The Once and Future King, by Terence Hanbury White. One of the best there is, and is listed amongst my favorites.

The book crossed my mind the other day when someone mentioned something that prompted me to think of those droppings of the Glatisant (a questing beast in the novel). And for 7 painstakingly-long minutes, I incessantly ransacked my brain for that word, and remembered fewmets (FEWMETS!). Oh the ethereal bliss of solving the inevitable I-know-the-word-but-I-can’t-effin’-remember-grrr moments.

Le Glatisant

I was on leave today, and spent the entire day at home. I was checking out blogs on the net, when I came across my old blog, and read a rather riveting entry I had way back. It’s an excerpt from the TH White novel:

This rabbi, went on a journey with the prophet Elijah, they walked all day, and at nightfall they came to the humble cottage of a poor man, whose only treasure was a cow. The poor man ran out of his cottage, and his wife ran too, to welcome the strangers for the night, and to offer them all the simple hospitality which they were able to give in straitened circumstance. Elijah and the rabbi was entertained with plenty of the cow’s milk, sustained by homemade bread and butter, and they were put to sleep in the best bed, while the kindly hosts lay down before the kitchen fire. But in the morning, the poor man’s cow was dead. They walked all the next day, and came that evening to the house of a very wealthy merchant, whose hospitality they craved. The merchant was cold and proud and rich, and all he would do for the prophet and his companion was to lodge them in the cowshed and feed them on bread and water.  In the morning, however, Elijah thanked him very much for what he had done, and sent a mason to repair one of his walls, which happened to be falling down, as a return for his kindness. The Rabbi Juchanan, unable to keep silence any longer, begged the holy man to explain the meaning of his dealings with human beings.

“In regard to the poor man who received us so hospitably“, replied the prophet, ”it was decreed that his wife was to die that night, but in reward for his goodness, God took the cow instead of his wife. I repaired the wall of the rich miser because a chest of gold was concealed near the place, and if the miser repaired the wall himself he would have discovered the treasure. Say not therefore to the Lord: What doest thou? But say in thy heart: Must not the Lord of all the earth do right?“

I’ve always loved this novel snippet, can’t believe I almost forgot about it.

Will re-read this once am done with Palahniuk’s Fight Club.

Super Heavy! And that’s what you get if you have supreme artists form a band. There’s no other apt label to name it. Super heavy, indeed.

Group composed of Mick Jagger (I will slam your head open against the pavement if you don’t know the royalty), Rahman of the Jai Ho song, Dave Stewart of the Euryhtmics, Joss Stone (Joss Stone!), and Damian Marley youngest son of THE Bob Marley (I will feed your gonads to Cerberus if you ain’t know him).

SuperHeavy to me is how a band would sound like if premium artisans get together, had a week of nothing but pot, and decided to have an on-the-spot gig.

Les membres des bandes (Stewart, Marley, Stone, Jagger, Rahman)

And did I mention am so infatuated with the reggae specks here and there in them some tracks.

Awesome album people!

A shelf of stacked vikings in an Oslo souvenir shop.

Down with flu. Got this effin’ virus courtesy of mon père probably a couple of days ago, and got well incubated just yesterday. I was all nasal-drippy, and was trying really hard to restrain self from sneezing whilst I was interviewing a candidate over the phone. Towards the end of the day yesterday, I feel like all the life force from my mortal corpus was effectively drained, leaking through my oral and nasal orifices. I feel like one of ‘em walking dead.

I was so power-drained that I have not properly applied enough joules to step on the breaks, that Adô bumped into a white delivery van in front of us, in the midst of the crazy Friday traffic jam. The driver of the van went out, peeked onto the point of contact, then gave out a thumbs-up of which am assuming is a gesture that there were no scratches nor dents. OR can also be an apt gesture that I was a complete moron and I was lucky that monetary extortion need not happen. Either way, I duly apologized, and thank the guy for being cool about it. Merci à Dieu pour regarder dehors pour moi.

And the following day, today, Saturday, am all feverish and down with this crazy full-blown virus, that I didn’t get to go out with Faye and Luis, as planned (they’re currently watching Real Steel, am begrudged!). Am so determined to get this minute imps off my system, that I was munching on vitamin Cs like an ascorbic acid maniac. I didn’t realize that these chewable Cs are highly addictive until today. Was reaching out for it every 30 minutes. LOL.

