It's their loss, and every book lover's gain.

I've been hearing rumours about the possibility of Fully Booked moving out of Power Plant because they're being pressured to pay extra for maximising the use of their current rental at the third floor of the mall (is that the reason why there's a National Bookstore there now?). They currently occupy the third level where this food/entertainment area used to be, and they built a few levels inside to make the best use of space. I was told that the mall people were getting greedy and wanted to charge for the extra space as well.

Fully Booked is the only book store worth visiting in the Philippines (don't even compare it to Powerbooks, please), and I believe its presence in Rockwell ups the value of the place several times over (I'm sure "Manila's fashionable" reads too).

When I first found out about the possibility of them moving out of Makati (I work there, and will soon reside there as well), I was horrified. As in, OA to death horrified. The closest Fully Booked would be, where, Mall of Asia? Eh ang liit nun compared to Rockwell.

I'm just glad we found this one weekend hanging out at Boni High Street.


"Five stories, one destination."



Such bliss! Wish list: lounge areas.

Deep, skin clean. Neutrogena site is finally up.

It's still odd seeing your face on a public domain - not like photos in galleries or friends' Multiply sites. I guess I can never get used to being seen as a commodity.

Will it be my claim to fame? I certainly hope not.

Insane, the boy is insane.

Inspired by an actual conversation that actually happened. But edited in my head.

Me: Why are you so angry, AJ?

Aj: Huh? Me, angry? Who said I was angry?

Me: Those mad brush strokes, it's a sign of aggression. Such angry paintings.

Aj: I like it, it's cool. And it's not angry...

Me: Baka tigang ka lang...

Aj: 'Tado. Bibili ka ba o hindi...



2paperset



4paperset

untitled02



untitled, 6x3ft

Aj Dimarucot is a 31-year old graphic artist based in Manila, Philippines. He belongs to a growing group of contemporary artists that have blurred the boundaries between art and design. Aj has been part of group exhibits in Manila, Canada, and has held his first solo show in 2006. His works have been been published in books in the U.K. and Australia. They've been featured in several local magazines and international websites as well.

Aj's works can be found on furniture, shirts, pins, cellphones, and street walls. Naturally, he has now delved into the world of painting and shows a lot of promise. His initial works have focused on an intense and spontaneous approach reminiscent of action and gestural painting—where the resulting work emphasizes the physical act of painting itself. This is apparent in the lush texture of randomly chosen words, painted layer upon layer of each other. They are written in a calligraphic manner using industrial paints, spray paints, and pen markers, similar to how street artists leave their 'tags' or marks on walls and buildings.

More on Aj at www.collision-theory.com

Award! Winners from the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival 2007

"Awaaard! Awaaaaard!!!"

We let out a raucous cheer at Apartment 1B, the neighbourhood café that's fast becoming a favourite hangout by ahensiya people. O&M Manila received four awards (and one finalist nod) out of the eight entries from the Philippines and we decided to celebrate with a few drinks (open bar until, what time was that again?) and pica-pica (winner din ang quesadillas and pizza on flaky-pastry crust).

Here's what the fuss was all about:



Philippine Daily Inquirer, "Volcanic Ash"
Bronze, Outdoor


Pond's Anti-Bacterial Facial Wash, "Pores"
Gold, Outdoor

Other entries from the Philippines:

1. Bronze - Outdoor, Ogilvy & Mather, "Spill," Huggies Dry Comfort Diapers
2. Bronze - Outdoor, Ogilvy & Mather, "Land Rover," DHL (Philippines)
3. Finalist - Outdoor, BBDO-Guerrero Ortega, "Thermometer," WWF
4. Finalist - Outdoor, Ogilvy & Mater, "Curtain," Pond's Anti-bacterial Facial Wash
5. Finalist - Film, DDB DM9 JaymeSyfu, "Bathing," Public Service announcement
6. Finalist - Radio, TBWA/Santiago Mangada Puno, "Beegees," Caramba Hot Sauce
7. Finalist - Print, Y&R Philippines, "Piglets," Concordia Children's Services
8. Best Use of Illustration, Print, JWT Manila, "Cat Fantasies," Philippine Animal Welfare Society
   

Visit the Adfest 2007 site here.

What I'm reading now - Hoopla (CP+B)

I've always been fascinated by Crispin Porter + Bogusky even before I got into advertising. Working as an account planner for Ogilvy, I've used work from CP+B as a reference to many presentations and "think pieces" along with what we've done in the agency.

This book is all about CP+B. And there's a bit (quite a bit) on the Mini Cooper campaign. And Subservient Chicken. And Ikea.

Going through the book is like playing voyeur at someone else's agency (and that urge is stronger when you've just lost a pitch, hehe). Hoopla actually feels a bit self-serving, but what the heck, it's still trippy good fun for a weekend read.


Surprise! The cover is abrasive, to collect DNA samples should you want yourself cloned by your great grandkids in the future.

Doing the L to R bit. The BMW Art Car Collection.

Who would have thought? Really?

When the BMW Art Cars were scheduled to do their international tour in 2007, I didn't expect them to include the Philippines in their itinerary. Whether it meant that we were selling a significant number of Beamers to merit a stopover from these "rolling sculptures" or not, I'm just glad to see them parked at the Ayala Museum for the entire month of March.


Our first L to R. Haha.


Guess who looks uncomfortable in this photo?

