~* NOW PLAYING: LOVE WILL TEAR US APART by FALL OUT BOY *~

I have Nouvelle Vague's lounge-y chill-out version and I have recently stumbled upon this awesome punked out acoustic version by Fall Out Boy over at Multiply. Ooh I just love cover versions. This is originally done by Joy Division (uhh, Joy who? hehe.) back in the 80s.

When routine bites hard
and ambitions are low
And resentment rides high
but emotion won't grow
And we're changing our ways,
taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold
turned away on your side?
Is my timing that flawed?
our respect run so dry..
Yet there's still this appeal
that we've kept through our lives
Love, love will tear us apart again

Do you cry out in your sleep
All my failings exposed
Get a taste in my mouth
As desperation takes hold
Is it something so good...
Just can't function no more?
But love, love will tear us apart again

~* NEW YEAR, NEW YOU, LET'S MULTIPLY *~

It's a brand spankin' new year so I was inspired to change my template and finally displace some of my houndstooth pattern fixation ;-)

Last week, I just saw this certain postcard from PostSecret which totally got my attention. It read "Everyday I am asked to be a magician in a world where magic doesn't exist." And then somebody emailed a reaction about the postcard and Frank posted it too. I love the inspiring/empowering words of the person who reacted: "You aren't the magician, you are the magic." Wow. Very concise but it had such a big impact on me. And that's how my new template theme was born.

~*+=+=+=+=+=+=+*~

I believe Abbie has beat me to it (she texted me about it yesterday) but I'm also gonna rave about Multiply. At first I was just using it for the photo albums but when I was told that I can search for music there, I was in love. I am a big mp3 junkie and I have started with winMX back in 2001 and then switched to Kazaa, shifted to Bearshare and lately, I have been using Sharezaa. But now, I think I'm gonna stick with Multiply for my mp3 needs. I swear, you can find almost anything there! From really old 90s Pinoy rock.... to band covers of pop songs... to the Lacoste (touch of pink) perfume commercial soundtrack. There are just a handful of elusive tracks that I have not yet found so far like Nadege's version of Heart's "These Dreams", Agot Isidro's "How Can I Be Sure", The Party's "Where is My Romeo", Tribal Fish songs, "Black to Gray" by I'm-not-sure-who but it's OPM -- Skychurch or something and Saga's "Berto." I'm also eager to upload and share some obscure and lesser-popular songs so watch out ;-) I've already uploaded two playlists as of now so feel free to download! :-)

~* FAMILY HOLIDAY IN BAGUIO *~

Our family went up to Baguio City for a holiday vacation last Dec. 26 to 28. We stayed at Venus Parkview Hotel at Kisad Road which was *very* near Burnham Park. We basically just ate a lot of delicious food (Giligan's, Pizza Volante, Yellow Cab, Central Park...), shopped around at Mines View (got myself two Hello Kitty flannel blankets -- one in sky blue theme and the other in pink), bought Good Shepherd's famous ube jam, exercised at Burnham Park one early morning, and, at last, I was able to take nice pictures of The Cathedral :-)

Check out our photos on my Multiply:

http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/9

~* COMPANY XMAS PARTY *~

Had our Christmas party at Embassy (The Fort) last Dec 14 (yeah, a weird day - Thursday - for a party... I guess it's easier to book Embassy on such an "off" day). Too tamad to recount everything. Food (buffet) was good, photo galore (not surprising), Jeffrey Hidalgo hosted (hmm...), I still did not win anything from the raffle (never in my entire working life. hmp.), the theme was glitz & glam, dj's dance songs were iffy some time of the night (I stopped dancing when he spun Jessica Simpson's Public Affair. And I was glad I did coz I heard Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up a few songs after that. I am not kidding. I heard twas not the dj's fault though, somebody asked him to play 80s pop. Duh.)

Anyway, as you can tell, I am fond of the houndstooth nowadays... Just click the pix for a larger view...

~* NOW PLAYING: LAST REQUEST by Paolo Nutini *~

I just saw his video yesterday for the first time and I loved the song already. The catchy vid with a tragic story line [credit: video link from his official site], the good looking singer and the Brit-sounding ballad caught my attention. His name is Paolo Nutini, he's Scottish and he's just 19. He doesn't sound nineteen at all. He sounds much older actually. Kinda reminds me of James Blunt and Damien Rice. I love those two artists' sappy ballads (think: You're Beautiful/Goodbye My Lover ~ James Blunt; The Blower's Daughter/Cannonball ~ Damien Rice). And so I'm digging Paolo Nutini's Last Request. My only complaint is that he has little imagination on this song's lyrics. It would have been nice if he thought up other phrases instead of settling with repetitive verses (which are admittedly perfect to inflict LSS upon unwitting listeners! hah!). I predict this single will catch on over the radio airwaves as soon as MTV plays the video to the hilt. And I can almost hear it being played in one of the Grey's Anatomy episodes {another current obsession of mine: downloading GA ep soundtracks!}...