Well, at least I finally find the time to wipe the grime off my trusty steed, and cleared the accumulated clutter inside. *cue for resonating applause*

And just now, I realized that I have been playing Coldplay on the background for a couple of hours already. Listening to Coldplay, while the colds play on me. C’est fantastique!

Virus, begone!

Hardcover version by Knopf Publishing

1Q84. The long overdue anglais translation of Haruki’s latest chef-d’œuvre, by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. Rubin is one of them best translators around, and not to mention my fave amongst others, which makes me doubly giddy and excited (and ready to pee any moment now).

The release is published in hardcover, by Knopf. Am still waiting for the paperback Vintage edition of 1Q84, granting me ample time to start on Orwell’s 1984. But of course, before that’s even possible, I need to put an end to the Lord of the Rings, am already halfway through the Two Towers.

Express reading: ENGAGED.

The Scots Man Resto Pub, in downtown Oslo. It's all about the bagpipes, and plaid!

The power of one year. A concept hanging loosely in the deep pools of my bizarre musings, but never duly contained, until it was casually brought up by Faye in one of our endless segue-filled conversations. It is when one looks back to all that has happened in the past year, somewhat similar to the melodramatic recollection one does every year-end, but this one you do every turn of an era after era, within the perimeter of a year.

So, looking back past the dozen months, a lot of outstanding events happened. And when I say a lot, I meant mind-blowing effin’ lot. People who come and go. Things that were lost and found. Things that were lost. Things that were acquired. Things that I thought I lost, but apparently were just there. Places visited. Places that were no longer visited. Same game, different players, and the rules somehow changed a wee bit.

The power of a year’s worth of events that forced one’s holistic equilibrium to be auto-calibrated, over and over. It’s an emotional evolution, also referred to as wisdom.

One of them cool store façade (a jeweler's shop) in downtown Trondheim, Norway. Sølv og gull arbeid means silver and gold work.

So much to tell, so little time. So much significant has happened for the past 4 months since my last blog post (excluding the post La nouvelle ére de la portable) that it will take me a good ol’ week to take everything into account and write ‘em all down onto my blog.

Well, for starters, my condo unit was finally turned-over last August (woot!), and being the big Tolkien fan that I am, I named my place Lothlórien (Lórien for short). It’s cool to see where all that money am paying for monthly goes to, because for a time I was half expecting that I might be paying some bogus real estate property that doesn’t even exist. But thankfully, it does exist. The place is cozy and quaint, and the space was my major issue initially, since am so used to living in a house. But I eventually got into terms with my irk, and get to appreciate the space that I can officially call my own. Am still trying (and by try, I meant measly effort) to save up for stuff to put in my place. Am planning to move-in first quarter of 2012.

I also got my first vehicle. After much deliberation on what automobile to get, I finally decided to get a pickup, and named it Shadowfax (nicknamed Adô), after Gandalf’s friend steed, the lord of the Maeras. Been using it since, and it’s fun to drive since it’s a wee bit bigger than the one I used to borrow from my dad. Will be saving up money to buy a trunk bed cover for it, and fender guards. I also want to install halogen lights in front, to give it that edgy , trashy look. Haha.

Also, I finally have that one special person to spend days hanging out at Lórien, or going someplace else with Adô  La vie est absolument une bonne.

OK, that’s too much articulation for being careless and letting cunning middle-aged mongrels take my phone, but you know where am trying to get at.

Naturally, I immediately thought of a replacement, and the only acceptable candidate I have in mind at that time was a BlackBerry Bold 9900. Look how über dashing this piece of electronic is. Aaah, this is definitely digital love at first sight.

So I duly went to a nearby mall and look for the unit. However, being a recently released model, it’s tag price is the exact opposite of immensely cheap and ultimately reasonable. And with all the stuff I need to pay towards the last quarter of this year, I need to take a step back, and do some heavy contemplation. I had an inner battle, between evil and greater evil (lesser evil was on vacation). So, 2-minute-phone-call-with-my-girlfriend later, it was agreed that I will wait for 2-3 months before I get the BB I oh-so desire, and settle for a much cheaper handset.

Now, I was looking for the perfect interim alternative, when I accidentally glanced upon this eye-catchy mobile. A subtle crimson Nokia handset. But what really caught my attention is the price. It’s only 1/23 of the price of the BlackBerry Bold 9900. What finally sealed the deal was when I asked the sales guy the ultimate question … Does it come with a built-in flashlight? And when he aptly said yes, and informed me that it can handle two SIMs at the same time, I immediately took it down the counter, and paid for it.