I adore Andy Warhol, but I must say I like Frank Stella's work on the car more. The miniature replicas feature the 11 other cars in the collection and are for sale through the museum. I heard that it would be selling for at least ten grand apiece.


320i, Roy Lichtenstein


M1, Andy Warhol


3.0 CSL, Frank Stella


M3, Ken Done

Catch the BMW Art Car Collection at The Ayala Museum. March 3 to April 1. The Museum is located at Greenbelt Park, Makati Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Makati City, Philippines. Open from 9 am to 6 pm Tuesdays to Fridays, and 10 am to 7 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, please call (632) 757-7117 to 21.

My first chick lit.

The nice thing about having an Account Planner for a boss is that gifts you receive are always thoughtful and insightful. I still remember receiving Agent Provacateur lip and nipple balms (aptly called Titillation) for Christmas. Hehe.



One of her despedida gifts she left me was a book from the founder of TangoDiva.com, Teresa Rodriguez Williamson. The 50 Best Places on Earth for a Girl to Travel Alone has got me thinking of well, doing solo travel to Prague (which I've always wanted to go to since I read Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being), Machu Picchu, and Amsterdam. I never imagined any of these places fit to travel solo (unlike Singapore where the worst thing that could probably happen to you is numb your tongue from eating fishhead curry). All I need to do now is find a way to fund my trips.

A reprieve from pitch work.

I just came from a rather gruelling pitch (the weeks leading up to it are never pretty) and I'm just glad to have a bit of nooneenoo time catching up on stuff. But I'm an advertising geek. And I don't mind when my breaks from work are consumed by it. Good ads are memorable and entertaining; I'd choose this over checking my mail any day.

Revisiting fantastic work by Wieden + Kennedy for ESPN's World Cup TV spots. It still gives me goosebumps to this day.

365 happiness touchpoints.

Today, I receive an email from a colleague in KL who's moving on to another agency in the region. I've had the pleasure of meeting G in Singapore, when all the SEA planners went for training. I remember texting a friend saying, "puwejas na ito," when asked if there were any cute planners in the region. Hehe.

To mark his passage, he sends us a deck with his "proposed amendment to 360." My initial thought was, puta, aalis na nga lang, trabaho pa iniwan. Tsk. Instead, he leaves us his happiness touch points for each day of the year.

Here are some of my favourite touch points.

Everything starts off from be happy because today you celebrate ...

1. Working better in Starbucks than at the office
2. Real cocoa (No, not Milo)
3. Eating with your hands
4. Doing something beautiful and being the only one on earth who knows about it
5. Polaroid
6. That little fart no one will notice (and you could just not hold)
7. Not taking things for granted
8. Hugging
9. The smell of the sea before you actually see it
10. Second chances
    

Symphony of the snores.

It is late. And I am sleepy as hell.

We're working on last-minute pitch materials for tomorrow's presentation and I've decided to bring stuff home because it's insane to stay in the office with the renovation going on.

One of our suits sent me a message saying that the manifesto video is ready for review. It's a 10MB file and I'm on crapshoot dialup. Because I can't open more than one browser window (well, maybe except for this one), there's nothing else to do but wait for it to finish.

And that's when I heard it. A soft snoring from underneath the sofa, and another one, slowly building up to a crescendo beside my feet. And as if on cue, the sofa snorer creates his own rumbling rhythm in an attempt to match the slightly higher snorts of the foot warmer.

There's something quite amusing about hearing two warm bodies deep in their sleep, oblvious to the lazy tap-tapping I'm making on my keyboard. It's entertainment I can afford to have at one in the morning. I'm just thankful they're not sleeping in my room tonight.

WWF World Heritage Expeditions

An opportunity to travel, take photographs, and save the world.

I have a copy of the e-brochure. Drop me a line if you're interested. :-)

WWF World Heritage Expeditions
2007 Summer Season – The Sulu Sea



To keep Tubbataha Reef alive and well managed, we have to raise the funds needed to operate its management office and ranger station.

For several years now, scuba divers have paid the user fees that helped pay for Tubbataha’s expenses. But, this has never been enough.

The World Heritage Expeditions were designed by WWF, with expert advice from ecotourism outfitter, Anton Carag, to create an exciting package that will open up the Cagayancillo micro-archipelago and Tubbataha Reef to non-divers for the first time ever. The goal is to show commercial tour operators that a non-diver package can be a terrific product. The hope is that, with the support of such tour groups, Tubbataha Reef will raise sufficient funds each year to pay for itself. When nature pays, nature stays.

Excerpts from a gift.

He’s a wonderfully thoughtful man, although I don’t think he even realises it. Just a few weeks ago, he surprised me with a small project he’s been working on. It was a ‘tribute’ to my many ‘faces’ – expressions he said, that range from goofy, the lost-in-thought-kind, or ones that have a bit too much to drink.

Just yesterday, whilst rummaging through old CDs to organise and label, I came across another gift he gave early last year. We’ve just come from a very trying time in our lives, and we were doing our best to get things back on track. This one was a pledge from him – the things he saw in us that hinted at a good life together, and how we should never take each other for granted.

I’ve made him terribly cheesy, you see. And he’s done the same to me.

I believe that the best gift people could give each other is having a good sense of who they are as individuals, and enriching each others’ lives with what they bring into the relationship.

So whether I am manyak misis, his muse, or him as my co-conspirator, or fellow geek today, all I know is that we’re growing and evolving as different wholes (not halves) and are happily sharing all the possibilities that go with spending life together.