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Sorry, I haven’t posted anything in my blog for quite some time as I’ve been down and out with a cold and flu since Sunday, Sep. 17. Well, I’m not really sorry, but it seemed like the polite thing to say. I do feel much better now even with the remaining sniffles and I can finally breathe again. Aaahhh, air! Feeling sick… sucks. I hate it when my body fails and betrays me, sigh. Watery itchy eyes, raspy throat, burning fever, nausea, headaches and dizziness. Nose constantly dripping of mucous and every so often, blood.

No, I didn’t have Ebola nor have I ever snorted lines of coke. I’ve always suffered from constant nose bleeds since childhood apparently because of thin, fragile membranes lining my nose. I am convinced that my nose will bleed during the most inconvenient times just to piss me off. The holy stigmata of the nose can strike on a date, all over a boardroom table during a very important company meeting, while taking a shower, waiting at a bus stop… Damn you nose! Anyway, the point is, being sick got in the way of blogging about a lot of stuff that I really wanted to record - stuff that happened before and during my illness.

Actually, I think I was already sick on Saturday, Sep. 16 but I wasn’t going to let an itchy throat and exhaustion get in the way of me seeing my last 4 movies of the Toronto International Film Festival. As I recall, on that day I saw 4 Asian films… 3 of those were Chinese action gang dramas directed by Johnnie To. At 9:30 AM was Exiled (Johnny To), at 12:00 noon was The Banquet (“sort of” a re-telling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, directed by Feng Xiaogang, starring an excellent Zhang Ziyi as ruthless and ambitious “Empress Wan”), and at 6:00 PM was Election (Johnny To). Election 2 (Johnny To) screened after a 10-minute intermission following Election.

The Banquet was a bit plodding, but it was definitely a visually opulent film with brilliantly choreographed, balletic fight scenes. The last two Election movies were a great deal because you got them both for the price of one. Unfortunately, none of those movie viewings on Saturday had any actor / director Q & A sessions as most directors and stars had already left Toronto. I suppose there was nothing really new in To’s gang dramas that I hadn’t seen before, but I still enjoyed all of them for the bullet-driven action, drama and comedy.

As action packed as all those movies were, I started to feel very sleepy halfway through Election. I know I snoozed for approx. 10 minutes at one point until I abruptly woke to the sound of rapid gunfire. After a week of lack of sleep, eating on the go (possibly poor nutrition), zipping around Toronto and back home… all that TIFF mayhem had finally taken its toll on my tired body.

While it’s still fresh in my mind, I probably should blog about the highlights and lowlights of my TIFF 2006 experience, however, I have no real inclination or time to write film reviews. I mean, I know what I liked, didn’t like and why… I just don’t want to waste my time writing about things that I really don’t have a particular need to remember or discuss. So yes, coming up, future posts… recaps and some pics of TIFF 2006 shenanigans (not necessarily about movies). Sometime. Soon.

Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, my parents had a small dinner party last night for my dad’s OLD friend from the Philippines whom he hadn’t seen in 28 years. I don’t remember him at all, but supposedly I met him when I was a child. The friend (old man.. well, he looked really old, early 70’s… much older than my dad) is visiting his daughter and son-in-law who both recently immigrated to Canada just 2 years ago. The friend will be returning to the Philippines this coming December. Funny, my dad said we had to make a good impression because his friend would be talking to their friends in the Philippines about our family and it would probably be the last time they’d ever see each other again. Yeah, I’m sure I looked great… dripping nose, flushed cheeks, clammy hands, sweating from a residual fever! Lovely.

Anyway, a funny thing happened in the party… besides all the guests exclaiming how monstrously fat our cat, Max is (so true and it’s NOT my fault)… Bette, the daughter of my dad’s friend had brought her husband and also her female friend, Mercy to the party. Bette and Mercy were childhood chums in the Philippines and Mercy had also immigrated to Canada several years ago. Coincidentally, Mercy apparently had also attended the same Roman Catholic uniform-wearing private school that my sister and I had attended in the Philippines when we were children. We swapped memories of the militant, scary German nuns and the infamous Miss Fernandes, the fascist Grade 1 and mathematics teacher who hit you with a ruler, tweaked your ears or made you stand in the corner if you didn’t know the answer.

No one ever forgets Miss Fernandes. Let’s just say, by day 15 of Grade 1… multiplication tables (particularly 5×5) and answers to other math problems were hammered into my brain via the tweaking of ears… ouch, effing child abuse! I credit this academically strict school with the fact that I skipped a grade in Canada (I was supposedly much more advanced in reading, writing, etc. than my peers at the time)… and my hatred (but not incompetence) of math as well as an irrational fear of nuns in full habit-wear. Of course, all that early academic excellence was obviously undone in Canada (check out the poor writing in this blog). Heck, with no constant beatings with a wooden ruler to motivate… I’m kidding. Well, not about Miss F.!

Lastly, thanks to everyone who wished me to get well soon. Thanks for the TLC and care packages. I’ll blog about that next. Part Deux of Avian Flu. Well, I was sick for a week. Stuff happened.

Adieu,

3/4 fruity

P.S. Paulie and Evilgenius, happy now? Paulie, I haven’t fixed my blog bugs but I added a couple of things in the sidebar. Umm… what LOGIN / PASSWORD? What? Eh? I don’t know what y’all are talking about. Rumours, all rumours. There is no buried treasure… and definitely no spoon, Neo.