The unit is so basic in function (SMS and calls), that it does not even have a built-in camera. And to prove how basic this handset is, its official model name is Nokia 101.  Talk about fundamentals. LOL.

High on Life. Lately, my mental acuity on grasping profound sentiments was a bit on the crazed side. Everything were on demented ecstasy, that mere thoughts of things happening, immediately sends me into oblivion.

In times when one must face the inevitable conundrum, sometimes the best plan of action is to yield, and let fate take its divine course.

OK, that’s my articulate version of saying that I was way too confused lately with all that are happening. So what I ultimately did was surrender everything onto the One sole Divine Being, and then went to the gym, slaved my way with all the routines I can think of for 3 straight hours.

Thank God for the gift of endorphins. They worked-up and fixed my dendrites real nice.

Am very high on life right now. And it’s sending me off the ground

Am stoked. \m/

Dance. Now. It’s the direct subtle command, reverberating incessantly with each single bass beat in every one of them tracks included in Brit’s current album, Femme Fatale.

The album is so Tïesto-ish (checkout track Trip to Your Heart. Splendid), that when you shut your blinkers with the sound on the background, one is immediately sent into an insanely blissful trance. And I bet even Monsieur Vivaldi would hastily agree.

And it’s so amazing how the beats swiftly conjure two words, am reminded almost instantly … Beach. Booze.

This is her best album to date. With Blackout as the runner-up.

Am stoked. \m/

The beats are finally here.  My mom arrived a few days ago, and with her coming home for vacay here in Manila are my fantastic amazing set of IEMs, my Beats Tour

My pair of Apple IEMs were functioning really swell, since I got it February of last year, until the right monitor suddenly died on me a month ago I did everything to revive it. I opened it, removed the metal mesh, tried to blow very light air onto it making sure no soot can linger no more.

To my immense dismay, it’s broken beyond my meager newbie repair attempts. I still have not yet fully recovered from the too-early demise of my Apple IEMs, struck down in its prime, but I have got to scout for its immediate successor. So with that in mind, I managed to muster all the courage I could. I opened my Mac, connected to the internet, and bought a pair of Beats Tour from Amazon.

And now they’re here.  :D

They’re absolutely stunning. Its crimson color is matte enough that it’s not blindingly striking to look at. And I like the way that the wires are flat as to prevent the inevitable mind boggling tangles that the ordinary rounded wires are effin’ prone to. They also come with ear hooks, to put the IEMs in place like when working out or something. And the carrying case looks neat.

The sounds are of rich bass, and the minute details that normal earphones leave out, this captures them pretty nice.

The only issue I have with these IEMs, if the wires were left hanging in its full length midair, it puts the weight tension onto the IEMs while inserted in my ear, so in turn my ears get a bit sore. And that can get quite annoying. As compared to the lighter Apple IEMs.

But overall, am delighted with my purchase. I hope these would last me at least 7+ years.

Més que un club. More than a club. That is of course, none other than FCB, the winning club of 2011 UEFA Champions League’s, scored 3-1 against Manchester United (champions of England’s premiere league, but not of Europe’s obviously, haha). Am so hyped-up with this match, that I need not an alarm to rouse me from deep early morning slumber.

The match was aired live 0230 hours of May 29. Surprisingly, a number of people I know were also up to catch the game. And also to my much surprise, I was the only one rooting for Barça. Don’t you just love it when one doesn’t have to share the final evil resonating laugh (BWAHAHAHA).

Man of the Match, is of course, The Messi. But, frankly, as much as I immensely admire the guy, I wanted Van der Sar be the MoM of the finals game. He played fairly well, and he’s scheduled to retire right after this match. VDS efficiently kept his goal (FCB midfielders went at it every so minutes), but a goalie can only do so much, more effort is required from them defenders.

Edwin, screaming instructions to ManU defenders. (Poor, poor defense).

It was a great play, though I was expecting more from Giggs, and Ferdinand. Rooney was as expected, though he’s a getting a bit slow. Personally, with the way ManU handled the game, I think they don’t even stand a fair chance against Real Madrid.

OK. Next, Roland Garros. Go Fed! \m/

Car lust. The Mitsubishi ASX is one of them perfect case in point of things that gradually grows on you. Well, actually, grow is not an apt term, more like stealthily-creeps-and-manipulates-your-dendrites-until-you-think-otherwise. LOL.

