Nicolini's

I went to Nicolini's for Su-jin's birthday dinner last saturday and I was finally able to take a pic of the lambshanks. This would have been perfect if I was able to get hold of some rice.... Anyway, it kinda reminded me of Asterix or those movies set in medieval times.

Spookers

I went to Spookers last Saturday along with some friends from work. There were only 2 attractions, the '3D Vortex' and the 'Evil Corn Maize Maze'. The '3D Vortex was kinda cool but 'Evil Corn' wasn't really scary because there were 7 of us in the group. It didn't help that I accidentally dropped my camera off a bridge and the 'ghost' offered to get it for me. :P
I have to admit that I was surprised a few times and intimidated as well because for some reason, a lot of the 'ghosts' singled me out and hounded me.

http://www.spookers.co.nz

Weight Loss IV: The Final Ultimate Chapter

I'm down to 65kgs (145 lbs) now. Next stop, abs. Yep you read it right.... I want the 'six pack'! If I'm going to hit the beaches of Boracay and Palawan this December, I need to have the 'washboard
abs'. It would definitely go well with my 'see thru' white Speedo... ;)

3D Gurus

I really enjoy it when I see my friends being featured in interviews. It makes me feel... proud, I guess. :P Mostly, I already know their take on things but reading about them makes it more 'real'. Am I making sense? Anyway, I was planning on showing links for 3 people but it seems I can only find 2 (the kakosa link is non-existent anymore).

This is a link to an interview with Marco Di Lucca, Senior Modeler here at Weta (and my ping pong instructor!) He's a die hard Softimage guy who's been using Maya for the past 2 years. ;)

http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=123

And this one is for Lernie Ang. We went to the same college (Fine Arts, UP Diliman) and I was one of the 3 'assholes' who interviewed him at Underground Logic when he applied for a job. We liked, him we hired him and I had the privilege of working with him during my last days in Manila. He's a Lightwave master and is using both Maya and Lightwave (well mostly Lightwave now) for the work he does at Riot. Inc.

http://www.3dpinoy.com/features/profiles/LernieAng/index.php

Pinoy in NZ

I've always wanted to have a blog where I can share my misadventures in NZ with my friends from the Philippines. Now, I finally got around to doing it. It's not much but it's a start.

http://kiwi-pino.blogspot.com/

It's also on my links tab on the right (My Kiwi-Pino Site).

Disclaimer - you probably won't understand what the heck I'm talking about if you don't speak filipino.

Weight Loss 3

Ok so now it's down to 70 kilos. I wish Rainer was back .... at this rate I'll be 65 by Monday and I would look like a wimp. I could start eating again but I could go over 73 easily. I'm an expert at losing weight but maintaining it is a different story :P

Weight Loss Part 2

Yup, Basketball did it. I'm officially 10 kilos less than what I weighed last January 23. It's probably mostly water but it's still 10 kilos. It's weird how I thought I was stuck at 74 kilos for more than a week. I checked my weight last night and it was still 74 but when I checked it again when I woke up in the morning it was down to 72.5.
Now the hard part is maintaining it till Rainer comes back from his holiday.

Weight Loss

I started losing weight last January 23 because of a bet with Rainer, a friend at work. I'm sort of an expert at 'fad' diets so I agreed that I would have lost 10 kilos by February 26, the day he comes back to work after his NZ tour. I've already lost almost 9 kilos last Feb 9 but this last kilo doesn't seem to want to come off. Maybe because I haven't played basketball yet this week. I just wish Rainer would come back from his holiday sooner so I can stop this bullshit and eat normally again. All these sugar substitutes are making a mess of my system.

In case you're wondering, Rainer weighed me at 83 kilos (I weighed in after a really heavy breakfast) during the start of my diet. I weigh around 74 kilos now. I'll be playing basketball today so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

The Departed Infernal Affairs

We went to watch 'The Departed' with really high expectations. 'A lesson in how to make a good movie great' was what it said in one of the reviews that Trish has read. Awesome, we thought as we really liked 'Infernal Affairs'.

30 minutes into the movie, I found myself yawning and wondering whether the camera angles and transitions that Scorsese has done was appropriate. There's this circular/telescopic transition which kinda reminds me of James Bond and this Bird's eye view shot that sort of bothered me. But that's ok I guess, maybe I'm over-analyzing it. Then I realized I wasn't really happy with the editing either. I looked at Trish to find any clues if she's enjoying the movie but the expression on her face looked like she's just been given a calculus equation.

Ok, so what's wrong? This was supposed to be a tighter version and it's been getting rave reviews like how Jack Nicholson was so 'intense'. We thought he just looked old and pathetic. Only Leonardo did a decent job but maybe that's because I kept comparing it to the Hong Kong movie. Even Mark Wahlberg's character seems unnecessary and in fact just feels distracting. Don't get me wrong, I like Marky Mark and I've actually seen most of his movies.

I thought that 'Infernal Affairs' established the backgrounds of each character really well. It gives them depth and makes the connections seamless throughout the entire movie. This was missing in 'The Departed' and when they rewrote it, they just added more loopholes.

If I would write a review for this movie, I would probably say something like 'A lesson in how to ruin a really good movie'. But then again, that's just me. And Trish. And that's all that matters (to us).

MS Paint Master

Reminds me of Joel Alagao.

Christmas 2006

This is our 3rd Christmas in NZ and we found an overpriced 'parol' for sale in the Filipino Store at Waiwhetu. We bought it for $180 (ouch!) but it really looked wonderful and reminded us of home. Tricia also attempted to glaze the ham and it was delicious. We ended up eating ham leftovers for a week though. I didn't realize it was that big. You can also see Bobot Jr at the table enjoying the ham.
Because it's summer here in December, Christmas almost felt like I was back in Manila. Well, not really. We don't have the Christmas decor overkill that you get when you pass Ayala avenue. New year's eve is the worst. They treat it like just any ordinary day here. No fireworks, parties are rare and people don't even stay up late to welcome the new year. We were so depressed we went to bed at 10pm, just a few minutes afer sunset. I was able to save some sparklers from Guy Fawkes and we lit that when we woke up the following morning. At least we didn't get to be partially deaf with blackened nostrils on the first day of the year. Boring.