Black Tie Brawl

Tyrone and I were invited to the Black Tie Brawl last October 18th. Now ordinarily, I would never be able to drag Tyrone to any kind of social event. The draw of the BTB though, is that it's eight Mixed Martial Arts fights thrown in with a five-course dinner at the Hyatt Hotel and Casino. There must be some bloodlust in my son, because he readily agreed to go to the fights with me.

The BTB was a dress-up event, so a few days before, Ty and I went off to find a suit for him. We found one in our first stop - The Landmark. On the third floor kids section, we found a blue suit for P1,980. Add in a few pesos more to get it cut the right length and we had a great deal! This is what we looked like before heading off to the Hyatt:

At the event, quite a few people were actually wearing tuxedos! It's a good thing that Tyrone and I dressed up. T was actually of the opinion that there might be a few people in jeans with jackets, but actually there were hardly any dressed down attendees. If anything, my light grey suit was under-dressed, a fashion faux pas!

We sat at a table with guys from IPVG, as I had been invited by Enrique Gonzalez, their president. We decided to put up a small betting pool, with the pot going to whoever had the most number of correct guesses as to who would win each of the eight fights. Tyrone and I could only get 3 of 8, less than a 50:50 rate! The winner was Rodney Hall, who is in the Sports Betting area and got 8 of 8 correct. I guess his abilities to spot winners extends even to sports he is unfamiliar with.

A Visit to the Rainbow Warrior

OK, here's a good debate. On the face of it, "Quit Coal" seems like something we can all agree with. Even the totally uninformed must have some awareness of "global warming," "Al Gore," "clean energy" and the hundreds of buzzwords and issues surrounding climate change.

One of the best articles I've read on the issue was in National Geographic, entitled "The High Cost of Cheap Coal." Here are a couple of choice quotes from that issue:

Coal-burning power plants ... supply the United States with half its electricity. They also emit a stew of damaging substances, including sulfur dioxide—a major cause of acid rain—and mercury. And they gush as much climate-warming carbon dioxide as America's cars, trucks, buses, and planes combined.

For the past 15 years U.S. utilities needing to add power have mainly built plants that burn natural gas, a relatively clean fuel. But a near tripling of natural gas prices in the past seven years has idled many gas-fired plants and put a damper on new construction. Neither nuclear energy nor alternative sources such as wind and solar seem likely to meet the demand for electricity.

"Aye, there's the rub," as Hamlet debated with himself: Coal is bad, yes, but other sources of electricity are more expensive. And given the current national debate on the already high electricity prices in our country, majority of which is coal-derived, clearly the issue is not easy to resolve.

So on a sunny Sunday, T and I decided to go and visit the Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of Greenpeace's "Quit Coal" efforts in the Philippines. We may not have the solutions, but we can at least listen to what the vanguards of alternative energy have to say.

Trouble is we came late and so didn't get to fully hear Greenpeace's solutions. Looking around, the crew seemed just like you and me and not the fanatic, tree-hugging vegans that one might expect from their anti-big business exploits. And yet, there on deck were those massively powered rubber dinghies that Greenpeace puts to such media savvy use, zipping around international waters buzzing Japanese whalers and such.

For me, Greenpeace is on the fringe of these debates. Does painting "Quit Coal" on the side of a freighter resolve the issue? Wouldn't a contribution to research on how to make alternative energy cheaper be a better way to resolve the debate?

Still the afternoon is pleasant enough. There's Dave the Dolphin gracing the ship's bow, always a good spot for a photo op.

And there are a lot of students aboard, some probably just getting their first thoughts centered on this Gordian knot called energy. I just hope they keep an open mind towards the myriad solutions that are out there.

Garage Sale

I never thought a garage sale was a bloggable event, but apparently, T's garage sale made the blogosphere. As always, it was another of her charity fundraisers together with her Assumption Batch 81 classmates.

I was just amazed at the whole production, from the posters to publicize the event all the way to the security guards to - what? Guard against shoplifters?

