JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

It can’t buy love, it can’t buy taste, but I’ll tell you one thing money can buy: Space.

One consequence of urbanization is shrinkage: new condominiums are half the size of condos built ten years ago, but twice as expensive. You work hard and save your money so you can pay millions to own what is essentially a large closet. We have so much more to do today and so much less space to do it in.

Last week we got an invitation to tour Maxims, the new six-star hotel at the Resorts World Manila complex in front of the airport. We’ve been hearing the term “six-star” a lot lately, and Burj Al Arab in Dubai is often called a seven-star hotel, but what do the extra stars mean? Apparently there is no formal hotel industry definition of hotels above the five-star (luxury) rating, but the sixth star is awarded for luxury hotels that offer intensive guest care.

In the case of Maxims Hotel, which is the only Maxims Hotel in the world at present, six stars means the accommodations are all suites, and each suite has a butler assigned to it.

When you walk into the hotel you see a huge sculpture, Ballerini by Botero, casually plonked down into a plant box. There is no reception desk. There is a cafe, Cafe au Lait, serving coffee, drinks, and an excellent mango cheesecake. We caught a whiff of cigar smoke, which reminds us that we’re not in Makati anymore. It’s been years since we smelled cigar/cigarette smoke indoors (outside of a cigar bar); must alert our smoker friends.

The butler showed us to a Signature Suite, which has a living room and dining area, a bedroom and a bathroom that is vast.

All this space, which is big enough for an evening of ballroom dancing, with the butler and a wi-fi touchscreen console for summoning service, and–Wait, we forgot the balcony.

It is nearly as large as the suite indoors. Plus it has a jacuzzi with a view.

What does all this space cost? US$500 a night.

The Signature Suites are minuscule compared to this:

The Villa. 500 square meters, US$2,000 a night. You could go skating in it. Or organize a roller derby. Apart from the huge living room and dining room a Villa has two bedrooms, a well-appointed kitchen, an audiovisual room, two toilets, a vast bath with toiletries by Bulgari. There’s also a massage room.

Out back there’s a humongous balcony with its own pool, in case you don’t feel like sharing the big pool right in front of the Villas.

For inquiries and reservations call the Resorts World hotline, (02) 8366333.

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Kaos, the Las Vegas-meets-Broadway revue at the 1,500-seat Newport Performing Arts Theatre in Resorts World Manila, has been playing to packed houses since it opened. Momelia will be reviewing the show for us next month. In the meantime, we’re giving away two pairs of tickets to the May 13 evening shows of Kaos. Each pair of tickets comes with a stuffed toy Kaos lion.

Would you like to win two tickets to Kaos? Send us a list of things you would buy if you had ten million pesos. The catch is that you have to spend it all in 48 hours while staying at a Villa in Maxims. You can not buy more than two of the same item. Post the list in comments, and we’ll announce the winners on April 25.

Thanks to Archie, Karmina, Joy and Francis of Resorts World for the tour and the tickets.

Happy Birthday, Koosi!

Koosi maintains her kitten-like looks and very pink nose and paws by doing exactly as she pleases, rejecting all treats offered her (Though as you can see, she eats a lot when no one is looking), refusing to go near a dirty litterbox, demanding to be addressed as O Mighty Goddess, and hunting whatever humans are in the vicinity. She likes smelling books.

Photo: Todd Louiso, John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity.

The Sudden Death Read-Off is as cruel as T.S. Eliot’s April. The second the Yucch-meter reads a badly-written sentence or steps into a plot gap, the contestant is Out.

#1 eyeonthesparrow did not survive the first sentence, a feat considering that the first five words were prescribed. Wordy and pretentious.

#2 The Rei lost us at the first sentence, also a feat. Awkward construction.

#3 Hibernates lost us at “He greeted me and said they had a last minute agreement to have a reunion.” Who are they and why have they decided to have a class reunion at that very minute? We can extrapolate who and what the writer means but it is too tedious.

#4 Pokemon lost us at “B is currently committed with D.” From the choice of preposition it would appear that they are sharing a room at a psychiatric hospital.
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Coach Expo and JC. Photo by JZ.

On your left is Expo Mejia, the coach of the national rugby team, the Philippine Volcanoes. When he was 12 he started playing rugby at school in Australia, taking the number 12 (inside centre) position. Rugby is fairly easy for viewers to follow because the numbers on the players’ jerseys aren’t just their lucky numbers, they correspond to their positions.

As you can see, a rugby team has room for all shapes and sizes. Looming over Coach Expo is one of his new recruits, JC Bautista. He’s Fil-American and his dad is from Zamboanga. We thought he might be a prop (no. 1 or 3), the guys in the front row of the scrum. But our friend says he will probably be a no. 8 or a second rower in the scrum (lock, no. 4 or 5)–too tall for a prop.

In any case how would you like to see JC running at you? You wouldn’t! Let’s look at JC again.

JC Bautista in Greenbelt. Photo by JZ.

Yeah! We gather he’s not the most massive guy on the team. Coach says: Size isn’t everything, but it helps.

Here’s a plausible best case scenario. The Philippines gets a good result in the test match against the full-strength Hong Kong team on April 16. We beat Korea, then Singapore or Malaysia in the A5N Division 1 championship in Seoul in May, earning promotion to the Asian Top 5. That’s the World Cup qualifying group. We are consistently in the top 2 for the next 3 to 4 years, and we play in the World Cup qualifiers. Rugby World Cup in 2015.

On the Road to the Rugby World Cup, my column today in the Philippine Star.

Sidney Lumet, arguably the greatest director of the American crime drama, has died at the age of 86.

His stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel, said Lumet died of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan, the New York Times reported. Read the article in the Guardian.

Lumet directed Serpico, Network, The Verdict, and his masterpiece, Dog Day Afternoon. His last film was Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke.

His work featured some of the best yelling we can recall in cinema. The best way to pay tribute to Sidney Lumet is to open your window, lean out as far as you can go and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!

“So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now! Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I’m speaking to you now!”

Finish with “ATTICA! ATTICA!” (Referring to a prison riot in Attica, New York that was brutally put down by the police.)

This clip from Dog Day Afternoon contains language that will offend delicate sensibilities. We love you Al! Thank you, Mr. Lumet.

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Glenn Kenny has written a lovely eulogy in Some Came Running. “About the choices he made as a director, Sidney Lumet said,

“Sometimes you want to stretch. Sometimes you want to buy a house. They’re all legitimate. As long as you don’t try to kid yourself.”

Jaime looks like James van der Beek that.
Jaime is 6’1″.
Jaime is on the Philippine national rugby team.
Jaime works in New York.
Jaime is of the Zobel de Ayala family. (He’s like the triumph of capitalism and genetics.)
Jaime is nice. (We shot this in Serendra where someone handed him a brochure for Ayala Land condos. He was perfectly polite.)
Jaime speaks several languages.
We noted that he wears more clothes than all of his Volcanoes teammates and he replied, “If I had a body like those guys I’d take my shirt off more.” 10,000 bonus points.
It’s so annoying.