The mac is back.

Whoa, it's been a while. How is everyone? This month's been bustling with so much activity, I haven't had time to post anything decent.

Here are a few of January's highlights:

1) I woke up one Sunday morning, looked at myself in the mirror and realized I had had enough of the same old. So in an attempt to look different, I grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped my bangs off. No hesitations.

That may have been the most impulsive thing I've ever done to date. What's worse is that it was also my first experience at cutting hair... so you can imagine the huge laugh my stylist enjoyed when he laid eyes on my messed-up bangs.

Two words: never again.

2) Good friends from Manila are here!

Jons and Ces have FINALLY tied the knot (Welcome to the club, momoys! Wahooo!), and are in town for their honeymoon. It's been three years for me and five years for Bebs since we last saw them, so the reunion has been swell.

Some roadtrips since their arrival: Weekend snow fun at Angel's Camp, Pasadena night-out with Weedge for Brazilian food (and that huge-ass brownie sundae), and majorly craaazy roller coasting at Magic Mountain.

And yes, I've got pictures ;)

Click on pic to view entire album.

3) WE TURNED THREE!

Yup, third year of marriage and still going. :) I'm really no expert at the whole marriage bit, but it's all been an amazing learning and growing experience. I'm grateful grateful grateful for such a wonderful husband. Always a good thing to find your bestfriend, partner in crime, and that sweeeeet lovin' all in one person (Insert all cheeky gushing here ;). Needless to say, it's not always a bed of roses. Still, the sparring's worth every penny. Naks. Hahaha. :)

I'm getting cheesy, I better end before it gets out of hand. Night, folks!

The 2006 Vegas New Year partEY.

Once upon a New Year's holiday in Vegas...

Finally! The photos are in... Mine atleast ;) I have to say this trip was the best New Year's so far, what with the carlot parties, 24 marathon, and all the lost and found drama that happened. Haha! Only in Vegas, I tell you.

Thanks to all those who made this trip the ultimate happenin' holiday. I had such a blast. :)

Cheers to 2006! Here's to another year of big leaps, fulfilled dreams and living BIG. It can only get better, baby.

Click on Beautiful eyes Bebster and made-up Nikker
to view the craziness of our New Year in Vegas.

Enjoy!

Happy happy!

Hello all,

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

This is just a short note to greet everyone an awesome Holiday. We're currently in Las Vegas right now spending New Year's (second year in a row). I'll post some pics when I get back since Internet access is scarce, but meanwhile hope you all have a great New Year's!

Lots of kwento when I get back next week :)

Some days...

Overheard from a teenager on our walk back to the car from Albertson's:

"Oh wow, this is so awesome. I can already smell Christmas!"

That was two weeks ago. In the dimly lit car lot, she could actually smell Christmas. Amazing. You should have seen her too. Despite the dark, I could clearly make out the smile on her face. It was such a genuine excitement, and I felt so envious.

I wasn't in such a joyous mood that day due to an unpleasant incident at work, but the girl's remark kinda hit me. It's funny how feeling the Season was so much easier when you were younger, and so elusive as you actually got older. So many aspects to it, really. For one thing, feeling isn't so much the point any more when you're an adult, especially when you've come to understand the real Reason for it all. The holidays now extend beyond mere tinsel and lights and big presents.

Honestly though, some days I seriously feel like life would be so much simpler if our senses just sparked the emotion and have that be enough. Just like when we were kids. We see the Christmas tree and the colorful decor, and automatically it triggers some "happy signal" and we're instantly excited. That's all it seemed to take. You see the sights, and you feel Christmas.

I wonder how life would be like if we remained that way... Living life with no expectations from you, no obligation to dig deeper, and no urgency in making life count. Just excitement and happiness based on what is seen and what is told us.

Honest questions I'll never know the answers to. What I do know is that this adult life needs working at, and that there is no stopping till.

...I do wish we could take a breather from the toiling every now and then.

Alanis doublebills with Switchfoot.

Two awesome performers in one concert. I didn't think it was possible, but thank God Radio Alice put it together. I must say that gig more than made my evening.

Alice in Winterland presents:

SWITCHFOOT, baby!

And the phenomenal
ALANIS MORISETTE, no less:





Saved the best for last, ofcourse:





Four happy ducks after a phenomenal Wednesday night rockout.

