I can’t believe I actually typed ‘OMG’…as a title…three times!!!

Well, here’s why. Dark Horse has just announced that they will be releasing ‘Serenity: A Shepherd’s Tale’ this November! Finally! Let’s hope it really, really, really pushes through this time.

photo courtesy of comicbookresources.com

More info here.

This movie is so good, it’s almost painful to watch.

photo courtesy of rottentomatoes.com

You should go watch this movie even if it’s just to see George Clooney dancing and rapping to ‘Bust A Move’ by Young MC. Now that is Oscar-worthy.

It’s been almost 4 weeks since I finished (sort of) reading Born to Run and I’m still on a Tarahumara high. In the book, the author mentioned two diet staples for the Tarahumara runner– pinole and iskiate. I immediately researched where I could get the ingredients for both here in the Philippines. I made my first iskiate last week (will post details and pic soon) since it was easier. Tonight I made my first attempt at pinole.

Pinole recipe

1 cup fine grind corn meal
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 Tbsps brown sugar or honey
2 Tbsps chia seeds (optional)
Water

Toast the corn meal in a non-stick pan over low to medium heat for 5 minutes or until it turns light brown. Stir often. Turn burner off. Mix in the cinnamon, brown sugar, and chia seeds. Add water as desired.

Fine grind cornmeal

Chia seeds

You can get the cornmeal from the local Healthy Options stores for less than P200. The chia was a lot harder to find. I found some online but they were waaaay too expensive (P1500 for 500g) so I asked my sister in the US to order it for me. This 454g bottle costs $10.29.

Step 1: toast the corn meal

Step 2: Mix in the cinnamon, sugar, chia, and water

You can use more cinnamon or sugar if you prefer it to be sweeter. You can also add more water to make it more oatmeal-like.

Step 3: Bake the mixture (optional)

If you don’t like the pasty texture, you can bake the mixture at 250-300F for 15-20mins to make it into a cookie. This is more ‘portable’ for long, or in my case short, runs. All in all, this is a cheaper alternative to power bars or power gels.

Based on the finished product, I think I need to add more water to my mixture. But hey, it’s my first attempt right? I’ll do better next time. Let me know how your experiment turns out if you decide to try this for yourself.

Yaiks! I just realized this entry is 3 weeks late. There are so many things going on in my head that blogging has taken a back seat to doing nothing and just thinking. Which, if I may digress for a bit, brings to mind one of my favorite quotes. Guess which feeling-celebrity-slash-social-climber said this idiotic sentence: my mind is like an idea-churning machine.

Back to my story.

On the 29th of January I went to Sogod, Leyte with the Planet Dive crew for a 4-day dive trip. I was actually a little hesitant to join this trip since Paolo wasn’t going with me (still not cleared for diving after his ACL operation) but since I already knew most of the people in the group, I decided to go through with it.

Flight to Leyte

The best way to describe our flight out of Manila would be “a comedy of errors.” Let me count the ways: 1) When Joy, Joel, and I checked in, the airline check-in-counter-girl scolded us because Joy used her nickname on the e-ticket instead of her full name; 2) On our way to pay the terminal fee, Joel realized that he had lost his boarding pass. Luckily, someone returned it to the airline check-in-counter-girl; and 3) Since the three of us were about an hour early for our flight, we decided to grab a quick breakfast at Delifrance before proceeding to the gate. As we were chowing down, the rest of our group started arriving. We all started chatting and chatting and chatting…until Katz (who was already on the plane) called TB to tell him that they’d already started boarding. We were so late the ground crew had to page us several times!

The Resort

We were billeted at the Sogod Bay Scuba Resort. Our rooms were really nice. The bathrooms were spacious and clean, our beds were made everyday, and we had a supply of drinking water and hot water for coffee.

The restaurant and bar is another matter unfortunately. Except for the complimentary breakfast and the egg and bacon bun, everything I ordered tasted like cardboard. Expensive cardboard at that! I’m not sure if it’s a healthy thing, like maybe the chef didn’t put salt in or used low-fat stuff, but the food was just blah.

The Dives

I only had one reason why I wanted to join this trip even without Paolo: whalesharks! The one advantage Sogod has over Donsol is that you can dive and see whalesharks. Unfortunately we didn’t see a single butanding. What the dive operator failed to tell us was that the area where the whalesharks can be seen has been turned into a marine sanctuary. We would have to pay an extra P1000 PER PERSON and we can only use snorkeling gear inside the sanctuary. The rest of the dive sites were ok. I saw a couple of sharks and that was it. Nothing I wouldn’t see in Anilao.

Conclusion

All in all, I had fun in this trip. I made new friends and I was able to get to know a couple of Coron folks a little better. Of course, who could forget the epic charades night. I now have empirical evidence that the increase in a person’s charades I.Q. is directly proportional the number of vodka shots consumed.

Clockwise: Keith (DM), Magic, Katz, me, Cielo, Kat, Jomz, Eric, Sonny, Migui, TB, Jijo, Mia, Phil, Joel, Joy, Gerard, Jeck, and Jarvey

Sometimes I think humans are the dumbest creatures on this planet.

Via Inquirer.

So, the story is the fishermen couldn’t free the whaleshark with their bare hands so they needed to cut the fins and tail…WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST CUT THE NET WITH THE KNIVES THEY OBVIOUSLY HAD?! DID THEY CUT THE FINS WITH THEIR BARE HANDS?! WHO COMES UP WITH THIS SHIT?!!!

I smell something fishy…and it ain’t the fish.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”  – Albert Einstein