TheFranciscos.Net

Funny banter between myself and Zoe while shopping for shoes at Target. Zoe was trying on a pair of hideous Pikachu (from the Pokemon cartoon) slippers.

Me: Zoe, those are ugly.

Zoe: No they’re not… they’re yellow.

At that point, I thought that there was no sense in arguing that….

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

17 days, 3 hours and 19 minutes – that’s how long it’s been since I last blogged. I’ve been uninspired lately. Too much work. I’ve been feeling a bit stressed lately with my office work – deadlines are creeping up, but some of the things that you need to do is being held up by something (or somebody). We’ve got this project that needs to be finished before Christmas (since almost everyone on the team is taking Christmas to New Year’s off). Anyway, office life sucks, but my family life is doing great.

We finally put up our Christmas lights this week. Right now, from the outisde, it’s just the main door and the stairs leading to that door that’s decorated. I wanted to do the garage doors as well, but the icicle lights we bought weren’t cooperating. For each set that we bought, only about half of the lights seem to work. We’ll probably just replace those this weekend and finally finish up the exterior decorating. One nice touch that we would have wanted was to buy a parol to give our house a Filipino flavor, but we really couldn’t pick one out that we liked. We’ll just have to postpone that decorating idea til next year.

Our Christmas tree though has been up since early November, and that’s been a really nice sight to see every night coming home. It’s the first big tree we’ve bought since moving here to the States. We would’ve liked to buy a real tree, but just thought it was too much of a pain to maintain and clean, so we went the plastic, artificial route. Zoe loves calling it “my tree”, and of course, all the presents underneath are “my presents”.

The family room is looking very Christmas-y too. We bought a wreath to hang over the fireplace and Aileen hung up our traditional Christmas socks (which she handmade herself three years ago), and as a finishing touch, I cleaned it up pretty darn good too.

I finally got Aileen some presents the other day, and I kinda think she’ll like these. She’s always the hardest to buy presents for because it seems like she’s got everything – except that Audi TT that she wants, and the 2 carat diamond she’s been pining for. Unfortunately, there’s no way I can get her that stuff right now.

Anyway, Christmas is being anticipated eagerly in our household. We really have a lot to be thankful for this year – our family has been pretty healthy (although Mommy Digna is still undergoing chemo, she’s seems to be responding well to it), we have a new home that we can call our own, our daughter is a very happy kid. We really can’t ask for anything more.

Zoe’s has a really good sense of humor – the other day she was going around the house saying things like “Go up to your room!” and “No ice cream!”. These are the empty threats that we tell her whenever she doesn’t eat her dinner, or does something bad. She would say these phrases, and then look at us impishly, implying “hey mom n’ dad, this is what you sound like”. We burst out laughing when we realized what she was doing.

I had my first CT scan last Friday – it was just to make sure that the headaches I was experiencing wasn’t the result of some brain injury or tumor. It was a pretty painless experience, if you discount the fact that I was injected with an IV for an internal dye to make the pictures show more contrast (of course, before that they drew some blood from me as well for checking). Oh also, I discovered that I was allergic to the dye when after being stuck with the needle, I started developing hives on my face. So to counter the dye, I was then injected with a shot of benadryl. So the CT scan itself didn’t hurt, but getting pricked by a needle three times in various sections of my arm sure isn’t my idea of a good time. Anyway, the CT scan turned out normal – of course, I received the comment from Aileen that she was surprised by the fact that I actually had a brain…

Haven’t had much chance to post pictures lateely – Aileen’s had a pretty s**tty schedule this month and we haven’t had much to do during the weekends. I don’t enjoy going out with just Zoe and me, except when I absolutely have to, so we usually just hang out at home (hence all the DVDs I’ve been seeing lately). This Thanksgiving, we’ll be flying to L.A. to spend the holidays with Aileen’s relatives over there, so I’m sure we’ll have a ton of pictures from that visit. Hopefully, we’ll also get to see the sights since this is only the second time that I’ll be in Los Angeles… and I just vaguely remember the first since I was only about 9 or 10 back then. We probably won’t be doing the theme parks, but at the least I’d like to see Hollywood. I’m also looking forward to finally meeting Aileen’s relatives – especially Tita Josie who I always hear about in stories. At any rate, I’m sure we’ll have a nice trip… and I hope that everybody else has a great weekend!

Feeling really awful today… I’ve got one of the most horrible headaches you can imagine. Work, of course, isn’t making it any better. At least I’m ahead of schedule on most of my development stuff so I can afford to relax a bit… of course I wish that it could translate to some days off. As it stands right now, with the week vacation I took in September, added with a few days off here and there, I actually owe the company money because I have -2 days of PTO.

