Current System Configuration: Sweltering. I expected the tropical heat to be a relief from the chilly weather in the US, but it's a bit too hot.
BGM: The Shaken-Hearted Alchemist by Salamander Factory. Einst Alchimie's boss theme from SRW IMPACT, when you fight her demonic swordsman mech, Persönlichkeit.
Breakfast: Strawberry cream risotto
Lunch: Irish lamb stew
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+Currently too tired to read
This was supposed to be my last post from the US, but I never got around to finishing it. It's changed a bit, since I'm writing it in Singapore. I'm going home on Monday morning.
Another survey I got from Katja's blog.
What's your name spelt backwards?
serolf raviviur oinotna leahpar esoj
What did you do last night?
Slept on the plane
The last thing you downloaded onto your computer?:
The Dissension patch for Apprentice
Have you ever licked a 9 volt battery?:
I don't plan on doing so
Last time you swam in a pool?
Last December
What are you wearing?:
A t-shirt and shorts
How many cars have you owned?:
One
Type of music you dislike most?:
Rap
Are you registered to vote?:
Yes
Do you have cable?:
Yes
What kind of computer do you use?:
A desktop
Ever made a prank phone call?:
No
You like anyone right now?:
Yes, the same person I've liked for the last 9 years.
Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?:
Sky diving seems more appealing to me.
Furthest place you ever traveled?:
I didn't really get out of the airport, but I guess Stockholm, Sweden counts. That's if "furthest" means "furthest from my hometown." If it's "furthest from civilization,"...uh, I think flying over Kazahkstan counts.
What's your favorite comic strip?:
Calvin and Hobbes and Beerkada
Do u know all the words to the national anthem?:
Yes
Shower, morning or night?:
Morning, but in this heat, both.
Best movie you've seen in the past month?:
V for Vendetta
Favorite pizza toppings?:
Spinach and mushroom
Chips or popcorn?:
Popcorn
What cell phone provider do you have?:
Globe Telecom
Have you ever smoked peanut shells?:
...you can do that?
Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?:
I won't even answer that. (No)
Orange Juice or apple?:
OJ.
Who were the last people you sat at lunch with?:
My dad, Tita Nikki and my half-brothers.
favorite chocolate bar?:
Meiji BLACK
Who is your longest friend and how long?:
...friends can be measured according to length?
Last time you ate a homegrown tomato?:
Never
Have you ever won a trophy?:
Yep
Favorite arcade game?:
Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram
Ever ordered from an infomercial?:
No
Sprite or 7-UP?:
Sprite
Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school/work?:
Yes
Last thing you bought at Walgreens?:
I don't buy from Walgreens o_O
Ever thrown up in public?:
Yes
Would you prefer being a millionaire or finding true love?:
Finding true love.
Do you believe in love at first sight?:
No.
SPONGEBOB OR JIMMY NEUTRON?:
I don't really like Jimmy Neutron, but I detest Spongebob.
Did you have long hair as a young kid?:
Nope. I had long hair as an adult, though.
What message is on your voicemail machine?:
I don't have a voicemail machine.
Where would you like to go right now?:
Home, but normally I would answer Israel.
Whats the name of your pet?:
I don't own any pets, sadly.
What kind of back pack do you have, and what's in it?:
A Kelty hiking backpack with a space for an internal water bottle, but somehow the bottle wasn't in the package when I received it. It's full of books I bought in the US, my Magic decks, and my passport.
What do you think about most?:
A certain incredible woman.
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2904AD20061743
ー黒獅子アスラン
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
How proud would the buildings of Rome look without a single stone?
Current System Configuration: Coughing up blood. For some reason I cough up blood in the morning. Just a little, but it's alarming enough---but I stop after a while. Weird.
BGM: The Glory of Rome from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. I still can't get over Avantasia. This song is sung by the bailiff Falk von Kronberg, bishop Johann Adam von Bicken, Brother Jakob, and Pope Clement VIII. Cool stuff. An excerpt:
Breakfast: English muffins with scrambled eggs and bacon.
Lunch: Spaghetti with tomato sauce.
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+Guildpact (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
I went again to Manhattan yesterday with my brother. (The last time I'll be spending the whole day with him) I managed to buy two new books at Barnes and Noble:
-A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which is a well-written natural history book. It talks about the Big Bang and comets and other stuff without being overly scientific. I haven't really gotten into reading it, but it's pretty good from what I've seen.
-Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. A hilarious book about punctuation. Yes, punctuation. Ever heard that panda joke?
A panda walks into a restaurant holding a dictionary. It motions for a menu as it sits down and with a few growls points out the items it wants to order. After eating, it stands up, pulls out a pair of Uzis and sprays the restaurant's clientele with bullets, killing most of them. The panda then begins to walk out the door, but not before the restaurant manager accosts it.
"Why'd you do that?" asks the manager. The panda opens its dictionary and points at the following entry:
Panda. Large animal. Eats shoots and leaves.
Of course, the entry should read "Eats, shoots and leaves" if one is to follow the panda's definition. In any case, the book is a fun read for English teachers. I'll definitely be using some excerpts in my lessons next year. There is, after all, a huge difference between the following lines:
BGM: The Glory of Rome from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. I still can't get over Avantasia. This song is sung by the bailiff Falk von Kronberg, bishop Johann Adam von Bicken, Brother Jakob, and Pope Clement VIII. Cool stuff. An excerpt:
Heading for the angels, heading for the feast,
heading for salvation and the ruin of the beast.
Let us fight the outcast, let us brin 'em fire,
let us lock the center of their wicked, mad desire.
heading for salvation and the ruin of the beast.
Let us fight the outcast, let us brin 'em fire,
let us lock the center of their wicked, mad desire.
Breakfast: English muffins with scrambled eggs and bacon.
Lunch: Spaghetti with tomato sauce.
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+Guildpact (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
I went again to Manhattan yesterday with my brother. (The last time I'll be spending the whole day with him) I managed to buy two new books at Barnes and Noble:
-A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which is a well-written natural history book. It talks about the Big Bang and comets and other stuff without being overly scientific. I haven't really gotten into reading it, but it's pretty good from what I've seen.
-Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. A hilarious book about punctuation. Yes, punctuation. Ever heard that panda joke?
A panda walks into a restaurant holding a dictionary. It motions for a menu as it sits down and with a few growls points out the items it wants to order. After eating, it stands up, pulls out a pair of Uzis and sprays the restaurant's clientele with bullets, killing most of them. The panda then begins to walk out the door, but not before the restaurant manager accosts it.
