#GinoAndFran #Playtime

The Awesome Adventures Of Gino And Fran

Playtime

A lot of you probably heard by now that The Awesome Adventures Of Gino And Fran and Playtime are saying goodbye this weekend. They’ll have final shows on Saturday, but after that, well, you’ll just have to tune in on Monday for that. It’s always sad when you see something end, especially when these people have become part of your daily radio habits. And for some of you, these guys have become more than just jocks you listen to on the radio, but actual friends. But the good news is, you’ll still here them on Monster Radio RX 93.1 in their new shows on Monday. I don’t want to preempt anything, but I’m sure that they’ll put as much heart in their news shows as they did with their former ones.

These guys are absolute pros, and although I’m sad to see these incarnations of theirs end, I’m pretty excited as well to hear what they’ll come up with next. I just hope our listeners throw their support behind our team, on whatever new path we’ll decide to take next. Some changes might prove shaky, while others may prove good, and if we’re lucky, we might even strike gold with a couple. The radio/entertainment industry is a dynamic one, and change is something we’ve made peace with. So we’re crossing our fingers that each change we make is for the better, and we’re ready to move forward, and raring to go! We don’t know how you guys will like the stuff we throw your way, but one thing we can guarantee you is, we’ll do our very darn best each time.

So to Gino and Fran, and to Hazel, Cerah, Danielle and Christi, you guys did a GREAT job and we will always remember your shows with bittersweet fondness. If I could lead a slow clap for you guys I would because you guys deserve it! I know how hard we all work for our shows, to give our listeners the best that we could at all times, and for that alone you guys deserve gold stars. So good luck on your new shows, and I can’t wait to hear what you guys will cook up for us next! Lez doo dis!!!

Sooo Pinoy: Fely J’s Kitchen

We are just so stoked to finally start our 15-restaurant food tour of Filipino restaurants to experience the joy of Pinoy food at it’s finest. Our first stop: Fely J’s in Greenbelt 5. I’ve always been a fan of this restaurant even when it first opened. We would always make sure to dine there on special occasions. Even before Sooo Pinoy, if you were to ask me to recommend a restaurant that serves good Filipino food, Fely J’s would be one of the first to come to mind. So we decided to dine on some old favorites, but also to try and experience new dishes. So here we go:

My Drink: Pipino Juice

Cutting down on my sugar, I try to avoid fruit juices. So I was glad to see a veggie juice for a change. It was quite refreshing, no sugar added. It might be a bit odd if you’re not used to vegetable juices, but I’m a big fan so this is right up my alley.

Ensalada Ni Nanay

Salted egg, okra, eggplant, tomatoes, green mango, onions and bagoong guisado

I’m a big fan of ensalada, so this was a no brainer. We actually had the option to have it sliced in small pieces and mixed in the usual style, but we loved the presentation so we kept it this way. Nice way to start the meal, a gentle rev to start our engines.

Piniritong Hito

Catfish deep-fried and served with balo-balo

This was Delle’s pick. She loves the taste of hito over the other native fishes. It’s the same in our house. We’re more hito and dalag than we were tilapia and bangus. I also liked the balo-balo, which is also known as buro, a Capampangan favorite, which is traditionally paired with bitter veggies and inihaw na fish. I loved their version of the buro!

Gule Magalang

An Abe special veggie from the old hometown

This is their version of the pinakbet (or pakbet), with a bit of a difference in the choice of veggies, and not so much bagoong for the sauce. So the result is a much milder version of pinakbet.

Lechon Kawali

Crisp fired pork belly served with lechon sauce and atchara

Now we proceed with the heavy hitters. Usually, it’s no contest: the traditional liver sauce for the lechon kawali. In this case though, the atchara also went so well with the pork belly that I couldn’t make up my mind! One subo it’s lechon sauce, the next it’s atchara.

Bistik Tagalog Ng Kano

Thinly sliced U.S. Black Angus sirloin pan fried in olive oil, garlic, kalamansi, onion rings and soy sauce

Hands down, my favorite of all the dishes. It’s your traditional bistik, but luxurious in its choice of meat. The first few chews you taste the distinctive bistik flavor of toyo and kalamansi. But as you chew further, it becomes more and more steak-like. It like having 2 meat dishes in one! Plus, the meat was so tender it was falling apart in my mouth. Delicious!

