Celebrate this Valentine's with the sound of music at the Rockwell Plaza! Party down to the electro-samba beat of Nykó Macá + PLAYgROUND at Block 9 starting at 7PM. Chill to the dynamic blend of neo-soul and acid jazz of multi-award-winning band Up Dharma Down at the Rockwell Plaza at 8PM.
If you’re in the mood to groove on Feb 14, there’s no other place to be but the Rockwell Plaza.
Good food, good tunes, good venue, good vibes.
PLUS:
What better way to win her heart this Valentine’s than with the gift of flowers and chocolate?
Available from Feb. 8-14 at the R1 Bridgeways, P1 Concourse, and the South Court of Power Plant Mall
The Mall's been closed for over two hours; the lights and the central AC have long been shut off. I had to hike up several flights of the escalator to get to the 2nd floor where L'oreal is setting up their display. It's woefully apparent that I am not in the best of shape, working the hours I do in the Basement Office of Doom (BOoD).
The panels were too big, and the setup far from complete. I see the organizers on the far end and go over to introduce myself. After patiently exerting my autho-ri-tay, they agree, just as patiently, to conform to Mall standards, and I nod, smile, and make my way back down to the BOoD.
A movie must have just ended, because I run into a small mob of folks at the down escalator. Mostly adults, cause the tweens and teens are probably past their Sunday curfew by now. I fall in behind a pleasant looking Indian couple, and though I know like, one word of Hindi, it was easy to deduce that they watched Casino Royale.
"Bond, James Bond," said the guy in a thickly-accented voice, and they both laugh and say something I don't understand, and then the woman says something that I do.
"Daniel Craig...< Hindi >...very hot....< Hindi >."
Now she could have been talking about the weather, but if she was describing the uber-manliness of the Brosnan's nittier, grittier successor...well...Namaste, James Bond, namaste!
As far as music is concerned, we try to be fair in the office. If the radio is on, it's usually tuned into some crappy, generic pop station, in which case, I have to listen to Paris Hilton or Jessica Simpson or Beyonce at least eleven times a day. Sometimes (miraculous times), the others get irritated by the poser DJ's and the repeat playlists as well, and we do a rotational thing with the iPods.
Right now, Crystie's Christmas playlist is on, and we laughed through a couple of mushy harmonies from boy-band 98 degrees, and then the really good, really nostalgic shit comes on.
Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, and I start feeling all choked up and emotional, the way I do about babies and kittens and lost causes.
Sleigh bells ring, and I think about traveling and the money I need to do so.
I know that I'd better not pout, and I'd better not cry, but I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, and I've never actually known one.
Saturday night, and you drag your sister to a gig at Rockwell. It's at the Info Center, where the rich go to spend their riches buying richly-furbished condos. The venue is strange, and wrong (closed, air-conditioned, carpeted...geez.), and when you go upstairs to where the stage is set up, you see booths, tables, and a pitiful handful of people wandering around fixing the chairs. The poster says gates open at 6.
It's 7.
You kill time by wandering around the Mall, quickly bored, because, after all, you're there every day already. You watch, amused, as your sister blows cash in 'most every store you walk into, and feel only slightly guilty when you shell out cash yourself, because one can never have too many belts.
It's almost 9 when you get a call from JM, and his band is up next, so you and your sis wander on back over to the venue, where the mythological roots of the band's name are being discussed, and you idly wonder if they're as good as your bro said, or whether his head was just turned by the low-cut, spiked-heel hawt-ness of the singer.
"You know, it's not fair," Mike says. "The drummer is really good, the guitarist is really good, and my brother, well, the bassist is really good, but people really come to watch cause she's a hot-chick vocalist."
"Mmm-hmm," you murmur noncommittally, cause Scylla rocks-purrs-growls as hard as you want 'em to, and you're totally a groupie, now.
...cause if you don't, grab your little brother/sister/cousin/the neighbor's kid and come to this:
Passports entitle the kids to a free lootbag and access to all the activities in the Rockwell Tent, including: face painting, glitter tattoos, caricatures AND A VELCRO WALL!