I also found out that in Forbes, you can't just have a garage sale. You have to notify the association and, I love this, pay a garage sale fee. It's all of P50 so I don't even know what this covers.

The complete post, including great photos of the stuff that was sold, is here.

Acquire Night

Over the past decade, four friends and I have been playing Acquire. We average four nights a year when we all get together at someone's home and play three games for the night.

Total accumulated winnings for the evening determine the winner and runner-up, who then share our prize pool in a 2:1 ratio. The pool is pretty small, P500 each plus fines for latecomers and for the last to arrive. The pool just brings a bit of excitement to the game.

The complete rules for Acquire are here.

We've been playing so long that when we first started, the game looked like this, with a Dracula-type banker on the box cover. (It was produced by 3M, the Scotch tape guys. The modern version above was developed by Hasbro.)

On Acquire Nights, we bring our wives, who gossip on their side of the table while the five of us play and chat on ours. (Note that I'm being politically incorrect by saying the women "gossip" while we "chat," as if our talk was any more substantive than theirs.)

Over the decade, four of the five of us have remained with the same spouse, which is a pretty good batting average for Manila. Also, about five children have been added in that decade, which is a pretty low figure for the country.

Acquire was invented by a board game designer named Sid Sackson in the '60's (interesting job title). Sackson also collected games and when he died (in 2002), had over 18,000 in his collection. As a nice touch, when Hasbro updated the game, they named one of the corporations Sackson (although they also used it for the cheapest corporation, which is kind of a cheap shot).

There are various websites that talk about the history of the game, its rules, variations, tournaments and all sorts of Acquire trivia. Naturally I read through it all, especially since there's nothing to do when nobody else is at home.

The point of all this is that we had an Acquire Night last night and I just now figured out we've been doing something wrong all this time. We've always dealt each other $5,000, and just tonight I read the exact rule:

Each player begins the game with $6000 in cash ($1000 x 4, $500 x 3, $100 x 5) and six tiles picked at random for their starting racks.

Oops, time to return all bets!

You Can HAVitALL!

It's not often that T's "SE" (social events) stuff can actually be fun, but it was when HAVitALL multivitamins paid for us plus six friends to have a scuba weekend at Dive Solana.

We ended up inviting u/w hockey players aka the Solana Six (although the rest of the group who didn't get to sign up called us the Solana Seniors). All our pix are on our Multiply sites, so you need to click here to see them.

Here's what Tessa had to say about the weekend in her Inquirer.net column:

New challenges

The newest multivitamin in the market, HAVitALL, has been actively promoting their product by inviting friends to take on new challenges. The invitation was a marvel of cute packaging, encouraging me to take up a new activity, like surfing, karting or even pottery making. Although I already scuba dive, I chose this activity so that I could bring along my husband, Dennis, and several of his friends from underwater hockey.

Dive Solana was our chosen resort, because of their friendly service and homey accommodations. In between the dives, we visited with agency bigwig Ichay Bulaong, who was spending her weekend on a personal social responsibility project with her family and friends—to help paint an underwater mural on the fence of the San Teodoro Elementary School in Barangay Mabini. The project organizer, Sandy Hammet, noted that the mural painting was part of Project Utay Utay, the barangay’s environmental initiative.

It’s great to see how many Pinoys find different ways of helping their communities. For me and the underwater hockey group, it was a great way to spend our HAVitALL weekend. Indeed, good deeds are cleansing for the soul!

Annika's 10th Birthday

Annika's Birthday Party last January 19 was a dance party. Dance obviously is not one of my passions, so I'll quote from Tessa's Inquirer column of Sunday, February 24, to describe it:

"The freedom of expression in dance is liberating. I’m so hooked on the series, “So You Think You Can Dance.” In fact, for my eldest daughter Annika’s tenth birthday party, we chose a dance theme. As she enters her pre-teen years, Annika and I have started enjoying more girly activities together.

