Monday, May 23, 2005
Of "bottomless food", basketball, Star Wars and the useless inventions of the Japanese
[Note: I made a new layout that STILL stars Constantine Maroulis, who is the hottest man in the galaxy, as well as the color purple, which is the cutest color in the galaxy. Made by gluing together some screencaps from a hot clip of Constantine on E!, coloring 'em purple and sticking some captions on. Comes with a newly updated "About Me" profile and some lame-ass unintentional rhyming on the side bar.]
[Second note: The Powers That Be have decided to throw my sorry ass into section Ilang-Ilang (not too shabby) and into the Science stream (not too shabby either...now if only I could weasel my way out of EnvSci). May kasama ba ako?]
[Third Note: Sabi ni Boss, visit daw kayo dito. Yun boss, did my job! Askal_011, happy to be of service, sir!]
Paula had brought up the thought of meeting up and hanging out at a mall since last month, and I was excited about the idea since I so desperately needed to get away from the house. I swear, spending seven days a week with my family is getting incredibly detrimental to my psychological state. Really. Is it normal to be screaming at least once a week (and not just screaming, but high-pitched, screechy caterwauling) "FUCK YOU, YOU'RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!" to your own brother over something as shallow as who gets to hold the remote control?
I didn't think so.
So it's like, a month later, and Max Gana, Carlo Castro and Gabby Saplagio had agreed to meet up with Paula and yours truly at Starbucks in Greenbelt 3 on May 21 (last Saturday). Then on the night before the scheduled date, Paula told me that she couldn't go because of some argument with her parents over a seatbelt and a wet t-shirt. I'm just as baffled as you are.
I freaked out at that point because I knew Mom wouldn't let me go if she knew I would be the only girl there. It was bad enough before when I went to Robinson's Galleria with two boys (Castro and Jiano)---I got an earful from Mom after that about how I should be careful around boys and their raging hormones, blah, blah, blah. So if she'd react that way even if I ended up looking like the babysitter of those two (who are, no offense, a couple of the most hormonally-challenged boys I've ever met), what more if I was with three guys?
The rest of Friday night was spent trying desperately to figure out what to do. "Mom, meet Maxine, Carla and Gabrielle. Um, they kinda like to dress up like boys, but they're totally straight, I swear!" Which was technically true (the second statement, anyway), but still sounded pathetic.
My ass was saved the morning after when Paula said she could make it, after all.
Everyone showed up at Starbucks sometime between 11 and 11:30AM: (in order of arrival) me, Castro, Paula and her brother Christian, Max and Gabby. Castro and I were a lot earlier than everybody else, so while waiting, he showed me this taser gun that he brought everywhere with him.
"You ever use it on anyone?" I asked.
"Yeah, a cat and some guy who tried to rob me."
"Any casualties?"
He laughed. "The cat."
Everyone else showed up eventually, then we went to eat lunch at Big Buddha, which is this fancy Chinese restaurant on the third floor of GB3. I was psyched---back in my grade school days, we'd be hanging out at Alabang Town Center nearly every week, and it was always McDonald's for lunch/dinner. It gets boring after the tenth visit, you know?
Having waiters around to serve you instead of standing in line at a counter was also pretty cool. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I get a kick out of ordering people around (hehe). Max was hilarious---I dared him to ask the waiter to refill the complimentary bowl of chips at our table (I knew beforehand that they didn't charge anything to replenish the chips, but nobody else at the table did), and to my great amusement, he did it! He was so happy to be able to "Drink bottomless drinks and eat bottomless food!", and I was laughing my ass off because it was so funny to watch, if you'd only been there to see it.
Then we headed to Timezone, and naturally, Max was king of the air hockey and foosball tables. To my utter surprise, however, Castro kicked Max's ass in a best-of-three basketball shootout, beating him in the last round 41 to 29. Wow.
I'm not much of an arcade person, really, but I managed to beat Max at car racing. It was the only game I played the whole time we were there, but I didn't mind. It was just as fun to watch everybody try to kick each other's asses. While Paula and Gabby duked it out at air hockey, a thirtysomething guy wearing black approached me and asked me if I could help him out with a Star Wars trivia sheet (I think it was from Canon, and you'd get a prize if you answered everything correctly). "Amidala's first name is Padme, sir." "No, it's C-h-e-w-b-a-c-c-a, not 'Chubakka'." Note that I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, I mean, yeah, I have watched all five movies prior to Revenge of the Sith, but only because someone I was with wanted to watch it ('cause personally, I think it's overrated). My brother and my uncle wanted to watch Episodes 4, 5 and 6, my friends wanted to watch 1 and 2 so they could see "that hottie" Hayden Christensen and all those super-kilig love scenes he shares with Natalie Portman.
So I asked Max (who was more of a fan than I was) to help me out, and less than two seconds later, everybody was crowding over this guy and his little piece of paper. It was quite a sight: the Star Wars fanatics came to rescue this (male) damsel in distress, and of course, we saved the day! Yippee!
The rest of the day went by in a blur: we had the prerequisite studio pics taken, we stopped by Powerbooks (which is the most awesome shop in the world), where Max and Castro were giggling over this book called "Useless Inventions of the Japanese" (sp?) while I was flipping through the pages of "Sex Lives of the American Presidents". I put it down not too long after, deciding that maybe I didn't want to know what a bunch of wrinkly, balding old men did behind closed doors *shudder*. Then I somehow found myself walking through the busy streets outside Greenbelt while discussing religion with Castro (more enlightening than you'd think), and before I knew it, the day was over and I was in a car on its way back to Hyatt where the family was staying.
I don't lie when I say that I had a blast, and it was nice to receive "Thank you, it was fun" texts from the others after it was all over.
...Guys, how does next month sound? ^___^
