That GG sh!t

While I was lazily browsing the net, I saw an article about the recent Golden Globe nominations. As I excitedly scroll the bar up and down to look for the Best Comedy Actor Category, I was caught by surprise to find no "Jim Parsons" on the list. What was even more surprising was seeing "Johnny Galecki" on the roster. I mean, with all due respect, Galecki is one funny guy but Parsons is way way better. I was surprise the critics favored the former over the latter.

Other notable snubs are Melissa McCarthy <Mike and Molly>, Ty Burrell <Modern Family> and Sofia Vergara <Modern Family>. What's happening, really?

Anticipating

I would just like to keep it to myself.

But the anticipation is killing me.

“Perfect match” what does it mean? I don’t know either. But my heart is going to explode with so much tension.

Does she mean what I think she mean?

Oh crap, I got to take this slow. Freaking out is really my thing.

The last one had been terrible, lasted only a month or so.

The one before that, three months. She was way above my radar. She’s smart, funny and beautiful not to add an heiress to a building and construction empire. Plus she’s Chinese. So when she asked me to come and be introduced to her parents, yeah I chickened out.

I would like to say I freaked out, though. I felt she’s too smothering… I cannot breathe. But that was just me, being chicken I guess.

The same goes with the one before that and the one before, oh I lost count.

‘What  is frickin’ wrong with me?’ I thought

I think I have a serious commitment issue, so I realized I need to take a step back and deconstruct and reconstruct myself. It’s almost a year now since I was last in a relationship. I dated a few but you know.

Then there she goes…

With her wit and her charm and her smile, frickin’ God, why do you so hate me?

She’s so out of my league and yet, subtle hints like “we’re perfect match”, or “hinihintay nya lang ako” would be thrown my way.

What’s her ploy? I dunno. Or is there any ploy at all? Maybe I am just assuming

What’s my plan? Nada, zilch, nothing, wala.

I just want to take things slow. If this is something, let it blossom into something. I would not like her or me to freak out.

I want this to be perfect.

I want this to be beautiful. So no rush.  Just let it be.

If we’re supposed to be together, yeah we will be. I just don’t want to pre-empt things.

But hell, I am dying of anticipation.

The Best Only Exception Male Cover

I had the opportunity to chance upon this gem. Really really nice voice.

Temple Grandin - the Movie

Watch this absolutely good movie.

On Autism

Just want to share this video. Have a nice week everyone

OMG, Right?!

Sheldon: Hi I am Dr. Sheldon Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD and ScD. OMG right? 

LOL

John Green and Tulips. What?

Hahaha

Book Fest

As I was whiling away my time in the hospital, here are the bunch of books that I get to read. But hey, no reviews for now. I know, I know. I'm really behind with my reviews but yeah, with how things are currently going, I might be able to post 'em in few days. But for now, here are they--my companion on those lonely and agitating hours cooped in the hospital

1. King Dork - Frank Portman

2. Paper Towns - John Green

 

 3. Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie - Jordan Sonnenblick

4. Storky - D. L. Garfinkle

5. Fat Kid Rules the World - K. L. Going

6. Ginger Bread - Rachel Cohn

7. The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart

8. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - David Levithan and John Green

9. It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini

10. Totally Joe - James Howe

11. No More Dead Dogs - Gordon Korman

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
Now I'm trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I'll be giving it my bestest
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment babay sing with me
I love peace for melody
And It's our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love loved

So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure
There's no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours

Scooch on over closer dear
And i will nibble your ear

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I'm be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find that the sky is yours
Please don't, please don't, please don't
There's no need to complicate
Cause our time is short
This oh this this is out fate, I'm yours!

A Post-Valentine's Insanity

Yep, you read it right. Well, no, we're not dwelling on the insanity part because as you all know that I'm a bit insane, it wouldn't strike you as interesting. Rather let's factor out the Valentine's thingy. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the BookGeek, aka Scribbler, that little mongrel of plain absurdity and crooked philosophy, that piece of denuded humor and overworked fantasy, that little piece of scum, yes, your yours truly, the one and only me,  was chosen among throngs of more eligible or let's just say more appropriate guys to take part on the infamous searcher-searchee game. Hurray! Seemingly I passed on as a specie worth to be recognized as a potential match! Although as I would later point out to myself, it just so happened that I am a newbie in our group and hence I need to be initiated to the clique and what's more fun than have me as a guinea pig on the charade of "pick-up" game? Poor poor soul. That highly inflated balloon that was my ego (on finally being picked as a searchee) was suddenly burst into smithereens by my less atrocious self. 

What's more hilarious was that I actually won. Whoops, sorry, kindly contain yourself for a little bit more. Throw bags are yet to be distributed.

I won! Yes Virginia, it's a fact: I exist! Haha, I had to laugh at the seeming paradox of standing beside a cute girl while all I want to do is while away. 

