On Budgets And Hawaiian Pizza...

.:TG Guingona: One Heckuva Guy:.

Last Monday, thanks to Carlo Ople, a few bloggers managed to meet senatorial candidate TG Guingona and pick his brain on his thoughts about the country.

I'll just say this about the man in a nutshell: this is a man who has a plan. While most other guys whom I favor are guys I like because they strike me as genuinely good people (Such as Ruffy Biazon.), TG Guingona not only struck me as an earnest guy, but as a guy who knows what he wants to do for the country once he's in the position he's seeking.

Budget reform may not be an issue that automatically appeals to the masses, but it is an issue that will have ramifications upon them if Hon. Guingona's budget reform measures come to pass. I won't drown you in jargon, but essentially, in the past nine years, the loopholes in the current budget system have been exploited time and time again by the Arroyo administration. Needless to say, this could be avoided if the budget were reformed.

That, and, oh. Yellow Cab was awesome. LOL.

Go for it, TG! Far as I'm concerned, the government budget can certainly stand some reform.

.:Hawaiian!:.

I ran into Jugs, lead singer of the Itchyworms, on Facebook earlier yesterday. He casually mentioned they had a gig in 70's Bistro, so knowing it's been a while since I've seen my good friend Sarah, I asked her if she wanted to catch the gig with me.

Now, we're kinda used to seeing them perform maybe three to five songs, given how they're normally part of a stacked lineup, but apparently, in 70's Bistro, they were the act to catch, and this meant a really long set from them.

While I swapped stories with them and they kept on ribbing me for getting Grin Department last October, it was really cool to hear them perform not only "Love Team", but even "Antipara" and a cover version of a Beatles song. There was a funny heckler up front who tried to dictate their entire setlist, but what was amazing about the night was they went the whole nine yards, playing songs that you normally wouldn't expect to hear from them during gigs, particularly songs like "Noontime Show".

It wasn't just the fact that they were playing a lot more songs than their average 3-5 song sets, it was also the banter that made the night for me. From their questions about French Fries being called only "Fries" in France, or Japayuki's only being called "Yukis" in Japan, or a cab driver who had no pants on, or Stuffed Crust pizzas with pineapple stuffing, there were plenty of laughs to be had.

Personally, I was just genuinely shocked that I actually heard them play "Antipara" because I was meaning to ask them to play that, but I figured that since they already played "Love Team" for me last time, I was pushing my luck.

Sarah and I had a blast, needless to say. It was the best gig I've ever seen from the Itchyworms, further cementing why I'm a big fan of theirs.

Afterwards, they asked me to perform a bit of magic for some doctors (Who apparently knew my ex.) as well as for one of their German friends who caught their gig. I did some metal bending and a bit of Michael Finney, and there were a lot of laughs to be had with that routine. Here's hoping this means we could have the Itchyworms perform with us in Ditzy Diner one of these days. I'm definitely going to work on making that happen.