cum grano salis

thoải mái trong lạ của bạn

2010-03-06T23:34:00.000-08:00

Tôi tỉnh dậy sáng nay tôi đã được nhìn chằm chằm vào các vết nứt trần
và lộ trình, và phong cảnh, và các đường cao tốc.
Tôi đã thấy. Tôi đã được đến những nơi xa và sâu sắc trong tâm trí.

Chỉ để tìm được sự thoải mái trong kỳ lạ của bạn.

Của chuyển động những hình bóng khi Tôi gọi là cơn gió bởi tên.
Việc xô đẩy đốt cháy, nước trong bóng tối của đám mây.
Tôi đã thấy. Tôi đã được đến những nơi xa và sâu sắc trong tâm trí.

Chỉ để tìm được sự thoải mái trong kỳ lạ của bạn.

Chúng tôi là nô lệ của tội ác chúng tôi cam kết.
Trong những sự nổ của cảm xúc mạnh mẽ Chúng tôi Sự xấu hổ.
Chúng tôi không có gì. Chúng tôi không có gì. Chúng tôi không có gì.
Chúng tôi là gì, nhưng những bụi trên đôi chân của bạn, chết để được sinh ra lần nữa.

Ca hát ête, nước, lửa. Ca hát trái đất.. Ca hát không khí.
Tôi đã thấy. Tôi đã được đến những nơi xa và sâu sắc trong tâm trí.

Chỉ để tìm được sự thoải mái trong kỳ lạ của bạn.

Có một cuộc sống tốt!

2010-03-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe you really don't know me. I can't believe you would think of me that way. It's just so wrong. That really made me feel so bad.

I guess I can't really do anything about it anymore if you really feel that way. Thậm chí có thể tình bạn sẽ được quá nhiều yêu cầu. I hope not. But right now, những gì bạn nói tôi thực sự đau.

Maybe I did make you feel bad. Và tôi xin lỗi nếu bạn cảm thấy xấu. I don't want to explain myself anymore nếu đó là cách bạn suy nghĩ của tôi.

Tôi sẽ không bao giờ quên bạn. Và tôi vẫn còn gây tổn thương.

sad sad sad

2010-03-03T20:14:00.001-08:00

Những loại người ngốc nào tôi?

Người không bao giờ rơi vào tình yêu.

Nó có vẻ là Tôi là chỉ có một mà Tôi được có đang nghĩ của.

Loại tâm trí nào là điều này? Một vỏ trống rỗng.

Một tế bào cô đơn, trong đó một trái tim trống rỗng là tạm trú.

Những loại hề nào tôi? Những tôi biết gì về cuộc sống?

Tại sao tôi không thể loại bỏ các mặt nạ đất sét, và sống cuộc sống của tôi?

Tại sao tôi không thể yêu như bất kỳ gã khác không?

Và có lẽ sau đó tôi sẽ biết loại lừa tôi.

Loại tâm trí nào là điều này? Một vỏ trống rỗng.

Một tế bào cô đơn, trong đó một trái tim trống rỗng là tạm trú.

Những loại môi là môi này?

Đó là đánh lừa trong mỗi nụ hôn.

Điều đó có sản phẩm nào thì thầm lời của tình yêu.

Điều đó còn lại tôi một mình như thế này.

Tại sao tôi không thể yêu như bất kỳ gã khác không?

Và có lẽ sau đó tôi sẽ biết loại lừa tôi.

Ánh Trăng Vỡ - Nguyễn Hồng Thuận

2010-01-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

Anh nhớ em khi hoàng hôn đã tắt.
Ánh trăng dịu dàng muốn nói bao lời nhớ em.
Anh biết đôi ta rồi sẽ khốn khó,
Nhưng lòng vẫn hoài mong ước thật nhiều, chỉ biết yêu em, vậy thôi.

Ước thật nhiều, ước mong thật nhiều.
Ước một lần ôm dấu yêu vào lòng.
Và anh biết một ngày nắng lên rạng ngời, rồi em sẽ ra đi.

Ước một điều duy nhất trên cuộc đời,
Là anh ước lòng mình sẽ yêu em nhiều thêm, mỗi ngày….
Mong được hơn như anh khát khao.
Và anh sẽ thật lòng mong thấy em mỉm cười.
Sẽ hạnh phúc trọn đời tựa như em ước mơ.
Hãy cười, hãy thật vui nhé em!

