Anthony Bourdain in the Philippines!

I recently found out that Anthony Bourdain, host of No Reservations, a show on Discovery Travel & Living, came to the Philippines last October 2008. That’s pretty cool!

I’m a very big fan of Discovery Travel & Living and I regularly watch and follow shows on that channel. One of my favorites are the cooking shows by Jamie Oliver and Nigella. But I digress.

Like any other typical Filipino, I was excited about Discovery shooting an episode about food in the Philippines. When I heard this news, I tried my best to find out when it was showing and sadly it will only be shown in the US first around late January 2009 and in SouthEast Asia later in the year or 2010. All I read so far is that they will be bypassing balut or a fertilized duck egg, which is kinda played in terms of Filipino food anyway.

In my searches, I found that Discovery had shot an episode about Philippine food earlier via Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods show. That’s one thing that the Philippines will never have a shortage of, bizarre food. While for most of us locals, it may seem like nothing out of the ordinary, a lot of people living outside of Asia might find it weird. I found the whole episode on YouTube (oh, the wonders of technology!), you can watch the first part below. I’ve also included links to the rest of the parts. Enjoy!

Part 2 – here

Part 3 - here

Part 4 - here

Part 5 - here

Part 6 - here

Previously on 24

After a long wait, 24 is finally back! 

What is 24 you may ask? 24 is a television series presented in real time. The main protagonist is Jack Bauer, a US government agent mainly working on cases related to terrorism. Each season represents a 24 hour period in the characters lives, with every episode representing an hour each.

Watching 24 is probably one of my favorite time wasting activities in life. It’s really an exciting series and I feel it’s best to watch it in batches. Good thing for the start of the season they release 2 episodes for each of the past 2 weeks, so this weekend I got a chance to watch all 4 in one sitting! They started this practice of releasing 2 or more episodes in the first few weeks of the season I think 2 or 3 seasons ago and I guess it has been successful thus they have kept doing for every season.

I first heard about 24 when I started downloading various shows online and at the time it didn’t really entice me even though I’ve heard lots of good things about the show. I only got hooked on the show when one of my Japanese classmates in Shanghai lent his box set to me. The box set included seasons 1 to 4 and one lazy Sunday, I decided to try it out. Big mistake! That Sunday, from the time I started watching I only got off the couch at 8PM to order dinner and was pretty much stuck to the couch watching the show! I stopped watching around 12 midnight and I think was halfway through the first season. It just sucks you in with all the excitement and various sub-plot lines weaved into the main plot.

Granted after the 2nd or 3rd season, the show started to fall off but still had a bit of excitement. Due to the writer’s strike last year, there wasn’t any 24 shown on TV, however I think that strike is the best thing that happened to 24. I feel that it gave the writers time to think about the show and gather their thoughts on how to make 24 exciting again. The current season is now at season 7 and from what I’ve seen so far, it has been very promising and I hope that this season could bring the magic back to the show. 

*note: Because of the long break, they released a 2-hour TV movie special called 24:Redemption which fills the gap between season 6 & 7 and ties in into the current season.

The Perfect Office Chair?!

Last weekend, while strolling along Powerplant Mall, Rockwell, there was a display area that showcased ergonomic chairs and furnitures, particularly for children. The showcase was for the new store than opened on the upper level called Ergrokidz. On one side they also had some office furniture displayed and an office chair caught my eye. It was a chair that resembled the Herman Miller Aeron office chair and even the salesperson on hand agreed with me that there were similarities. This chair was brought in by Contract Design and was selling for around Php 32,000 or US$ 711 while the original Aeron chair, depending on the size, would probably cost from US$ 600 to US$ 1,000 which is equivalent to Php 27,000 to Php 45,000.

I first came across the Aeron chair when I chanced it upon seeing snippets of various design firms’ offices such as Fragment Design and Cubism Inc. I thought the design was cool and the seat is covered by a mesh that looks almost metal-like called Pellicle. It is considered to be good for the back and posture of the user as the seat has an ergonomic shape  and the height and back can be easily adjusted. The side arms can be adjusted as well, including the option of totally hiding the arms.

It has been said that the Aeron chair was the symbol of the IT bubble in the 90s and a status symbol for many offices. I’ve came across many reviews and while some are unhappy with the comfort-ability, most are pretty happy with their chairs.  Or they might just be forcing themselves to be happy because they shelled out a lot of money for the chair, hah!

Maybe someday, I shall try it out(I checked their site and they do have dealers here in Manila). If I have the extra cash to blow and it feels good enough, maybe I’ll invest in one.

The Adidas Consortium aZX Project: Group 2 I-P

The 2nd wave of sneakers from the aZX Project will be coming out this September 20,2008. For this batch, we have letters I to P with the following stores representing each letter: Icon Stores, J-B, Kendo, LiveStock, Major DC, Neighborhood, Adidas Originals, Patta.

