TheFranciscos.Net

Nothing much today…. another boring day at work. Aileen will be on call again tonight so Zoe and I will be spending a little quality time by ourselves. Weather says its gonna snow again on Friday. Unbelievable…. March is almost over and we’re still getting snow. Can’t wait ’til spring finally arrives.

I finished reading “Daredevil-Born Again” last night and I have to say that it was excellent reading (made for another late night for me). These old Daredevil stories by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzuchelli are great, but “Born Again” has to be the best of them all. Miller is probably the only author (comics and non-comics included) that almost never disappoints (with Robocop 3 being the exception). I can only hope that the Daredevil movie that’s gonna come out next year is half as good as this… although with Ben Affleck as the lead, they’re gonna have a tough time pulling it off.

I completed the photo gallery app on the website and I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done with it. Next on the website task list will be to get the guestbook up and running.

Currently listening to: Birdie-Triple Echo

Still on my reading table: Jinx by Brian Michael Bendis

OPM-R.I.P.?

I just read an interesting article regarding Philippine music (OPM) and piracy. The author relates piracy as a disease that will eventually cause the death of OPM as we know it, and I for one believe that it’s true. If you’re a Filipino and can’t live without a copy of the latest music or game, try to limit it to non-Philippine made things. Go ahead and buy a pirated Pearl Jam CD or a bootleg copy of Office XP. I don’t think there’s really any major harm in doing that (monetary-wise, at least). Bill Gates and Eddie Vedder don’t really need the P50 you spend to buy a pirated disc. But when the next Parokya Ni Edgar or Eraserheads album comes out, if you can’t afford an original CD, at least buy the cassette tape. At least this way, some of your money goes to the artists who need your support, instead of the pirates who are just out to exploit you.

Being in the US, I constantly feel homesick since a lot of my relatives and friends are in Manila, so you often try to look for a way to “link” you to home. There’s the FIlipino Channel (which has started showing PBA games), and the websites like Inquirer and Chismis. But nothing can really remind you of home more than OPM. I still get a smile whenever I play “Pare Ko” and sing along to it’s lyrics (especially when it gets to the “t*** ina” verse). Basil Valdez still plays on our CD player at home during dinnertime, and the Juan De La Cruz band still rocks on in my car system.

During my trip to Manila early this year, I bought a lot of OPM CDs. I think most notable were the new Rivermaya album-“Tuloy Ang Ligaya” and Cynthia Alexander’s “Rippingyarns”. I hope that in a few years, when I visit again, there will still be more new music to buy.

Places to buy OPM in the US: Regal Films, OPM Hits

Playing on my CD player: The Pin-Up Girls-Hello Pain (great OPM indie-pop)

Quick thoughts on Bob Mould’s new CD – Modulate – A ‘DuReview!

Being a longtime Bob Mould fan, I couldn’t wait to give a listen to his newest album from Granary Music. Finally, after 4 long years, some new Bob Mould music!!!!! So I eagerly waited for my shipment from Amazon to arrive… checking on the UPS site every day for updates. Last week, it finally arrived and I wasted no time in popping it in my CD player and hitting “Play”. As I was waiting for those great growling guitars- I finally heard the start of the first track “180 Rain”. My first reaction?….. What the f**** is this crap??????

I was surprised to hear the complete change in style of music. I actually had to stop it and check whether this was the right CD. When you listen to a Bob Mould record, the first thing you expect is the buzzsaw guitar that has become part of his trademark sound….whether it be from his solo, Sugar or Husker Du days…. and that’s exactly what was mostly missing from this album. Man, the first track that could be called a “classic-style” Mould tune was on track 8 (The Receipt)!!!! The song I hated most from “The Last Dog & Pony Show” (his last effort, which was excellent) was “Megamanic”, and most of the tracks on this album sounded like that horrific tune!!!! My first reaction was disappointment – at how different this sounds…. then anger – how could Bob alienate his hardcore fans like this? How dare he?!?!?! After all this anticipation… this is all I get? Damn you Bob… I wany my money back!!!

After I calmed down (and after figuring out that I wouldn’t get my money back no matter how hard I complained or begged), I decided to give it another shot. This time trying to be more open-minded and not expecting the old Bob Mould, and you know what I discovered? It IS still a Bob Mould album…. underneath all those layers of electronic samples are the same great, melodic, power-pop songs that Bob is known for. I always knew that Bob’s music could transcend different musical styles – as it did from hardcore to power-pop, but electronica? That was a real jarring change. The second listen of Modulate for me was like finally recognizing someone you know after they’ve had an abrupt appearance change (like growing a beard, getting plastic surgery done or getting liposuction). So it really is him underneath that clutter of synthesizers and samplers.

