GenuinelyStreetFoodTrip

Along Taft street, just behind the big circle of Roxas City where the Church, the Museum, main Park and Capitol are situated is a strectch of vendors selling street food. Nope, not just barbecues and the likes but a hardcore domestic cuisine in the very form of "Binakolan".

Steaming hot binakolans are cooked on the spot and sold for P 30.00 per serving from 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm in the street (with tinapay to match with as desired).

You wanna know what's in it? Hmm. The sweet middle-aged owner who is an heiress of the business/of the binakolan I ate in told me.

iba
kamyas
sibuyas
kamatis
sili
tanglad
luy-a
bainakol na manok
beef
atay/liver

Hmm you may imagine it spicy just by looking at the ingredients. ANd you're definitely right. Halfway thru my order, I was perspiring so much I had soaked my new hanky. But who cares, it was the best streetfood I have ever had in my life....

the Enchantresses and You

I’m on the rush to see your name pop yellow from that miniscule of a window as I chat the minutes away. (tick tock).
As I wait, my mind drifts to another dimension as I am secretly jittery about work transpo and awfully disturbed by a cacophony of high frequency voices amazingly emanating from one and only one person only minutes ago.

When I woke up, I was met by an irksome situation from no less than my mama. Oh I don’t know what’s with Mama and nagging. Almost as if the plain human and idea was doomed to co-exist and every inhabiting female who becomes one, becomes one. Get it?

She had to drag me from the bed and order me around the screen, clicking here and there. Who can reason out with her? She’s the queen, the ruler and the enchantress of this home-world I live in. With my tired eyes I had to squint to type the words on the keypad as she sat behind me rambling on and on about every person who comes within a meter radius.

Makes me thing it’s a good think she has a hubby ten years her senior. Or maybe that could even be the reason why she’s tight as a petticoat worn by eighteenth century women.

Could it be that one day I’ll be like her? Obssessive about notions, compulsive about actions. One time, her own mama, my grandmama, gave everyone a long and tedious lecture in a voice and pitch that could only come from an old mistress in the home. Everyone was subject to her scrutiny; from Bords who didn’t brig his glass to the kitchen, to Charles who left his wet towel hanging on a chair, to Mimi who didn’t kiss her even as she offered her money, to Aunt Cherry who’s son skipped class, to the maid who didn’t wipe the table before lunch and to me who’s only wrong is to have a boyfriend. But the unexpected wham of a reaction came from my mama.
Suddenly she was pensieve and inconspicuously (on one corner) she remarked how she could possibly end like grandma one day so that we’ll just have to put her on a nursing home. (Just great).

Are all women like this? Ill answer my own question, "Well not really…"

It takes too long for him to come online. I’m running out of thoughts and getting more restless every minute as the seconds speed up mercilessly.
I should go….

(I’ll wait for you at work.)

After all (it ends in you.)

I’m lying on my stomach in this room they call an executive lounge I happened to be in because of work. I’m glad. After a long time I’m alone again and thus am able to contemplate on my thoughts. They’ve been repressed for so long because of the necessity to relate to others around me---the plethora of personalities at home. It feels like being caged for eternity. Ive checked my emotions and the real ones seem distant. In this time of solitude I am hoping to bring them to the surface once more. P said I need a specialist because I’ve been bothering him for so long now—longer than he was able to bother me—but he seems more distant to me than he should be at this point of our breakup. Perhaps because I’ve cried for him for a long time already that almost all the tears have fallen (mostly for the wrong reasons) and my heart has gone weary while his fancy has passed.

It’s 10:15 in my watch and I just got out of a meeting in prep for this big event. My body is tired but my mind is more alive than it ever was for weeks. These series of music emanating from the laptop coincides with my emotions. But my real intention for writing has shifted, perhaps out of the need to express myself as a person than as a woman in love.

(Somebody talked to me and now I’m distracted. I’m resting awhile.)
The setting of our meeting was unusual. We were on the rooftop of a two-storey house they call the HQ. I’ve never been to an HQ before, not with real people at least. The time was within twilight hours, breezy, the view of verdant forests. It couldn’t be compared to Twilight the movie scenery but it was enough to have made me think of you. You told me that night that I still imagine you drunk that you wanted to watch the sunset with me lying in your arms. It sent a caress of sadness in my heart for it’s right now simply a mere idea, uncertain as ever seeing myself reflected in your eyes. But there was gladness too my dear. For I know that it is this distance that keeps us longing, that keeps me going. Without you I would have drowned to insanity as I was drifting back and forth before. Once again you made me smile. You sowed in me hope. You gave me love. Only your words and I feel I could live again and face every fear and every weakness I own as human as I am, as hard as this world may seem to be.