At initial glance, you’d just see a vehicle that highly resembles a Lancer Evo, on steroids. But every single time I do grocery at Trinoma, this gorgeous heap of metal deliberately greets me with its wide grin (it’s been displayed on a podium near the supermarket entrance), and a pair of squinting, but smiling, headlights.

It’s über dashing. I lust over it. Just waiting for a diesel variant to come storming its way into the Philippine market, and will get one myself in a snap.

Korean melon ice cream. For the past 3 months, I find this baby immensely irresistible, particularly right after having lunch and in the midst of the scalding Manila summer. This is highly addictive. Am not kidding. It’s profoundly refreshing, that every nimble nibble, my spirit’s left in invigorating oblivion.

OK, that’s too much articulation for an ice cream. Haha.

But am serious, this is really good. In fact, it is so good, that even its stick tastes just as sumptuous as the frozen treat itself. I actually give the stick a couple of fine licks before tossing it in a garbage bin. LOL.

]]> http://mccoysapio.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/coreen-de-la-creme-glacee-de-melon/feed/ 0 mccoysapio Coréen de la crème glacée de melon http://mccoysapio.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/le-grand-livre-dexercices/ http://mccoysapio.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/le-grand-livre-dexercices/#comments Sun, 22 May 2011 09:49:28 +0000 mccoysapio http://mccoysapio.wordpress.com/?p=926 ]]>

The Big Book of Exercises, by Men’s Health. And mind you, the guys from MH weren’t the least kidding when they tagged this fitness manual as big. Because it is. Hefty both in size, and in info. And for the first time ever, I was duly enlightened on how muscle growth comes into existence, via micro tearing and muscle-protein synthesis, I was like … “Efff. I didn’t know that.“. This is the shizzz.

It’s got a vast variety of routines, neatly sectioned per major muscle group. It’s like going to a restaurant, and ordering something like … “I’d want to have 3 of those advanced leg extension routines, one variation of chest press, a liberal helping of arm curls, and for my woman’s dessert, I’d like her to have a well defined pair of my glutes. Oh, and also, a solid rock-hard abs to-go please.“. LOL.

I love this book.

Due to inadequate number of REM cycles, and a considerable massive jet lag, I was asleep for the past 60 hours (as scheduled). And now, I can’t get myself get right back to sleep, so with all the conscious time I have, I get to ponder momentarily about, well, uhm, love.

This is my first take on poetry. I know this is not something people would consider to be in that classic category, so I purposely disabled comments for this post as to not get me discouraged, specially that, as of this very all-wide-awake moment, I am considering pursuing poetry.

Love.
It does not take form.
It does not come into existence that can be contained.
No, it can not be contained.
For love is freedom.
And it is only when one is emancipated that one can love.
For love is a choice, but never an option.
It is not dictated.
Nor can be restricted.
It sustains. It is consumed. It consumes.
It flows at liberty.
It is spontaneous, never deliberate.
It is spontaneously deliberate.
It does not end.
It has no end.

Oh, and hey. It’s almost Valentine’s Day.

Beer! We made a short walk from the hotel to that Napoli store towards the end of downtown Stjørdal, in the midst of the tundra-ish Norwegian weather (-11 degrees Celsius), just to get ourselves half a liter of this gorgeous amber Dahls draft beer. It’s so amazingly good, that with only a mere distant memory of its taste, I boldly endured the freezing 10-minute walk, all shivery (sans a winter coif, gloves, thermals), as if am in convulsive fever.

Dahls is a locally produced brew here in Trondheim. It is divine. Ambrosial. It is clean and crisp, like newly melted snow from the Himalayas (am just making an allegory, not that I have already tasted such, but you get where am getting at :p). You can really taste that distinct umpft of the hops’ lucid bitterness, against subtle hints of floral and fruity tang.

Am a big fan.

A quick stroll to downtown Stjørdal.  I went out looking for public payphones, planning to place a call to Manila. It’s only 4PM, but checkout how eerily dark it is outside. It’s like the Twilight Zone, only that it has streets lined with trees that have light bulbs for leaves, and with charming shops stacked neatly right next to each other.

The temperature is blissfully freezing. My kind of weather. Snow was constantly falling for like 4 hours straight today.

That’s me, trying to restrain my jaw from involuntary clenching my teeth. I just love the way I shiver my way into oblivion.

On my way back, I came across this adorable display of one of them stores within the freezing downtown perimeter. It’s like a showcase of trinkets and fixtures meant for ice queens, princesses, and royalty-frozen-diva-what-have-yous.