Don't get me wrong. She's hot. But I could not just help laughing at myself. Geek-o-meter: gazilion bits turned into a veritable date. What an irony!

Now, now. I am not being harsh to myself; I could point out a good quality or two in me and I definitely know things on the art of dating. I had few experiences myself so yeah. I fancy myself as a humor guy when I am on date. But how can one humor a girl while dating on a spa?

LOL. Yep, we, both of us, won GC's for Spa treatment and we're supposed to do it together. But as it is, the work is tying us down already. Busy points at either ends. So guys I would just like to know what are your thoughts? How should I carry on the date @ the spa? It'd be a first time for me to do it in Spa and I honestly dunno how to do it.      

Thunder

Really liked this song.

Yeah, bring on the thunder!

Happy weekend everyone :)

A BookGeek's Tale

I went to FullyBooked Boni High St a few days earlier (my work is somewhere near High St and I couldn't stop myself whiling away to buy a book or two) and I could not have believed my luck. From the five books I was looking for, none was available. Lol. I am itching to obtain Oate's Sexy, though as it is one of those five I asked, I still have to check other stores, perhaps Bibliarch in Waltermart P.Tamo but I doubt they have it there. I would go check Powerbooks GB5 as well as FullyBooked Glorietta.

It is my only vice as of now, purchasing, as my sister would say, books that cost fortune. The remark, I believe is a bit of an exaggeration as my collection barely reach tens of thousand in amount when put together as they are almost all paperbacks but, to put it in context, when I was in Undergrad, they were accustomed me buying from BookSale. My mom jokingly asked me once, "Walang BookSale sa Makati no?" after coming home with Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland which cost me around 600 bucks. Compared when I bought The Rule of Four for a hundred.

Well, I had to give this to myself. I quit smoking already and hardly drink anything with alcohol in it. I was recently diagnosed with fatty liver disease which causes me being hypertensive. So yap, I had to give in to the doctor's advice if I wanted to live longer and be a Nobel Laureate. Lol. But not reading good books is definitely out of the question so every penny that I used to spend for packs of cigs and Friday night-outs are now all going to my bookshelf. 

Reading had always been integral for me. My siblings and I were all voracious readers. Perhaps we were influenced by both our mom and dad. They are quite readers themselves, though my passion for writing I got from Mom. It started when we were younger. She, Mom, would read to us stories that made our fascination to a good yarn kindled. The likes of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," "Icarus amd Daedalus," "The Fisherman's Daughter" and "Ali Baba and the Thieves" were my absolute favorites. And we, my siblings and myself, would all look forward to bedtime when she would read us those stories that no matter how many times heard always left the same impression on me--wonder and fascination.

I guess all I am saying is that I cannot live without a book to read. I could go on for months or even years without the idiot box ( it happened, actually but that's another story) but certainly not without a good story to read and ponder on. It is not too much to say that I would die of boredom without something to read. It so part of my system that I could not possibly exist wihout them (books). So yeah, I have to scout the bookstores and look for Sexy.   

Should JK Rowling write another Harry Potter?

Aye, there were rumors circling around that J.K. Rowling is contemplating of adding another one to the seven-book stack of Harry Potter series. And I have one word to say to that: Seriously?

I love Harry Potter. For me, it is the benchmark for any good writing (well, for young adults novels, at least). It is smart, thrilling and funny. The characters were almost “stepping out of the pages” and the plotting superb.  But creating another book when it was all obvious in the final chapter of the final book that it was all over, well, I think it wouldn’t be too smart. Of course, fans all over the world would be raving for that addition and who knows if it isn’t any good as its predecessors. But guys, I mean, c’mon. Clearly, Harry’s adventure is done already and there’s no need for an add-on. Anyway, what it would suppose to be about? Harry Potter and the Midlife Crisis?

What do you think Potter fans?

Why Do Chicks Dig Sparks?

I don't know. But whenever I ask the ladies whether they read books and they say yes, they would always add " especially Nicholas Sparks." What the hell is with the guy? Okay, his stuff are pretty much girly. Novels that are turned into tear-jerkers that proved to be commercial success on the silver screen (A Walk to Remember, The Last Song, The Notebook, Message In A Bottle). For a guy, he writes some stuff that women tend to enjoy more.

My sisters, friends and colleagues would sometimes rant about him and his novels nonstop that my ears start to bleed on the endless praises "oh, he's just sooo good" and "he knew how things are, really."

So, in vague attempt to at least understand why Sparks is the "name", I tried to read some of his stuff during the holidays  and my bum period as well. And yeah, women would definitely dig it because most of his male protagonists are portrayed as the weaker sex and women at the end would be the "hero" or more politically correct is heroine, so to speak.

