How to Know If You're in a Pinoy Horror Movie - A Flowchart

There are times when you might feel like you’re in a horror movie, especially that time when you were walking along Balete Drive and you see a lady in white just standing out on the street presumably waiting for a cab. Or that time when you had to wear your undies inside out because you kept passing by the same patch of creepy road. Don’t you sometimes wish there was a surefire way to know if you’re in a Pinoy horror movie?

First, take a good look around you.

Volks Chronicles: FrankenBeetle

Mo Progress Report:

1. Kuya Mancio broke two of my new brake linings while attempting to rivet them to the brake shoes.
2. Got 1L of brake fluid (as I understand it, the lines need to be bled first then topped up. I could be wrong of course).
3. Got 5 feet of battery cable, because apparently, I own a 1972 Volkswagen FrankenBeetle. According to Kuya Mancio, the previous lines installed were cables that are used for houses.
4. Since Kuya Mancio broke two, I had to take the remaining linings and brake shoes to have them brake bonded. I've left them to the hands of the Mafat shop which is coincidentally beside Funeraria Filipinas, where Mo used to be parked.
5. I wasn't to take pictures of Mo this time because they were spray painting another car.

At any rate, I'm clinging to the hope that Mo would be up and running by November. Frankly, the overhaul and repairs have gone over budget and over and beyond the target date but I'm still hoping to be able to drive the car before the Mayan calendar ends.

Volks Chronicles: Woes and Holes

Today I bought a fuel float (the thing that sits in the gas tank, it floats over the oil and pulls a cable that connects to the fuel indicator). I talked over the few remaining issues to be tackled with the mechanic, Kuya Mancio. After the starter and the fuel tank problem, the problem now lies in the fuel injector. It can be repaired, and I'm leaving it up to Kuya and Batman to fix it. Apart from that, the engine works and after the the fuel injector is fixed, the brakes will be taken care of. It sounds tedious, I know, because IT IS tedious. We're troubleshooting as we go, and I'd rather we shoot down the trouble before Mo hits the road.

While I checked the car, I turned my attention to rot. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but there's a hole in the driver's side. Earlier, I found that there's a bigger hole right under the front hood -- where the spare wheel should be. The rubber seals around the engine compartment has also rotted through so I'd need to have that taken care of, most probably next year.

Engine compartment seals

I meant to take more pictures but I'll get back to you on that next week. In the meantime, I'm checking my options on how to fund further repairs. Stay tuned.

Volkswagen Beetle -- Wheeler Dealers

Over the past few weeks, I bought brake linings, brake shoes, an advancer distributor, adjusting screws for the rocker arms, a fan belt, a few liters of gasoline, a distributor rotor, a starter bushing kit, and 9 feet of 1/4 copper tube. Needless to say, I’m broke. Therefore, I needed inspiration. These past few weeks, I've been checking out different shows that feature Volkswagen Beetle restorations.

I found Beetle Crisis, the Discovery Turbo five-part show about two enthusiasts restoring a 1971 VW Beetle for a car show. Another show I caught was Wheeler Dealers, a British series that basically saves iconic cars from the crusher. In one episode, they resurrected a 1960 bug. If you’re restoring your own bug and you find yourself a little short on hope, like I am, check out the videos below.

Movie Review -- Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles

At first glance, Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles has the makings of a kickass movie. It’s the first ever Filipino movie to be shot on green screen, it has Erik Matti at the helm (writing and directing), and it has featured impressive copywriting (the tagline Ang Pelikulang May Puso, Atay, Bituka, at Iba Pang Lamang Loob should pique your interest, even if it’s just a little bit). As I sat in the cinema though, I found myself rooting for no one – I was planning to root for Team Aswang, but even the love of folklore didn’t help me appreciate these movie monsters.