"Why'd you do that?" asks the manager. The panda opens its dictionary and points at the following entry:
Panda. Large animal. Eats shoots and leaves.
Of course, the entry should read "Eats, shoots and leaves" if one is to follow the panda's definition. In any case, the book is a fun read for English teachers. I'll definitely be using some excerpts in my lessons next year. There is, after all, a huge difference between the following lines:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Interesting, is it not? I haven't read through the book yet, but I'll get to that. Right now I'm reading Guildpact, the second book in the Ravnica cycle of Magic: The Gathering. This novel looks deeper into the dealings of the sinister Orzhov Syndicate. Although Agrus Kos is still around, the book focuses more on Teysa Karlov, the Syndicate's most gifted advokist (lawmage). Haven't gotten that far yet, though.
I'm leaving the US for Singapore on Thursday. I have to stay in Singapore for a day because the trip back is really tiring (almost 24 hours) and once I get back to the Philippines I'll have to take a bus from Clark (The airline I'm taking only lands at Clark airfield in Pampanga) all the way back to Manila. That's just exhausting. I'm gonna miss my brother, but thankfully it won't be very long before he goes back to Manila. I guess it's back to the heat and sweat of the Philippines. Good thing I still have yet to touch my summer pay. I've saved an entire month's worth of salary just by not being at home. Awesome.
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2504AD20061339
ー黒獅子アスラン
I'm leaving the US for Singapore on Thursday. I have to stay in Singapore for a day because the trip back is really tiring (almost 24 hours) and once I get back to the Philippines I'll have to take a bus from Clark (The airline I'm taking only lands at Clark airfield in Pampanga) all the way back to Manila. That's just exhausting. I'm gonna miss my brother, but thankfully it won't be very long before he goes back to Manila. I guess it's back to the heat and sweat of the Philippines. Good thing I still have yet to touch my summer pay. I've saved an entire month's worth of salary just by not being at home. Awesome.
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2504AD20061339
ー黒獅子アスラン
Thursday, April 20, 2006
The City of Guilds [spoilers]
Current System Configuration: Recuperating
BGM: The Tower from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. The second-longest song in Avantasia, The Tower lasts around 9 minutes and is almost as grand as The Seven Angels due to its complex structure of refrains, recited lines and guitar solos. The chorus is an impassioned plea from Lugaid Vandroiy, Gabriel's mentor, encouraging Gabriel to "Go all the way to the Tower" and find out the true nature of its sinister lord. The "intermission" of the song is a recited dialogue between Pope Clement VIII and the Voice of the Tower, who always sounds creepy.
Breakfast: Haven't eaten yet.
Lunch: --
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
My cold's finally clearing up, I just hope it doesn't recur later when I go out with my aunt. I don't really like staying home all day if I can help it.
Anyway, I've already finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds. The story is, in a nutshell, an intricate dance of a power struggle between the ten guilds (although only four really do much in this particular novel: The Boros Legion, the Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya Conclave, and House Dimir) as the decamillennial celebration of the Guildpact draws closer.
The Guildpact is a magical treaty, signed by many of the founders of the guilds, that seeks to give them an equal share of control and lordship of the massive ecumenopolis that is Ravnica.
Ravnica itself is pretty mind-boggling: imagine Coruscant from Star Wars and turn all of those hi-tech spires and domes into Gothic spires and domes. While the city covers the entire surface of the planet, the urban center of the city is situated in the City of Ravnica proper. The City of Ravnica is an immense, circular area that consists of a millions of arches, towers, floating reservoirs, sewers and other forms of infrastructure. This is reflected in the game: Magic draws resources from five basic "lands"---White mana from Plains, Blue mana from Islands, Black mana from Swamps, Red mana from Mountains, and Green mana from Forests. In the Ravnica block, however, Plains are depicted as the plane's tallest towers, with white mana being drawn from sunlight instead. Islands are depcited as the city's vast waterworks and floating reservoirs. Ravnica's swamps are not fetid marshes but its cavernous insides---Old Ravnica, layers upon layers of forgotten structures upon which the current city was built. The mountains are huge, smoke-belching furnaces, while the forests are groves and forests grafted into the numerous spires of the city.
Ravnica is not a magical and pristine place---it's polluted, seedy and dank. Many thousands of races populate the ecumenopolis: humans, goblins, ogres, dryads, viashino (lizardmen), angels, demons, elves (Silhana and Devkarin), centaurs, minotaurs, and many, many others.
The city was actually designed by the Izzet league: a group of mad scientists, architects, wizards and demolition squads all rolled into one. The dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet actually designed the city in the shape of a vast power sigil that would give him control over the entire plane, but the goblins in his entourage messed it up (unintentionally or deliberately, the jury's still out on this one) and instead the city ended up as it is now.
Spoilers below, so if you don't like spoilers and plan to read the novel, skip the black-colored area below. Otherwise, highlight to read.
The climax was pretty exciting, with the rogue Golgari Swarm (Ravnica's resident necromancer guild, although strangely enough, they also supply the city with meat. Creepy, huh?) attacking the Boros Legion's Centerfort. As I mentioned in the previous entry, the Boros Legion is both military and police force to the City of Guilds, but the Centerfort is primarily a Wojek (Police) base. With the Gorgon Ludmilla at the head of the Golgari army, the poor 'jeks were no match for the undead swarm and their petrifying mistress. (Ludmilla is one of the Sisters of Stone Death, but her younger ssssystersss [sic] Lydya and Lexya had already been messily squashed by the ancient necromancer Svogthir, the Golgari swarm's parun (Guildpact signatory) whom the Ssssysterssss had imprisoned in the depths of their underground stronghold.) In a treacherous move, the Devkarin elf Savra, Matka (High Priestess) of the Golgari swarm, released Svogthir and reconstructed his rotted body in the form of an immense necroelemental. Svogthir easily smashed the younger sisters, but the wiser Ludmilla capitulated to Svogthir and Savra. The Matka then turned on Svogthir, using the body she made for him against him, and absorbed his several millennia worth of necromantic power. Savra, however, had more in mind than the leadership of the Swarm.