I have read A Walk To Remember, Message In A Bottle and The Notebook and I find them, well, quite too girly. LOL. But what I liked about Mr. Sparks is the richness of emotions embedded in his works, although sometimes could be so melodramatic. But that's what chicks dig, so yeah. Whatever.

100 Best Novels of All Time (A New York Times Review)

I swear to my grave (morbid, LOL) that I'm gonna read all of these before I die. Haha!
This list I saw while I was browsing the net for Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Well, chaps here they are, the NYT best novels of all time

1. "Ulysses," James Joyce

2. "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," James Joyce

4. "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov

5. "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley

6. "The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner

7. "Catch-22," Joseph Heller

8. "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler

9. "Sons and Lovers," D. H. Lawrence

10. "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck

11. "Under the Volcano," Malcolm Lowry

12. "The Way of All Flesh," Samuel Butler

13. "1984," George Orwell

14. "I, Claudius," Robert Graves

15. "To the Lighthouse," Virginia Woolf

16. "An American Tragedy," Theodore Dreiser

17. "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," Carson McCuller

18. "Slaughterhouse Five," Kurt Vonnegut

19. "Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison

20. "Native Son," Richard Wright

21. "Henderson the Rain King," Saul Bellow

22. "Appointment in Samarra," John O' Hara

23. "U.S.A." (trilogy), John Dos Passos

24. "Winesburg, Ohio," Sherwood Anderson

25. "A Passage to India," E. M. Forster

26. "The Wings of the Dove," Henry James

27. "The Ambassadors," Henry James

28. "Tender Is the Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. "The Studs Lonigan Trilogy," James T. Farrell

30. "The Good Soldier," Ford Madox Ford

31. "Animal Farm," George Orwell

32. "The Golden Bowl," Henry James

33. "Sister Carrie," Theodore Dreiser

34. "A Handful of Dust," Evelyn Waugh

35. "As I Lay Dying," William Faulkner

36. "All the King's Men," Robert Penn Warren

37. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," Thornton Wilder

38. "Howards End," E. M. Forster

39. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," James Baldwin

40. "The Heart of the Matter," Graham Greene

41. "Lord of the Flies," William Golding

42. "Deliverance," James Dickey

43. "A Dance to the Music of Time" (series), Anthony Powell

44. "Point Counter Point," Aldous Huxley

45. "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway

46. "The Secret Agent," Joseph Conrad

47. "Nostromo," Joseph Conrad

48. "The Rainbow," D. H. Lawrence

49. "Women in Love," D. H. Lawrence

50. "Tropic of Cancer," Henry Miller

51. "The Naked and the Dead," Norman Mailer

52. "Portnoy's Complaint," Philip Roth

53. "Pale Fire," Vladimir Nabokov

54. "Light in August," William Faulkner

55. "On the Road," Jack Kerouac

56. "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett

57. "Parade's End," Ford Madox Ford

58. "The Age of Innocence," Edith Wharton

59. "Zuleika Dobson," Max Beerbohm

60. "The Moviegoer," Walker Percy

61. "Death Comes to the Archbishop," Willa Cather

62. "From Here to Eternity," James Jones

63. "The Wapshot Chronicles," John Cheever

64. "The Catcher in the Rye," J. D. Salinger

65. "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess

66. "Of Human Bondage," W. Somerset Maugham

67. "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad

68. "Main Street," Sinclair Lewis

69. "The House of Mirth," Edith Wharton

70. "The Alexandria Quartet," Lawrence Durrell

71. "A High Wind in Jamaica," Richard Hughes

72. "A House for Ms. Biswas," V. S. Naipaul

73. "The Day of the Locust," Nathaniel West

74. "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway

75. "Scoop," Evelyn Waugh

76. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," Muriel Spark

77. "Finnegans Wake," James Joyce

78. "Kim," Rudyard Kipling

79. "A Room With a View," E. M. Forster

80. "Brideshead Revisited," Evelyn Waugh

81. "The Adventures of Augie March," Saul Bellow

82. "Angle of Repose," Wallace Stegner

83. "A Bend in the River," V. S. Naipaul

84. "The Death of the Heart," Elizabeth Bowen

85. "Lord Jim," Joseph Conrad

86. "Ragtime," E. L. Doctorow

87. "The Old Wives' Tale," Arnold Bennett

88. "The Call of the Wild," Jack London

89. "Loving," Henry Green

90. "Midnight's Children," Salman Rushdie

91. "Tobacco Road," Erskine Caldwell

92. "Ironweed," William Kennedy

93. "The Magus," John Fowles

94. "Wide Sargasso Sea," Jean Rhys

95. "Under the Net," Iris Murdoch

96. "Sophie's Choice," William Styron

97. "The Sheltering Sky," Paul Bowles

98. "The Postman Always Rings Twice," James M. Cain

99. "The Ginger Man," J. P. Donleavy

100. "The Magnificent Ambersons," Booth Tarkington

Second Chances and Letting an Opportunity Slip

Of course, I am just assuming all over again. Pero kung makikita ko siya, siguro sisiguruhin ko na na may way of communication na kami. You see, I like this person but the thing is, I was not so assertive as to get the damn digits, LOL. I chickened out, so to speak. Haha, loser! Pero bakit nga ba? Geez!

