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…and retrieves our childhood from the garbage bin where it has languished since those prequels that we never have to mention ever again because it’s like they never happened. If you’ve been curbing your enthusiasm until the reviews come in, this is all you need to know: It doesn’t suck!! We want to see it again! Thank you, J.J. Abrams, and we’re sorry we had no faith. Now run to the cinema because you have exactly one week to see it before the MMFF opens (though I suppose it will continue to screen at IMAX theatres).

Read our review at InterAksyon.

The truth is, we went to the Uniqlo-sponsored premiere for the free T-shirt.

When it was announced a couple of years ago that a new set of Star Wars movies would be made and J.J. Abrams would be in charge, we refused to get excited. Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice, shame on us, fool us thrice, freeze us in carbonite. Four times: that’s not going to happen. So we claimed our excellent Uniqlo T-shirts and chose the ones with no Star Wars logo so we had deniability. (“Oh, this is a Star Wars T-shirt? We just liked the design.”) Listen, after those prequels the bar was so low that if we didn’t feel like bludgeoning the filmmakers unconscious with a miniature of the Millennium Falcon, we would count it a success. So to find that The Force Awakens is actually pretty good—wow. As Ricky put it, today we are 11.

Congratulations to our friends Dennis Lustico and Noel Orosa, creators of On The Go! Their project for Campaigns & Grey has won a global award for excellence in public relations.

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Introducing On-The-Go, the cargo pants with a secret, created by Dennis Lustico, Mon Pineda, James Reyes and Noel Orosa.

The feature at InterAksyon is no longer available, but you can read our article from 2015 at BusinessWorld.

On-The-Go retails at PHP 800.00 and comes in three colors: navy blue, black, and khaki. There are five waist sizes for men: Extra Small (29 inches), Small (30-31 inches), Medium (32-33 inches), Large (34-35 inches) and Extra Large (36 inches). To order, please contact Alyssa Lustico at 0926-7560494 or (02)8460915, email d_lustico@yahoo.com, or leave a comment.

Last week we found these vintage sunglasses at a store in Greenbelt. They look like they should be worn while driving to Biarritz in a convertible. We took the frames to our optometrist Nella Sarabia to have the lenses replaced with our own prescription lenses.

In Nella’s shop window we saw these Kate Spade frames, black outside, purple inside, Php1500. We had those glasses made, too.

We picked up our new glasses this morning. It takes just two days to have prescription lenses made, one day if you’re really in a hurry.

Nella Sarabia’s store is at the UP Shopping Center in Diliman. To make an appointment, call (02)435.5685.

Our first stop in Cebu was the Avatar store at the Bellavista Hotel.

Avatar is a Cebu-based fashion accessories and jewelry brand that pre-dates the James Cameron movie (although the tall blue aliens would like it). Its products are exported all over the world, and it’s won many awards for design.

“Avatar” means “the incarnation of an idea” and if the idea is “Death to the boring,” we consider it a success.

They have a pop-up store in Greenbelt, but the Bellavista Hotel outlet has the best prices. You can get earrings for as low as Php100. There are bracelets, necklaces, etc, but we didn’t look at them because we were on our way to lunch.

Found these at a weekend market in Italy: earrings made of empty coffee pods. They’re very light, they’re environment-friendly, and it is highly unlikely that you will meet anyone wearing the same earrings.