birthday girl

happy birthday to meee! i celebrate the same birthday as gwyneth paltrow, mira sorvino, janeane garofalo and hillary duff.

heard mass this morning at quiapo church with my mom, aunt and uncle. i took a lot of pictures around quiapo to upload in the future with my handy dandy digicam. after that, i dragged them towards arlegui st. for some pirated dvd shopping--something i've missed so much! haha. i felt so deprived of movies for the longest time...my only solace at home was watching reruns of spongebob squarepants on tv.

for P65 each (only a little over a dollar), here are my recent buys:
-shrek 1&2
-ju-on
-kill bill vol.2
-josh groban live in concert
-ella enchanted

i also discovered a stall selling a lot of korean movies, but mostly the romantic sort...and even a few akira kurosawa titles.

we also bought some native stuff at the souvenir stalls under the quiapo bridge. yup, we're going to be handcarrying a native christmas lantern in the plane. amazing, they have it in 110 volts as well, ready for export!

back at my aunt's home i cooked my own birthday treat for my family, spaghetti (i have established a small fanbase both here and abroad, haha). we went swimming afterwards at the clubhouse pool. as i expected, we were the only guests inside. we had the pool all to ourselves. after eating three platefuls of my own spaghetti, i felt and looked as bloated as a four-month pregnant woman.


last night, my mom and i watched "feng shui" (chinese geomancy), a filipino attempt at the asian horror genre dominated by hong kong, japan and korea. it's a story about a cursed bagua mirror which fell into the hands of kris aquino. it's believed by the chinese to chase away evil spirits from one's home. but the bagua brings not only instant good luck to its owner, but also instant death to the owner's friends or relatives who saw their reflection in the mirror. they die according to their chinese zodiac sign (eureka, a pattern! "final destination"-like), e.g. a person born in the year of the rat dies of a disease caused by rat's droppings. kris is desperate to break the evil curse when she realizes that her lucky streak comes with a heavy, deadly price at the cost of the people close to her. the ending was too sixth-sensy though. a little more originality, please!

the only worthy scary scene was where lotlot de leon (kris' co-worker) sees her own bloodied, dead self held at the neck by lotus feet, the bagua's evil spirit who walks ominously in tiny steel shoes to kill the next feng shui victim.

it's a full moon tonight.