Cool BEER News!!!!

JET LI will be the new image model of SMB,
as part of the brand's Asia-wide marketing launch!!!




Asia Brewery Inc. will launch COORS LIGHT
in the Philippines this year,
beginning with MetroManila.

KRISPY KREME Greenhills: the HOT LIGHT will turn you on TODAY!!!

A box that I often find on my desk,
making me Homer Simpson-happy!!!!

D'oh!!!

Classic Glazed
or New & Fancy,
either way,
Awesome! Yummy!

Mmmmmm..... Donuts!!!!

It's a genetic thing,
this addiction to Krispy Kremes...

my Ninong Raffy manages two KKs in Seattle, Washington!!!

Yung May PULP BITS Siempre!!!

I drank gallons of this citrus elixir
when I found it in convenience stores in Beijing.

While I have absolutely zero idea
what the Chinese characters mean,

I know one thing:
this juice tastes exactly like this,
complete with all those pulpy bits;

one of my favorite grocery must-buys years back
whenever I'd spend summers in San Francisco...

Ready-to-Drink Minute Maid OJ
now available at the Metro Supermarkets
at Market! Market! @ The Fort
and Ayala Center Cebu:
P29.00 per bottle.

Frozen Minute Maid OJ
always available at Cala Foods and Target
stores all over the Bay Area:
$2.79 per can.

This Novel Will RUIN My Sleep....

After haunting the shelves of MMLA bookstores
for the past six months searching for this book,

I found the only copy available at Powerbooks Megamall
this afternoon.

(insert evil cackle here)

Goodbye, my dibidis!!!

Guest Reviewer: Stephen King


When I heard that Scott Smith was publishing a new novel this summer,
I felt the way I did when my kids came in an hour or two late
from their weekend dates:
a combination of welcoming relief
(thank God you're back)
mingled with exasperation and anger
(where the hell have you been?).

Well, it's only a book, you say, and maybe that's true,
but Scott Smith is a singularly gifted writer,
and it seems to me that the twelve years between his debut--
the cult smash A Simple Plan--
and his return this summer with The Ruins is cause for exasperation,
if not outright anger.

Certainly Smith,
who has been invisible
save for his Academy Award-nominated screenplay
for the film version of A Simple Plan,
will have some 'splainin to do about how he spent his summer vacation.

Make that his last twelve summer vacations.



But enough.
The new book is here,
and the question devotees of A Simple Plan will want answered
is whether or not this book generates anything
like Plan's harrowing suspense.

The answer is yes.
The Ruins is going to be America's literary shock-show this summer,
doing for vacations in Mexico
what Jaws did for beach weekends on Long Island.

Is it as successful and fulfilling as a novel?
The answer is not quite, but I can live with that,
because it's riskier.

There will be reviews of this book by critics
who have little liking or understanding for popular fiction
who'll dismiss it as nothing but a short story
that has been bloated to novel length
(I'm thinking of Michiko Kakutani,
for instance, who microwaved Smith's first book).

These critics,
who steadfastly grant pop fiction no virtue but raw plot,
will miss the dazzle of Smith's technique;
The Ruins is the equivalent of a triple axel
that just misses perfection
because something's wrong with the final spin.

It's hard to say much about the book without giving away everything,
because the thing is as simple and deadly
as a leg-hold trap concealed in a drift of leaves…
or,
in this case,
a mass of vines.


You've got four young American tourists--
Eric, Jeff, Amy, and Stacy--
in Cancun.

They make friends with a German named Mathias
whose brother has gone off into the jungle with some archeologists.

These five, plus a cheerful Greek with no English
(but a plentiful supply of tequila),
head up a jungle trail to find Mathias's brother…

the archaeologists…

and the ruins.




Well, two out of three ain't bad,
according to the old saying,
and in this case;
what's waiting in the jungle isn't just bad, it's horrible.

Most of The Ruins's 300-plus pages
is one long, screaming close-up of that horror.

There's no let-up,
not so much as a chapter-break
where you can catch your breath.


I felt that The Ruins did draw on a trifle,
but I found Scott Smith's refusal to look away heroic,
just as I did in A Simple Plan.


It's the trappings of horror and suspense
that will make the book a best seller,
but its claim to literature lies in its unflinching naturalism.

It's no Heart of Darkness,
but at its
suffocating,
terrifying,
claustrophobic best,
it made me think of Frank Norris.
Not a bad comparison, at that.



One only hopes Mr. Smith won't stay away so long next time.

TOTAL SUNSET

The great thing about living in the Philippines?

You get to experience the unexpected every single day.

And no,
not just anomalies like cashiered military officers
ending up in back-to-back winning positions in the Senate.


I'm referring to the amazing beauty
you can spot even in the most mundane of places...



in this case,
at my favorite stopover along the northbound lane of SLEX,
a must-visit gas station (!) on your way back to MMLA;

before you hit the crawling congestion of Alabang-Sucat-Bicutan,
I advise that you take a bathroom break,
shop at the NIKE outlet,
eat at the authentic Thai noodle joint,
and grab some last minute pasalubong from Laguna and Quezon,
all at the TOTAL gas station here.