Rồi anh sẽ lặng thầm để cách xa nghìn trùng, đành chôn dấu vào lòng, để em quên hết đi những ngày ta đã luôn có nhau.
Hãy mỉm cười, hãy thật vui, nhé em!

Bạn biết như thế nào?

2010-01-07T00:08:00.000-08:00

Tôi nhớ như vậy cũng là ngày mà bạn bắt đầu có cuộc sống của tôi. Bạn được hỏi tên của tôi. Bạn có nụ cười đẹp nhất. Cuộc sống của tôi bắt đầu thay đổi. Tôi thức dậy mỗi alright cảm giác ngày. Với bạn ngay bên cạnh tôi, làm cho tôi cảm thấy những điều này sẽ làm việc ra chỉ là tốt.

Làm sao bạn biết rằng tôi cần một người như bạn trong cuộc sống của tôi, rằng có một không gian trống trong trái tim tôi? Bạn đến vào đúng thời điểm trong cuộc sống của tôi. Tôi sẽ không bao giờ quên cách bạn đã mang ánh mặt trời để tỏa sáng trong cuộc sống của tôi, và lấy tất cả những lo lắng và sợ hãi mà tôi đã có. Tôi đoán những gì tôi đang thực sự cố gắng để nói. Nó không phải hàng ngày mà một người như bạn sẽ đi theo cách của tôi.

Không có từ có thể diễn đạt Anh yêu em nhiều ra sao.

Anh nhớ Em.

a new beginning

2009-10-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

It's sad to learn that Boyzone's [one of the] lead vocalist just passed away last October 10th. Stephen Patrick David Gately, born on March 17, 1976, was found dead in an apartment he co-owns with his partner in Mallorca off the coast of Spain.

I still remember buying his first and only solo album while I was in Japan. It's called A New Beginning, a likely tribute to his coming out of the closet. There was even a website back then called www.ilovestephengately.com, but I don't know if that site is still up.

Anyway, news said that there appeared to be no foul play, according to the police, and that he died of natural causes (pulmonary oedema).

Rest i peace Steo.

r.i.p. matt

2009-09-27T23:14:00.001-07:00

I just found today that an acquaintance died recently.

May you rest in peace Matty.

The Last Leaf - O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run
crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These
"places" make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself
a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in
this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and
canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself
coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came
prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables
and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs
and a chafing dish or two from Sixth avenue, and became a "colony."

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their
studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the
other from California. They had met at the _table d'hote_ of an
Eighth street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory
salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio
resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the
doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one
here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this
ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet
trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.
A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs
was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer.
But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted
iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the
blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a
shaggy, gray eyebrow.

"She has one chance in--let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down
the mercury in his clinical thermometer. "And that chance is for her
to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of
the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your little
lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she
anything on her mind?"

"She--she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.

"Paint?--bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about
twice--a man, for instance?"

"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man
worth--but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."

"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all
that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can
accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages
in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent. from the curative
power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about
the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a
one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."

After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a
Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room
with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her
face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was
asleep.

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate
a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by
drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to
pave their way to Literature.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and
a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a
low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and
counting--counting backward.

"Twelve," she said, and a little later "eleven;" and then "ten," and
"nine;" and then "eight" and "seven," almost together.

Sue looked solicitously out the window. What was there to count?
There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of
the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and
decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold
breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its
skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster
now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head
ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There
are only five left now."

"Five what, dear. Tell your Sudie."

"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too.
I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"

"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with
magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting
well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be
a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for
getting well real soon were--let's see exactly what he said--he said
the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as
we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a
new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to
her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port
wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."

"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed
out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth.
That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it
gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to
keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done
working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the
light, or I would draw the shade down."

"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.

"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Besides I don't want you to
keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."

"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her
eyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, "because I
want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of
thinking. I went to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing
down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."

"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for
the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move
'till I come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath
them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard
curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp.
Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush
without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe.
He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet
begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and
then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a
little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony
who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to
excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he
was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in
any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to
protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly
lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that
had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first
line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she
feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float
away when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.

Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted his
contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.

"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness
to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not
heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool
hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der
prain of her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy."

"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her
mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if
you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a
horrid old--old flibbertigibbet."

"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not
bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to
say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which
one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a
masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade
down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room.
In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine.
Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A
persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in
his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturned
kettle for a rock.

When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found
Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.

"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had
endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the
brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark
green near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the
yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a branch some
twenty feet above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall
during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall
die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow,
"think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is
a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.
The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties
that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the
lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with
the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the
rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low
Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the
shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to
Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that
last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to
want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with
a little port in it, and--no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then
pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

An hour later she said.

"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into
the hallway as he left.

"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in
his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another case
I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is--some kind of an artist, I
believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is
acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day
to be made more comfortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've
won. Nutrition and care now--that's all."

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly
knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put
one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman
died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days.
The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room
downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet
through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been
on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still
lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some
scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed
on it, and--look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the
wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the
wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece--he painted it
there the night that the last leaf fell."

batu-bato sa langit...

2009-09-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Bakit nga ba ang balat-sibuyas nating mga Pinoy? I myself am guilty of being too sensitive at times.

Minsan naiisip ko tuloy kaya siguro naglipana ang blind items sa mga diyaryo, magazines, at mga palabas sa TV. Ang hilig natin sa mga pasaring. Siyempre pa, usung-uso rin ang mga demandahan ng libel at slander.

I remember the comment that Jay Leno made on the Tonight Show that had the senators all up and arms demanding for an apology. Likewise with the supposed Tommy Hilfiger comment about Pinoys not suited to wear his clothes that spawned emails, text messages, letters, and other forms of communications, asking Pinoys all over to boycott the Hilfiger products. I was guilty of this, too. But then again I couldn't afford any designer stuff anyway back then. Besides, I don't really care about the brand, as long as I like what I buy. But that's another story.

Anyhow, going back to the balat-sibuyas thing, di ba ang bilis-bilis natin mag-react? Kagaya nung nabasa ko sa Inquirer kani-kanina lang about the letter that Korina Sanchez supposedly wrote to the ABS-CBN management, re: RG Cruz's comments about her, albeit no mention of her name, in his facebook account.

Ay kahilig talaga natin sa blind items. Sabagay, nakakakiliti nga naman talaga sa imahinasyon. Regardless kung ano yung pinahuhulaan, it's the guessing act that's fun, 'no? Yun nga lang, yung mga involved, react kaagad pag na-realize nila na sila pala yun. Minsan, pwede namang deadmahin na lang at hayaang mamatay yung issue. Although minsan din, it might warrant that you defend your name and reputation. It might be the case for Korina, defending her name and reputation. I'm no fan of her, but like everyone else, she's entitled to defend her honor if she believes it's being violated.

It was mentioned in the article that Facebook, like almost everything else in cyberspace, is public domain. But let's not forget that Korina, like other TV personalities (and politicians, and other people you see on TV, print media, etc.), are public figures. But how do you weigh that against the person's right to privacy? After all, even public figures deserve a little privacy, too, di ba? Tricky, tricky balancing act.

The irony of this is that there are some public personalities who flaunt their most private affairs, short of shoving these TMIs to the public's throat kahit na ayaw naman nating malaman. And there are those who would like to keep some aspects of their personal life private but media and the tsismis-hungry public are more than eager to dig deeper into the personalities' life.

funny you would ask if I knew this song

2009-08-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE
Composer: Butch Monserrat (1979)
Artist: The New Minstrels (1979), Lea Salonga & Ariel Rivera (2000)

I've been thinking
It seems we're going nowhere
You don't share my feelings
It doesn't seem fair.

I guess there's nothing
Much more I can do
I know I've got to try
And make it without you.

Chorus:
I don't love you anymore
Can't you see it's just no good
I gotta walk out that door
There's nothing left to say
I gotta go my way
Try and understand.

We've had bad times
But that's no reason to go
I can't live without you
I need you, don't you know.

That I still love you
Don't, don't do this to me
You know I won't make it alone
Can't you see?

