Bling

© Joselito Briones

A photo from the recent visit to Munich. It's some sort of a window display, I can't even remember which shop.


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The city that never sleeps

© Joselito Briones

Another photo from the New York trip. This one was taken in Broadway. I just like that it reminds me of those lunar landing photos.


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Doppelgangers Anonymous

© Joselito Briones

I chanced upon Germany's version of America's Next Top Model on TV tonight, called what else but "Germany's Next Top Model (by Heidi Klum)". And what do you know? Heidi Klum is a lot more fierce in German! When she's dismissing someone in "Project Runway", in English, it seems so orchestrated, like her expression was designed specifically to project a certain meanness, like a good-looking version of Simon Cowell. In German though, it works really well. It's obvious she's in her element. And she really looks scary!

Anyway, the models. It's no surprise that übermodels from Germany are top-notch. Claudia Schiffer, anyone? This batch alone (now with only 5 left) looks like a Doppelgangers Anonymous gathering. Only, instead of the usual "uglier version of (state name of famous person here)", they actually look great. Face-wise, there are two that stand out. One is a cross-over between Scarlett Johansson (lips, breast, buck teeth with a slight gap and all, but without the fat!!! well ok, the other contestants have negative amount of fat, so this one still looks the most voluptuous among them) and Jacqueline Bisset (her name's Hana, and the downside is that she slumps a little), the other is a much younger, much more refined face version of Catherine Zeta Jones (her name's Fiona, she's got the most classy face among the contestants, she looks great in different styles, she needs to work on stabilizing her head while working the catwalk, and she gets all the drama in the series ). The one who got booted out tonight, Anja, is a younger, taller, thinner Linda Evangelista. Her big mistake was actually getting a hairstyle very much like Linda's. The comparison became much more obvious, and let's face it, there's no other Linda like Linda. Mandy is the typical blond-blue and a crossover between Bridget Fonda and Hilary Duff (no, I don't like her face), her nose is too big her mouth too low, and she is actually from Luxembourg. The two other contestants are Barbara, who's Julianne Moore-ish (okay, not really, but she's the only redhead that I can think of), and is obviously the one who carries herself best, and Anni (I don't know whom she looks like, I just know she's got bad skin).


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An Old Portrait

© Joselito Briones

This one was taken in Hong Kong, about 10 years ago, and worth showing you only because of the fact that this was my first ever portrait commission work.

Blogger.com, the medium with which I've been communicating with you, has decided a couple of months back to move all the photos I've been showing you to Picasa. It's an online photo storage system not very much different from Flickr. It's rather convenient that it's integrated with Blogger, you can clean up your files by visiting your Picasa account. The BIG problem is, I noticed, starting today (or maybe I just noticed today), that they decided to compress uploaded jpeg-format photos. The image quality has noticeably deteriorated, and any photo I upload looks very much different from the original. So if you're looking for a place to upload and share your photos, look somewhere else. (The photo above was uploaded before I noticed the compression artefacts on uploaded files)


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Holding Up

© Joselito Briones

I thought I should just put up an "under construction sign", because frankly it's not easy to write about what's going on in this head of mine right now. But then I thought, hey, I can at least put something up everyday, no matter how boring, if only to let you know that I'm still here.


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Church-going people

© Joselito Briones

This is one of my favorite recent photos, taken in New York, in 5th Av., last March. The subject, of course, is about as hokey as one can get, but I do like that I managed to get the exact picture I wanted with what was already there, what with all the tourists and the fact that I can only step back so much or I'd be roadkill.


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The only way is up

© Joselito Briones

It's one of those days... I guess it's natural, no matter how much you try to avoid it - you always end up revisiting the darkest places in your self. Sometimes you get surprised to find that there are actually places there that you never knew existed or assumed not to exist anymore.

I remember once, when I still lived close to you, and I found myself in the same-ish state, Jerry, the eternal optimist had the perfect way to help me deal with it. On the phone, which I finally answered after having (intentionally) left it inside the closet so I wouldn't hear it ring, he told me, like it wasn't really something one had to decide on - it's the thing to do, to take a long shower, put on something nice, and he'll take me out. Didn't really matter where. He showed up in my apartment, grabbed a pen, wrote something on post-its, and stuck them everywhere: in my wallet, on my desk, on the cover of my check book. Something positive to balance the energy. We went out, not really far, just in the neighborhood. Just to be out. Just enough to avoid being stuck at the bottom.


