I HAVE a confession to make. I've been seeing this guy for the past two years.

The first time I met him in August 2006, my life partner, Mike, was out with his friends (Friday nights out :)) and I was alone, heavy with our youngest and about to burst any time that month. I couldn't sleep. It was around eleven-ish that cool, breezy Friday night when I first laid eyes on him.

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Tiny beads of sweat on his face, looking smolderingly...cool. He was lurking behind the shadows in that dark, crampy ceiling, looking every bit a knight in shining armor, saving his damsel in distress.

And so my affair with Michael Scofield, Wentworth Earl Miller III's character in Prison Break, began.

In case you haven't heard (i.e. you were probably in exile somewhere in Neptune), Prison Break is a TV series originally set in fictional Fox River Penitentiary. This action-drama revolves around two brothers: Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), who was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, and Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), a structural engineer whose firm designed the prison where his brother is incarcerated, and who intentionally committed a crime in order to be in that same prison and devise an intricate scheme to break his brother out of Fox River.

When a series is entitled "Prison Break" and the heart-stopping, sleep-depriving finale of the first season shows the protagonists (and then some others) -- known as the Fox River 8 -- successfully (???) breaking out of prison, a second season seems implausible.

Amazingly, the show is now on its fourth season, with the brothers, other members of the Fox River 8, and other fascinating characters, now after "Scylla," known as the little black book of their all-time adversary, the Company.

Prison Break has gained worldwide fame, seemingly more popular overseas than in its native America, where it is currently up against Gossip Girl and Heroes in timeslot. It is reportedly even famous in China, even though it was banned there for containing crime and/or violence, and is considered "damaging to the living environment of children."

I totally agree with the Chinese government on this...I mean, just looking at that Scofield is, well... illicit. Criminal, even.

PB has a very good following here as well, evidenced by the display of DVDs of the series all over Session Road. A number of my friends are also hooked. I actually know a fellow lawyer, who had to reset a hearing due to sleep-deprivation and tiredness brought about by a PB marathon the night before. But because I'm a good friend...my lips are sealed. Hey, a paperback copy of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd wouldn't hurt, pal.

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ATTN RE: SCOUT MONTH. I still remember my scouting days in high school not long ago. Yes, I consider myself a member of the Cullen family (Twilight people), and vampires tend not to age. Anyway, last Friday, the 3rd of October, scouts from our city schools trooped to the Baguio Convention Center parking lot to assemble for their parade (October is Scout Month).

There was heavy traffic and I was forced to park at the side of the SC Compound due to the multitude of participants for the parade. When I went back for it, I was shocked to see the whole area looking like the aftermath of the holocaust. Empty taho cups, junk food and candy wrappers, and banana cue sticks, among others, were scattered all over the place. I think our little darling boy and girl scouts need a refresher course on the Scout Oath and Law. Does "duty to God and country, to others and to self" sound familiar?

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CALLING ALL PINES CITY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL (Main & Annexes) ALUMNI: You will have a Grand Alumni Homecoming on November 22, 2008 at the Skyrise Hotel, Dominican Road, Baguio City.

For details, please contact ENGINEER ARIEL CABUTOTAN at (0906) 3027909 or email him at cabutotanariel@yahoo.com.

Take time to attend HS reunions. As they say, "your college friends know who you are, your high school friends know why." My genius of a sister Thea quoted this over dinner the other night...I swear I "googled" it to give credit where it's due, unfortunately I could not find the real author of this quote. (Feedback to serendipity.couch@gmail.com.)

For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Dumaguete.

(October 9, 2008 issue)
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