Album: These Streets


slow down, lie down,
remember it's just you and me.
don't sell out, bow out
remember how this used to be.

i just want you closer,
is that alright?
baby let's get closer tonight

grant my last request,
and just let me hold you.
don't shrug your shoulders,
lay down beside me.
sure i can accept that we're going nowhere,
but one last time let's go there,
lay down beside me

oh, i've found, that i'm bound
to wander down that one way road.
and i realize all about your lies
but i'm no wiser than the fool that i was before.

oh, baby, baby, baby,
tell me how can, how can this be wrong?

~* BAGUIO GET-AWAY *~

Last Nov. 24-26, my highchool friends and I took our first out-of-town vacation (yes, we've never had a trip out of town, save for Tagaytay -- which doesn't count coz it's just nearby...) at the city of pines, Baguio City.

We travelled via the trusty Victory Liner bus and stayed at the Prince Plaza Hotel along Legarda St. We rummaged through the ukay-ukays, posed at The Mansion, Wright Park and Mines View, did a little grocery shopping at SM Baguio, I bought export-quality mufflers for me and my mom (the ones I got were overruns for Nine West), we met an interesting cab driver named Denver A. Colorado, bought choco flakes, strawberries, etc. in the local market, got scared with the urban legend while driving along the very dark Loakan road, ate in Volante's at Session Road and Dencio's at Camp John Hay, had a night-out at Nevada Square and I got kinda drunk after drinking mindoro sling, white russian and strong ice consecutively.

They discovered how OC I was with my packing and my expense accounting, hah! We had this funny title roles we designated to each other: I was The OC Accountant (kept tabs of the group expenses down to the very last cent), Tin was The Gatekeeper (responsible for the hotel keys all the time), Abbie was The Competitive Navigator (ayaw magpatalo ng Canon digicam nya from my Kodak digicam and says everything is walking distance when it's actually a cab ride away), Charo was The Tourist (her last trip to Baguio was when she was in high school so we indulged her with going to the popular tourist spots) and Jako was The Scapegoat (we blamed him for the flooded bathroom).

You can check out our incriminating photos on my multiply (and also Abbie's).

Oh and before I forget, some obligatory rolling of credits: Thanks to our dear friends Mitzi and Ivy who generously wired moolah for our happiness and comfort :) To Abbie's friends Bruce for arranging the hotel booking & discount for us and entertaining us at his resto/bar (see the biggest serving of iced tea that I've ever had in the pictures) and John for driving us to SM, giving us samples of his banana chips and all that crazy talk.

http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/8
http://abbiereal.multiply.com/photos/album/18

~* GAEL AND THE DAWN *~

I've been inside the Mall of Asia (geez, can they make it any more labyrinthine than it already is?!) twice in a span of 1 week just to watch movies. First was last Nov. 3 wherein Charo, Jako & I caught the one-time only screening of a new Gael Garcia Bernal film "The Science of Sleep" during the opening of Cinemanila '06. It was directed by the same guy who did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- Michael Gondry. I never really make an extraordinary effort to watch foreign language films except when it's a Gael Garcia Bernal movie. I'd endure reading the subtitles if it means seeing Gael on screen.


'Loved the movie :) It's refreshing to see Gael in a non-dramatic/heavy role AND speaking some French instead of the usual Spanish. He's on the funny side this time. His deadpan delivery of punchlines and his boyish charms (as always) were very endearing. The story has the same hyper-realism that Eternal Sunshine had so it was a very visual movie. Charo & I were laughing almost the entire time... the Disasterology-themed calendar, the one-second time machine and his other wacky inventions, his Parallel Synchronized Randomness theory and witty dialogues...

Then last Nov. 8, Tin, Charo, Abbie & I watched the Cinemalaya '06 Best Picture "Tulad ng Dati". Thanks Direk Mike Sandejas for the tickets :) It was an advanced screening/album launch of The Dawn but we didn't stay for the album launch anymore coz we had to wake up early for work the next day. I've always been curious to see the movie (being a music junkie and all). The story is loosely-based on The Dawn's journey as a band from the 80s til present. The guys were ok in terms of acting... a bit unnatural on some parts but hey, they're musicians, not actors;-) Well Jett had some theater experience so that helped. It was my first time to see Ping Medina in a movie (he seems to be in a lot of indie movies and music videos lately). With the right make-up and hairdo, Ping Medina really looked like Teddy Diaz.

It was a pretty cool movie with good rock music, surprising cameos (Stonefree was there! No wonder we spotted Miro inside the theater... Karl Roy, Imago, Raimund Marasigan...), funny scenes (Francis Brew when JB said "no sudden movements" at the rooftop... Buddy Zabala and Raimund facing each other and somebody said "Uy Eraserheads! Asan si Ely?")... and the rockin' face-off between the fictional Ratbunitata band and The Dawn -- pretty wicked guitar-playing by Kiko!

What I liked was this central thought about things "lost" that Teddy points out to Jett during his ghostly appearances in the movie. The idea was: If you lose something, you look for it; if you can't find it, replace it; if you can't replace it, try to forget about it; if you can't forget it, then accept that it's lost. Very apt when I relate to it personally (like hmm, love lost?)

Two good movies indeed! :)