Savra conspired to have a member of the Selesnyan Chorus of the Conclave, a gentle loxodon (humanoid elephant) named Bayul, assassinated. Bayul was one of the few members of the Conclave who regularly left Vitu-Ghazi, the immense tree at the center of the city which the Selesnya Conclave held court. Because of this gap, the Chorus would seek a replacement---Savra. Despite being a death-worshipping Devkarin elf (as opposed to a life-worshipping Silhana), she was still an elf, and thus attuned to nature. Being fond of unity, it was very characteristic for the Selesnya to accept anyone, no matter the race, into the fold of the Conclave. Savra, of course, did this for the sake of power. She took control of the Selesnyan spy force (of course they won't call it that), the quietmen. (Quietmen are creepy humanoid creatures shrouded completely in white linen, their faces, hands and feet are all covered by cloth. They can fly, have psychic abilities, and can fly very well.) Savra replaced the quietmen with undead and
corrupted Vitu-Ghazi's living tissue, causing the entire Chorus to die out while she absorbed its power.
Savra wasn't smart enough to do this on her own. She was smart, but this needed the help of a dark and sinister master---the psionic vampire lord Szadek, who many Ravnicans thought was a myth. He appeared at Savra's coronation ceremony, and in classic villainous fashion, snapped her neck. Szadek then drew the unity elemental Mat'selesnya, the Selesnyan parun, out of the tree of Vitu Ghazi and tried to kill her in an attempt to void the Guildpact and take control of the plane for himself.
Okay, enough spoilers. But anyway, the book was pretty interesting, although the large amount of intrigue was pretty labyrinthine and difficult to crawl through. Of course, I'm sure my readers are certainly capable of that.
Also, another personality test taken from Katja's blog. (Ravnica left me with a rather Slavic taste for names right now)
Pretty accurate, my mom wholeheartedly agrees that I'm melancholic. My brother is phlegmatic (he's passive, but a good companion), while grandma is sanguine (generally jolly, makes friends with everyone).
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2004AD20060831
ー黒獅子アスラン
BGM: The Tower from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. The second-longest song in Avantasia, The Tower lasts around 9 minutes and is almost as grand as The Seven Angels due to its complex structure of refrains, recited lines and guitar solos. The chorus is an impassioned plea from Lugaid Vandroiy, Gabriel's mentor, encouraging Gabriel to "Go all the way to the Tower" and find out the true nature of its sinister lord. The "intermission" of the song is a recited dialogue between Pope Clement VIII and the Voice of the Tower, who always sounds creepy.
Breakfast: Haven't eaten yet.
Lunch: --
Dinner: --
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
My cold's finally clearing up, I just hope it doesn't recur later when I go out with my aunt. I don't really like staying home all day if I can help it.
Anyway, I've already finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds. The story is, in a nutshell, an intricate dance of a power struggle between the ten guilds (although only four really do much in this particular novel: The Boros Legion, the Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya Conclave, and House Dimir) as the decamillennial celebration of the Guildpact draws closer.
The Guildpact is a magical treaty, signed by many of the founders of the guilds, that seeks to give them an equal share of control and lordship of the massive ecumenopolis that is Ravnica.
Ravnica itself is pretty mind-boggling: imagine Coruscant from Star Wars and turn all of those hi-tech spires and domes into Gothic spires and domes. While the city covers the entire surface of the planet, the urban center of the city is situated in the City of Ravnica proper. The City of Ravnica is an immense, circular area that consists of a millions of arches, towers, floating reservoirs, sewers and other forms of infrastructure. This is reflected in the game: Magic draws resources from five basic "lands"---White mana from Plains, Blue mana from Islands, Black mana from Swamps, Red mana from Mountains, and Green mana from Forests. In the Ravnica block, however, Plains are depicted as the plane's tallest towers, with white mana being drawn from sunlight instead. Islands are depcited as the city's vast waterworks and floating reservoirs. Ravnica's swamps are not fetid marshes but its cavernous insides---Old Ravnica, layers upon layers of forgotten structures upon which the current city was built. The mountains are huge, smoke-belching furnaces, while the forests are groves and forests grafted into the numerous spires of the city.
Ravnica is not a magical and pristine place---it's polluted, seedy and dank. Many thousands of races populate the ecumenopolis: humans, goblins, ogres, dryads, viashino (lizardmen), angels, demons, elves (Silhana and Devkarin), centaurs, minotaurs, and many, many others.
The city was actually designed by the Izzet league: a group of mad scientists, architects, wizards and demolition squads all rolled into one. The dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet actually designed the city in the shape of a vast power sigil that would give him control over the entire plane, but the goblins in his entourage messed it up (unintentionally or deliberately, the jury's still out on this one) and instead the city ended up as it is now.
Spoilers below, so if you don't like spoilers and plan to read the novel, skip the black-colored area below. Otherwise, highlight to read.
The climax was pretty exciting, with the rogue Golgari Swarm (Ravnica's resident necromancer guild, although strangely enough, they also supply the city with meat. Creepy, huh?) attacking the Boros Legion's Centerfort. As I mentioned in the previous entry, the Boros Legion is both military and police force to the City of Guilds, but the Centerfort is primarily a Wojek (Police) base. With the Gorgon Ludmilla at the head of the Golgari army, the poor 'jeks were no match for the undead swarm and their petrifying mistress. (Ludmilla is one of the Sisters of Stone Death, but her younger ssssystersss [sic] Lydya and Lexya had already been messily squashed by the ancient necromancer Svogthir, the Golgari swarm's parun (Guildpact signatory) whom the Ssssysterssss had imprisoned in the depths of their underground stronghold.) In a treacherous move, the Devkarin elf Savra, Matka (High Priestess) of the Golgari swarm, released Svogthir and reconstructed his rotted body in the form of an immense necroelemental. Svogthir easily smashed the younger sisters, but the wiser Ludmilla capitulated to Svogthir and Savra. The Matka then turned on Svogthir, using the body she made for him against him, and absorbed his several millennia worth of necromantic power. Savra, however, had more in mind than the leadership of the Swarm.
Savra conspired to have a member of the Selesnyan Chorus of the Conclave, a gentle loxodon (humanoid elephant) named Bayul, assassinated. Bayul was one of the few members of the Conclave who regularly left Vitu-Ghazi, the immense tree at the center of the city which the Selesnya Conclave held court. Because of this gap, the Chorus would seek a replacement---Savra. Despite being a death-worshipping Devkarin elf (as opposed to a life-worshipping Silhana), she was still an elf, and thus attuned to nature. Being fond of unity, it was very characteristic for the Selesnya to accept anyone, no matter the race, into the fold of the Conclave. Savra, of course, did this for the sake of power. She took control of the Selesnyan spy force (of course they won't call it that), the quietmen. (Quietmen are creepy humanoid creatures shrouded completely in white linen, their faces, hands and feet are all covered by cloth. They can fly, have psychic abilities, and can fly very well.) Savra replaced the quietmen with undead and
corrupted Vitu-Ghazi's living tissue, causing the entire Chorus to die out while she absorbed its power.