More of the fun stuff HERE.
That gig was so awesooooooooooome.
I think I may know now how I got the sore throat ;)

Crazy sick.

And not the good kind. Sigh. :(

The flu bug has gotten the better of me yet again. I haven't been sleeping very well because of it either. Sleep at 1230mn, wake up at 230am, force myself to go back to sleep at 3, wake up again at 5.. and so on and on, until it's actually time to be up.

It sucks, I'll tell you that. I can hardly breathe from the clogged nose and my thousand and one meds aren't helping any. The coughing's nasty too; my poor throat's taking such an awful beating from it. This needs to go down soon, as the Christmas concert is nearing and I can't afford to still be ngongo come weekend. Help, Lord! I can sure use a miracle right now.

In other news, I have some photos to post from the Alanis and Switchfoot concert last week. This whole fever-flu-cough thing's been keeping me from doing a lot of stuff, but I should be able to upload them soon. I also have a video clip of Alanis rocking it out. It should knock your socks off.

Also, I got to watch the long awaited Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe over the weekend. Hmm.. It was a good attempt, although I feel they sacrificed much needed dialogue and background explanation in order to cram the movie in two hours. They should have extended it another thirty minutes, or a full hour even, to make the film well-rounded. So much was lacking for me. Some of the sets too were a little too unreal, in fact they looked exactly like that: sets.

The kids were definitely a redeeming factor though. Lucy and Edmond are great and very well played. Great character development. No complaints on the Witch either and Liam Neeson as Aslan's voice. He was perfect, although he needed more lines in there.

All in all, it's still a must-see. It might leave a lot of questions though to those who may not have read the book or seen the old cartoons. Still, it's worth watching.

Thanksgiving weekend in pictures.

They're finally uploaded! Complete with captions too (hehehe).

As promised, here are the pics from last week's four-day Thanksgiving Holiday.
Click on the photo to view the entire album.

Uhm... Don't mind the momoy behind us.

Project: Better than Life

I'm back!

The four-day weekend has been action-packed to say the least. We enjoyed two wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations, survived a ten-hour After Thanksgiving sale, road-tripped to Winsor for an overnight, and capped off the Holiday with an old friend's belated birthday-cum-reunion.

Don't worry, a juicy detailed account of the above will follow... maybe in my next post. I just need to set aside time to upload photos and write out the entry.

Meanwhile, here's a draft of the promotional video I made for Project: Better than Life. It's the Bebster's brainchild, one he's been working on since the start of the year. The endeavor will bring together Philippines' top musicians for a musical undertaking that will benefit the underprivileged children of our country. All the songs will be written by Bebs and performed by the artists. Huge undertaking, but it'll be awesome.

AND, bass extraordinaire Mr. Michael Manring himself will lend his mind-blowing talents for a bass duet with Bebs. Woohooo! And they're using my song too! That totally can't get any better. Definitely a milestone to go down the anals of Bharwani history.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is (just keep in mind it's still a draft):



Let me know what you think of it ;)

Bloody Sunday.

I finally found a way to upload my videos! Yeba.

Here's a rough clip of U2's Sunday, Bloody Sunday. I used my Nikon cam, so it's obviously not broadcast quality. Still, it's major kickass. You can imagine how great of a time we had watching them.

Enjoy!

Uno, dos, tres, catorce!

They really need no introduction. These guys are an icon. A legend. They have, in their own way, changed the face of the earth with their music, their statement, and their beliefs. There are only a few of them out there, but these guys are undoubtedly one of Youth's better influences.

U2 is definitely up on my list of modern-day heroes.

AND, I finally got to see them last Wednesday. Yeehaw!

I must say they were nothing short of amazing. The concert totally rocked my socks off. The stage direction, lighting and effects, the performance--EVERYTHING went over and beyond my expectations. I couldn't have been happier with the turnout. Truly worth the big buck investment.

Eat your hearts out, kids.

Tons more pics HERE.

And speaking of beautiful music, Switchfoot hits SF again in December. If that isn't awesome enough, they're actually double-billing with.... are you ready?

ALANIS, baby! Woohooo!!! I can hardly wait.

Better buy your tickets before you miss out ;)

Slight: A reunion of sorts.

