Chopsuey

Too many things to write about...

1. ROCKBAND

For the last 3 weeks, I've been playing an hour each night online on Rockband. I've met some really good guitar players and superb vocalists when I sub as a drummer for their respective groups. Haha.. I've received my share of compliments for my drumming skills, like "Nice work on the drums, man!" and such.

Anyway, playing as a 'sub drummer' in the online Rockband community has earned me quite a reputation already. When I opened my Playstation account last night, I had a half dozen invites from "strangers" (online players who I haven't played with) to sub as a drummer for their "jam" sessions.

Also, out of boredom, I've created character profiles for a few colleagues who play with me occasionally. Ahahahaha.


2. TERIYAKI BOY

It was really hot yesterday afternoon.

I had a very late lunch (3 pm!) at Teriyaki Boy in Glorietta yesterday, as I've been craving for Japanese food. I was expecting that I'll be the lone customer there at that time, but there were a couple of cute Japanese college girls there chatting away over their cold soba noodles. One of them had a Hello Kitty charm dangling from her mobile while the other girl had red irises (special contact lenses, I suppose).

I seated myself across them, gave my order to the waiter, and eavesdropped on their conversation while I had my sashimi appetizer.

Now don't get me wrong... I generally don't eavesdrop. If ever I do, I have a perfectly good reason for doing it. In this case, I wanted to test out whether my Japanese language skills are still good enough for a conversation.

Halfway through my unagi don, Hello Kitty girl said something like this: "hadagi uetto waga... atsui!!". I burst out laughing! Bwahahaha! And the girls glanced at me suspiciously, with RedEye girl saying "Domo...?"

I apologized, said "Hai!" and blurted out a "sumimasen!" while smiling at them. I took out my pen and scribbled some stuff on a napkin and handed it to them, babbling that I'm not really fluent in Japanese speech but I'm pretty good at kanji writing.

Here's my rough translation of what they were talking about:

Hello Kitty girl: It's so warm here... my panties are actually wet!
Me: *snickers*, then goes "Bwahahahaha!"
Red-eye girl (suspiciously looking at me): You understood that?
Me: Yes. But I'm really sorry about it. =)


3. I went to the F.O.B. concert...

... and all I got was a t-shirt. Just kidding. I had a great time!(picture to be posted)

The last time I watched a concert at the Aranate Coliseum was when The Corrs were in Manila. Last Friday, I had the chance to watch Fall Out Boy.

Scanning quickly through the crowd (not bad... about 90% full!), I realized that:
a) almost 2/3 of the audience were kids in the 12-16 year old age bracket
b) two-thirds of the two-thirds mentioned above were girls
c) of the 1/3 who were not kids, about half of them looked like parents or chaperones, and they seem to have no clue who Fall Out Boy are

Thus, that leaves only 1/6 of the original audience who are in my age group and know that they're at Araneta Coliseum to enjoy the F.O.B. concert.

Front act was by Hey Monday, and in case you don't know who they are, tune in to Animax channel on your cable TV. Think Jonas Brothers meet Paramore, and give the female vocalist a New Yorker punk twang. Goodness.. I don't know any of their songs!

Finally, at 930pm, FOB got onstage and performed 17 songs for the night plus another 2 songs for their encore. They basically played the songs that's in their "LIve in Phoenix" concert album. Plus of course, their two hits from their newest album Folie a Deux namely "I Don't Care" and "America's Suitehearts".

Their stage presence was awesome. Neat tricks by the guitarists and energetic headbanging and stick-twirling by the drummer. The stage effects were also fantastic, specially when they performed "I Don't Care" and had all the lights onstage turned off --- all their instruments glowed in the dark, flashing on-and-off synchronized to the music and to their stage choreography.

By the end of the night, my voice was hoarse from shouting out the lyrics to their songs and joining the audience in some cued singing.


4. Gyro Now Smiles

Ngumingiti na daw si Gyro, according to Janice. I visited them early evening yesterday.

Unfortunately, Janice is a bit jealous of her husband Glenn because their 2-month old kid Gyro only smiles to Glenn (so far). Hahahaha!

Belated happy anniversary to you two, by the way.