Savra wasn't smart enough to do this on her own. She was smart, but this needed the help of a dark and sinister master---the psionic vampire lord Szadek, who many Ravnicans thought was a myth. He appeared at Savra's coronation ceremony, and in classic villainous fashion, snapped her neck. Szadek then drew the unity elemental Mat'selesnya, the Selesnyan parun, out of the tree of Vitu Ghazi and tried to kill her in an attempt to void the Guildpact and take control of the plane for himself.
Okay, enough spoilers. But anyway, the book was pretty interesting, although the large amount of intrigue was pretty labyrinthine and difficult to crawl through. Of course, I'm sure my readers are certainly capable of that.
Also, another personality test taken from Katja's blog. (Ravnica left me with a rather Slavic taste for names right now)
| You Have a Melancholic Temperament |
 Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything. You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life. You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you. Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace. You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life. Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times. At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you. You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others. You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult. |
Pretty accurate, my mom wholeheartedly agrees that I'm melancholic. My brother is phlegmatic (he's passive, but a good companion), while grandma is sanguine (generally jolly, makes friends with everyone).
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#2004AD20060831
ー黒獅子アスラン
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Get ready for a long one.
Current System Configuration: Congested
BGM: The Sign of the Cross from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. Not as epic and grand as The Seven Angels, but it also has a catchy chorus and a great melody---not to mention an awesome guitar solo. Most of Avantasia's guitar solos are done by Henjo Richter, and all of them are excellent. European symphonic power metal has really grown on me, since they're very different from the death and black metal that's usually associated with the metal musical genre. (Death metal has all that ogrish growling that I find reprehensible. Power metal has none of that--the melodies are soaring and pure if not rapid and exciting.)
Breakfast: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Lunch: Lamb on pita gyro (Again! Yum!)
Dinner: Salmon fillet and salad
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+Ravnica: The City of Guilds (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium, though it's a relatively slow read)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
Last week I felt cold. Now I HAVE a cold. Awful. -_- This cold doesn't seem to be the viral kind, but the allergic kind triggered by the Spring season's massive discharges of pollen. The weather's great, but it's hard to enjoy with all the pollen and my perpetually congested upper respiratory tract. Yesterday I was so sick that my body spontaneously generated a fever, but this morning I felt well enough to trek once more to Manhattan, this time with my uncle on the way to the office.
Okay, trekking with your uncle to the office doesn't sound great at all. Of course, your uncle doesn't have an office that's very close to all the neon glow of Times Square, all the awesome food on Sixth Avenue, or the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue. My uncle's office (he's a paralegal whose business consists mostly of providing legal assistance to immigrants into the US.)
We arrived at the NY Port Authority bus terminal (the hub of all bus traffic in and out of New York) at around 11:15. By that time, most of the stuff that's worth seeing in the Big Apple is already open. However, lacking money (well, not really) and company (my brother's back at school), and having been to most of the worthwhile attractions already when I was last here 9 years ago (I haven't been to the Empire State building or the Twin Towers, but of course the latter was blown up 5 years ago), I didn't plan on going around much. Since I didn't have a camera, there wasn't much use in taking pictures of the view from the Empire State Building. I didn't plan on staying long, so I just went to Barnes and Noble on Fifth.
If I'm not mistaken, this is either the largest or one of the largest book outlets in New York. I have the general impression that the Kinokuniya in Singapore's Ngee Ann City is bigger, but Barnes and Noble still has a lot of stuff that you won't find on the shelves at Powerbooks or Fully Booked.
Of course by now you know I'm a nerd who likes reading, though I don't read as much as I'd want to. So in Singapore I bought That Hideous Strength, the last book in C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy. (FYI the other books are Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.) The Cosmic Trilogy is early 20th-century science fiction, so it doesn't have hyperdrives or lightsabers or black hole bombs and the rest of the stuff we're familiar with. It represents what we knew at the turn of the century when we were just looking out toward the other members of the Solar System. It's also set in the late 30's to the mid 40's, so the sci-fi is relatively low key. Don't expect skyscraping utopias or post-apocalyptic deserts. However, like the rest of C.S. Lewis's work, it presents a coherent world view that the author holds to believe is true in real life. (As do I.) It's entertaining and insightful into both the human nature and the nature of the Universe and what's Beyond. It's basically a very entertaining theological lecture. However, the series is a lot more difficult than the same author's Chronicles of Narnia. For one, it wasn't written as a children's series. It's a lot more academic (the main characters in all three books are members of the academe), philosophical, and complicated. Of course, most of my readers are mature enough for that kind of reading. I highly recommend it for you guys. Ironically, I found this neither in Kinokuniya nor Barnes and Noble, but in Singapore's other premium bookstore, MPH. (At least, this particular edition of the book---I wanted my books to be of the same edition).
Ravnica: The City of Guilds and The Myths of Magic are explorations of the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. I'll get into those in a bit. Ok, you're about to foray deeper into my geekiness, so beware. (I proudly declare that while I may be a geek or a nerd, I'm not a gnerd. That's a different creature altogether.) Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game I've been playing since 1996. The gist of it is that it's a strategy game that simulates two or more powerful wizards, called planeswalkers, beating the snot out of each other. The players employ various creatures (Humans! Goblins! Lesser wizards! Dragons! Angels! And yeah, Demons---I personally don't play those, but I don't think playing the game makes me any less of a Christian than playing the black side of the chessboard does.) , powerful spells and artifacts to dispose of your opponent in various ways. Beating him or her to death with big monsters is perhaps the most straightforward, and so is incinerating or shocking him or her. There are other, more subtle ways such as driving him or her insane (this is represented by running him out of cards), or poisoning him or her to death. (This is actually a lame way to win)
....oookay. You're bored. Lemme get to the book reviews.