As with any party, preparations start with the invitation itself. Talented graphics couple Norman and Mye Cruz of Adworks (tel. 688-0085 or e-mail adworksgrfx@yahoo.com) artistically creates both the invitations and the giveaways; always perfectly done despite the limited time I give them. This creative duo does everything from wedding invitations, baptisms, birthdays and debuts. For an artistic twist to your own invitations, check out Adworks and have a really personalized and wonderful memento made.

Once the invitations and giveaways are settled, my next appointment is at Cupcakes by Sonja (tel. 856-0308 or e-mail at socampo77@mac.com) in Serendra. For two birthdays in a row, Sonja Ocampo has made Annika’s cake along with a smaller version for Athena. And so all the kids get a bite of the delicious cake, there are matching cupcakes for all to enjoy.

And what’s a dance party without dancers! Dance sport champion Ednah Ledesma, one of the world’s best ballroom dancers, was our very special performer. Ednah had training in almost all dance varieties from ballet, jazz and hip-hop, but not ballroom, until entering the sport in 1997. Her performance was graciously captivating.

To date, Ednah has won over 5 major titles, including the championship in the prestigious Senior Latin Division of the Blackpool Competition in 2005. To those in the know, this is considered the Holy Grail of Dance Sports, held annually in England.

At the Ginajane Grey Dance Show last year, Ednah did a Latin Tango number with her partner Cecil Go. In her own show last month at the Music Museum, she showed off her skills accompanied by other dance sport champions. Entitled “Adventures of Dancing with The Champions 2,” the show’s theme was Hollywood Silver Screen musical scores. The show featured celebrity guest performer Regine Tolentino reprising the role of Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago.

After watching the highly entertaining show, I congratulated my Assumptionista friend and Dance Sport Champion Anna Marie Periquet for her action-packed samba with heart-stopping stunts, performed to the theme of Mission Impossible. She was so kind to reprise her act for Annika’s party at Bykes Café, along with Ednah’s Catwoman number and a special Cheetah Girls dance by Margie dela Rama.

To those who want to venture into the exciting world of dance, Ednah gives lessons at Studio 116 at 116 Building, V.A. Rufino Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City (tel. 813-1549 or 0917-628-2477). I will be taking lessons soon, but honestly, I am just excited to try on a Catwoman costume and other outfits.

Adding to the high-energy at Annika’s party was the break dancing of the hip-hop group, All-Stars. These international champions can spin on their heads, balance with one hand and defy gravity all together!

The girls at the party were also interested in Nail Art, a digital airbrush painting by Creative Party & Balloon Design. All girly parties should get this feature. Call Cory Marquez at 0917-624-2679 or e-mail creative_party_design@yahoo.com to ask about her other party activities."

I sure wish Annika would take up underwater hockey. Then I'd have more to write about!

Enkantada

My wife truly leads an enchanted life. Tuesday, she jetted off to Hollywood to watch the premiere of Disney's "Enchanted" on November 21, on an all-expenses-paid invite from The Little Gym.

If that seems like a lot of flight time for a two-hour movie, let's not forget that Hollywood premieres usually have a bit of red carpet magic woven into the event. So, I am anxiously awaiting pictures of T in whatever Seaprincess costume she turns up in on the big night.

The trip was also a good chance for her to swing by SFO and spend some time with B, who is now happily ensconced in some internet company's cube farm, working at his first job. B will fly down to LA with T for the weekend, the better for the two to extend their bonding time.

Meanwhile, back here at home, I am already wondering how to spend the weekend with the three other kids...

Update:
Inquirer columnist Ruben Napales just wrote about T's trip to Hollywood:

"LOS ANGELES―Tessa Prieto-Valdes stopped traffic, literally and figuratively, on her way to and from the world premiere of Disney’s “Enchanted” at the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard..."

The photo caption says, "DUETS” champ Tessa Prieto-Valdes with Masi Oka of “Heroes.”