Friday Madness

It's Friday once again. Yay. So what's on the agenda for the weekend? Nada. Well, maybe the usual play-all-you-can badminton gig on Sunday. But Saturday was supposed to be reserved for watching the UAAP Cheerdance Competition. It's high time the UP Pep Squad licked the UST Salinggawi Dance Troupe and regained their former glory as the cream of the crop in collegiate cheering.

Alas, we ran out of tickets. So friggin' labo. Well, whatev. Haven't been to any of the UAAP cheering tourneys at all during my time in college, and so I guess it's safe to say I won't know what I'll be missing. So that's that. Guess I'll have to wing it then tomorrow, see whatever catches my fancy. Stef invited me to see The Motorcycle Diaries (starring the wickedly beautiful Gael García Bernal of Y Tu Mamá También fame) with her at Instituto Cervantes. I'd like to go, but Valero beckons, and with more pressing--and hence, less enticing--matters that need to be addressed. But since I operate on a mood basis, who knows? Especially if the damn rain continues to literally put a damper on things.

***

Blech. I can't stomach this stuff. Fibermate, it's called. I was browsing through one of the magazines my housemate regularly brings home and saw this ad for a new health product. Fibermate is a food supplement that contains psyllium, which is "universally recognized as a premier source of dietary fiber." The quite informative ad looked good and so last night, I dropped by Mercury Drugstore at Glorietta with Nor, my old Persian 10 collaborator, and bought a small packet, just for a preliminary taste test. Good thing I didn't buy another packet; it doesn't go down the pipes easily, I tell you. The thing costs 16.50 bucks, too! Quite overpriced for something that makes me wanna hurl.. It's not usually my style, but I'm gonna pull an Asiong Aksaya and drain my cup in the pantry sink right about now.

***

We still don't have TV at home. A little over a week ago, cable companies put their collective foot down and went on a metro-wide crackdown on illegal cable connections (dunno if those in the provinces were also affected, as I haven't been watching the news lately). As a result, not only were we unable to watch the US Open finals in which Kim Clijsters bested Mary Pierce in the singles championship match, but my housemates also missed their weekly dose of showbiz cheezmax, courtesy of Krissy and Boy. I can just imagine Jub gnashing his teeth and stamping his foot in incredulity when, instead of regular airplay, the now-all-too-familiar gray screen greeted him upon coming home. Now that would have been a true Kodak moment. If the name of the game was Facial Contortionism, he could well give Serena Williams (who, according to him, is "mukhang kalabaw") a run for her money. Of course, Jub himself could never hope to look like a kalabaw, not when he's the unofficial "wallpaper boy" (as opposed to being a calendar boy) of our colleagues over at the China office. But I digress.

As for me, I don't feel as strongly about our disenfranchisement. When I moved to our place, our cable TV had already been illegally connected, and so I was spared from having to consider the ethics of the whole thing. (Not that I would have been expected to, either.) Granted, it was nice to be watching my favorite shows and forever not having to worry about monthly payments, so it is a little bit sad, in a way. But on the whole, I could do a lot worse. If it weren't for Sex and the City reruns every Sunday night on Wowow and the occasional blockbuster premiere on HBO, I really couldn't have cared less.

I got used to not watching TV for extended periods of time in college since I lived in a dorm all throughout my stay in UP. There were TVs, of course, and sometimes I would sit with my dormmates and watch TV Patrol or some primetime show on Studio 23. But it wasn't a weird thing for me to not watch TV at all for a whole semester, or a significant portion of it, straight. But don't get me wrong, I haven't been channeling all the time that could have been used for boob tube viewing towards more intellectually enriching pursuits; there were a lot of other things that I found myself preoccupied with after school, like malling until SM North EDSA closed up for the day, going to org meetings and gimiks, making chika with my roommates and other dormmates till the wee hours, having movie marathons and late-night therapy sessions in Ayesa's room, stuff like that. Except for Meteor Garden in my final year in school (yes, yes, I admit to being a sorta quasi-fan of the hit show from Taiwan, so sue me.. I mean, come on, practically EVERYONE was into it then), there wasn't anything I found really worthwhile to follow.

This incidental deprivation, however, would only be relieved whenever I went home down south for my much-needed vacay. (That would be about three times a year then.) Of course, at home the idiot box would be on the whole day. My brothers managed to refine the art of hogging the TV all day long while attempting to blast away at alien creatures on the PC. In my parents' bedroom, the TV would be tuned in to the noontime shows and telenovelas. (And from time to time, tennis and boxing matches, but only when Mom would let Dad have his way.) On weeknights, I would find myself by my lonesome in the living room, watching MTV/Studio 23/the Lifestyle Network or some movie rerun on cable while the rest of the fam congregated upstairs for their daily fix of Korean rom-coms and--lemme not forget--those lovestruck Kristine Hermosa starrers. Seriously, I never understood their fascination for any of it. The endless whinings of Kristine-and-posse about not being able to be with the guys they know they're destined to be when clearly, if they weren't dead set on making their own lives miserable, they would have bagged the guys already and moved on to their happy-ever-afters. And vice-versa for the guys. Sheesh, I think I'm getting a headache here, just thinking about the roundaboutness of it all. And don't get me started on them Bea Alonzo-John Lloyd Cruz primetime tickets, puh-leez! I don't want my weekend to kick off with an untimely reminiscence of all things cringe-worthy about boob tubeage.

So much for all this. Well, gotta run.. Before I get thoroughly worked up here and pop a vein in the process. Happy weekend, everyone!

UP Fight!