Every morning premier

Background Info
On Thursday July 16 and Monday July 20th Me, Ling, Rich, Orlando, Justine, Vargas, Pauline and Franklin (only thurs) all met up in the afternoon at Roosevelt Island to film a music video for the Sugar Ray song every morning.

At first ling wanted thursday to be rehearsal for the monday shoot but we ended up filming both days. he wanted the video to be made up of ONE 3:40 shot. That means no one could fuck up within the 3:40 of straight shooting. that would of been close to impossible.

for the final cut we decided to do mutiple shots. pretty much all of the film was done on the bleachers area of the island.

i think the video came out great. we took more time filming this than an other video so far. we also re-recorded shots dozens of times till it came out good. After hours of filming and editing the end result was a better quality video.

here's the video

Music- Every Morning By Sugar Ray
Directed by- Ling Mai and J.P. Dimalanta
Hours of editing by-Ling Mai

Behind the Scenes

• the shot starting at 1:40 thru about 2:00 took about 6 hours of editing because my shadow was interfering with the "magical" Justine appearance. Ling pretty much cut my shadow out frame by frame. he did a good job making it unnoticeable.
• When orlando pops up during lings cameo, i told orlando to spit on about the fourth brick from the left so when he pops up he is somewhat centered.
• at 2:11 when the sunglasses were floating around, ling pretty much controlled the camera while i thru the glasses up making them spin and trying to keep it in frame. then me and ling switch places to give it another few tries. after a few trials we finally got it right.
  for a few minutes we looked like dumbasses that just kept throwing sunglasses into the air. lol

Enjoy
More videos to come in the near future

laters,
-J.P.

Pizza review- Franny's and L&B Spumoni Gardens

Today after work, on the way to the train station, i walked by a news stand selling the 2009 issue of New York Magazine "eat cheap." With 2 pizza pies on the cover i had to buy it and see whats up in the pizza world.

Got on the train home and opened the magazine. Right away i noticed that DiFara's pizza was number 10 out of 20. WTF??? the moment i saw this, i automatically knew this person didn't know what they were talking about. and another thing Lucali's pizza didnt even make the list. smh.

After my sudden judgements i decided to start reading the article. I realized that it was an aritlce about Naples style pizza aka neapolitan/napoletana. DiFara's wasnt number 1 cuz its not really authentic naples style.

When i get off the train, i went straight to Alex's house to chill. As soon as i get there, everyone reads my mind and all wanted to go to DiFara's. I was down but the only problem was that it is closed monday and tuesdays now. So i suggested Franny's cuz i been wanting to go there for years but just never really went out of my way to do so. I also wanted to go because it was number 3 in the New York Magazine.

so me, chris and geo get in to alex's car and drive off to pick up enrique. after we picked him up we went straight to Franny's.

->Franny's
295 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217

(not my pic, from google)

->the food
All five of us ordered and shared 3 pies.
-Tomato, buffalo mozzarella with sausage and basil.
-Tomato basil and buffalo mozzarella
-Clams, chilies and parsley


->opinions
Being all our first time there, we didnt know they sold neapolitan pizza which is about a foot in diameter. pretty much each pie was made as a personal pizza or a snack for 2 to share.

the crust was really good, a nice smokey-char taste to it. it was very thin and the crust was a little airy with a nice chew and crunch to it. the cheese and sauce was also really good but the flavors werent that explosive. There was a very slight hint of DiFara's hidden in the pizza but i dont consider it good enough to be an understudy.

overall we were all unsatisfied, just based on the fact that we were all really hungry and 3 pies equalling to about $50 didnt fill us up. another thing was that we were all expecting it to be like a mom and pop pizza joint where u could just chill and eat pizza. instead it was more of a casual, wine and pizza restaurant. The moment we walked in, we automatically didnt fit in.

Because we were still hungry, we got back into the car and drove off to spumoni's to get some more pizza. this time we know we couldnt go wrong.


->L&B Spumoni Gardens
2725 86th St, Brooklyn, NY 11223-3507


->the food
I got square slice and enrique got two. for the past couple times i been there, i been putting tabaso sauce. then we all got rainbow spumoni's for dessert. its pretty much an italian ice cream with a mix of pistachio, vanilla and chocolate flavors.


->opinions
i always liked spumoni's pizza, especially the squares that they are known for. the regular slices are good too but theyre just average slices, nothing spectacular.

theyre squares have a very distinct taste which i like a lot. The squares have a lot of sauce on it. the sauce is a little tangy and the cheese is right between the sauce and crust. there might be long lines at times but they move very quickly. at $2.25 a slice, you cant go wrong.

the only thing that i dont like about the squares is that it doesnt taste as good if it didnt come straight out the oven.

final thoughts
I guess since i went to 2 top pizzeria's today, i might as well start my pizza journey once again. I did a pizza journey a few years ago but the moment i had DiFara's i stopped because i knew it couldnt get any better. now i will continue this journey and visit pizzerias i never been to and see what else the pizza world has to offer.

laters,
-J.P.

Running On Air

(written on 7/16)

(1987 advertisement)

just got the re-release of the first airmax in its original colorway.

i wanted to get them back in 2005 when they retroed them but i already bought 2 pairs of kicks that time- infrared air max 90's and neon air max 95's. i was 16, so the only the money i had was the money my parents gave me and i knew my parents wouldnt get me another pair after buying 2 in a month. by default i had to pass.

this time around i got them for $55 compared to the $92 retail thanks for my hook up.

here's an interview with the creator- tinker hatfield, about his inspiration behind the creation of the air max.


laters,
-J.P.

Jordan 1's and Filming

(written on 7/16)
left my house around 9 cause i found out training camp got the white and red air max 1's in.
got there and they only had a size 9.5 left.

while i was at training camp, i saw the "bulls vs celtic" jordan package there over a week before official release date for retail so i picked it up. the official release date was july 11, the day of my dads bday, so i didnt wanna pick it up then cuz i didnt want to come home with a package that wasnt for my dad.


(not my picture)


it came out to $225 but i got 2 pairs so it wasnt too bad. i think i should of waited about a month so i could of got 40% of with the help of angelica. it woulda scrapped off like $90 the retail price but w/e. im satisfied.

after i picked it up, went straight home. enrique, chris and ling came thru and we just chilled and bacon sandwiches. later on me and ling met up with karen on the boardwalk to finish up the video.

laters,
-J.P.

DiFara's $5 slices?? wtf??

(written on 7/16)
i went to the city with carmen today to pick up her new blackberry. then i get a text from adel that he's at DiFara's

i just brought him there on sunday and he's already back. he lives all the way in queens and went to brooklyn for a slice. lol what a fiend.

after i got the text i called him and he told me "i didnt know slices were $5." i got confused, i thought he payed 5 bucks and just never got his change back. i told him to read the menu and it said $5 slice. $25 for a round pie and $30 for a square pie. (used to be $4-slice, $20 pie, $25 square pie)

w/e its all good, not really but im still getting it regardless. lol

Zagat rated DiFara 27 out of 30 for food. thats the best rating for pizza tied with lucali's. anything else that is about a 27 or up Zagat rating are like steak house, sushi houses or french restaurants that are atleast $80 per person.

so for credentials like that, $25 for a pie that can feed 2-4 ppl isnt bad at all.

laters,
-J.P.