Chorus:
I don't love you anymore (don't do this to me)
Can't you see it's just no good
I gotta walk out that door
(That's no reason to go)
There's nothing left to say
(I can't live without you)
I gotta go my way (Oh no)

Chorus:
I don't love you anymore (don't do this to me)
Can't you see it's just no good
I gotta go walk out that door
(That's no reason to go)
There's nothing left to say
(I can't live without you)
I gotta go my way
Try and understand

Coda:
Okay, if there's no other way
Then, go.

better in time...

2009-06-16T14:11:00.001-07:00

since there's no more you and me...

lost

2008-07-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

i had a dream last night. well, i'm not really sure if i really dreamt it or if it actually happened.

i was sitting in front of my pc in my room, like i always did. then suddenly i just stopped doing anything, stared blankly at the screen, mind as empty as the night. all i could feel was nothingness. i lost a sense of purpose. i stopped caring about anything. i was cold as stone.

when i got up this morning i couldn't quite tell if it was a dream or if it did happen last night. whatever. i couldn't stop thinking about it the whole day.

i am so tired of thinking about so many things...

when and why did i stop caring?

2008-07-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

...when i know that something's going to lead to an argument or a fight. why? because i don't like arguments and fights.

...when the issues are too petty to take notice. why? because i don't have time for petty things.

...when i know i'm going to be annoyed. why? because i don't like myself when i'm annoyed.

...when i know something's going to bring out the worst in me. why? because i don't want to bring out the worst in me.

...when i know something's going to stress me out. why? because i'm tired of being stressed out.

when did i stop caring? when i know things or people or events will just fill me with negative thoughts, or will wrap me in negative energy. why did i stop caring? because i don't want to dwell in negative things anymore.

wanted

2008-07-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

hilarious! that almost sums it up. the movie Wanted, i mean.

just got home from the theaters and saw the movie with friends at work. that movie made my effing day! hahaha! the middle-aged ladies behind us were laughing the entire time. although it might have been intentional, the way they overdid almost everything, that was just it, they over-overdid it.

the effects were cool though. reminded me of Matrix. somebody said it was like Kill Bill with lots of guns and ballistics-defying bullets. Joseph said it reminded him of Nightwatch/Daywatch, that Russian film about the eternal battle between good and evil. yeah, must be in that level.

i have to admit though. after watching Wanted, i soooo want to learn how to CURVE THE BULLET. or shoot flies just to take out their wings. yes, it's that blasphemous of all physics laws.

it was entertaining though. worth the $7.50, thanks to CostCo. as i told my friends, it made my night. and Angelina Jolie's super mega over curving of the bullet in the end did it for me. i totally get the curving of the bullet thing, but that was just taking it way too far! i was just beyond disbelief. and it was hilariously good hehehe

just watch it, if only to get yourselves entertained. :)

saturday boxing

2008-07-01T05:12:00.000-07:00

hats off to Manny Pacquiao for claiming the WBC Lightweight belt on his debut stint at the 135-pound division. i've never seen him that fast. and he seemed so comfortable in the lightweight division like he's been fighting in that weight class for so long.

even bigger hats off to former WBC champ David Diaz for being the athlete with the most sportsmanlike attitude i've seen in ages. not only did he acknowledge his defeat with grace, he was all praises for his opponent. no bitterness, but took everything as a learning experience.

i was planning on going to Lino's place for his birthday celeb that day, but i fell asleep after driving another colleague to his place that morning. the night before (Friday) was Justine's birthday celeb at my place. i ended up sleeping at almost 3am (last people to leave left at a little past 2am). Joseph crashed at my place that night (or morning, whatever). i was awaken at 6am by shuffling feet and went to the living room to find him up. we ended up talking till 9am and decided to drive him back to his place (he's got some business to take care of at 11).

i fell asleep when i got back and woke up at 3pm to find Mela's already left for sf. i texted Lino that i couldn't make it to his place and just wished him well for his birthday. i went online to order the Pacquiao-Diaz fight on DirecTV pay-per-view and then went out.

i got back at almost 8:30 thinking that the fight would only be starting by then but it was already effing round 4! good thing i had it recorded on dvr so i was able to watch the first 3 rounds after the fight.