If you want to hear the old school Bob Mould, there’s still some of it here for you, most notably “The Receipt”,”Sound On Sound” and “Come On Strong”. But the rest of the songs are in the new Bob Mould style. It really sounds like Bob’s taken a liking to his computers and it shows – just check out “Trade”, “Sunset Safety Glass”, and “Lost Zoloft”. The lyrics are still the same though…. the same great, gloomy train of thought that was evident from the Sugar days to his previous solo efforts. If you’re a fan of Bob Mould’s older music and would just like to hear more of the same, you should program your CD player to play tracks 8, 10, & 12 and repeat… otherwise I think you can live without ever hearing this album. If you’re open to experimentation though, try this out, you might be nicely surprised.

Best tracks: Sound On Sound, Trade, Come On Strong

On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I’d give Modulate a 3 1/2.

For the record also, “Copper Blue” by Sugar is still the best damn album ever made! Not a wasted track on that one!

SUSHI@WHOLEY’S

This past weekend, Aileen and I decided that we wanted to have good sushi (one of our fave types of food). We haven’t really had good sushi ever since our favorite sushi chef Yuki, closed down her Yuki Mensore restaurant in Plymouth Meeting sometime last year. She used to have a really good deal – $20 for “eat all you can” freshly made sushi. And frankly, considering the way I can eat sushi, I don’t think she ever made a profit off me…. 🙂 One of her specialties was something called a Philly Roll, which use as its main ingredients, salmon and some good old Philadelphia cream cheese. I guess real sushi critics would call this a travesty because of its use of cream cheese, but trust me, it was delicious.

Anyway, since Aileen and most recently, myself, moved to the Pittsburgh area, we really haven’t had good sushi. Well, except for that time we went to the Original Fish Market and ordered salmon sushi and a california roll. It was pretty good, but also very expensive! I was looking for something good in a reasonable price range (reasonable for me means real cheap). So last weekend, after some research on Pittsburgh.com, my better half and I decided to try out Wholey’s Fish Market, or Wholey’s. After a downtown trek which had us going around in circles because of the St. Paddy’s day parade, we finally arrived at the spot.

Wholey’s is not really a sushi restaurant, but more of a wet market in the Strip District area in downtown Pitt. Next to the fresh fish and seafood area is a fastfood area where they serve fried crabcakes, clams, and sushi among other things. For their sushi, I think they had a very diverse menu. We tried out something called a Dynamite Roll which had salmon, yellowtail snapper, cucumber, avocado and dynamite sauce (whatever that is) as its ingredients. We also tried a Rainbow Roll which had 4 different kinds of fish (including salmon and tuna). To top it off, we also ordered some crabcakes and roast chicken. I just have to say that their sushi was very, very good. The fish that they used were very obviously very fresh (it is a seafood market anyway, so they’ve got no excuse). Maybe the fish at the Fish Market was better, but you really can’t beat the price of the Wholey’s sushi. I think we’ve got a new local favorite sushi place, at least for the meantime…. I’ve got a co-worker who says that Sushi Too at the South Side is also pretty good, plus they’ve got a buffet on certain days of the week. So I’m sure that we’ll check that out sometime soon… for the meantime though, my thirst for sushi has been quenched. Up next on our list is Mallorca’s, a Spanish restaurant and Teody’s La Filipiniana, which serves Filipino cuisine.

I still think though that nothing comes close to Saisaki in Manila in terms of sushi and Japanese food in general…. and also because of the very personal service, Yuki Mensore is (was) still the best sushi place in my book.

On my CD player right now: Bob Mould’s new CD – Modulate

On my reading table: “Jinx” by Brian Michael Bendis and “How to Get into the Top MBA Programs” by Richard Montauk

A NEW BEGINNING…

Hi, guys…. this is my first blog on our brand-new The Elf & The Whale website using the Blogger software that I’ve seen several of my favorite websites use. Hopefully, this will be much easier than having to update HTML using FrontPage (which really sucks, in my honest opinion) for my logs and rants.

First off, why did I decide to switch from my old FreeServers website to this new one? Well, quite simply, I just wanted to have a personal domain instead of that crappy concepcion-francisco.freehosting.net. It just didn’t sit right with me that I was a web developer and I didn’t even have a proper personal website with scripting capabilities. So since webspace was now available rather cheap, I decided to purchase an appropriate domain name for our site- eduandaileen.com, and get a web provider that provided the capabilities I was looking for. Hopefully, my selection of WinSave will prove to be a good one.

Anyway, we’ll still have all the photos and stuff that used to be on our old website, plus hopefully some added functionality that I plan to add later on.

Also, people who know me know that I’m an avid collector of many things, but mainly of DVDs, music CDs, comic books, and most recently of Laserdiscs. From time to time, I’ll be logging in with some reviews of these when I feel like it.