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More fillers

© Joselito Briones

I was hoping I could show you something new, or say something exciting, this being the weekend and all, unfortunately, it didn't go that way. I stayed in the whole day and watched TV. Cooked something, too. So yeah, instead of something new I'm showing you something old... part of the images of Erlangen series that I started last week. This one's also a church, but I never see it open, so I don't know if it still functions as one. This one's by the train station.


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Workshop (Die Möbelschreiner)

© Joselito Briones

This is a furniture workshop, somewhere in old Erlangen (yes, they actually give a distinction for this area, the Kirchenplatz is part of this). The only person working on wooden furniture when I took this photo was a woman who seemed to own the place. She smiled when she saw me taking the photo, but disappeared again to her work before I could include her in the picture.


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Kirchenplatz restaurants

© Joselito Briones
These photos of restaurants were taken in Kirchenplatz, across the Basilikum Restaurant.


© Joselito Briones




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Bicycles

© Joselito Briones

This was taken around the corner from yesterday's passage. This was taken with the Olympus E500. The original, of course, was in color.


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Kult

© Joselito Briones

This is one of the trendier shops here in Erlangen, Kult, mostly for jeanswear. "Stark reduziert", means it's currently on sale (lit. strongly reduced prices).


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Old passage

© Joselito Briones
These are photos of a small shortcut/passage, close to the clothes alteration shop. These were taken last Friday.


© Joselito Briones


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Hotel Brasserie

© Joselito Briones

This one's just around the corner from the cafe that I showed you a couple of weeks ago.


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Sweet Music

© Joselito Briones

I was passing by this building, the Orangerie (the photo is of the back door) when I heard someone rehearsing a song, a soprano voice, accompanied by a solo pianist, so I stayed awhile and listened.


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Magnolias

© Joselito Briones

This one was taken in the Erlangen Schlosspark, in front of the Orangerie.


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Produce market

© Joselito Briones

This is a photo of the produce market in front of the Erlangen Schloss (background).


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Mark Graf Cafe

© Joselito Briones

This one, of Mark Graf Cafe was taken from the produce market "Marktplatz", in front of the Erlangen Schloß.


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Erlangen Photos

© Joselito Briones

I spent most of the day processing the photos I took last Friday and yesterday, and there's quite a lot of them, so for the next few days I'll just be showing you these photos.


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Grüß' Gott

© Joselito Briones

This museum, the Jüdisches Museum München (Jewish Museum of Munich) , opened recently, but when I was there today taking pictures, it was closed and there was still some construction going on around it. The building was designed by Saarbrücken-based architects Wandel Hoefer Lorchural.

"Grüß' Gott" is a very common Bavarian (not for the rest of Germany) greeting and is used pretty much like anyone would say "Have a good day" somewhere else in the world. I think it literally means "Send my regards to God", or something to that effect.


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Eis day

© Joselito Briones
Lovely day. I went for a walk around late in the afternoon and took pictures. There was a long line at the Eishaus (ice cream shop) so I thought I'd get myself some. "Creme Caramel" and "Blau Bär" (picture, above). As is usual, it was impossible to eat it and keep some sort of dignity at the same time. The entire load on the cone (2 enormous scoops) fell on my bare hands seconds after taking this picture. I held the ice cream on my hand for a split second while deciding what to do, and then packed it back on the cone and pretended nothing happened. Kids, and their parents, who saw what happened, were amused. By the time I found a cafe with a public toilette to wash up in, about half an hour later, I realized that they didn't have to witness the de-coning incident to have a laugh at my expense. The darn ice cream was all over my face.


© Joselito Briones

I went through SchlossPark and the pedestrian zone, and by the time I headed back home, it was already dark but ice cream stores (different ones) were still doing good business. Photo above was taken at the carnival in front of the Erlangenschloß.



