technically last night but my days are skewed). I went to a bazaar with mom and I bought some cheap clothes, bagel chips, and oatmeal cookies. Yummy. Then watched ‘Fantastic Four’ with Louie at Gateway Mall. It was my second time at Gateway and it brought a lot of the book signing memories. ‘Fantastic Four’ was amusing. More fun to watch than ‘Batman Begins’ since it had funny moments. But it’s not as deep as the latter if you can call it deep to begin with. I like The Thing because he was such a dear. He had a lot of self-image issues to contend with. Mr Fantastic was disgusting though. He also looks a bit like my nerdy therapist. I don’t really have much of an opinion on the movie as you can see. After the film, Louie and I had late dinner at the food court. I tried Jumbo Japs and found their Teriyaki salty. I think their crunchy Ebi Maki is really good though. Cheap too. Only cost me 79 Pesos. I wanted to drink Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s The Ultimate but decided against it because I might have trouble sleeping. Should have gotten it since I’m having sleeping anyway. We left the mall after that and went to my house. I burnt Louie a copy of Long Vacation which I hope she’ll like. My CD burner is slow so it took ages to burn the 7 discs so while doing that we talked and watched TV.

Louie said she likes the way I write and I find this strange. I think my writing sucks. It’s very raw. Sometimes crass. Not organized at all. Also lacks focus. I can never write with flowery words. I’ve tried that and found that it’s just not me. I am not into poetry but more into prose. Tried to write poems before and flopped so decided to stop and basically lost interest. Also tried doing prose but always lost interest in the middle of stories. Too bad since some of them really had promise. I’m self-deprecating yet self-absorbed. Shallow yet have clear insights sometimes. Boring AND endearing which seldom goes hand-in-hand. Louie, you are my only fan. Hurray for that! (laughs)

I read on the Jdorama Philippines mailing list I belong to that GMA will be showing Golden Bowl and Gokusen. An addition to the dorama roster of ABS-CBN is Beautiful Life. I haven’t seen any of ads yet but I heard that they’re beginning to call doramas as “JAPANovela”. *Shudders*

Ewwww. I just heard from a fellow jdorama fan that ABS-CBN will start to air tagalized (dubbed in Tagalog) Japanese doramas. She heard that they’re planning to show Hero, Majou no Joken, Kamisama Mou Sukoshi Dake, and SOS. *sobs* Now everybody will go crazy about doramas and that cheapens it. Waaaaaah. I know this is elitist of me but I really don’t want the idea of every Nene and Pilar going crazy over Kubozuke or Takuya then drops them for the next fad. This is a crime to the existing Filipino dorama fans!

Calm down. Second try.

I woke up early today but I’m feeling edgy. I’ve been like this since last night and I don’t know why. The feeling was just suddenly there.

Still trying to calm down.

I ended up going out yesterday. My cousin picked me up around 3 pm and we went to his place because he needed help with an ad lay-out for his company. He owns an events management company which is doing quite well. He needed to submit an ad for the bridal fair he joined and he was having trouble with photoshop. I only did little but he gave me a thousand pesos and free dinner. I only asked for the free dinner but I guess he wanted to help me since he knows I have little money nowadays. He might give me regular graphics commission if I do the next project well. I’m not that good with graphic design so that’s really nice of him. We were supposed to have dinner in Greenhills but it was traffic there so we decided to go to Libis instead. We went to Cost-U-Less first since I’ve never been there and got curious when he talked about it. I think Cost-U-Less is supposed to be like Costco but it sucks. It’s just a gigantic grocery with not much imported goods and the prices aren’t that cheap. We headed for Eastwood City next and went to Cyber One since I was thinking of buying an iTrip for my iPod. It was more expensive there so I ended up not buying. It was already 7 pm so we decided to have dinner and chose Cafe Adriatico. He got Hainanese Chicken and I chose their Salpicao. I’m not a fan of Hainanese Chicken. I don’t see the point of eating chicken with no taste. The salpicao was quite good though. I love Salpicao especially if it’s garlicky. We also went to GoNuts Donuts after. My cousin is always raving about the donuts there. I’ve only tried it once but didn’t really like it that much but I bought 3 flavors. I bought two of each so I could share with my family. I tried the Pastillas de Leche last night and it’s good but I don’t know. Eating it made me feel guilty. It was very sweet and I could almost feel the calories. When I eat chocolate it’s a different matter though. I hardly feel guilty. After buying the donuts, we decided to call it a night.