And if you're lucky enough,
you just might enjoy a sunset
that's got a palette worthy of Walt Disney!!!

STARDUCK

Pinoy Ispoofery
at its best,

somewhere at the junction
of Sto. Tomas, Batangas
and Calamba, Laguna ",

SMB's New Look

After my dalliances with

Red Horse
Super Dry
Blue Ice
San Mig Light



I finally came home
and settled with my Pale Pilsen beloved
three years ago.

We've decided that ours is THE lifelong commitment.



And I'm happy to say
that a quarter of a century into our romance,
the character of my brew has only gotten better,


and its external appearance,
instead of fading with time,

has matured into that of a world-class beauty.

a rat-breaking work of staggering genius : RATATOUILLE

I cannot wait to see this on the widescreen.

I couldn't help myself and watched the pirated dibidi,
which was surprisingly clear!!!



I've never seen computer animation like this before,
and most likely, neither have you.

Simply put,
it doesn't look like a damn CGI movie,
it looks like a painting in motion......
it's years beyond Happy Feet, Madagascar, and yes, Shrek III.

It will make you feel the same way you did
the first time you saw Terminator 2 and The Matrix.

And like those two groundbreaking films,
the amazing digital effects never got in the way
of the excellent stories of the movies.


This is Pixar at its best, people.


For fans of the ff:

1. the Indiana Jones series
2. Amelie and Casablanca
3. Toy Story 1 & 2, Monsters Inc., A Bug's Life, The Incredibles, & Cars
4. Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, Iron Chef, Jamie Oliver, Mario Batali,
and all the other Food Network shows....


this is YOUR movie!!!

The Best Thing to do with leftover TIKOY...

PALABOK for Ram and Meggy

To celebrate the birthdays
of my two klutziest inaanaks,

we had homemade, from scratch,
Pansit Palabok...

all the better for you two
have the orange sauce drip on your shirts ",

The Perfect PAPA's Day!!!

to all my male relatives and friends
who have gone forth and multiplied,

may you spend most of this day
vegged out in front of the tube,

beer at the ready,
and the remote at your fingertips.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

CONNIE's Got Talent!!!

The new
CHARLOTTE CHURCH.

Again,
from my new addiction on YouTube,
Britain's Got Talent!!!

OCTOPORKY

dateline:
16June2007

MALATE, Manila (PorkRoom)~~

The usual suspects once again massacred
an unsuspecting pig population,
a pogrom of pork barbecued,
Korean style.



The Octopus Stew was finally tried.
Grilled octopii, marinated in a spicy-sweet kimchee sauce,
then slow-cooked over low heat with fresh cabbage,
until tender and just right to the bite.

And the verdict?
Delicious!



The biggest decision of the night,
however,
was what to drink with the Korean delicacies.

Soju or Pale?

Unanimously,
we went with both!!!

from cellphone sales to CON TE PARTIRO.....

more of that cellphone salesman
who's got all of the UK agog
with his operatic talent.

there's something about this guy...


the humility,
the awkwardness,
the lack of guile,

and yes,
the Bocelli beauty of his voice,


that sends chills up my spine,
and surely,
yours as well.

How to Wipe the Floor with AMERICAN IDOL...

the latest Viral Video spreading through the 'net
is amazing not only for the talent you will see and hear,

but perhaps,
even more amazing because this is the first time

you'll probably see SIMON COWELL applauding madly
and grinning ear to ear in appreciation of a genuine discovery.

goosebumps galore...

enjoy the show!!!

i can't believe she used to be called "SIOPAO FACE"

BEFORE:
Ma Mon Luk Image Model.

NOW:
Looks like Angelina Jolie.

Bitter SUITE

Brand New on my booklog,
thanks to the fine folk of
FULLY BOOKED!!!



From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.

Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction,
the Jewish Russian-born author
was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942,
months after this long-lost masterwork was composed.

Irene Némirovsky,
a convert to Catholicism,
began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces
overran northern France in 1940.

This gripping "suite,"
collecting the first two unpolished
but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short,
have surfaced more than six decades after her death.

The first, "Storm in June,"
chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians,
all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside,
mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans.

The second, "Dolce,"
set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation,
tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers.

In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest,
Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life,
the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides."

This heroic work does just that,
by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas.



Némirovsky's plan consisted of five parts.

She completed only the first two before she was murdered in Auschwitz.

WHACKED!!!

After a six-season run,
spread out almost over nine years on HBO,

THE SOPRANOS,
one of the best TV series ever,
fades to black.



Well,
it is Tony and Family after all,
so forget "fade to black"...

make that
"whack to black"!!!

BACLAYON Church, 1596 A.D.

Napakagandang TAO

LOBOC's Views of Apocalypse Now