Soy came over with Gaby at the top of the 5th round. Emie and Mart came in the middle of the round. I called up Manny that the fight was almost halfway and he and Shella, with Sebastian, came in the middle of the 7th round. Art and Sherry, with Asher arrived at the top of the 9th round and was able to catch the "merciful" knockdown and end of fight. Barry arrived right after the knockout. and then we played the recording from the start.

===

it's events like this one that i miss my dad who passed away last year. he's a big fan of boxing, and our entire family is, too. whenever Penalosa, or Espinosa, and lately Pacquiao had a match, everyone would gather around the living room and would find spots in front of the TV.

back then, everyone in the family would cancel appointments when there's a fight. and up to this day, a Pacquiao match always trumps anything on my schedule hehehe

i did it my way

2008-06-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

"it is done."

i like the sound of that. the anticipation of what's going to happen after. the reactions. the faces. bitter, sweet, sour, whatever. that's both the exciting and the dreadful part. you'll just never know what's going to happen next.

what in the world am i talking about? decisions, opportunities, and regrets. how often have we found ourselves in situations where we have to make a decision. the opportunity is there but you can't decide whether to take it or not. you hope that things turn out well, and yet you fear the loss if they don't. you contemplate on not taking the risk to stave off the possibility of losing, yet you ponder on feeling regretful for not taking the chance.

what to do what to do?

i've found myself stuck in that situation a number of times before. not to say that i won't find myself again later on. anyway, the last couple of years have taught me so many valuable lessons. one of which, as you can tell, is recognizing the opportunity when it's there, acting on it, and forgetting about regrets.

did i say that right? lol FORGET ABOUT REGRETS.

let's be specific. earlier in the day i was having an online conversation with a friend. hi's, hello's, and how are you's turned to boredom at work, the Pinoy fiesta in civic center in sf this coming weekend, and finally to my yahoo messenger status message, which was displaying the title of the song i'm listening to on iTunes via the HyperIM app (go google that).

i was listening to ogie's ikaw sana when he asked for whom, to which i said it's not my song, maybe his. truly, it ain't my song. at least not anymore har har har! anyway, that and regine's sana nga elicited more prodding and a suggestion that i'm keeping a secret. well, who doesn't keep a secret anyway? ANYWAY, that and a couple of more beating around the bush ended up with his wanting to get laid with someone but finding it hard to do so.

i thought why not just ask the person. how hard is it going to be? ah the fear that something might change between them. but if it's just getting laid, what's the big deal? there are a lot ways to convey that message without asking directly. my point was, if you want it, go do something about it. if things don't happen in your favor, then at least you tried, right? besides, you were just horny, nothing more. OR IS THERE MORE?

so why not go for it? how do you know that you're not just jumping the gun? it might sound cliché, but hey, the opportunity will present itself. it's question of how keen are you in recognizing that it is there. and when you do recognize it, you decide on whether to take it or not. opportunities, they say, seldom knocks twice. whatever the results, will it be worth the risk?

in the matter of relationships, i think so. if you're rejected, be man and accept the fact that you can never be more than friends, or that you can never get your hands in your friend's pants. ever. when you look back to that day, at least you'll never regret not having to take the chance and find out. at least, you'll never grow old wondering what could or could not have been. whether you took the chance or not, you already know the one thing. taking the chance gives you the opportunity to know the other one.

if you're pretty sure about yourself, then you'll probably handle the rejection well. i believe that people who have no insecurities (or the least insecurities for the "no absolute" believers) in life or about themselves handle negativity pretty well. personally, my world's not gonna end when the person doesn't like me. it's a matter of attitude and outlook.

look around you. the world is so big. and life is so short. make the most of it. we're not getting any younger. make a lot of choices, take a lot of chances, and don't let the moments pass you by. so that one day, when you're at the sunset of your life, you can always look back smiling at the richness and fullness of your life. i know that's how i want to my life to end: contented that i've made the most of my lease in life.

Das Verbotene verlockt.

