La Corda D'oro
Posted by RICA
Sadly, I am still waiting for Kure Yuki’s Kiniro no Corda scanlations to be posted… somewhere. Anywhere. god, why aren’t the English volumes available here? I’m sure Amazon has some of the volumes, but sometimes it’s futile to search for it, order it online, and have it delivered to your country. I am just not that patient.
Really, it kills me that I can’t have as much La Corda as I would want.
In case some people are wondering (really, I think it’s just me), nope, there’s no La Corda D’oro anime season 3 – there isn’t even a season 2 yet (it was reported that a special called Kin’iro no Corda ~secondo passo~ will start airing March 2009. YAY!). As with the manga, I’ve seen up to chapter 56 only, and they’re just raws. more…
FICTION Posted by Rica
Seeing Taal makes her remember Romy Diaz in his contrabida roles, wearing a robe, so early in the goddang morning.
Puffing. Smoke.
Everything’s hazy again.
Must be fog.
She’s sure it’s not smog. She doesn’t want to go back to the city.
For now.
She sees lines – or waves. Or wavy lines. Or…
She’s not thinking straight.
Again.
And again.
Her eyes feel heavy so early in the morning.
No, she’s not tired.
Not yet.
It’s just dawn, and she’s looking at the lake.
“Oh”, she says, as she wipes her tears away.
Again. And again.
FICTION posted by Mai
“Mind yourself now,” his wife called out when he slowly pulled out the car from the garage. “And take care of yourself!”
“Yeah, I will,” he answered through the rolled-down car window. As soon as the car was properly positioned by the road outside, he beckoned to his wife for a good-bye kiss. “Take care, too. And thanks for the present. I’ll use it. My word.”
“And control yourself, beloved,” she whispered against his ear.
“Yeah. I promise.” He drove off happily, and in slightly good sprits. The present in question, an unopened pot of peppermint-scented potpourri taped to the leather dashboard, waiting to be given proper acknowledgement. The man turned on the radio and listened to his MP3 player, whose playlist was altered by his wife, who deemed the song selection as too ‘provocative’. His lip slightly curled in distaste when he found out that his wife had inserted a couple of Simon and Garfunkle songs, which he promptly skipped with a deft flick of his finger.
“Goddamn b…graah,” he groaned and gritted his teeth in a great effort to stop himself from cursing loudly. He promised his wife. I promised. “Emo of the sixties, they are,” he grudgingly blurted out, frustrated and at the same time relieved that he was able to voice out his aversion without breaking his word. more…
Posted by Nancy S.
Have you always been eating those pancake mixes that you can buy in grocery stores? If you have never made your own pancakes from scratch, you’re missing a lot in your life. Homemade pancakes are a lot tastier and fluffier compared to those mixes or those you eat in fast food chains.
I remember making these fluffy pancakes for the first time. It was the best pancakes that I have ever tasted. I guarantee that you won’t ever go back to buying those hotcake mixes anymore after you’ve made your own. Here’s the basic pancake recipe that is both easy to do and will result to fluffy and tasty pancakes.
Basic Pancake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted
more…
FICTION posted by Rem
“In the face of true love, you don’t just give up even if the object of your affection is begging you to…”
I forgot where I heard this quip…it could be from Chuck Bass or from Lucas Scott, heck maybe even from Dawson Leery. Perhaps this naive and somewhat valiant way of looking at true love occupied my mind as I traversed the long and pothole-ridden roads of the north that led me to the disaster that is you, my dear Alex.
I’ve heard rumors and talks about how you felt about me, about the possibility of an “us”. At the same time, I also heard discouragement from very concerned friends who said that I’m basically committing emotional suicide; that by going to where you are I’m actually entering the deepest, innermost circle of hell. Though I heard them all, I chose to listen to the rumors and talks – the rest I treated as white noise – you hear it, but it is nothing but minute and insignificant. more…
FICTION posted by Karl
Do you remember? I do. I remember the good times we had together. I remember you telling me you wouldn’t ever leave. I remember words like “forever” and “eternity”. I remember kisses. I remember heat. I remember catching you making out with him behind the gym.
more…
FICTION posted by Rica
Her hands didn’t feel like her own; she had been staring at them since this morning. She couldn’t help but be amazed at how her hands had cooked a wonderful breakfast for her and her lover, how they had washed the dishes afterwards, and how they had done even the most trivial of chores around the house. She had never enjoyed doing those before with her own hands.
Those hands, she thought they were wonderful!
It could’ve lasted all day, her amusement; but slowly she realized that the hands were not like the ones she had been keeping clean. These hands were different. They were bruised, the nails were bitten short, both pinkies looked like they were sewn back on the hands, and they looked really worn.
This isn’t a Stephen King novel, she kept telling herself when she realized the hands were not hers. more…
Posted by Rio S.
A few months back, I realized that if I didn’t get an office job soon, I was going to starve (that and run out of money to buy cigarettes and pay for my internet – my priorities, go figure). Off I went to find somebody willing to pay me a steady income and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to freelance during hours when I’m supposed to sleep. So anyway, during my search of employment I was invited to a PR agency to take their writers’ exam.
I like taking exams, what I hate is filling out application forms as they keep asking during what years I was in high school (high school has been properly repressed, dammit). On the same day Rica had her interview and subsequent run in with the HR person, I had to drag my ass off bed to Makati. Mercifully, I was scheduled for a 2pm appointment as it usually takes two hours and two mugs of coffee to wake my brain up.
I get to their office; after a little wait, I was presented with the questionnaire and an answer sheet. The HR person explains the test to me and to the other girl taking the exam, then he leaves the room. I’m sure he wasn’t worried we’d copy off each other, because the test was – tadaaaah! – a creative marathon. more…
Posted by Rio S.
Face it, you’re screwed. Your presentation (for the company’s biggest client, no less) was torn to smithereens; your report-slash-plan (that was supposed to be your company’s panacea to survive the recession) was a Hindenburg. Everything was peachy for a while and a split second later, everything’s ablaze and everybody’s running for the exits. You’ve kissed your raise – which was due three months ago – goodbye. Or if you’re a freelance writer like myself, your article was flamed to hell and back. Get my drift?
After failure of epic proportions, what’s the next step?
Take it with grace. Do not go into the light – at least, not just yet. You still have a job, unless of course the plodding creature that is your boss fired your ass on the spot. And no, keep that pointer finger down, looking for a scapegoat is not only cowardly; it’s also a vile, vile practice done by people with no backbones (i.e. single celled organisms like amoeba and your ex-boyfriend). more…
The interview
Posted by Rica
I have always been vexed by job interviews. I love going to interviews so much that I’d rather the cosmos make up some weird event where I’ll end up with a really bad back strain so I won’t have to go. But the cosmos, she’s not that generous. So I go. Go with the flow, drown, and then die. I so love job interviews.
This one particular interview with one of the biggest wireless telecom companies (just guess, you have a 50-50 chance of getting it wrong) I went to had me wishing Friday wouldn’t come. My interview was on a Friday, at 10 in the morning. If Ms. Cosmos couldn’t give me a back strain that day (or a concussion), at least she allowed me to become someone else on Friday. more…