Anyway, I got to watch a few good movies this past week – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on the big screen, and The Sum Of All Fears, Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones, and Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring Extended Edition. Here’s some quick thoughts on each:

The Chamber Of Secrets was probably my least liked book of all the Harry Potter books so far (my favorite being The Prisoner Of Azkaban), but I have to admit that this was an extremely faithful adaptation of the book. Great job most especially with Dobby, who was very believable and had just enough screen time to not be too annoying. The kids have also become better actors since the last movie (especially Ruper Grint who plays Ron Weasley) and makes the film much more enjoyable than the previous one. If I have a gripe about this movie, it’s that the Quidditch scenes, which gave life to The Sorcerer’s Stone, are so few. All in all though, well worth the time and money spent.

The DVDs were also quite good – I enjoyed Star Wars Episode II as much as I did when I first saw it – something tells me that this DVD will spend lots of time as reference material for my HT system. The Sum Of All Fears was all right, but I still think that out of all the Jack Ryans to play the role, Alec Baldwin is still the best. Ben Affleck just doesn’t cut it for me (as the lead actor in any movie).

The DVD I enjoyed the most though was definitely The Fellowship Of The Ring. It has 30 minutes of additional scenes (adding to an already massive 170+ minutes), but every minute was a great addition and fleshed out the characters much more. Like the book, the hobbits actually sing in one of the added scenes. Another addition which was well-pu were the gifts given by Lothlorien to the members of the fellowship. The best thing about the DVD though were the excellent documentaries about this huge theatrical project. It really gives you great understanding and appreciation of the work done to give people a few hours of entertainment.

If you buy only one DVD (or DVD set), make sure it’s The Fellowship Of The Ring. The picture and sound are probably among the best this format has to offer – and of course, the movie is also excellent. This definitely gets my vote for the best DVD of the year.

Locked Up

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb – this must be what people around us were saying yesterday when I accidentally locked Zoe inside my car with the engine running in a gas station. Here’s the story:

Yesterday, after picking up Zoe from daycare, I decided to fill up my car with gas. Now when I do this, I usually leave the keys in the ignition and keep the car running (yes, I know that there are signs that say that you should turn off the engine when filling up – but I just choose to ignore them, just like I do most other signs). So I get out of my car, close the driver’s side door and pump the gas. After finishing up, I go to open my door again and I find that the damn doors were locked from the inside. The engine was running, the lights were still on and to make matters worse, Zoe was in the back strapped to her car seat!

So I went in the cashier and asked for some help. The guy manning the booth called 911 and told me that the police were on their way. Fortunately, another person in there named Dana decided to help me out. He pulled up his pick-up truck right next to my running car and pried an opening to the door on the passenger front side. He then proceeded to pull up the car door opener with a crude hook made from a wire coat hanger (which he incidentally had with him in his car). By now, people were now crowding us to check and see what was going on. They were going around the car, looking Zoe (which apparently amused her as she was smiling and laughing throughout the whole thing). When the door was finally opened (after what was probably the longest 10 minutes of my life), it was like the end of a good movie as everybody applauded Dana’s work. And then as if right on cue, the police came when it was all over.

I’ve done some dumb things in my life, but this has to rank up there as one of the worst. At least I learned a couple of things from it though – first, I learned to always take my keys with me when I get out of my car, especially when Zoe is still inside! Second, I also learned how to jimmy a car (maybe it will come in handy later on)… all I need to do now is learn how to do a hotwire, and I can have a criminal career to fall back on.

Today is the day that I get to buy the two DVD releases I’ve been waiting quite a while for – Lord Of The Rings:Fellowship Of The Ring (Director’s Cut) and Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. I admit it – I am a DVD-aholic (with over 200 DVDs at last count to prove it). Although I’ve considerably cut down on buying discs, I still need to get the “big ones” – and certainly, in the past year, nothing has been bigger (at least for me) than these two movies.

Actually, LOTR has already been released in August, but only as a trimmed-down movie-only version. This new one adds an additional 30 minutes (to the already long 3 hours), but reviews say that the additional half-hour adds a lot of substance to the story. An added bonus is it has a free movie ticket good for watching LOTR: The Two Towers, and the DVD arrives just in time to whet my appetite for the next installment this December.

AOTC is a return to greatness, after a huge bump in the road that was The Phantom Menace. Star Wars is back in my second-favorite episode (with Empire being my personal best). That Yoda-Count Dooku fight scene was my favorite battle scene of the entire saga, and I can’t wait until I see it again tonight.