I am bored.

My Norwegian Sunday dinner. Canned tuna in water, and a danish bread.

I know, these are not the makings of a decent Sunday dinner, but this is better than sleeping on a grumpy tummy. Stores are closed here in Stjørdal (exact place where we’re located) on Sundays, so I tried ransacking my imagination of what would provide me that interim  bogus satiety, as I carefully checked all 3 aisles of the only convenient store that has the perpetual mercy to open up in all of tundra-ish Stjørdal.

I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the cold lonely dinner I had.

I’m in Norway. And have never thought that the first place I’d be going to in Europe would be freezing, land-of-the-midnight-sun Norway.
Well, technically, I stepped into Amsterdam first. However that was only for transit, so that does not count.

The last few weeks of December 2010, and the first few days of January 2011 were effin’ kuh-kuh-crrrazy-eeh. Let’s just say that sleep was the last thing on my list. Onset of my Euro-flight, I only had a total of 8 hours worth of sleep, for 4 days.

Anyways, departure flight was 1135 hours of January 4, final destination Trondheim, Norway. It was a 14-hour flight from Manila to Amsterdam. KLM food was, uhm, mediocre. Worse, it was mundane. I was so used to flying Korean Air that I’m used to fun food, specifically my all time fave, Bibimbap. Haha. But I have got to hand it out to them KLM guys, they were so frequent in giving out drinks throughout the duration of the flight, that I was overly confident that I can go on for a week without having even a tiny teeny drop of liquid and not go dehydrated. I was raiding the serving tray of drinks like a madman.

We arrived around 6PM in Amsterdam. Schiphol Airport is, uhm, fine. South Korea’s Incheon International Airport still is, by far, the best for me. Anyways. Schiphol is a very tourist-friendly airport. The signs were never confusing. I was headed toward terminal B. And was surprised to see a line queued for what I perceived as an immigration check. The person at the counter asked some couple random questions about my trip, and stuff, then went through the X-ray machine.

The long, fast-paced walk (and by fast-paced, I meant my usual injury-prone fast-paced gait) I did from terminal F (arrival) to terminal B (departure of connecting flight), plus getting in line for the documents check, took me around 1.5 hours, that I only waited for 30 minutes for my 8PM flight to Trondheim.

Upon boarding time, we were led to a bus, that goes straight out to the airstrip where 4-seats-a-row KLM planes wereparked. I was seated next to a really tall guy (around 6 foot 4) who’s got these two, long,  narrow cone shells (one red, one black) for ear piercings. Both on the same earlobe.  It’s like having to stab someone with a very long knife, but the knife was perceived ornamental that it was eventually left where it was stabbed into. Anyways, this guy is so tall, that while seated, his legs needed be bent sideways against the seat in front of him, just to make that comfy sitting position. All I can say is … helloooo deep vein thrombosis.

We arrived in Trondheim 30 past 10PM. I withdrew NOK 200 first for my cab fare. People were entering this wine-and-choco duty free shop, that I was subtly enticed to checkout as well. I went out carrying nothing, but I found a really interesting Chupaha Chups lollipop, as big as a size 5 football. I was so amazed that I forgot to take a photo.

I went straight to the luggage carousel. I was half praying  that my luggage won’t end up in another carousel somewhere in Europe, and half already coming up with a plan on what to say as my rant, immensely pissed-off speech if ever my luggage won’t turn up. Well, it did turn up, prayers work, kids. Haha.

Trondheim airport was pretty quaint to be an airport (although the brick walls gave it a homey feel to it), and lacked proper English signage, that I stalked this Norwegian family toward wherever the immigration counter is. Turns out, there is none. And the one I queued up in line at the Schiphol Airport actually is the immigration check. Which led me into conclusion that Trondheim is a bit too small a place that it didn’t have to bother itself with tourist immigration shit.

I was looking out for any exit portals that will lead me to a taxi bay. Good thing the Norwegian word for taxi is, well, taxi. So when the taxi signage turned up, I immediately hailed a cab, then asked to drop me off to my hotel. The cab driver was irritatingly soft spoken, that 10 minutes of listening to him talk would definitely send me off to a snooze fest.

That’s it for now. Will try my best to document any interesting stuff I should encounter. There’s a lot as of the moment, but will pick out the ones worth mentioning. Haha. Au revoir.

I really do.
I don’t know.
I don’t get it.