Passports on sale now!
PLUS: Come in a superhero costume and you can feel what it's like to FLY like Superman on the trampoline and SCALE the climbing wall like Spider-man!
After I jokingly christen Al's boobs Heidi and George, he tells me that I could never be Buddhist, as my penchant for naming inanimate objects indicates an attachment to worldly things.
Carla. Heidi. George. And yes, Ethel and Miranda.
Today I mourn the loss of Emengarde and Anonymous, the Japanese Koi who live(d) in our little pond-waterfall setup in front of the house. For good feng shui, I remember Mom telling me when I stared, perplexed, at the sudden addition of these oversized, shimmery, colorful fish to the goldfish already in the pond.
Milenyo claims two more victims in these, our good luck fish, as they died from lack of oxygen due to the pumps being down from the storm.
On the drive to work this morning, Al asked me if I'd had time to eat breakfast. (Such an innocent question, this.) I told him no, and he tells me we had tuna...
Wham - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (I know. Shut up.)
]
Some concerned citizens bemoan the fact of the Philippines being an avidly mall-going culture; that the decandent youth and yuppies are more concerned about the latest fashion trends and retail developments as opposed to politics, or economic change, or our cultural history. (Blah, blah, blah...)
...because today, I am most blatantly not one of them.
The mall. Is the shiznit. Is a haaaaaaven. My home away from home.
Yes, sir, I am in the office, again. It's a Saturday, and I'm not on Duty till tomorrow, but here I am, chillin' in front of my crappy, firewalled, blessedly WORKING computer, pad thai in front of me, because there is STILL no power at home. After waking up glued to my sheets only to find out that we can responsibly use only bout a half-a-bucket full of water for bathing...well...the Basement of Doom sounded awfully good all of a sudden.
The carnage of Milenyo was far from Katrina-level, but it was plenty harsh. Driving to work yesterday was grim and spectacular all at once. Mulchy leaves scattered on the roads. Branches ripped off trees, which were themselves bent almost double, if not uprooted completely. I counted no less than nine collapsed bilboards by South Super alone, a massively distorted tribute to modern art on the flyover to Edsa, and the mother of all billboard catastrophes - the one near my own (beloved) Rockwell, which was the one that fell on the three vehicles on Thursday, killing the one guy and injuring a dozen others. The road was still being cleared Friday morn - it took an hour and twenty minutes to get to work just from Edsa. Stuck inside the tunnel underpass for forty minutes, I tried not to get overwhelmed by the rising sense of claustrophobia as we inched along.
Traffic deterrent aside, the mall was packed all day and night. Course, it was a Friday, which brings in a healthy crowd anyway, but it was PACKED. No one in Makati had electricity, either, and they were compensating. Sales must have gone through the roof, especially for the F&B's and the cinema, which, despite the lame selections available right now, sold out tickets for most showings.
Like I said, haven.
The Fort, too, was full of people who don't want to go home to a dark and airconless house. The place itself looked freaky, each restaurant run by individual generators, I guess, because on the whole, Bonifacio was as dark as the rest of the metro. Jack's and Jill's had 80's music blasting from loudspeakers, and tables of placid smokers crowded the walkways.
I ran into Pao there, doing what we were doing; that is, delaying the inevitable. He was going to get smashed with his co-workers, crash at someone's place because their apartment building has a generator, and go hang at the office the next day.
Pretty near my plan, was, actually.
So friends and I stayed in Pier 1 till past 3, delaying the inevitable, and now here I am in the office the next day, as per the plan.
Mostly I'm just disappointed that I'm not as well stocked here as I could be. Where's my bag with the change of clothes and the face wash? Where's my stack of CD's and extra batteries for the Discman? Where is the junk food I'm supposed to have hidden in my second drawer?
Toothbrush and toothpaste, check. Contact solution. Check. Lipbalm, check. Tabasco and ground pepper...um...check.