Seafood Kare-Kare

The guilt free and healthier way to enjoy kare-kare

Kare-Kare is possibly my favorite of all Pinoy food. Every time kare-kare is available, it’s always among my top choices. So I’m a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to this dish. It’s nice to find a seafood version of this dish because the more popular version is easily the richer meat variety. I just love the interplay of the peanut sauce with the bagoong. Kare-Kare is always a heavenly experience for me.

Fely J’s Dilis-cious Rice

Dilis deep-fried with taosi and generously topped on steaming Jasmine rice

When we tweeted that we’re eating at Fely J’s, many of you guys were suggesting the different types of rice available. But together with the bistik, this rice is the co-highlight of the meal. This is wickedly good. You HAVE to try this if you know what’s good for you. It just gives the meal the extra oomph. But be prepared to shovel this rice into your mouth, because you can’t get enough of this stuff.

Come dessert time, we opted to sample 4 desserts:

Bayabas Pie

Nicer than apple pie and made with fresh guavas

Leche Flan

Cassava Bibingka with Buko

Homemade tapioca cake with young coconut

Sikreto Ni Maria Clara

My votes go to the creamilicous Sikreto Ni Maria Clara with the cassava coming in a close second. The sikreto is actually suman at mangga, but swimming in that wonderful creamy froth. Such a unique twist on an old classic. The cassava bibingka was also superb, with that nice contrast of the latik flavor of the cassava and the nutty taste of the coconut.

Overall, it was a dizzyingly wonderful gustatory exploration. Filipino food is such perfect comfort food. Nothing brings back memories and sensations like the classic meals we used to enjoy as kids. It’s just nice that Fely J’s gives us enough of the classics, and some with novel twists. Truly satisfying, I definitely recommend giving this restaurant a visit.

I ended the meal of course with a nice cup of coffee.

“Boss, isang latte. No sugar ha, kasi I’m on a diet…”

(our next stop: Max’s)

Rebyu

(Delle will kill me for posting this photo!)

Many may not remember anymore, but we actually had a TV show that ran for a couple of seasons on channel 13 called Rebyu. It was quite an experience. We realized how different radio and television actually were. But those couple of seasons on air we would never EVER forget. On the second season, we were joined by some Viva kids, more like tweens, which included Anne Curtis, Maui Taylor and even the guy who eventually found his second wind as Twitter’s PCOS Machine. Why am I even bringing this all up?

My sister actually recorded ALL episodes from first to last on VHS. Unfortunately, their house burned down in 2003, including all footage of the shows that we have. 8 years after, we had a major clean-up at the house, and lo and behold, we find a stack of VHS tapes in one dusty corner of one dusty closet. Apparently, not ALL of the tapes were in my sister’s house. So what my family did, behind my back, was to have the contents of the VHS tapes transferred to CD’s, and so now we have maybe 5-10 episodes of Rebyu ready for viewing.

I haven’t watched them yet. I’m quite nervous to re-visit that part of our lives. But our barkada decided that we’ll have a viewing party. We’ll go to our condo and bring food and watch the Rebyu episodes, and they will have fun at our expense and never let us live it down. I don’t even know what I’ll do with them. Do I share them? Do I upload them on YouTube? Or do I let sleeping dogs lie and keep those episodes where they might belong (in the foggy memories of those who watched)?

I haven’t decided yet…bahala na si Batman…

Jizz In My Pants

I know this video is sooo OLD, but I was shocked, nay, appalled that so many people haven’t seen this video. We were talking about it this morning, and when I brought up the song, so many said they never heard of it. Time for some public service. So for the sake of upholding the highest standards of good taste, I present to you, the house classic that would put even Lennon and Tchaikovsky to shame…”Jizz In My Pants”.

And as a bonus, here’s their other hit, “I Just Had Sex”.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (Part 2)

Why did I wait this long to post my review of the movie? I assume it’s safe now without anyone crying spoilers on me. I now assume that people have either read the book, watched the movie, or both. It’s really more a commentary on the whole series than it is a review of the last movie. That said, the Part 1 of this last installment was strangely for me, possibly my least favorite of all the 8 movies. For whatever reason, I seemed bored out of my skull. I tried watching it for a second time, thinking maybe I wasn’t in the Potter zone the first time, but I exited the theatre with the same conclusion. I was afraid that I’d hate the last movie of possibly my most favorite series EVER (up there with LOTR and Star Wars, but only the first 3 movies). That said, Part 2 turned out to be one of the most exhilarating in the series. I was on the edge of my seat, even if I know perfectly well what will happen in the end. As always, the movies came pretty close to the images I saw inside my head as I read the book.