I haven't finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds yet, but the novel tells the story of Ravnica, a gothic ecumenopolis, the setting of the latest block of M:TG expansions. The inspiration behind Ravnica is very Eastern European, with characters named with Russian-, Polish-, or Hungarian-sounding names. The main character is Lieutenant Agrus Kos, a wojek (cop) who serves in the Boros Legion, Ravnica's enforcers of fiery justice. Ravnica is governed by 10 guilds:
-The Azorius Senate, Ravnica's official government---guys who devised the Guildpact. These guys love order above all else and are dedicated to its preservation---at the risk of stagnation. Their guildmaster is Grand Arbiter Agustin IV.
-The Boros Legion, Ravnica's law enforcement---cops, soldiers, and fiery angels of justice, the Boros Legion enforces the law without being Azorius lapdogs. These guys enforce the law as swiftly as they can. No pencil-pushers, they are. Guildmaster is the archangel Razia.
-The Orzhov Syndicate, Ravnica's most illustrious corporation/church/Mafia. Under the guise of a Church, the Orzhov are actually Ravnica's savviest businessmen, lawmages and crime lords. These guys use their money (and worship it) more than any god. Their creepiest ability is to go after you for a debt, even after you're dead. After all, their leaders, the Ghost Council of Orzhova, are all dead too.
-The Simic Combine, Ravnica's biomancers. Originally they were supposed to be ecologists tasked to preserve what little of Ravnica's natural scenery was left, but they failed. Now they want to create their own brand of nature, whatever that is, and allow it to evolve on its own. This means that they're into magical genetic engineering and all manner of gruesome experiments. The guildmaster is the brilliant Elvish biomancer, Momir Vig.
-The Izzet League, Ravnica's resident mad scientists. Mad as they are, these guys actually constructed Ravnica's current infrastructure---its arches, aqueducts, and whatnot. The Izzet like making a lot of whatnot, too. They invent all sorts of weird gizmos and spells with tongue-twisting names like Schismotivate, Mimeofacture, Vacuumelt, and so on. Brilliance and passion all rolled together in one. Their leader is the smartest (and vainest) being on Ravnica, the dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.
-The Selesnya Conclave, who are generally perceived to be Ravnica's most benevolent guild. These guys uphold life and unity above all else, and offer all souls peace in Ravnica's rather turbulent afterlife. They're not above violence, however---the Selesnya can conjure legions of plant-monsters to their aid. Guild-leader: an ancient council of dryads (and a few others) called The Chorus of the Conclave.
-The Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya's direct opposite. The Golgari are death-worshippers and love working with death and undeath. They like plants too, but not the sun-loving kind. Their plants are the strangling, choking, killing kind. They like playing with plagues too, which makes them similar in a way to the Simic. Their leaders are the Sisters of Stone Death, a trio of Gorgons, although their high priestess Savra is trying to kick the stoner sisters out.
-The Cult of Rakdos, among Ravnica's most unsavory residents. These guys are demon-worshippers, sadists and masochists. Led by Rakdos the Defiler, an ancient demon lord, the Rakdos are thrill-killers and mercenaries. (The Ravnican term is "killguilder"). However, they have their uses---the Rakdos are Ravnica's primary source of labor and muscle. They also dig up the earth and mine it for the use of all Ravnica.
-The Gruul Clans, Ravnica's least lawful citizens. These guys detest law and order, and love stirring up messes. However, they're highly fragmented, and the many clans that make up the Gruul are prone to fighting (and eating ) each other. They're primal and chaotic. There's no actual leader---the Gruul answer to whomever is powerful and feeds everyone. In this case, it's the giant cyclops, Borborygmos.
-House Dimir, the Guild that does not exist. Many Ravnicans consider House Dimir to be a fairy tale, a story told to kids to scare them into bed. That's what the Dimir want, of course. These are the sneakiest citizens of Ravnica, plotting to take over the entire plane by subterfuge and all manners secret and deadly. Their guildmaster is the psionic vampire, Szadek, the Lord of Secrets.
The skinny on the story is that the Guildpact, the magical treaty between the guilds that keeps them in relative peace, is about to celebrate its 10,000th anniversary. However, something is brewing, and Agrus Kos is about to find out the hard way. So far I've found the book to be a challenge to read because of its numerous characters, but it interests me because Ravnica is, in my opinion, one of, if not the best M:TG blocks Wizards of the Coast has ever designed. It's interesting how they make so many opposing ideologies work together, just to have the whole thing unravel like so much thread.
The last book, The Myths of Magic, is an anthology of short stories based on the various stories set in the vast multiverse of Magic. Each "plane" of the multiverse is another dimension, each very different from the other. There's the "central" plane, Dominaria, which is about as diverse as our planet is. (Most of Magic's story takes place on Dominaria) There's the Japanese-themed Kamigawa, a world which fights its own gods. Then there's Mirrodin, a world made of metal, inhabited by diverse races that all have metal grafted into them. (Metal dreadlocks on lion-people, for example). I've already covered Ravnica, a world whose surface is one whole city. Then there's the sinister Phyrexia, a world full of twisted arcane biomechanical creatures, a hell governed by the self-proclaimed god Yawgmoth, who is perhaps the most powerful (and most evil) planeswalker in all of Magic. Myths of Magic has a lot of stories. The only one I've read so far is about an Argivian scholar from Dominaria ending up in the service of Phyrexia. It's pretty gruesome---they describe in detail the grisly operations used to "compleat" him as a full-fledged Phyrexian. This means replacing all of one's internal organs with...not very cool stuff.
....I've spoken enough. D: I hope I didn't bore you.
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#1804AD20062108
ー黒獅子アスラン
BGM: The Sign of the Cross from Avantasia: The Metal Opera by Tobias Samett. Not as epic and grand as The Seven Angels, but it also has a catchy chorus and a great melody---not to mention an awesome guitar solo. Most of Avantasia's guitar solos are done by Henjo Richter, and all of them are excellent. European symphonic power metal has really grown on me, since they're very different from the death and black metal that's usually associated with the metal musical genre. (Death metal has all that ogrish growling that I find reprehensible. Power metal has none of that--the melodies are soaring and pure if not rapid and exciting.)
Breakfast: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Lunch: Lamb on pita gyro (Again! Yum!)