Reasons to skip the 24 DVD marathon and drive an hour and thirty to Davis on a Sunday afternoon:
- Cause for celebration: Dave finally proposed to Brenda. Yay!!!
- Haven't seen the Slight folks for what seems like an age now. Definitely miss those guys.
- Check out Dave and Brenda's beautiful new home. (Sigh. I love their place; it's so full of character. Beautiful).
- 14lbs. of teriyaki beef and juicy chicken breast on a hot grill. Need I say more?

Grilling at D&B's 1/3 of an acre backyard.

Loving the hammock (behind the bbq-ers).

Brenda and a blurry Dave in our discussion of Netflix,
Michael Savage, and other strange subjects.

Dennis and Lucille. Yep, he's taken, ladies. haha.

The man and his form
(...after having downed two servings of applie pie a la mode
AND my sundae).

Sinking into the comfy papasan.

The original Slight, their significant others, and new friend Kam.

This was fun! I love these guys. We should definitely do this again.

Disgracing Marilyn...

First off, let me just say that I am extremely embarrassed for myself. Lol. BUT, for the fun of it, I'll post them just the same.

Ladies and gentlemen, here are last weekend's incriminating evidence:

Yep, that's Marilyn (in drag) and Elvis.

Elvis and his posse.


Marilyn and Richard Simmons.


The boys: Rick James Rich, Tennis Player Joe, Pirate JJ, Elvis Bebs, and Hawk the bunny.


The girls' table.


Elvis gets his groove on.
With Hawkins and Raffiki.


... And so does Marilyn.
With Carol the wench and Tennis player Joe.


The girls with Hawkins.

The king and the wench struttin' their stuff.

Kids and other small talk.

I almost forgot I had these pics.

The kids at church recently presented a special number, and they were just too cute! The mothers were naturally beside themselves; I guess they didn't know whether to shed tears or squeal in delight. Understandably so, they did both.

Check them out:

Awww... Their mothers should be so proud.

Wave, kids!

This is my little boy, Jakey (he actually claimed the mic as his own. heehee).
He's Pastor's son actually, but everyone knows he's ours ;)

Check out the other cutie up front and center.
He's the tiny one dressed like he's heading to work. lol.

One of the few times in the song number where he actually did the actions.
Most of the time he just stood there and stared at the mommies. Heehee.

In other news,

...My office notebook crashed. Yes, the pretty one. I just finished reformatting it, and it looks like I'm missing some very important documents. I should be freaking out, except that I'm too exhausted from all the stress I went through this week. But yes, I am peeved. It'll probably hit me in a bit.

...Funny how Halloween's such an occasion here. Everyone, young and old alike, dress up for it and actually spend money to become someone he or she's not--for all of one night. Last year, I put on my first costume of sorts (read: HUGE afro. Believe me, it's a costume if it costs as much as a good pair of jeans), and I have to say it was fun seeing friends getting creative and dressing up for the fun of it. There was Raffy the Catholic school girl, Joey as Neo (but ofcourse), and Bebs the Reggae man, among others.

Well, this year, I believe the Bebster and I may have gone overboard. Heehee. We're going as Elvis and Marilyn, baby! Yeehaw. We've ordered the costumes and have yet to purchase the wigs, but this weekend should be interesting. Now, if we actually had somewhere to go...

Don't worry, I'll post the incriminating photos next week. ;)

Anyway, enough of small talk. Have a great weekend everyone! Be good, and don't drink and drive.

I'll catch you all in November.

Well, Hello Treo.

The Blackberry is out, and the Treo 650 is in.

I just got it today, thanks to the big Boss. Still tinkering with it, as it's quite different from the Blackberry. But it looks like I'll adjust pretty quickly. Hehe ;)

Ah yes, definitely enjoying the perks of working for a big fish.

Homay gulay

Now THIS is an awesome concept.

Finally(!) an opportunity to pick the brains of these celebrities. Hopefully though, these Hollywoodies actually have something to say.

Then again, if you have HIM standing in for your Advanced Composition class, I just might actually go back to school for such an opportunity. Oh my gosh, those forty lucky ducks sooooo got it good that day. Talk about a welcome surprise.

Go ahead, check out the video. I almost bawled my eyes out from envy. This guy's definitely in my list of all-time favorites. Extremely cool, sexy and unbelievably brilliant. Homay gulay talaga.

Ayayay. I love him.