Saturday, September 28, 2013

Photo Talk: The 34th Manila International Book Fair (MIBF 2013)

In spite of the heavy downpour all day long that Sunday, the 34th MIBF is still jam packed with crowd during it’s last day until closing time.  I supposed due to its loyal crowd such as my family plus it coincides with a weekend payday sale at the nearby SM Mall of Asia plus the UAAP cheer dance competition which is happening also at the nearby MOA Arena.

The Crowd

Name a book store and publishing company – you’ll surely find them at the fair.

The Giants

Book signing from local authors, writers and illustrators has always been a major part of the annual MIBF.  We spotted journalist, poet and musician Lourd de Veyra trying to be incognito from the crowd while DJ and writer “Papa Jack” is having a book signing on the same publication where he will be doing book signing too.

The queue to Bo Sanchez book signing is as usual among one of the longest.

Aside from signing my daughter’s book, illustrator Dom Agsaway made a quick drawing of my daughter’s face on the same page where he signed.

The Faces
Almost everything was on sale! And they are not limited to books.  Pens, stationeries and a lot more is on discounted prices.

THe Frenzy
Unlimited fun was in every corner.  Story telling and book reading of course is among the most favorite activity plus lots of educational competitions. There’s no corner that you won’t find something to do apart from reading and shopping.
 
The Interactive
 The Gimiks

The Walls

One of the most attended event is the “The Best of Anime 2013” cosplay event.  It has separate entrance fee though and is being done at the second floor of the SMX Convention Center.

The Cosplayers

My two book worms of course had the time of their lives enjoying the activities and buying their favorites and annual picks.

What Young Ones

I restrained myself from buying anything for myself this year.  I kept reminding myself that they will just pile up on my reading queue. I still have a stack from last year’s fair that I haven’t read yet plus some from the "floating bookstore" and some gifts from friends.  But it was a tough battle when I needed to buy something from Anvil Publishing (one of my favorites).  I was not able to restrain myself from peeping on Jessica Zafra’s books especially the “Twisted” series.  I picked two books and supposed to queue at the cashier.  It was a real battle before I finally decided to return my picks back to the racks (sigh/LOL).

What caught my eyes

My annual favorite bet in the “Best in Booth Design” – Rex Bookstore came in second place this year. The 1st place goes to C&E Publishing with a very modern booth design.  My camera did not do justice to C&E’s entry.  It really looks great in person.

The Winner
If there’s one disappointment that we had during the fair is that we only had four hours spent at the fair.  Jeez!  we almost missed it.  It was already crunched time when our messy family schedule finally blended.  It was already 3PM of the last day (Sunday) when we finally succeeded going to the fair.  Unlike the previous years that we almost spent a whole day.  There were even some years that we went for two days.

But as always we had fun! Can’t wait for next year’s event!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Music Exposure Part 1: When I Was Little

BeatlesI have a generation gap with my older siblings, particularly with my oldest brother and sister (Kuya and Ate).  Being born the youngest from the brood of eight, my exposure in music is influenced by the different genre where my other siblings belong.

Let me start with, "When I was little" (lol but seriously), my father has this business of buying imported stuff from American people in Subic Base back in the days that it wasn’t yet a free port.  He used to bring home a lot of imported stuff, from food,  kitchen utensils, furniture to appliances.  We smell like Americans I tell yah. LOL!  Calling my father “Hey Jo!” up front was the ultimate dream joke for me and my siblings.  But it remained just a dream joke.  My father, in spite of being exposed to the western people is the typical conservative Filipino father.  He is super strict and disciplinarian.  Kissing his hand (Mano Po) was the “must do” when he comes home from work. 

One day, my father brought home a stereo that made all of us exclaimed “Holy Cow!”  Everyone of us were agape while that “gorgeous huge piece of American technology” is being unloaded from the delivery van.  It was so sophisticated (during that time of course)   that I ‘m not sure if I can describe it perfectly in writing.  I also tried searching for an image from the net but I can’t find an exact one.  The photo below is a bit the same but ours is more sophisticated.  But at least it will give you an idea how it looks like.

an old American stereo.
Ours is more sophisticated, with piano finish top in varnish color and the edges are artfully curved.
american stereo

I don't think that even the richest people in our town own something like this.  It is the kind that you can only find from imported glossy magazines.  It has lots of features including two sliding door compartments.  One for the control panel and the other one for the record keeper. The records during that time is called “Long Playing Album” (LOL). Between the two compartments is a huge speaker that produces the best quality of  stereo sound.