Dinner: Salmon fillet and salad
Current Read/s:
+That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Difficulty: Hard)
+Ravnica: The City of Guilds (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium, though it's a relatively slow read)
+The Myths of Magic (Magic: The Gathering) (Difficulty: Medium)
Last week I felt cold. Now I HAVE a cold. Awful. -_- This cold doesn't seem to be the viral kind, but the allergic kind triggered by the Spring season's massive discharges of pollen. The weather's great, but it's hard to enjoy with all the pollen and my perpetually congested upper respiratory tract. Yesterday I was so sick that my body spontaneously generated a fever, but this morning I felt well enough to trek once more to Manhattan, this time with my uncle on the way to the office.
Okay, trekking with your uncle to the office doesn't sound great at all. Of course, your uncle doesn't have an office that's very close to all the neon glow of Times Square, all the awesome food on Sixth Avenue, or the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue. My uncle's office (he's a paralegal whose business consists mostly of providing legal assistance to immigrants into the US.)
We arrived at the NY Port Authority bus terminal (the hub of all bus traffic in and out of New York) at around 11:15. By that time, most of the stuff that's worth seeing in the Big Apple is already open. However, lacking money (well, not really) and company (my brother's back at school), and having been to most of the worthwhile attractions already when I was last here 9 years ago (I haven't been to the Empire State building or the Twin Towers, but of course the latter was blown up 5 years ago), I didn't plan on going around much. Since I didn't have a camera, there wasn't much use in taking pictures of the view from the Empire State Building. I didn't plan on staying long, so I just went to Barnes and Noble on Fifth.
If I'm not mistaken, this is either the largest or one of the largest book outlets in New York. I have the general impression that the Kinokuniya in Singapore's Ngee Ann City is bigger, but Barnes and Noble still has a lot of stuff that you won't find on the shelves at Powerbooks or Fully Booked.
Of course by now you know I'm a nerd who likes reading, though I don't read as much as I'd want to. So in Singapore I bought That Hideous Strength, the last book in C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy. (FYI the other books are Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.) The Cosmic Trilogy is early 20th-century science fiction, so it doesn't have hyperdrives or lightsabers or black hole bombs and the rest of the stuff we're familiar with. It represents what we knew at the turn of the century when we were just looking out toward the other members of the Solar System. It's also set in the late 30's to the mid 40's, so the sci-fi is relatively low key. Don't expect skyscraping utopias or post-apocalyptic deserts. However, like the rest of C.S. Lewis's work, it presents a coherent world view that the author holds to believe is true in real life. (As do I.) It's entertaining and insightful into both the human nature and the nature of the Universe and what's Beyond. It's basically a very entertaining theological lecture. However, the series is a lot more difficult than the same author's Chronicles of Narnia. For one, it wasn't written as a children's series. It's a lot more academic (the main characters in all three books are members of the academe), philosophical, and complicated. Of course, most of my readers are mature enough for that kind of reading. I highly recommend it for you guys. Ironically, I found this neither in Kinokuniya nor Barnes and Noble, but in Singapore's other premium bookstore, MPH. (At least, this particular edition of the book---I wanted my books to be of the same edition).
Ravnica: The City of Guilds and The Myths of Magic are explorations of the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. I'll get into those in a bit. Ok, you're about to foray deeper into my geekiness, so beware. (I proudly declare that while I may be a geek or a nerd, I'm not a gnerd. That's a different creature altogether.) Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game I've been playing since 1996. The gist of it is that it's a strategy game that simulates two or more powerful wizards, called planeswalkers, beating the snot out of each other. The players employ various creatures (Humans! Goblins! Lesser wizards! Dragons! Angels! And yeah, Demons---I personally don't play those, but I don't think playing the game makes me any less of a Christian than playing the black side of the chessboard does.) , powerful spells and artifacts to dispose of your opponent in various ways. Beating him or her to death with big monsters is perhaps the most straightforward, and so is incinerating or shocking him or her. There are other, more subtle ways such as driving him or her insane (this is represented by running him out of cards), or poisoning him or her to death. (This is actually a lame way to win)
....oookay. You're bored. Lemme get to the book reviews.
I haven't finished Ravnica: The City of Guilds yet, but the novel tells the story of Ravnica, a gothic ecumenopolis, the setting of the latest block of M:TG expansions. The inspiration behind Ravnica is very Eastern European, with characters named with Russian-, Polish-, or Hungarian-sounding names. The main character is Lieutenant Agrus Kos, a wojek (cop) who serves in the Boros Legion, Ravnica's enforcers of fiery justice. Ravnica is governed by 10 guilds:
-The Azorius Senate, Ravnica's official government---guys who devised the Guildpact. These guys love order above all else and are dedicated to its preservation---at the risk of stagnation. Their guildmaster is Grand Arbiter Agustin IV.
-The Boros Legion, Ravnica's law enforcement---cops, soldiers, and fiery angels of justice, the Boros Legion enforces the law without being Azorius lapdogs. These guys enforce the law as swiftly as they can. No pencil-pushers, they are. Guildmaster is the archangel Razia.
-The Orzhov Syndicate, Ravnica's most illustrious corporation/church/Mafia. Under the guise of a Church, the Orzhov are actually Ravnica's savviest businessmen, lawmages and crime lords. These guys use their money (and worship it) more than any god. Their creepiest ability is to go after you for a debt, even after you're dead. After all, their leaders, the Ghost Council of Orzhova, are all dead too.
-The Simic Combine, Ravnica's biomancers. Originally they were supposed to be ecologists tasked to preserve what little of Ravnica's natural scenery was left, but they failed. Now they want to create their own brand of nature, whatever that is, and allow it to evolve on its own. This means that they're into magical genetic engineering and all manner of gruesome experiments. The guildmaster is the brilliant Elvish biomancer, Momir Vig.
-The Izzet League, Ravnica's resident mad scientists. Mad as they are, these guys actually constructed Ravnica's current infrastructure---its arches, aqueducts, and whatnot. The Izzet like making a lot of whatnot, too. They invent all sorts of weird gizmos and spells with tongue-twisting names like Schismotivate, Mimeofacture, Vacuumelt, and so on. Brilliance and passion all rolled together in one. Their leader is the smartest (and vainest) being on Ravnica, the dragon-mage Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.
-The Selesnya Conclave, who are generally perceived to be Ravnica's most benevolent guild. These guys uphold life and unity above all else, and offer all souls peace in Ravnica's rather turbulent afterlife. They're not above violence, however---the Selesnya can conjure legions of plant-monsters to their aid. Guild-leader: an ancient council of dryads (and a few others) called The Chorus of the Conclave.