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Green Apples

© Joselito Briones

My iMac's back. After half a year. Yep, it took that long for the Nürnberg shop to repair it. And it's not even completely repaired yet. This is one of those ocassions when I absolutely miss living in Hong Kong. Everything there goes instantly. You need something fixed? They'll do it for you the next day, if not later the same day. Anyways, it turned out that the power supply was faulty, and the extra memory card - which I now have to replace, was also causing it to malfunction. Am not sure though if it's worth getting an extra memory replacement, as this is very old (it's the first generation of the iMac with the swivel screen on a half-round CPU. I've been using a CPU-in-the-monitor iMac for more than a year now.

Photo, above, is the Apple store in 5th Av. in Manhattan, taken last month.


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Kulit

© Norie Kirker

My Itay's birthday today. He's in California presently. I phoned to wish him a happy birthday, and to inquire again as to how my Inay's doing. They're both doing well, and my mom has a few more test results pending, but she seems to have recovered. I guess that's really all one can wish for.

The photo above was taken in California, the year that two of my brothers (middle and right in the above photo) moved there. The one who's just thrown a snowball to whomever was taking the picture, that's my dad.


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No Drama, Thought Bubbles

© Joselito Briones

Everybody's back from easter holiday today. Email inbox is pretty busy. One of the better news, of course, is that Ronnie's press conference turned out well. The event itself didn't occur, or it didn't have to, but the desired result was achieved nevertheless. His family is 100% in support of his forthcoming marriage to Jerome.

They've of course picked out a date for the wedding, although they've yet to announce the reception venue. Ronnie said they'll most likely go for a countyside venue.

The photo above was taken on the night that they announced their plan to us, on our most recent visit to their apartment in London. As you can see, Mati made a big faux pas (why do English-speaking people call it "faux pas" when it means "il ne faut pas"?) of putting his foot up on the very fabulous, precious, sofa, and Jerome is considering the different possibilities of punishing him.


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US$45 M

© National Properties Holdings Ltd.

This news clip featured a project I worked on for a couple of years, mostly design, when I still worked in Hong Kong for Mr. Joseph Fung's Studio Pantheon II.

The newsclip, from Hong Kong's "The Standard", describes the property, located in 37 Deep Water Bay road, as "Hong Kong's Chateau de Versailles" and reports that it changed hands a year ago for "the astronomical sum of HK$350 millions" (about US$45 millions). Imagine that.


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Happy Man

© Joselito Briones

Ah. The excitement of being in love. His update is that things are still going good with him and the long-distance-for-now girl in the Philippines. He's rather excited about it, more so, I think, than about the condo unit that he purchased recently. He phoned today to inquire about my mom, and mentioned that he himself has been feeling a bit under the weather the past few days.


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1st year Anniversary

© Joselito Briones

Guess what today is? It's my first year anniversary of moving to Erlangen! Can you believe I've been here a year??? I can't. What I can believe though, is that one can basically be in denial of living in a place for a year, maybe more. HA!


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Markknocken vom Rind

© Joselito Briones

Yet another experiment in the kitchen. A bit of a mixture of a traditional Filipino food (Bulalo), and traditional German food (soup ingredients - carrots, celery root, leek, etc.). Beef bone with marrow (Markknocken vom Rind) and meat in clear vegetable soup. Fresh spring onions and thyme topping. What you see is what you get. Okay, not exactly. I placed the bones and poured the soup on a bed of fresh field greens (Feldsalat), which stayed at the bottom of the bowl.


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It's all right

© Joselito Briones

I phoned California today to inquire as to the result of my Mom's hospital visit. It seems like it wasn't her old ailment that's bothering her presently, so she'll back for more tests on Monday.


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Open Cafe season

© Joselito Briones

Spring's here. The weather's beautiful and everybody's out and about. I took pictures of several cafe's in the city, all of them full in the early afternoon, and I'll show them to you in the next few days.

The one above is the Hotel Brasserie in the pedestrian zone, corner Henkestraße, next to it, left, is a small cinema. And no, the colors aren't like this naturally, naturally. I'm experimenting again on giving my pictures an old look.


