Diagnosis

When I was a kid my mother took me to the doctor back in the medical unit of SEAFDEC because of a pesky fever that's threatening the family's holiday plans (we were due to depart for Manila for our annual Christmas vacation). I remember that my impression of the guy was of someone who checks on patients and goes home at the end of the day and looks at his medical books to see if most his diagnoses were right; not unlike the kind of guy who'd also look at a dating manual or an FHM magazine after a first date to see if picking his front teeth with his finger during dinner was acceptable or not. 

The guy went at it like most GP does and gave the go signal for 'safe' travel even though I was chattering so bad I feared splintering all my front teeth. I was in the airplane and most of the passengers mistakenly assumed I was horrified of air travel because I was shivering so badly during the entire flight. When we arrived at the house in Quezon City they had to give me an ice bath because the fever was so high. According to my uncle I was so delirious I told them Batman was sitting in the far chair looking at me sympathetically. The next morning I was admitted to the UST hospital and was diagnosed with h-fever.

The Saturday before the last one, my wife and I took our son to the doctor for his vaccine. I was uncomfortable at the clinic due to the unusual low temperature of the airconditioning system. I didn't mind it that much considering i really have a low tolerance for cool temperatures, but the discomfort was there. going home inside the cab, I realized i was suffering from a fever---a little funny considering my son got the shots and showed no signs of imminent fever or malaise.

The fever. That's the worst part. Not only was it so high that the chills were excruciating, but the headache and lack of appetite that came with it were pure torture. You'd get hungry you'd think you can eat an entire cow, but lose appetite after one or two spoonfuls. I thought it was one of those new strains of flu that probably came from an elephant and mutated to pummel humans into oblivion with their new, superpowered mutant potency. My fever only fluctuated between 38-40 C, and that was when I took paracetamol every four hours. I'd probably burn a hole straight into my pillow if I didn't take any medication. 

Not only until the third day of the fever, when I was in the hospital insisting that they admit me that I realized I was again suffering from dengue--my platelets they, said, were decreasing in an alarming rate.

Not that i was entirely depressed by the news. It was the Medical City, and one of the high-end hospitals and I had my HMO to take care of it. I was looking forward to a week (or more) of no work and being treated like a king. That's one of the advantages of being a patient, you basically have people treating you like a fine China during the duration of the disease.

The joke was on me though; the damned card only covered the 'ward' section and not any of private rooms I was fantasizing of occupying. Talk about being suckered.

Welcome to the club

THIS IS FOR MY FRIEND ANDRE WHO'S ABOUT TO GET HITCHED:

GAGO KA PART!

CONGRATS!!!!! HEHEHE!

Goodbye horses

i recently watched a defective pirated dvd of clerks 2 and basing from what i have seen, it sucked. yes, that's just as direct and bullshit-free as i can make it. i don't think a richard corliss, roger ebert or peter travers crappy impression would give it the respect it deserves so i might as well just get to the point and drop the pretentious movie critic bit and say that yes, it sucked. for me, anyway. aside from the occasional pixelating of the picture (it was a pirated copy after all), the story failed to keep me interested like it did the first. not that it was totally crap; maybe i exepected too much from kevin smith -- beause i really enjoyed jay and silent bob strikes back ---but this sequel to his 94 masterpiece fell flat for me. i especially liked that jay impression of silence of the lambs's jame gumb; complete with the q lazzarus hit 'goodbye horses. i don't know. maybe it's old age or i'm starting to evolve into someone with a questionable taste in movies.
=========
by the way --- q lazzarus. now that's cult music.
cool.

The town

Small towns have an undeniable charm that makes anyone feel at home no matter where they are. Especially when it's just a few hours after dawn's first light; the part where the heat isn't at oppressive levels yet, and the last traces of last night's dew and mist are dissipating. 

Good thing that even if I'm living in Metro Manila, the town I live in has a quiet, laid-back atmosphere that is characteristically un-city like that reminded me of towns in Naga City, Olongapo, and Iloilo. It's only a pity that the crime rate has all the characteristics of those big, industrial wasteland city zones. But other than that, it has its upsides as well.

Earlier, my wife and I made a small trip to the bakery after we consumed every last morsel of bread in the house, unmindful that there were at least three more people who has to take their breakfast. We took a tricycle ride, and saw the surroundings in a very familiar and comforting light.

It's one of those little things that you're glad you have noticed.

Trains

Unfortunately it rained today and my supposed fill of beerhouse hits while contemplating inside a jeep has to take a backseat in favor of the relative comfort of the MRT and FX. While yesterday's pleasant travel was due largely to the heavy dose of nostalgic sentiments I had during the ride, the one I've had a few hours ago in the MRT was for the humor books. I've been meaning to write about it for sometime but never really got down to it. Apparently the MRT management upgraded its services for the relative comfort of its commuters. No, they didn't fix the perpetual escalator problem in the North Avenue station nor improved the airconditioning system of most of the trains in operation; nothing outlandish like that. Time travel will be invented before those things are fixed for good. They just launched the MRT FM radio.