-The Golgari Swarm, the Selesnya's direct opposite. The Golgari are death-worshippers and love working with death and undeath. They like plants too, but not the sun-loving kind. Their plants are the strangling, choking, killing kind. They like playing with plagues too, which makes them similar in a way to the Simic. Their leaders are the Sisters of Stone Death, a trio of Gorgons, although their high priestess Savra is trying to kick the stoner sisters out.
-The Cult of Rakdos, among Ravnica's most unsavory residents. These guys are demon-worshippers, sadists and masochists. Led by Rakdos the Defiler, an ancient demon lord, the Rakdos are thrill-killers and mercenaries. (The Ravnican term is "killguilder"). However, they have their uses---the Rakdos are Ravnica's primary source of labor and muscle. They also dig up the earth and mine it for the use of all Ravnica.
-The Gruul Clans, Ravnica's least lawful citizens. These guys detest law and order, and love stirring up messes. However, they're highly fragmented, and the many clans that make up the Gruul are prone to fighting (and eating ) each other. They're primal and chaotic. There's no actual leader---the Gruul answer to whomever is powerful and feeds everyone. In this case, it's the giant cyclops, Borborygmos.
-House Dimir, the Guild that does not exist. Many Ravnicans consider House Dimir to be a fairy tale, a story told to kids to scare them into bed. That's what the Dimir want, of course. These are the sneakiest citizens of Ravnica, plotting to take over the entire plane by subterfuge and all manners secret and deadly. Their guildmaster is the psionic vampire, Szadek, the Lord of Secrets.
The skinny on the story is that the Guildpact, the magical treaty between the guilds that keeps them in relative peace, is about to celebrate its 10,000th anniversary. However, something is brewing, and Agrus Kos is about to find out the hard way. So far I've found the book to be a challenge to read because of its numerous characters, but it interests me because Ravnica is, in my opinion, one of, if not the best M:TG blocks Wizards of the Coast has ever designed. It's interesting how they make so many opposing ideologies work together, just to have the whole thing unravel like so much thread.
The last book, The Myths of Magic, is an anthology of short stories based on the various stories set in the vast multiverse of Magic. Each "plane" of the multiverse is another dimension, each very different from the other. There's the "central" plane, Dominaria, which is about as diverse as our planet is. (Most of Magic's story takes place on Dominaria) There's the Japanese-themed Kamigawa, a world which fights its own gods. Then there's Mirrodin, a world made of metal, inhabited by diverse races that all have metal grafted into them. (Metal dreadlocks on lion-people, for example). I've already covered Ravnica, a world whose surface is one whole city. Then there's the sinister Phyrexia, a world full of twisted arcane biomechanical creatures, a hell governed by the self-proclaimed god Yawgmoth, who is perhaps the most powerful (and most evil) planeswalker in all of Magic. Myths of Magic has a lot of stories. The only one I've read so far is about an Argivian scholar from Dominaria ending up in the service of Phyrexia. It's pretty gruesome---they describe in detail the grisly operations used to "compleat" him as a full-fledged Phyrexian. This means replacing all of one's internal organs with...not very cool stuff.
....I've spoken enough. D: I hope I didn't bore you.
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#1804AD20062108
ー黒獅子アスラン
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Across the Heavens
Current System Configuration: Rather cold
BGM: The Seven Angels by Avantasia. From Avantasia: The Metal Opera. An epic, 14-minute long song that's so complex it could be called a symphony.
Breakfast: Grilled cheese and turkey sandwich
Lunch: Frozen pizza
Dinner: Macaroni and Cheese
(First of all, disregard the date. I'm in the US right now so I'm 12 hours behind my usual readers in the Philippines. I'm sending a message to the future! Yeah!)
I'm in the US right now, and I have to say that my trip here was one of my most interesting trips yet. Let's take it step by step.
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Short, uneventful flight. This flight took only an hour. Nothing much happened except that we saw thunderstorms from a distance. Lightning bolts look awesome when viewed from the sky. I was wondering if I'd see sprite lightning and the like, but alas, the sky wasn't angry enough to produce those.The highlight of this trip was Singapore's Changi airport. I mean, any airport that offers free broadband internet has got to be awesome.
Kuala Lumpur to Stockholm, Sweden
This is where I found out that my plane doesn't go straight to New York---it was passing through Stockholm, Sweden! Kuala Lumpur's airport was pretty awesome. It was huge and bustling, and had the look of the interior of a cosmoship from Gunbuster. Really hi-tech. Like Hong Kong's airport, you have to take a high-speed train to get from one part of the airport to another.
The trip to Sweden was pretty cool. The sky was clear all the way, and the seas below were calm. You could see the clouds reflected in the water!
We flew over the deserts of Kazahkstan, and one could see the snow-capped mountains. Then we went through Russia, and endless fields of snow (or at least what looked like it) were visible.
The food was alright--- breakfast was chicken sausage and omelet with hash browns and lunch was this rather strange but tasty solid pasta (it was like macaroni except it wasn't hollow).
Sweden was breathtaking from the air. You could see the olive-brown and red-colored farmland, with patches of snow every now and then. Arlanda Airport in Sweden wasn't as grand as KLIA, but I have to say the ladies were as lovely as the scenery. Oh, and my female students might have enjoyed staring at the men. All of them are tall, slim and blond, with long hair. <_< style="font-style: italic;">Unfortunately for you girls, I didn't bring my camera. (My mom brought it to Israel).
Stockholm to Newark International Airport, New York, USA.
A rather uneventful and boring flight. I forgot to mention that we were flying westward from Singapore, so in effect we were running towards the sunset. Thus, for 24 whole hours, we could see the sun. I had to keep the window shade down, because the sun was blinding. It was reflecting off the ice sheets of Norway, Iceland and Greenland, filling the plane cabin with bright white light. What was awesome, though, is that I saw an actual volcano on Iceland from the air---cone, crater and all. Fantastic.
The food was good enough---a corned beef sandwich, followed by dinner: braised beef in olives and mashed potatoes.
The worst part of this trip was that the US Department of Homeland Security held me for about 15 minutes because they thought I was an illegal Mexican immigrant. My name is entirely Hispanic, and I was born in Quezon City. PLEASE. Ask any Mexican, and he'll tell you he's never heard of it. And what illegal immigrant, in his right mind, would book a flight all the way to Singapore, put up with all the strict airport security and take a flight through Malaysia and Sweden for 24 hours just to get into the US through a New York airport, where security is tightest when the US is right across the border from Mexico? What illegal immigrant even has that much money? Finally, dear readers, will you ever find a Mexican with a Philippine passport?