2007-09-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

maybe it's a mistake.

no. it IS a mistake. and unfair, no less. Abgelehnt? boy oh boy. now that really hurts. but what really makes the forbidden so tempting?

i asked a friend earlier what his thoughts were on this. ba't nga ba? bakit masarap ang bawal? he said it's probably the thrill. siguro. oo nga naman. the thrill of getting away with it. the thrill of possibly getting caught.

but is there more to it than just the thrill? hindi rin ba puede baka this time, ito na yung this is it moment mo? reminds me of ogie's bakit ngayon ka lang song? or joe jackson's be my number two di ba.

my friend neil had a different take on it. he said that it's prolly because of the freedom that we have to do what we want. existentialism?

so how do you deal with it when you're in that kind of situation? hirap din when there are a lot of other factors to consider. daming complications kumbaga.

one thing's certain though. pag nalaman mo na kung ba't ka nalagay sa ganyang problema, then malalaman mo rin kung pano aayusin.

napansin mo ba na ang dami-daming pinoy movies na ang plot or one of the sub-plots eh palaging may kinalaman sa bawal na pag-ibig?

take Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin for example.

Maricel: Huwag kang makikiapid. May isang tanong lang ako. Prangkahin mo naman ako. May relasyon ba kayong asawa ko?

ZsaZsa: Relasyon...?

Maricel: Relasyon. Kerida. Kabit. Number Two. Mistress. Relasyon!

ZsaZsa: Terry...

Maricel (going hysterical): Huwag mo kong ma-Terry-Terry! Yung tnaong ko ang sagutin mo! Are you fucking my husband?!?!?

ZsaZsa (after a momentary pause): Minsan...!

magulo. pero kelan ba hindi naging magulo mga ganitong bagay?

Einige Leute haben einen Problem mit den Höhen. Andere Leute haben einen Problem mit den offenen Plätzen. Ich habe einen Problem mit der Entfernung.

quod me nutrit me destruit

2007-08-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

something's missing and i can't figure out what. or maybe not missing, but askew.

something has to happen. and it's got be really soon. i might lose my head if things stagnate far longer than they ought to.

and yes, i'm just blabbing again. that only means one thing.

yada yada yada gong xi fa cai!

2007-02-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

how long has it been? almost 3 months?

a lot of things happened in that span of time. good things. bad things. but as a whole, last year was a pretty good year for me. a special recognition in the company's essay writing contest on company philosophy in august (my first time to join), my second honorable mention in the company mag's photo contest (someday i'm going for the first prize hehehe), and obtaining my certification from an international quality organization.

this year i hope to do more, starting with obtaining a second certification from the same body sometime in april/may, and a third one in october. no i'm not planning to leave my company. not yet at least. i'm just trying to look after myself and expand my career options. after all, we only have ourselves to congratulate or blame when we succeed or fail.

the start of the year has kept me glued to my work. that doesn't mean i've lost touch with my social life. that's running contrary to my belief in the separation of business and personal lives. but true enough, work has taken up a bigger percentage of my attention lately, most specially at the start of the month when a major upgrade to our defect tracking system was made and i had to work 2 saturdays and work with our IT to make sure that the upgrade wouldn't interrupt operations.

it went relatively smooth, despite the constant complaining from our some people in the tagasuri who i still maitain do not know what they're doing. anyway, you would think that as tagasuris, they will smart enough to work things around or maybe even tweak a little with the tool they're using. but no. how they love to complain. and how they love you to show them how things are done instead of finding out for themselves. that's why i wouldn't be surprised if some of them would keep on coming to me complaining or asking for the same thing that they already complained about before. they never retain any information because the attitude of learning isn't there. give man a fish and he'll live for the day, but teach him how to fish and he'll last til the end. or something like that.

i know that it's a harsh thing to say. i'm just fed up with the excuse that these people, or most of them, are not technical. not even college graduates, but that's another thing. so what if they're not technical? does that excuse not having the attitude to learn things or at least have the initiative to find out things by themselves? a big part of knowledge retention is being able to seek the answer yourself. and in order to do that, you must have the drive to search the answers to your questions.

asking for help or complaining about something isn't a problem. i'm not saying that it's bad. what doesn't work for me is doing it without even trying to figure out the problem yourself first. TRY is the keyword.

