Halloween has always been a very special part of my life.

There was a time when every single year, I would be hosting a Halloween party back at my parents' house. I'd create invites and send them out to friends and schoolmates, then I would spend hours decorating the house and nearby garden - using everything from newspapers, to latex paints, to crepe paper and black cartolina - to transform them into haunting venues of nightmare and seductive darkness.

Oh how I loved Halloween. There was a guilty pleasure in being able to transform yourself for one single night into any ghastly, disturbing, thought-provoking thing you could imagine. [To my recollection, my favorite costumes were my H.R. Giger's Alien costume made using black plastic backs and paper mache, an Alien Chestburster victim with a Face hugger headpiece (again using paper mache, an old torn shirt, and lots of blood), and the Silent Hill deadly nurse (with deadly pipe and distorted face).] Anyone notice a pattern there?


This year, we were informed by friends at O bar that the theme was Bollywood!

Ironically, my family had a family thing that had a Bollywood theme in the past. If one traces the Abad clan's lineage, one will find the presence of British Indian blood in our tree. Unfortunately, all the possible costumes I had access to are all the way back at Paranaque.

So making a quick trek to Ali Mall and SM Cubao, Rocky and I began to hunt down for possible options. Not finding any, we ended up buying a pair of metallic face masks (blue for Rocky and Green for me) which we then adorned with some beads on the forehead for a Hindu touch.

Unsatisfied, I then hunted for something else to add to the fun. We found it at the toy section of SM Cubao! A pair of wigs originally priced at Php250 but thanks to discounts were barely Php200 each.



Rocky, Dek and I arrived at Malate nearly past 1 a.m. and thankfully easily found parking. We then made our way down the heavily crowded corner of Nakpil - Orosa and discovered unlike the rest of the world, we would be among those allowed to the VIP area on the second floor. Heading upstairs, the air conditioning was strong and the air ventilation was even better. And most importantly, the music while still danceable and loud wasn't too loud to keep you from enjoying time to talk with your friends.

Making our way to our designated table (and yes, it is always beautiful to have table space and sitting areas on such nights), we found the perfect opportunities to get back in touch with a lot of friends whom we haven't been able to party with for quite some time. Needless to say, the party had a semi-reunion feel to it which definitely made it even more memorable. Kudos to Grace and Nico who came in beautifully well-invested Bollywood outfits. Tom and Fritz were smashing leading men in theirs. Rocky and I weren't dressed as well as they were, but it was nice to see others having fun with borrowing our masks and wigs as well. And of course, there was the coolest gadget of the night, the laser pointer. The geeky thing had the ability to emit a straight ray, a map of dots, or an interesting swirl of moving points depending on how you used it. Rocky was instantly turned autistic by it (which is why I quickly urged Grace to buy us one for the future.)

There were also friends who showed up in a variety of horror, comic or simply fabulously drag outfits! Once Rocky is done cleaning up the pictures, I'm sure more are to surface in the multiply site for viewing.

All in all, it was a fun Halloween celebration for 2009. A far cry from my parties of the old, but no less memorable and enjoyable. Who knows, maybe come 2010, Rocky and I would be better prepared for the celebrations with a costume concept to knock your socks off. After all, our concept might even be a "mission from God."

Happy Halloween, everybody!



Week 01 - Question of the Week

Today's question for the week was sent by Lynn, who unlike others sent the question via email. Interestingly, others have already shared comments and questions on either my Facebook page, or by directly sending it to me via YM. I guess I should accomodate those as well in the future. For now though, in the spirit of fairness for the only one who followed the rules, Lynn gets to have her question answered:


Well, the unit Rocky and I share has been nicknamed Sietch Creare for the following reason: We wanted to name the place something which reflected its importance to both of us. The first word, Sietch, is a term from Fank Herbert's Dune which means "a safe sanctuary". Creare, on the other hand, is latin (or at least it might be the correct Latin syntax) to say "to create"

Which brings us to Sietch Creare.
The safe sanctuary to create.

For astute readers, you know I wrote about this first way back on the 25th of May.

So there you have it, the first question of the week that has been answered. Once again, I invite all of you readers to feel free to send me any question. ANY QUESTION. This is all in the spirit of fun and making the experience of reading my blog more interesting. Send those questions to tobito_abad AT yahoo DOTcom. I promise to choose up to two per week and to post my answer to the question here in my blog.

So for now, thanks again for reading!
And happy happy Halloween to you all!