When the doors opened as I was getting ready to board a blast of latin music spewed forth along with the disembarking passengers. The first thing that came to mind was Tita Luz. Now that was enough to make me laugh out loud but I bit my lip as hard as I can. I didn't want the other passengers thinking they had a dope addict in their midst. Tita Luz, bless her soul, has a penchant for old 50s latin-flavored pinoy music and Filipiniana selections whose cassette tapes I suspect she bought at Nayong Pilipino. The kind with an Amorsolo-type painting in the cover, depicting the pastoral way of life in some barrio complete with bahay kubos and baro't sayas. She used to play those nonstop in the car everytime we came to visit her. For the life of me I couldn't understand how she and my father could have polar opposite tastes when it came to music or any other art forms for that matter.

I can vividly remember the "WAN! TU! TRI! POR!" of some (probably) middle-aged male band member before seguing to a crazy polyrhythmic assault of an undeniably pinoy version of latin dance music. My parents, sister and I always have a good laugh everytime we remember that. We weren't ridiculing her taste in music, but the fact that we already heard the same songs more than fifty times since we were in her car (a cab actually, with MUY BIEN plastred at the sides of both doors) and the ridiculousness of the "WAN! TU! TRI! POR!" did it. Professional comedians say things in threes are funny. Try listening to something ridiculous more than 20 times with people who have a healthy sense of humor and you'll have a riot.

That was what I was thinking when I entered the train. And even if the humidity inside was oppressive I couldn't help but let a little chuckle out every now and then. The music, coupled with the irritated and blank expressions of the passengers created a weird sort of music video.

Crazy.

I hear the the drums echoing tonight

I took a jeep home to break the routine a little. As much as I would like to go home as fast as I possibly can most of the time, there are also instances when I find myself in the mood for a little joyride and basically just enjoying the trip. It was late in the afternoon---dusk on the way to twilight---and boomboxes inside PUVs are already playing timeless classics from the 70s and the 80s. The weather was nice, cool and pleasant and the last rays of the sun receding and giving in to shadows, and the jeep was comfortable and not too packed. Toto's "Africa" was on, as it always is during this hour on all FM stations. Of all the singles released by Toto, this song in my opinion is their best; even better than the melodramatic guilty pleasure of "I'll Be Over You". When the all-too familiar first chords of the synthesizers blared from the speakers I was instantly taken over by nostalgia.

Suddenly I was a little boy again. Barely six and torturing hapless insects by pulling out their hind legs and wings and marvelling at their complex anatomical structures and "Africa" was playing in some nearby store in the town I grew up in. It was relatively a genuine happiness specially for a child of five to be alive at that time and then---

---I was a highschool sophomore--- on the way home from the city inside a Guimbal jeep passing by Oton, on that part of the highway where there's vast empty fields on either side, full of grass and devoid of houses. One side leads to the ocean, and the other to the mountains. This is the part of the ride where one can feel heroic and serene just by staring at it and "Africa" is playing to complete the picture. Cold and bleak-sounding yet strangley comforting and pleasant and---

---I'm back at the jeep. Staring outside observing various activities people do when twilight is upon them as I passed by. All the hassles of the day and problems for the future vanishes, replaced by serenity and pleasantness.

Hope it won't rain tomorrow.

Joke's on you

Surfing the internet I came across an article about the sequel for Batman Begins. Of all the Batman treatments that have been shown--- from the hyper-campy AdamWest-television version of the 60s (Holy sardines Batman!) to the goth fairy tale tratment of Tim Burton, and its eventual degradation in the hands of Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever/Batman and Robin)---Christopher Nolan's treatment had fans who were turned off by the recent films hoping again. And casting Christian Bale in the title role was the most appropriate casting choice I have seen in the comic book movie adaptation genre in the last few years. Having seen Memento and Insomnia from Nolan, and Bale's portrayal of brooding and mentally unstable characters from Equilibrium and American Psycho respectively, I was confident this production team could pull it off. And pulled it off they did. It was like watching an excellent graphic novel that several die-hard fanboys of the comic told me they actually clapped after the screening.

The Dark Knight, the sequel, looks very promising from what I've read. We'll be introduced to The Batman's arch-nemesis The Joker. Most people are confused by this, saying The Joker died in the Tim Burton version. That's why the first film was called Batman Begins-it has no relationship whatsoever in the previous films; a sort of reset if you may. Heath Ledger would be the clown prince of crime though I would have preferred Back To The Future's Crispin Glover. He even looks like The Joker without any make-up on. I actually even signed an on-line petition so the studio would take him. But I guess an Oscar award speaks volumes. But hell, I'd even watch it if they got Vin Diesel for the part.

What I like most about Nolan's treatment of the material is that he has reverence for what the character as he is popularly known by comic-book fans; something that is also not unlike what Sam Raimi did for the SpiderMan series. The Tim Burton version was okay but the one by Joel Schumacher, specially the one with George Clooney in it practically looked so moronic that it could have been any nut in a Batsuit trading insults and trashtalk with the badguys (Batman is not particularly known for his sense of humor). With the Bale version, you'd actually believe the guy's motivation for wearing a costume and jump on rooftops at night instead of dating supermodels and driving sports cars. The sequel, in addition, has the feel and overall look of one of the best Batman graphic novels called The Killing Joke written by Watchmen and V For Vendetta's Alan Moore.

In any case, along with Spiderman, it's still the best superhero movie adaptation i have seen so far.