Okay. Quite calm now.

My friend called me around noon yesterday. Let’s call her Mary for now. I texted her last Monday to ask how she was but never got a response. It’s getting to be irritating because she always does that. Anyway, she asked me how I was and I told her I’m fine. A bit of a lie because I’m not that fine. She asked if I already watched Pride (she gave me a copy of the series) and I told her I only watched up to episode 10. I didn’t tell her that I watched the Japan-TV release instead of her copy (it sucks) and we haven’t finished episode 11 yet. She asked if I liked it and I told her frankly that it was okay. That I think it’s “pa-cute” and that I prefer Long Vacation over it. She got annoyed because she thinks Pride is the best Takuya Kimura drama ever produced so she called me a loser for liking Long Vacation better. She said this jokingly but I still got annoyed. I’m an absolute fanatic of Long Vacation and it upsets me friends say bad things about it. Insane, right? But I don’t care. I think Long Vacation is the best Japanese drama ever. She was still going on about Pride so I told her that we have different tastes. I love Long Vacation, she loves Pride and just leave it like that. We stopped talking about doramas after that. She asked me if I had plans for the weekend and I said that Tina (name changed) was planning on celebrating her birthday but the plan never solidified. I told her to give Tina a call and kinda reprimanded her a bit for forgetting her birthday. Mary and I didn’t talk long since she was at work. I also didn’t feel like talking much since I was quite upset over the no response and the Pride vs. Long Vacation topic. I am such a loser.

Calmer.

The Neil Gaiman signing is coming up and I decided to go on the 11th at Gateway. I wanted to avoid the big crowd and I think there would be less people there. Sherwin and Adi will go to the signing tomorrow but I really hate crowds. More of a fear actually. But I am quite curious as to the fans who would turn up there. I bet there would be a lot of geeks. Sherwin and Adi are geeks but I say this affectionately. They’re loveable geeks. I found out that JB would go on the 11th too so I got in touch with him. So yay! I thought I would be alone but now I have someone to go with.

I have an appointment with my therapist tonight at 6 pm. The schedule really sucks but that’s the only slot left. Are there that many fucked up people in Manila? Makes me wonder why getting a schedule with him is always a pain.

Bah. I will copy this post in case it gets eaten up again. Stupid blog. My first attempt was better but there’s nothing I can do. No use crying over spilt milk.

Yay! I’m working on my sleeping habits. I slept all night so I could wake up in the morning. I woke up at 3am which is fine because it’s still quiet and nice. I guess I should always sleep around 9pm so I could get up that early. I can do this!

I was just watching episode 1 of Pride. It’s a new Japanese drama starring Takuya Kimura. I’m very impressed with the typesetting. Especially with the fansubber credits and the karaoke. I loved the effects that I didn’t notice the dorama itself but just kept on watching the credits run. The fansubbing was done by Japan-TV and I’m proud to say that I’m a staff. I use the alias “stargirl” there. So far, I’ve worked on Long Vacation, Meteor Garden, Monkey King, Bus Stop, and the current one is Boku dake no Madonna. Mostly I do editing and quality check which are very easy tasks but I love doing it.

Hmm. My computer is about to crash. Better restart.

I just finished watching Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls). It’s a movie about a loner who is into Gothic Lolita clothes who befriends a tough biker girl. I found it very amusing at first because of the lovely visuals but I became bored during the second half. I really liked the clothes though. So kawaii but if you wear those here, you’ll certainly be stared and mocked at. I had a Loli dress custom made for me but I don’t have the guts to wear it yet. I also don’t have the right shoes to go with it. It’s cotton candy pink and really frilly. I can probably wear that with white mary janes (which I don’t have) or cotton candy pink flats (which I also don’t have). Anyway, here’s some photos from the movie.

Damn. ‘Orange Days’ is showing on JetTV right now. It’s a Japanese dorama and it looks really interesting. But I don’t understand Japanese and the subtitle is in Chinese which I don’t understand either. Bummer. So much dorama on the cable but none which I can understand!

I am addicted to masamania. the site really shows the true Japan through the eyes of a Tokyo-ite. it’s sort of refreshing since most of the Japanese blogs I’ve seen offer Japan through rose-tinted lenses. Masa also takes really good photographs which are pleasing to see.