Without further ado, here are the pics and details for the 2nd batch:

ZX 700 FOR ADIDAS ICON STORES (LONDON & BERLIN)

Designed for Adidas Icon stores in London and Berlin or simply called No. 6(London) and No. 74(Berlin). These numbers are represented on the tongue of the shoe, which also means that this pair will exclusively be available ONLY in Icon stores.

ZX 500 BY J-B (PORTLAND, USA)

J-B stands for Just Be or JustBeComplex.com which is the website for Compound Gallery. Compound Gallery is located in Portland, Oregon which is the hometown of corporate rival, Nike. The store sells an eclectic mix of sneakers, clothing as well as toys and art. It actually seems that they are a store that sells more art and design stuff and this is clearly reflected on the intricate design found in the heel of the shoe.

AZX 800 BY KENDO (LOS ANGELES, USA)

Kendo is the 1st sneaker store that is dedicated to women. As such, the colorway they have chosen represents their background. From the suede heel area and a selection of different purple shades coupled with gray and just a hint of gold on the 3 stripes, this is a sneaker that both men and women could rock.

ZX 450 BY LIVESTOCK (VANCOUVER, CANADA)

Another one of the pioneer sneaker stores in Canada, Livestock started off with Vancouver and has since open 2 other stores, another one also in Vancouver and the other in Toronto. Taking similar color cues from fellow Canadian store Goodfoot, they also use a green and gray combo albeit with a darker and more militaristic look to it. If the similarities of the colorway was done on purpose, we are not sure as well. Maybe Canadians just love the color green.

ZX 600 BY MAJOR DC (WASHINGTON, USA)

In reworking this shoe, Major DC wanted to put an all-terrain feel to it and chose to use the olive and khaki with hints of orange to make it blend. The digi camo pattern on the heel is also a nice touch to it. It does seem that for military themes, sneaker companies love to put that tinge of orange similar to the Nike SB Dunk Hi for Brian Anderson that came out last year.

ZX 700 BOAT BY NEIGHBORHOOD / NBHD (TOKYO, JAPAN)

I’m actually most excited in writing about this shoe, mostly because it’s Neighborhood or more commonly known as NBHD. I am a big fan of the Japanese street wear industry and NBHD is one of the most respected brands out there. Headed by Shinsuke Takizawa, the brand is heavily influenced by the biker culture. In fact, according to some insider info, there was some difficulty for Adidas to make this collaboration happen due to the fact that NBHD doesn’t really do runner sneakers which is what the ZX models are, however they were able to compromise by offering the ZX 700 which is Adidas’ take on the boat shoe.

This probably will be the most hyped shoe for this batch, if not for the whole project. The tones selected by NBHD is black and white, which is the common color combinations which they use for most of the stuff in their line. It works effectively and gives that simple but striking look. Many people have said that there are similarities to Visvim FBT, I can say that maybe there is an influence to it as NBHD has collaborated with Visvim for quite a number of times now.

ZX 700 FOR ADIDAS ORIGINALS

The shoe that will only be available at Adidas Originals stores. This version has an interesting mix of materials used along with a velcro strap for the heel. Nice and simple, done with my favorite combo of chocolate and pink.

ZX 7000 BY PATTA (AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS)

Patta is Surinamese slang for shoes and is mostly famous due to one of it’s founders, Parra. Parra is an illustrator who have worked on various magazine, CD covers as well as concert posters. He has also done quite a number of collaborations with Nike. Parra and Patta have always worked with vibrant colors and for their sneaker, what they have done is no exception. A good combination of teal against purple, it’s almost pushing the limits for color harmony and yet it is something that you can see people wearing on their feet.

That’s it for the 2nd batch! Wait for the upcoming 3rd and final series of this project. It should be quite promising as we have big name brands such as Alife and Undefeated among the list of collaborators.

Thanks to the following for the pics: HighSnobiety, Hypebeast and Freshnessmag.

San Diego Comic-Con

The San Diego Comic-Con is one of my dream events to attend! A 4-day event where all comics, toys, movie, anime and other related genre geeks and nerds converge to basically “geek out”. From selling and buying memorabilia and books to meeting creators, and for companies to launch their products to it’s hardcore fans.

Ever since the comic book movie genre and anime boomed in America, there have been more and more people who are attending this event. In fact, there were so many people the past 2 years that many people have complained about the overcrowding and this year is the first time that they did not do any on-site ticket selling. And guess what? The pre-selling tickets that was done online sold out fast!

I think I want to attend this before I reach the age of 30, I am thinking of going maybe next year or the year after next the latest. I really have to work hard and try to save up as much as I can. I was also planning some backpacking trips around the Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia area as well as a trip up to Tibet, I guess one of those I have to scrap for the meantime. Let’s go SDCC!

BBC: Journey To The East Animation

Produced by Gorillaz’s Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett for BBC in celebration of the upcoming Beijing Olympics. This is their take on the Chinese folk tale, Journey of the West, which was recently notably referenced in that god-awful movie, The Forbidden Kingdom with Jacky Chan and Jet Li.

Enjoy! August 08, 2008 is coming!