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Long My

© Joselito Briones

Long My, the Asian grocery store that I usually go to for fresh ingredients when I cook Asian dishes, recently opened a small fast-food restaurant (photo, above), right around the corner from their grocery store, next to the Turkish grocery store (photo, below) where I usually buy fresh fish. It's a very basic, no-frills, Asian restaurant, and the entries on the menu are standard offering for any Asian restaurant here in Erlangen, or Germany, for that matter, but they do try to serve the best food that they could. As is my usual taste-test in such eastern-combo restaurant, I ordered Knusprige Ente, here available in three different kinds of sauce (I went for Hoi Sin sauce, recommended by the owner - #22 in the menu), and it didn't disappoint. The best thing about the restaurant though, just like the Asian grocery around the corner with the same name, are the owners - they're supper friendly.




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Distress Call

© Joselito Briones

Norie phoned today to relay the news that my mom's ill. She'll have to fly back to California on Monday to go to the hospital, so her usual doctor can attend to her.

I so want to go there to be with her... we'll see.


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Wil's Press Release

© Joselito Briones

I am, of course, being coerced to relay this launch. OK! Wonderful. So here it goes.

It's supposed to announce to the world (I think) his current available status. Available for what, you might ask. The website, a I'm-such-a-worldly-guy-I've-travelled-the-whole-world-I'll-make-such-a-great-boyfriend declaration masked as a photography website, is supposed to show the prospect (read: victim) how wonderful his sensitivities are.

If you ask me honestly though, it's all rubbish. He doesn't need such a site. He's a great guy and that's all there is to it.


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It's a wrap!

© Joselito Briones

Well then, today's the day we flew back to Germany. Pretty uneventful, which is pretty much how I prefer it. We got to the airport (Jane drove us) really early, and I had plenty of time to kill, so I decided to edit some of the digital pictures with the iBook that we brought with us on this trip. I used the software from Olympus, called ”Olympus Studio". Pretty good. The most useful feature is the exposure adjustment, and the distortion correction and the fisheye lens distortion correction. I continued editing pictures during the flight, and got very little sleep.


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to JFK

© Joselito Briones

I was thinking of a sappy song to put here, kinda like the one I did last year on my way to the airport, but I couldn't think of any. There wasn't anything to say about the drive either, except for a brief traffic congestion. I guess the only thing remarkable about this morning is that we had pizza for breakfast, while watching "Legally Blonde" on TV. Here's "Drive" anyway, an oldie from Incubus, about making decisions.


DRIVE

Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask myself how much
I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer.
It's driven me before, and it seems to have a vague,
haunting mass appeal.
But lately I'm beginning to find that I
should be the one behind the wheel.

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there with open arms and open eyes, Yeah
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there..I'll be there.

So, if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
Aah-ah-oo-o-o.

It's driven me before and it seems to be the way
that everyone else gets around.
But lately I'm beginning to find that when
I drive myself my light is found.

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there with open arms and open eyes, Yeahhh
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there...I'll be there.

Would you choose water over wine....hold the wheel and drive?

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there with open arms and open eyes, Yeah
Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there..I'll be there.


-Incubus




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Is this mike on? (Jane's, after)

© Joselito Briones

After all of today's shopping, we met up in the evening with Eric and Jane, to have dinner at Krystal's Cafe also in Roosevelt Avenue (close to Renee's Kitchenette). It was easy to see that Eric and Jane enjoyed it more than our dinner from Cendrillon. I'd have enjoyed it more too, had it not for the karaoke thing that was ongoing when we arrived. Eric was shy to do a number himself, even as he boasts of always being the life of the party, the karaoke star, so he ended up bringing his magic phone to Jane's, where we all went back to after dinner, and sang his heart out there.

As promised, here's the "after" picture of Jane's living room. The mess is all mine and Mati's, of course. We didn't even have time to reconfigure the bed into a sofa to give Eric a proper performance space. I don't know what he's belting out when I took this photo, but yes, he could actually carry a tune.


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The end of the Affair

© Joselito Briones

By the time Jane, Mati and I walked towards Chinatown, it was already drizzling. It's a signal as good as any (there were a few) that this short holiday has ended. No complaints. I guess I can't really expect every thing to go smoothly. Everything else from now until we fly back to Germany (in 2 days), I'll just chuck together as extras.

