Pacquiao - Clottey

Joshua… who?

Yeah, no one really knows him here but he sure looks a lot like Kevin Garnett.


Clottey or KG?

Manny comes in as the overwhelming favorite since Clottey lost to Cotto who lost to Manny. The question in this fight is whether Clottey goes down or not given his reputation as a defensive fighter.

They called the event… uh… “The Event”. Clottey’s nickname is…”The Hitter”. This has snoozefest written all over it. Clottey is also a quiet guy like Manny and so we didn’t get any pre-fight drama or trash talking. Clottey could have at least walked out of the prefight interviews when Manny said something hurtful, oh wait, Ruffa and Kris already did that?



I’m still watching this fight even they don’t have any bad blood between them. Besides, the last time I watched an asian and a black guy, I really had a great time:



The weigh in was just pure comedy. After they got their official weights taken, they had to do the usual pose of them face to face with their fight face. The two faced each other, the crowd went “Yiheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” and two ended up laughing. Classic bromance scene.



Arnel Pineda is in the ring and he has warned everyone a week ago that he will sing his own version of the Philippine national anthem and gave a heads up that this will not be appreciated by the National Historical Institute. He grabbed the mic, I turned up the volume. He sang it the traditional marching way which was actually good until in the last line (“ang mamatay ng dahil sayo”), where he used a long, high pitched note that turned sour.

That was terrible. What a way to murder our national anthem. He ran out of breath and couldn’t sustain the note. It sounded like someone stepped on a cat. It made my blood curdle. The dogs outside started howling. Wrong move.

The Dallas cheerleaders were up next and they sang the Star Spangled Banner in harmony, which was good… in a “house bunny” kind of way.

Then came the introductions. Michael Buffer was out of breath when he finished listing all of the divisions Manny was a former champion of. It’s good that he finally pronounced Pacquiao’s name right. The past few years, he called him “PACK-kee-yaw”. The first time he introduced Manny, he called him “Pack-KWAY-yaw”.

Normally, I would do a round per round analysis for the fight but the way the rounds went, we were all given the same scene where Clottey stays on a high guard while Manny tries to punch through his defense like a monkey trying to open a coconut. You can’t blame the newspapers for printing the same thing: Clottey just covered up and Manny did most of the punching. It was extremely boring. It was like Manny working the heavy bag. There are 2 mentionable events though:

Round 4: The “Pompyang punch” (aka “FPJ punch” or the “double punch”) which drew laughter from the crowd. For me this was the play of the day. The ref ruled it illegal but didn’t penalize Manny. You have to have the cohones to pull this punch early during a title match.





Round 8: Clottey hits “Little Manny” and the ref calls a timeout for Manny to recover. Clottey has been trying dirty tactics since the early rounds when he was stepping on Manny’s toes and clamping Manny’s gloves.

That was it. When the bell for the 12th round sounded, they didn’t even celebrate. Instead of the “YEAAHH! I WON!” scene, they were more like “O nice pare, next time ulit…”. Yep, it was that boring. Manny didn’t look focused in between rounds. I think he was on his laptop playing FarmVille making sure his strawberries won’t die.

As always, the ads were plenty. Since I was watching it on a delayed telecast, the network really milked this opportunity to earn extra cash. I wished that I wouldn’t see any political ad but just before the fight, we got that Noynoy ad that featured his mom and dad (that’s just low, Noynoy). I asked myself if there was something worse than this and sure enough I got it: the Manny V. sappy song ad. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I got the absolute worst one: Manny Pacquiao (for congressman). “Nagsemula aku sa bukseng, ngayon gusto ko na paglengkuran kayu.”.

Susmaryosep…

Pioneer Center, Juday and Water Bottles

Jaye and I love shopping at the Pioneer Center supermarket. It’s not cheap, it’s messy there but it’s close to the office with accessible parking, it’s not crowded and they carry a different stock of goods compared to the ones you find in Robinson’s and SM. This is where I found two imported goods I’ve been looking for for a long time:

Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Butter Recipe mix – I need this for the cake I’m targeting to make this year.

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce – this one’s for the Buffalo wings I cook. I used to buy this in Jewel in Chicago and this has been the only place I’ve seen this so far.

Pioneer Center also has some weird prices on their goods. Here’s their price for a 1.5L bottle of Coke.

Here’s their price for a 2.0L bottle of Coke.

Jaye and I first saw this Judy Ann ad for Familiar along SLEX but we saw it again inside the supermarket and we have so many questions about it:

1. Why would Judy Ann endorse, of all things, a water bottle? After winning more than 10 best actress awards, multiple miscellaneous awards, having 3 albums that went platinum and being an icon in Philippine culture, did her agent just go “Alam mo Juday, madali lang manalo ng best actress at makakuha ng platinum certification... pero mahirap magendorse ng water bottle! Wala pang gumagawa nito!”.

2. Do you really have to place there “multi-awarded actress”?

3. Granted that you have to endorse a water bottle, why would you go for a strong and dark glamour shot with heavy make up? Isn’t it more logical to have a lighter backdrop (of say a kitchen with you in house clothes or of a gym with you in tights)?

4. When was the last time you saw someone dressed like that - black sleeveless blouse, heavy makeup, pearl earrings and fixed hair, actually carry around a water bottle? Sorry, I'm still trying to figure that out.

5. If you were the photographer, what would you tell Judy Ann during the shoot? “Ok, hawakan mo itong bote… o wag ka uminom dyan masisira makeup mo… hawakan mo lang na parang sinasabi mong “tignan mo ko… ang sosyal ko at may dala akong plastic na bote”… ayaw? Sige kunwari na lang may hawak kang bote ng wine… ayaw? Sige hawakan mo na lang itong bote ng wine tapos iphophotoshop na lang namin.”

6. “my familia always comes first!”. I can’t connect it to the rest of the ad. “my familia always comes first… that’s why I use this... water bottle?”. If your “familia” comes first, how come they’re not included in the ad? How many people have spent more time with their water bottle than their families? If you don't use this water bottle, does it mean you're not putting your family first?

7. “You and Us.” “Us” basically means you and me right? So this is, “You and you and me”? For the sake of argument, let’s say “You and Us” is grammatically correct, what does it mean? You and Us are bound together by this water bottle?

8. How come the shelf that has a huge Familia ad contains Lock and Lock plastic containers instead?

9. If you met Judy Ann, would you bring your water bottle and have her sign it?

10. Won’t it make more sense to invest on a young sexy star who’s trying to break into the modeling industry? Have her hold up the water bottle wearing a skimpy outfit while lying under the sun on a beach? It doesn’t have to completely ake sense right? Ads just need to make little sense, take that Century Corned Tuna ad with Derek Ramsay and his giant man nipples. Tuna = healthy = washboard abs = hunky body = man nipples. Hey, we’ve been tolerating that other TV ad about this guy in an orange shirt who’s telling us how really, really, really poor he is and that he should be the next president of this country.