The rains weren't too bad this morning. It was definitely cloudy, and there was some wind, but seeing as my supervisor wouldn't let us off the hook despite my having texted her that our ten o'clock was cancelling on account of it being Signal 3...well...couldn't even be annoyed about that, I guess. Downside of working in a mall is that you tell people classes are cancelled, and they flock to the nearest cinema or shopping center or arcade.
Except that our cinemas weren't operating. Something about the bike messenger with the movie reels being unable to get to Rockwell because of the storm. And several of the stores were late in opening and early in closing, or not opening at all. Because all of a sudden the winds started to get mad strong. And the rain started falling down so hard and so fast that you couldn't see more than a few meters in front of you. The kicker was when we heard that a glass door shattered in one part of the mall due to flying debris, and that the events tent outside, which can hold up to 700 people, literally collapsed in on itself. Of course, in our Basement Office of Doom, we can't see any of this, so when we went upstairs to assess the situation, we saw the gale-force winds I already described. Branches were flying outside, and whole trees were uprooted. We heard that poolside in the residential towers nearby, deck chairs ended up in the water, and that tiles and chunks of tiles were being wrenched off walls elsewhere. Estate guards were outside, bravely waving traffic down safer routes, but it wasn't until we saw one fella in a neon orange slicker and knee-high white rubber boots being blown around haplessly outside the barricaded glass doors that it really hit us.
There was talk of having to stay the night at the mall. We keep one cot here - my supervisor brought it for the many times we stay past midnight for an event setup. And the supermarket is right upstairs in case we wanted to buy supplies. There was plenty of joking about how we were going to buy pajamas (at Zara!) and fluffy slippers and t-shirts, but people really were concerned about not being able to get home. My own mother called and suggested I look into options, like possibly bunking down in a hotel in Makati, but that seemed a little drastic to me, and besides...how would I get to one? The trains had stopped running, SLEX is closed and billboards were falling on people in Edsa.
It's all kind of thrilling, but then again, I'm snug as a bug here in the mall, the generator taking care of what may be the biggest stay-at-home deterrent to me...the fact that most of Luzon is out of power. And candlelight is only warm and romantic if you know you have the option of switching on the lights after dinner is done.
Of course, I can't get any work done here in the office. Most of the folks I had to call today never went to work at all, or else were sent home by more concerned bosses (ahem). No, to be fair, the mall seems to be the only haven left in the metro, seeing as Greenbelt, Glorietta, Market!Market!, Galleria, Shangri-La and God knows how many other malls had shut down operations hours ago. Technically I should be working on collaterals for Halloween, but meh.
The boss just texted that we can go home if we want to. I'm not sure how long the mall is staying open for.
Home? With no lights and no fan and no TV to tide me through the night?
Well...Al has the car, anyway. And it's not like I'm going to venture out into the eye of the storm. So I guess I'll stick around for a little while. Buy some candles for later, maybe. And if I get tired, there's always the option to siesta.
Tonight, Pooh is treating us to Japanese, and I got eager texts from Tigger and Piglet both making sure I’m planning to show. Of course I will. It seems forever ago that we’d schedule to meet, if not every day, every other day, so that we can bemoan how we don’t see each other as often as we should. We’ve become Sunday People, Afternoon People, killing time over pizza and YouTube and bad comedy DVD’s.
Last weekend I was given some news that should have surprised me, but it didn’t, and it just seems so natural a progression that I couldn’t help but smile inwardly cause, yeah, I called it months ago, and I love being right.
The joke is that I too, should find myself a James, so as to continue with tradition, but I am (mostly) content in the lack thereof, and the casual hope of a Franco in the future is enough for me. Who knows? Maybe it won’t even take that long. Time’s moving so quickly I feel a little out of the loop. Weeks pass, and I feel them day by day, but then I blink, and it’s almost October, which means it’s almost November, and hell, I’m already starting on the Christmas event at work.