Will another chance go my way? I hope so. Dahil I think I might want to take risks this time and damn all the odds.

How about you guys? Have you ever felt that too, I mean you could have done something like ask her number or even FB account and yet you didn't because you thought, "maybe it's too early, I don't wanna freak her out," and finding out too late na, sheesh, wala siyang FB! And wishing upon a hundred stars that fate would give you another shot?

A Haiku for the Birthday Boy

This is a simple haiku for a friend who is celebrating his birthday today. Happy Birthday buddy!



Dance until they see
What a wonder life can be
It is your birthday!

As the Moon Was Waxing Gibbous

I saw my Dad step off the car

As he carried the usual stack of file

He brought home after work

And the maid turning the door open for him.

I heard my Mom talking on the phone,

“No, I clearly ordered red!” she said

And I wondered when was the last time

She had ever talked to me.

I tasted the cookies from the forbidden jar

That would go expired uneaten anyway

To see if anybody would notice

And the filthy belt greeted my skin anew.

I felt pain all over my body

For that one piece of cookie

But hey, I thought, pain is a more welcome feeling

Than to feel nothing at all.

I smelled death as the maid tucked me in,

Yes, the horribly sweet smell of eternal oblivion;

He was smiling, waving down when I opened the bedroom window

And as I fell, back first, I saw the moon was waxing gibbous.

Scribbler's Top Picks 2010 (Part 2)

Okay, so here's the long overdue Scribbler's Top 5 Picks for 2010-General Fiction. For Scribbler's Top 5 YA Picks for 2010 click here







1. Blindness (Jose Saramago) - The book that inspired the motion picture starring Julian Moore an Mark Rufallo, here comes the story of the doctor who was hit by the epidemic of "white blindness" and his wife who surprisingly retained hers despite the fact that the whole city was already infested by the plague. Here is the testimony of man's cruel nature, of his abuse to another man and the savage injustice imposed by one t another and of the proverbial "resonating voice in the wilderness" that delivers hope and salvation. his is a statement to Saramago's genius.


2. Ilustrado (Miguel Syjuco) - The debut novel by the Filipino author that catapulted him to the who's who of literary circle. Long before it was published, Ilustrado had been making noise bagging the coveted Man Asian Literary Prize and the local Palanca Award. Revolving on the story behind the death of the Lion of Philippine Literature, the story retells the three hundred long and bittersweet years of Philippine history--from Spaniards to post-colonial republic--through the story of the protagonist Miguel Syjuco (yes, the author's namesake). Although I could have used a different ending ( I already had empathized with the young Miguel to learn that he was just a projection, oh man!), this was a good and darkly humorous story. Caveat: dictionary, a must!

3. The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time (Mark Haddon) - This is an extraordinary account told on a first person perspective by an autistic narrator Christopher John Francis Boone. It started when one night the young Christopher found a dead dog lying on the neighbor's front yard with a garden fork sticking out of its stomach. He wanted to find out who did the murder, following the method of scientific deduction of his favorite character, Sherlock Holmes. His investigation, though, would lead him to deeper secrets that loomed their family and the touching narration of Christopher's character will surely open the eyes of the reader to the richness of human sympathy.

4. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami) - This is my first book of Murakami and I should say that his take on this novel is nothing but avant-garde. Told in a first-person narrative, it has two distinct tones: one vivacious, witty and humorous while the other was melancholic or even phlegmatic. Think of Harry Potter as against A Little Princess. Like there were two personae in one body, whose separate account were simultaneously happening without one realizing the existence of the other--well, not until the grandiose climax where, in my personal opinion, Murakami had fallen short. But the extraordinary and highly inventive style of Murakami compensated for the ending and Murakami's style had me curious to read more of this artist's work.

5. 2666 (Roberto Bolaño) - Published posthumously (more than a year after the author's death), 2666 is an excruciating narrative of a writer's exploits, history and literary works told in five parts. Heavy in descriptions and slow in pace, the book is what is considered to be Bolaños's masterpiece although readers may find themselves tiring with Bolaños's sometimes complex structure and extremely long sentences (I had to read one paragraph composed of more or less twenty lines but was, in fact, only one sentence), the beauty of this work lies with highly evocative characters who were well-tuned with who they are and what they desired to become.


Well, they all have their own merits and I should say, although these books are extremely different with each other, they share a common quality: truth. And I absolutely recommend them either for leisure reading or academic analysis.