In the words of the Filipina American immigration officer who came to my rescue,
"Don't say a word, just don't say a word." (Regarding the other officer who accosted me)
***
Right now my brother and I are house-sitting for one of my uncles who went out of town to North Carolina. We haven't really done much, though yesterday we did go to Manhattan to have a walk around. We bought an entire box of Guildpact Magic cards, and we were pretty happy with the stuff we got. I bought an awesome journal from Barnes and Noble, as well as the novel that tells Guildpact's story. Oh yeah, apart from the bus rides to and from New York, all the travelling around Manhattan was done by foot. That's about all the exercise I've gotten. We bought lamb gyros (That's basically shawarma, except it had lamb, tomatoes, peppers, brocolli, lettuce and yohgurt sauce instead of the typical stuff that goes into Filipinized beef shawarma.) from a food cart (yes, they have street food in New York) and ate at a park. The lamb gyros were really good, and taste better than anything I'd have gotten if I bought food from McDonald's.
Right now we're hoping that someone picks us up for an overnight over Sunday so we can go to church for Easter. Right now we're just sitting around and eating. We have internet access, but it's pretty boring just sitting around. We've already finished watching all the anime I brought and my brother needs to modify his Magic decks (as I've been owning him a bit too much) We need company and fresh air. >_<>
A little personality test I found on Katie's blog: (But uh, the tests on this site seem to be geared toward a primarily female audience)
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#1406AD20062331
ー黒獅子アスラン
BGM: The Seven Angels by Avantasia. From Avantasia: The Metal Opera. An epic, 14-minute long song that's so complex it could be called a symphony.
Breakfast: Grilled cheese and turkey sandwich
Lunch: Frozen pizza
Dinner: Macaroni and Cheese
(First of all, disregard the date. I'm in the US right now so I'm 12 hours behind my usual readers in the Philippines. I'm sending a message to the future! Yeah!)
I'm in the US right now, and I have to say that my trip here was one of my most interesting trips yet. Let's take it step by step.
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Short, uneventful flight. This flight took only an hour. Nothing much happened except that we saw thunderstorms from a distance. Lightning bolts look awesome when viewed from the sky. I was wondering if I'd see sprite lightning and the like, but alas, the sky wasn't angry enough to produce those.The highlight of this trip was Singapore's Changi airport. I mean, any airport that offers free broadband internet has got to be awesome.
Kuala Lumpur to Stockholm, Sweden
This is where I found out that my plane doesn't go straight to New York---it was passing through Stockholm, Sweden! Kuala Lumpur's airport was pretty awesome. It was huge and bustling, and had the look of the interior of a cosmoship from Gunbuster. Really hi-tech. Like Hong Kong's airport, you have to take a high-speed train to get from one part of the airport to another.
The trip to Sweden was pretty cool. The sky was clear all the way, and the seas below were calm. You could see the clouds reflected in the water!
We flew over the deserts of Kazahkstan, and one could see the snow-capped mountains. Then we went through Russia, and endless fields of snow (or at least what looked like it) were visible.
The food was alright--- breakfast was chicken sausage and omelet with hash browns and lunch was this rather strange but tasty solid pasta (it was like macaroni except it wasn't hollow).
Sweden was breathtaking from the air. You could see the olive-brown and red-colored farmland, with patches of snow every now and then. Arlanda Airport in Sweden wasn't as grand as KLIA, but I have to say the ladies were as lovely as the scenery. Oh, and my female students might have enjoyed staring at the men. All of them are tall, slim and blond, with long hair. <_< style="font-style: italic;">Unfortunately for you girls, I didn't bring my camera. (My mom brought it to Israel).
Stockholm to Newark International Airport, New York, USA.
A rather uneventful and boring flight. I forgot to mention that we were flying westward from Singapore, so in effect we were running towards the sunset. Thus, for 24 whole hours, we could see the sun. I had to keep the window shade down, because the sun was blinding. It was reflecting off the ice sheets of Norway, Iceland and Greenland, filling the plane cabin with bright white light. What was awesome, though, is that I saw an actual volcano on Iceland from the air---cone, crater and all. Fantastic.
The food was good enough---a corned beef sandwich, followed by dinner: braised beef in olives and mashed potatoes.
The worst part of this trip was that the US Department of Homeland Security held me for about 15 minutes because they thought I was an illegal Mexican immigrant. My name is entirely Hispanic, and I was born in Quezon City. PLEASE. Ask any Mexican, and he'll tell you he's never heard of it. And what illegal immigrant, in his right mind, would book a flight all the way to Singapore, put up with all the strict airport security and take a flight through Malaysia and Sweden for 24 hours just to get into the US through a New York airport, where security is tightest when the US is right across the border from Mexico? What illegal immigrant even has that much money? Finally, dear readers, will you ever find a Mexican with a Philippine passport?
In the words of the Filipina American immigration officer who came to my rescue,
"Don't say a word, just don't say a word." (Regarding the other officer who accosted me)
***
Right now my brother and I are house-sitting for one of my uncles who went out of town to North Carolina. We haven't really done much, though yesterday we did go to Manhattan to have a walk around. We bought an entire box of Guildpact Magic cards, and we were pretty happy with the stuff we got. I bought an awesome journal from Barnes and Noble, as well as the novel that tells Guildpact's story. Oh yeah, apart from the bus rides to and from New York, all the travelling around Manhattan was done by foot. That's about all the exercise I've gotten. We bought lamb gyros (That's basically shawarma, except it had lamb, tomatoes, peppers, brocolli, lettuce and yohgurt sauce instead of the typical stuff that goes into Filipinized beef shawarma.) from a food cart (yes, they have street food in New York) and ate at a park. The lamb gyros were really good, and taste better than anything I'd have gotten if I bought food from McDonald's.
Right now we're hoping that someone picks us up for an overnight over Sunday so we can go to church for Easter. Right now we're just sitting around and eating. We have internet access, but it's pretty boring just sitting around. We've already finished watching all the anime I brought and my brother needs to modify his Magic decks (as I've been owning him a bit too much) We need company and fresh air. >_<>
A little personality test I found on Katie's blog: (But uh, the tests on this site seem to be geared toward a primarily female audience)
| You Are Fall! |
 Expressive Creative Poetic Smart |
~Be Just or Be Dead~
#1406AD20062331
ー黒獅子アスラン
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