This morning I got to Rockwell at the ungodly hour of half-past six. I pulled out the cot in the office and took a nap stretched out by my desk, aircon set at the coldest temperature and Mandalay wailing in the background. The office ghost(s)’ occasional stirring didn’t disturb me, and I was able to grab about an hour of sleep before I finally got up to kill some more time capitalizing, labeling and editing the tunes on the office ITunes. At 9, the lights were switched on, the others started trickling in, and the workday started.
* * * * *
Check out these doofy cuties shake their groove thang:
(If anyone is closepersonalfriends with the hottie in the red pants, give him my number! (He) Mwah!
It’s inevitable. Every day, I hear it, at least once or twice every hour on the generically happy pop station the office is tuned in to. “We’re soaring…we’re flying…” the song goes, in all its nasal, pubescent glory.
High School Musical is Disney’s latest hit, and who knew that a formulaic TV movie about overly pretty boys and girls working past their oh-so-insurmountable differences would become as popular as it did? (O.C., anyone? One Tree Hill? 90210?) But wow, it’s chirpy, it’s uplifting, and aw, isn’t he cute with the shaggy hair?
Riiight.
If it sounds like I’m ranting about the movie, I’m not. Not feeling the movie, but I guess it’s fun enough if you’re 12, and save a minor perplexity at hearing preteens and 30-somethings alike sing that (damn) song (incorrectly) in places as random as hospital waiting rooms and LRT stations, I’ve no real problem with it (liar). And no, it’s not the cheese that bugs me either. Even with cheese as rank as:
“…Can you feel it building Like a wave the ocean just can’t control Connected by a feeling In our very souls…”
No, what makes me cringe every time I hear the (damn) song is the line that goes:
“You know the world can see us In a way that’s different than who we are…”
Because, people: DIFFERENT FROM. NOT DIFFERENT THAN.
I heard Heidi Klum say “different than” the other day on Project Runway and it was irritating made me sad. Not only is she losing the lilting accent she used to have, but she’s learning English wrong, yo!
It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm sitting alone in the office, killing time. I'm on Duty today, which pretty much means I walk around the Mall with a walkie-talkie and act all important - a very tedious and very pointless activity. I'm here all the time, all day, every day. Avid mall-goer or not, I'm getting sick of retail.
I know a lot of people are complaining about their jobs these days. Too hectic, too high stress, too hard. Whatever. We miss the bum life now simply because the grass is always greener (outside the office), and it wasn't that long ago that we were receiving crap from parents who got sick of seeing our lazy, jobless asses lounging about at home. There's only so much Playstation you can play anyway, and only so many DVD's you can watch before your brain melts down from lack of use. I get that.
This growing up thing, though...I'm not sure that I get it. Or even that I'm living it, necessarily. I live at home. I drive and pay for gas, but I'm dependent on my folks to take care of insurance and maintenance (but hell, I'm not complainging about THAT). I pay no bills, I juggle no finances except for my own, and that just involves trying not to max out my ATM account on shoes and bling and letting my Savings sit pretty till I absolutely have to tap into them. Which, as cost of living is skyrocketing, may not be that far off, considering MY cost of living. (Here's an ironic aside: my job actually requires that I maintain a certain level of je ne sais quoi, which, compounded by my innate vanity, equals a lot of expenditure. Hmph.) And speaking of the job thing? Please. My job is fluff. Time-consuming fluff that'll look good on a resume, but fluff nonetheless. I don't like it enough to want to pursue it, but I don't dislike it enough to want to go, you know, look at the proverbial grass.
My brother just got his first job, good for him. Financial journalist for BusinessWorld. Helluva thing, considering Al didn't take any finance classes in college. After six months training, his beat'll include the stock market, among other things, which is both impressive and mind-boggling to a layperson such as myself. (For the record, I took both Accounting and Finance classes in college, and even did pretty well in the latter. Unfortunately, while I can dredge up the exact details of, say...Angel and Cordy's relationship on Angel, it seems I have a short term memory for things actually useful in life.)
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