I am glad that you love me. Only this and nothing more. If I’m jealous at times, I dare not speak of it. From pain in love I’ve learned one thing atleast: that to keep love, you have to stay away; that you love but you do not ask; you give but you do not tell all. If I’m wrong then blame it again on my humanity. I will accept. That’s all there is to say. My thirst for expression is quenched (for now).
I realized in the end, tonight is about you my...

Conquered by Zombies

The last thing any sane person wants is the grotesque that can be found in movies, street accidents and intentional torts and even in his wildest dreams. But how was “Saw” able to conquer many?
I have a faint recollection of a line I read from somewhere that said of how humans are subconsciously attracted to the things that scares the hell out of him which again is only proven true by the popularity of “Plants vs Zombies” that seemingly uses the same psyching as suspense thrillers only, it’s a game; thus putting the person in a more participative role in his journey to his own pleasure or doom or to his saving his brain o r feeding it off to the munch-sounding brain eaters.
About the game, plants vs zombies is as the title shouts, a battle between the plant species (cabbage, corn, potato, nut, cherry, lily, watermelon, pea, mushroom etc.) and the zombies of various fields of interests brought to the grave from their life as humans before (diver zombies, miner zombies, zombies with catapults, gargantuan zombies etc.).
Each of the characters in the two opposing sets is categorized according to its ability to withstand offensive attacks/toughness as well as to inflict damage to its enemies. For example, normal zombie without weapons or any kind of armory, who just walks like a zombie and looks like a zombie has low toughness and can be beheaded by a pea shooter whose damage class is normal in approximately ten pea shots; while a bucket head zombie, a highly tough class of the undead cannot be brought down by a normal pea shooter but something much tougher as in a repeater (which is actually a pea shooter only that it fires two peas at a time). But, another tactic to bring down the hard-headed bucket head is by taking off its metal bucket gear through a magnet-shroom (magnet mushroom). In that way the zombie’s toughness would spiral down to that of an ordinary zombie.
There are other features of the game that are also appealing to the girls such as a garden of plants given as gifts that must be constantly watered and fed and sold to the game master “Crazy Dave”. But don’t be too excited because one can’t grow villas and mansions in it unlike in Farmville and Farmtown.
The game is actually about tactics which is exactly why it’s fun and worth writing about. You are provided the weapons and the choice is yours. You get better in every battle you win or lose. It gets even more fun as you go through the levels and even after you’ve won the golden sunflower (which is given to you if you pass all sub-games) because you can experiment with combinations of plant weapons in a choice of 48 (or 49 plus the imitater which has the ability to imitate a plant of your choice as the name suggests).
Amusingly, I’ve unearthed certain behaviors from my six boy housemates (brothers and cousins) between the ages of 12-18 out of just observing them play the game (all are addicted). One of them, the eldest played the game based on tactics and skill approximation of his chosen plant weapons. Sometimes he fails, but more often than not he is able to conquer each sub-game with ease that he has earned the highest regard from the rest (in terms of this game). Another only follows his lead with weapon choices while another resorts to restarting the game every time he thinks he’s going to lose.
It might too personal a conclusion, not to mention too little subjects at that, but I think it is fairly evident that computer games can determine ones IQ level as well as EQ level. As an experiment, I played various games in front of all of them. First, I used sure-win weapons and observed their reactions. They talked loudly and cheered on. None left the game. The second time, I experimented on really lousy plants (like the corn which has a light damage to opponents). Suddenly, one walked out of the room saying “Byebye to you!” while others shouted, “Restart! Restart!” Only two stayed with me and helped modify the tactics. In the end, we won. The rest, who said we couldn’t win, all shut up leaving me something to ponder on---“Some people are just afraid to take risks, even just in games.” But as I said, many are still attracted to danger, the grotesque and adventure that they’d crowd around it like swarming bees.
Honestly, I don’t know where this rambling is going. I only know that obviously, I’ve been conquered by zombies.

(suggestions?comments?email me @ pau.dom.cu.tar@gmail.com)