From Bowery we walked south towards Soho, through Nolita, to Little italy, pass Canal Street towards the south end of Mott Street, to the default place we always go to whenever we go to Chinatown, Hop Kee. The place is newly renovated, and the staff a lot more friendlier than the last time we were there, the food was pretty much the same as before.


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In Harmony

© Joselito Briones

We dropped by Jane's work in the afternoon, "Hom + Goldman", in East 20th Street, to pick her up so we can go for dinner together, and also to say hi to David (they work together again). We also picked up the extra suit bags that my mom made, my dad brought to California, and my brother Noel sent to Jane's office address in New York (we always seem to go through such great lengths to avoid paying excessive shipping fees). We also met her bosses and some of her colleagues. They all seemed to be excited with their forthcoming company trip to Berlin. It's good to finally see Jane contented with her job - she was really unhappy with the previous one.


© Joselito Briones

Before dinner, we decided to go to the other Osh Kosh address that Diana gave us, to see if they have the overalls. We walked south through Broadway (photos, above, were taken along Broadway - on top is a window dressing of a furniture shop, and above is Grace Church), passing by DSW to see if they have any new shoes (they didn't). When we got to the address, just north of Houston Street and south of Bowery, It turned out that the place was the company's design office.


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5th Av.

© Joselito Briones

There was just something about the bright light today. We walked down 5th Avenue from Central Park South to Times Square and along the waywe took so many photos, mostly street scenes. It helped that most of the crowd didn't care at all that they were part of the pictures, and some, although subtly, even posed upon seeing that he might be part of the picture.


© Joselito Briones

Since we were already in the area, we also took the chance to drop by Sak's, just so I can see what I can expect to buy next year. Such is my shopping pattern now. I wait for everything to be on sale before buying what I want. I guess it's not too bad. Last year's fresh fashion here in New York is still pretty advanced when I wear them in Erlangen.


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Park Weather

© Joselito Briones

I thought we might have had been running out of luck, it was grey and cloudy in the morning, but early in the afternoon it started getting bright again. We decided to do the rest of the shopping that we needed to do, friends' requests from Germany. After having lunch at the Filipino place (Renee's Kitchenette in Queens: enormous squid grilled to perfection, king prawns in tamarind soup, grilled fish), we went to midtown, via Central Park South, to Bergdorf Goodman's to get the La Mer creams Arun asked us to get for his wife.


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Jackson Diner

© Joselito Briones

Conveniently located close to Jane's is the Jackson Heights locals' favorite, Jackson Diner. It's a buffet restaurant serving Indian food (I know... didn't I just have buffet food last night? But, hey! I'm on holiday.) They have an a la carte menu, of course, but we just wanted to try as many variety available. Food was good, the price cheap, and, as a bonus, this guy (photo, above) who was so nice to let me take his picture, will make fresh vegetable-filled dosa for you, included in the buffet! Yummm!


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Apple Store

© Joselito Briones

After the heavy dinner, the three of us walked up again by 5th Avenue towards midtown, where we passed by the Apple Store (photo, above). The dramatic entrance (the only thing that can be seen from the street level) is a sleek swirling glass staircase surrounding a see-through elevator. This is the first time I've been to this store, right in front of the legendary F.A.O. Schwarz building, across the legendary Plaza Hotel.

And then it was time to go. Tomorrow we’ll probably do some shopping, and Jens in a few days will take his Chinatown-Boston bus adventure again (at one time, I read on the news, one service had spontaneous combustion, just like that - *snap*).


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Eating seafood like there's no tomorrow

© Joselito Briones

Am referring to myself, of course. After the drinks at Victor's Cafe, and walking through Times Square (photo, above), we ended up going to "Todai" (photo, below), the new reincarnation of "Minado", an old favorite, in Koreatown here in New York.


© Joselito Briones

The main attraction was the fresh oysters, shrimp cocktails, and fresh tuna sashimi. The crab legs were a bit too messy to deal with. Great seafood buffet. Everything else on the seemingly endless row of choices of sea food, plus the odd korean barbecue which in itself was a treat, was a plus.


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