Where it started to go horribly wrong
As I and the PR copy mentioned before, Tiktik starts with the bad boy Makoy (Dingdong Dantes) pissing off a family of pig farmers in a sleepy, creepy village. The pig farmers turn out to be aswangs and lays siege to Makoy’s girlfriend’s house. Did we mention that the girlfriend, Sonia (Lovi Poe) is about 12 months pregnant and is about to spawn a baby? If you’ve been keeping up with your Philippine folklore, then you’d know that aswangs consider unborn children as a sort of delicacy – in the movie, one of them even referred to the fetus as “balut.”

Tonight, I whine in Hell

Rejection hurts like a son of a bitch. If criticism feels like getting hit with buckshot at less than ten feet,  rejection feels like getting dropkicked in the face by a person wearing spiked cleats.

Let’s back up a bit.

Last month, I wrote a story and submitted it somewhere as writers are wont to do when seeking to get published. Then I waited. I have submitted things before this, and all of those instances were like sending stuff into oblivion. It’s no use waiting when you do this, since you will never hear back if you didn’t make the cut. (I’m not sure why I – and people like me – keep doing this to myself and for what? That smidgen of validation?) This time though, I was assured that I’d hear back on October 15^th and I did.

Creature Feature: Erik Matti’s TIKTIK

A few posts back, I mentioned Erik Matti’s upcoming movie TIKTIK: The Aswang Chronicles which caught my eye because of two things: a. Erik Matti and b. green screen. Erik Matti has had some hits and misses, but he co-wrote Magic Temple (which my 14 year old self will always love despite the subsequent sequel with Anne Curtis) so he has a “rep” for me. The second part is interesting simply because shooting a film purely on green screen has never been done before in the Philippines (yes, other countries have been doing this for ages).

What is TIKTIK: The Aswang Chronicles about anyway? Well, according to the blurbs, the trouble starts when the douchebaggy Makoy (Dingdong Dantes) manages to piss off an entire village of aswang. That’s never really a good idea if you like your innards where they are. In Makoy’s case, this is a severely bad idea since his girlfriend Sonia (Lovi Poe) is very pregnant. As mentioned in the Aswang (1992) article, aswang will gladly consume a full grown person but what makes their tongues itch, so to speak, are babies.

Where Mabie's friendships go to die

So last night, I went on an “araw-araw Friday” night out with Remi and Mabie to the place where Mabie’s friendships go to die – Conspiracy at Visayas Avenue. How this place became the Death Valley of Mabie’s relationships is a bit of a long story (masalimuot, I think, is the most apt description), so let’s not get into that. Anyway, when she invited us to the test of friendship site to watch a gig by the awesomely named Bullet Dumas, I have to admit that I had some apprehensions.

Doesn't look all that scary, right?

Volks Chronicles #4: Beetle Crisis

Okay, so the overhaul really is over and Mo’s engine has been put back together again. In fact, some of his engine parts have been painted and I’m guessing that’s what made the sight of it infinitely more awesome. The fuel tank’s going to be cleaned and it’ll get a fresh coat of paint and rust proofing. I bought the wrong sized fan belt last week, so I’ll have to bring it back and get a longer one (also, I learned that Volkwagen Beetles do not have timing belts, only fan belts. I panicked when I saw “Timing Belt” written on the fan belt’s packaging and thought that Kuya Nards had given me a wrong part.). In the meantime, I’ve been learning things about the Beetle – reading up its wiki page and trolling the VWCP forums, among other things.

One lazy Sunday evening, we were channel surfing and stopped abruptly at Discovery Turbo when we caught sight of a Beetle project (UY! BEETLE, BEETLE! BALIK, BALIK!). Upon further investigation, we learned that we’d caught the 4^th episode of a 5 part restoration series called Beetle Crisis. Check it out:

Winner Quote of the Day (and I think it’s something that fellow VW addicts would agree with): Normal. I wouldn’t call this obsession normal.

I’ll follow the series (as you can see, YouTube has it too) and write a review/what I learned today report once I’ve caught all five episodes. Stay tuned.