There are lots more unique features this stereo has, but the one thing that really fascinates us and all the people who saw it, is the record player.  It is also the one thing that stuck in my mind and still fascinates me till this day.  The record player has a robot-like function.  It can hold up to ten long playing albums, and then it automatically queues the record one after the other.  Fascinating isn’t it?

LongPlaying
So my Kuya (brother) feasted on this sophisticated stereo.  As you know how the older siblings are in the family, they dominate or set the trend in the house! Yo! Ooops! It was “Peace Man” during that time.  My brother is one proud teener in the hippie genre, owning the coolest sound system in town!  His room was strategically adjacent to the living room where the stereo is displayed.  A mock-up divider separated the living room and my brother's head board.  He will queue a maximum of ten long playing albums to the stereo, go back to his room and sang his lungs out with the Beatles, Bee Gees, Elvis, The Doors, Santana, Black Sabbath, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and all the 70’s greatest. 

Past forward to present... 

The food - till this day I am not fond of eating those huge jarred pickles, canned goods, chocolate covered marshmallows and cookies and the likes.  I sort of developed a food fatigue on those food stuff.  To think that “PX” was still rare and a real big deal at that time.

The music - all I can say is that I can join the game "Name that Tune" and I promised you I could win the championship in the 70's category!

And this was just the beginning of my “no way out slavery" of listening to music.  Tag along with me as I go along with life saying “Rock on!” 

Photo credits: Google images

Note from the author:
This is originally published from my former blog "The Lucky Blog" .

Friday, September 6, 2013

The 34th Manila International Book Fair (2013)

Yey! Here comes that time of the year once again that we are all feeling excited for our annual book bonding - The Manila International Book Fair!

What is more amazing is that it’s now on its 34th year!

September 11 – 15, 2013 ● 10AM – 8PM
SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex
Pasay City, Philippines

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To have an idea on how fun it is to be at the MIBF event you may want to check our annual book bonding adventures from this posts:
And if you wish to know the detailed schedule of events of this year’s MIBF you can click on this link.

See you all there!

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Happy 1st... of September! (Re-post: 95 Days Before Christmas)

Happy 1st of September everyone!

Today I started downloading my favorite collection of Christmas songs and add them back on my playlist.  I am playing the Ray Conniff selection while editing this post.

Please don't be confused with the content/title of this post.  Today, 1st of September is technically 113 days more before Christmas.

The following content is a re-post from my former blog "The Lucky Blog" originally titled as "95 Days Before Christmas"...
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It kind of surprised me big time when I heard from today’s morning news that it is just 95 more days before Christmas!  I can’t help but utter the over used but oh so true phrase “time flies so fast”!  And it flies more faster when you are so caught up with the daily rushes of life that you missed to savor the moment when the most anticipated season of the year is fast approaching.

For those who’s been following my blog posts, it is so obvious that for almost two months now, I am having one helluva time.  My schedule is so messed up and the mess directly affected my blog postings.  Though I manage not to be in total blogging hiatus, I was not happy either on the way I am managing my posts lately. I love blogging, I love writing!  However, sometimes there are far more pressing responsibilities that one needs to take care of and in the process, some things are needed to be given up for a while.  In my case I need to sacrifice some of my blogging time to accommodate more pressing and important matters.   I’m not happy though.  Thus, in spite that my schedule is almost unmanageable, I’m still trying very hard not to neglect my blog sites. It saddens and touches me at the same time when blogger friends are commenting that they are missing my posts. How I wish that I can post like I used to.

I sound frustrated yeah?  Another reason is that, I failed to do one personal tradition that I annually do.
I love to wake up in the dawn of September 1st, tune in the radio and wait for the first Christmas song to play, then be one among the first to greet everyone a “Happy Christmas!”
Do I sound overly dramatic? And yeah I know this may sound too early for some people especially for non-Filipino.  Well I have my reasons. 

Christmastime is a joyful season that brings hope to people.  Something to be anticipated for, a time when wishes are given chances and followed by hope for something new and prosperous – the New Year.

And since I talk about music in this blog, let this be my venue to greet you all here through this beautiful music video that I traditionally post in my social media accounts every 1st of September.


HAPPY CHRISTMAS everyone!

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