The only parts I had a slight beef with are as follows: most glaringly, the revelation of Severus Snape. Somehow the reduction of how major a part Snape played in the Harry Potter story was quite disappointing. For his epic sacrifices to be reduced to a too-fastly edited flashes of vague snippets does his memory a disservice. In the book, the way the revelations unfolded was epic. I had goosebumps finally understanding Snape’s true role in the saga. I just feel that viewers who didn’t read the book might not get the full scope of Snape’s character with that final flashback. Second, the deaths during the final battle didn’t have the same resonance as it did in the book. As minor as the characters were, the book seemed to marinate in the mourning more than the movie did. And lastly, The final hour that Voldemort gave Hogwarts felt more excruciating in the book as the countdown drew closer to the end. Other than those, the movie was perfect pitch.

That said, the whole movie series feels like a gift. Usually movie versions of beloved books tend to dilute the essence of the source. But with Harry Potter, the movies were just as awaited as the books themselves. With the exception of the first two, which felt hollow despite the pomp and pageantry, from the third movie onwards, the films captured the right mix of light and darkness that imbibed the books that inspired them. The cast was essential to the movies’ success. It was lovely seeing the actual actors grow up, as we watched Harry grow up from a little boy to a young man. I’m so happy all actors, with the exception of Richard Harris who died after the second film, kept their roles from beginning to end, especially Dame Maggie Smith, one of my all-time favorite actresses, playing one of my most favorite characters in the book, Professor McGonagall (by the way, I LOVED the part where she owned Snape and took charge of Hogwarts before the final attack). I actually expected a bigger role for the eventual Headmistress. I loved the blurring of the lines of good and evil with many characters — Snape and the Malfoys as not always evil and Dumbledore as not always heroic — because this is how things are in real life. It reflects how nothing is neither black nor white, just many shades of grey.

Of course I could write a whole post on the similarities of Harry Potter and LOTR. The similarities are mind-boggling. The main heroes Harry and Frodo, with their sidekicks (Harry had 2, Frodo had 3), but who had to face the final battle alone. The hero and the villain having a symbiotic relationship Harry-Voldemort and Frodo-Sauron (by the way, both Voldemort and Sauron are referred to as “Dark Lord”), Both heroes had to deal with equally strong good and evil sides, often struggling with the balance of both (Harry in Order of the Phoenix and Frodo when the Ring was corrupting him), Dumbledore-Gandalf (both wizard mentors check out midway in the series but remain pivotal in an otherworldly manner), a huge final battle at the end (both seiges on a castle), Dementors-Nazgul (both robed creatures whose very presence instill horror and joylessness), among so many others – wizards, elves, dragons, giant spiders, don’t get me started. But despite the obvious influences, J.K Rowling made an independent world of her own, and not just an LOTR knock-off. The templates may be there, but the heart and soul are original.

I’m not ashamed to say it, but the Harry Potter series is probably the books that are closest to my heart. They’re not the best books I’ve ever read, but I don’t think I’ve ever been attached to a series as much as I did with the story of the Boy Who Lived. It was the case with me, as I’m sure it is with many fans, that I was Harry Potter. That was me struggling with my insignificance. That was me who was revealed to be special after all. That was me who struggled with the good and the evil within me. That was me who, against all odds, and with the help of my friends, triumphed in the end. Harry was easy to identify with. The need to be special and loved is a primal thirst often left unquenched in many of us. We constantly seek validation through wealth, success, fame, power, good looks, intelligence. Everything we work for and fight for in life are things we fee will get people to want us, accept us, to love us. In the end, at the very root of all our desires, we all just want to be loved. And what better manifestation of this yearning than Harry Potter, the boy loser who turned out to be the one person who saves the world from the ultimate evil that is Voldemort. What we would all give for that kind of validation.

So to J.K. Rowling and her creation Harry Potter, thank you. On behalf of everyone who ever felt unloved, who were bullied because they were different, whose insignificance was their most significant trait, thank you. Many nights I stayed up fantasizing that an owl would deliver a letter to whisk me away to a world where I meant something. Obviously it never happened, but those nights where I stayed up reading those books, where I walked the halls of Hogwarts, were some of my best book nights (yes, I mostly read books at night). The Harry Potter series feels like true love that didn’t last. It was great while it lasted, but it eventually had to end. But like many lost loves, I need to let go. To quote Albus Dumbledore from the first book: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” Well said, Albus. And on that note, stay well, muggles! Protego Horribilis!