I can’t get this song out of my head today – for some reason the great saxophone melody just keeps repeating and repeating in my head….

Your Latest Trick

By The Dire Straits

From: Brothers In Arms

Play the song:

Lyrics:

All the late night bargains have been struck

Between the satin beaus and their belles

And prehistoric garbage trucks

Have the city to themselves

Echoes roars dinosaurs

They’re all doing the monster mash

And most of the taxis and the whores

Are only taking calls for cash

I don’t know how it happened

It all took place so quick

But all I can do is hand it to you

And your latest trick

My door was standing open

Security was laid back and lax

But it was only my heart got broken

You must have had a pass key made out of wax

You played robbery with insolence

And I played the blues in twelve bars down Lover’s Lane

And you never did have the inteligence to use

The twelve keys hanging off my chain

I don’t know how it happened

It all took place so quick

But all I can do is hand it to you

And your latest trick

Now it’s past last call for alcohol

Past recall has been here and gone

The landlord finally paid us all

The satin jazzmen have put away their horns

And we’re standing outside of this wonderland

Looking so bereaved and so bereft

Like a Bowery bum when he finally understands

The bottle’s empty and there’s nothing left

I don’t know how it happened

It was faster than the eye could flick

But not all I can do is hand it to you

And your latest trick

Jackass: The Movie

This movie based off the TV show of the same name that used to air on MTV. It’s most famous prank being a mock kidnapping of Brad Pitt, who was more than willing to work with Johnny Knoxville and crew, in the middle of a medium sized crowd. Besides these pranks, it became notorious for the outrageous stunts they would perform – setting themselves on fire, stapling their genitals to their thighs, and things of the same deviant nature. Now though, the kid gloves are off… with the freedom that comes from the movie medium, they now have to pull off even more manic stunts and they now have a bigger budget to do it too.

I wasn’t really a fan of the TV show, but whenever I caught it, it seemed a bit repulsive to me and never really cared too much for it. But I was surprised when the movie got decent, no, actually very excellent reviews so I just had to see it. It was full of the same crazy antics that the show gained fame for, but to my surprise, I enjoyed it – A LOT. I haven’t laughed so much during a movie since “South Park”. I won’t elaborate on the things that they actually do in the movie so as not to spoil it, but I would describe it as a cross between horror and comedy. Horror since what these guys do are really disgusting, with the next scene being even worse than the previous one. Comedy as well, since for some reason, seeing them do these things are strangely funny. Each scene will leave you with an “I can’t believe they did that” expression on your face, and make you wanting for more. Definitely worth the 8 bucks admission.

Happy Halloween!

LoudBomb or Bob Mould?

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing one of my all-time fave singer/songwriters perform. Bob Mould performed live at the Rosebud in the Strip District. This was the second time that I’ve been to see him play – the first during his Last Dog & Pony tour at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. During that gig, he played with a live band and played mostly his Bob Mould songs (rather than his Sugar or Husker Du ones). This time around, I heard that he would be playing songs from his whole career so I was very excited to check it out.

One thing I was wary about was that I heard that he was basically playing alone onstage, switching from an acoustic to an electric guitar every so often. The only backing he received prerecorded tracks that was played when he did songs from his experimental electronica album, Modulate. It sounded kind of strange, especially knowing that Bob’s music is mainly about loud, screaming guitars. Still, I expected a good show from him.

He started with an acoustic set, then proceeded to plug in the electric guitar and play the backing tracks, and then finished with an encore of acoustic songs. Although all in all, the show was pretty good – I felt a bit disappointed because this show didn’t have the power and raw energy that he would have had if he was backed by a full band. The song selection was excellent though – and among my favorites, he played “Your Favorite Thing”, “Wishing Well”, “Hoover Dam” and my all-time fave “See A Little Light”. Among the newer stuff I liked “Sound on Sound” a lot. I walked away from the concert a bit disappointed, but still had a good time seeing Bob play.

One thing I’m looking forward to though, actually two things – one is his next album “Body Of Sound” which accoirding to him will be more like Workbook and Black Sheets of Rain. The other one is that he said he would be coming back to Pittsburgh next year for another gig. Hopefully, this time he’ll bring the rest of the guys in the band. That would be so awesome.

Here’s a link to the Pittsburgh gig discusiion on the Granary Music website.

On another note, the Rosebud was a very nice and elegant club. Full of comfy chairs and ambient light, it was very cozy and served as a great atmosphere to the gig. The buffalo wings were also different (had lots of sauce), but excellent. Definitely a great place to watch one of your favorite acts perform.