===

in other news, so the midterm election is underway in the philippines. hopefull our people will finally see how these politicians keep playing us.

it's apparent that the opposition's goal is to remove GMA from the seat of the presidency. in one article i read from an online newspaper, one opposition leader claims that the criteria in the UNO (united opposition, now GO for genuine opposition. geezh more name games) is winnability. nothing wrong with putting that as a criteria when considering your slate for the senate (or any position for that matter). but there's something terribly wrong with that if that is the sole criteria for selection.

and we also have candidates switching parties in order to win. just to win. talk about delicadeza. maybe when the next congress opens, the first order of business should be to make it illegal to switch parties during an elected official's term and some period of time before and after the elections. party switching has become a constant change in philippine politics.

we can only hope that this time, we all vote for the right people with the right intentions. no slate is perfect. not Team Unity, not GO. not even the independent. let us choose from all of them the best 12 with the best intentions for the country, and not with intentions for or against the president or the presidency. special shoutouts to the dilly-dalliers and manipulators who are playing both sides of the field, trying to stay low on the radar, with the presidency in 2010 in sight. egad! that's still 3 years from now and yet some of these candidates are already eyeing it. not that it's bad, but it is when the candidate's performance as an elected official suffers because of his or pre-occupation for the future presidency.

let's ask ourselves what the candidates have done in the senate or congress during their stay there in the past years. and for the independent, what have they done in the past years as civic-minded individuals/organizations that has served the public cause.

so who should be voted this coming may elections? i'd go for re-electionist joker arroyo, congressmen chiz escudero, migz zubiri, prospero pichay, and presidential aide mike defensor. check their track records in the senate and house websites. for the new runners, i'll probably add jamalul kiram and danton remoto.

thing is, all 12 slots need not be filled up if you as a voter don't think there are 12 good candidates worthy of your vote.

candidates i'm shying away from:
(1) party switchers - that's saying a lot about their agenda for running. and that's saying a whole lot more about what they will do in the senate if they win. and that is nothing but dilly-dallying.
(2) re-electionists who have done nothing during their stint in the senate or house. aren't you fed up with "in aid of legislation" investigations in the house and senate that yields no new legislations at all?
(3) celebrities - no matter how good you are as an actor, or whether you're a philanthropist, or a celebrated sports figure, or an artist of international renown, stick to what you're good at and leave the politicking to the politicians. but if you really feel and believe in your heart of hearts that you must dip your finger in politics, please, for the love of this country, try it on a local level first and go from there. there's nothing wrong with aiming, but work your way to the top! utang na loob!
(4) candidates with blotched histories. former local officials accused of graft, plunder and whatever crime you can find on the penal code. candidates who have pending cases with the court, civil or military. candidates who have disrupted the peace of this country in the past.
(5) families. egad! enough of the dynasties and clans. are we planning to put an entire family in the senate or house? why not switch to monarchy instead? 'no?

come election time, i hope, as i have always hoped in the past elections, that a new breed of senators and congresspeople will pave the way for a better philippines.

open minded

2006-12-28T11:21:00.000-08:00

where have all the days gone? this will probably be my only entry for december and it just has to be a personality quiz hehehe

You Are 68% Open Minded

You are a very open minded person, but you're also well grounded.
Tolerant and flexible, you appreciate most lifestyles and viewpoints.
But you also know where you stand firm, and you can draw that line.
You're open to considering every possibility - but in the end, you stand true to yourself.

How Open Minded Are You?

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic
You think rationally, clearly, and quickly.
A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

almost

2006-10-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

the first month of the last quarter of the year is almost over. and i don't feel like much has changed since 2006 came. where have all the days gone?

there're a lot of things that i want to do but i don't know where to begin or how to do them. of late, my mind has been pretty much occupied by mishmash. it's like i'm losing sight of what i want to accomplish in life.

sometimes i would come to work not knowing what i'll be doing, even though i get things done without knowing it. more like work has become so routine that i need not think about doing them at all. what's bothersome though is asking myself why i'm doing the things i'm doing right now.

everything's a blur.

waaahhh

2006-09-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

jai rodriguez was elliminated last friday along with cheech marin in celebrity duets. kainis. i voted pa naman my heart out. oh well. at least hal sparks is still there. hopefully he does something great this thursday's finale.

in other news, last night's amazing race was exciting (like there's one that isn't lolz!). and i still don't like peter and sarah although i do admire peter's determination and willpower and how this traits pushes sarah to do better. they're a good team, but sometimes i just don't like sarah.

one thing i noticed though is that the teams this season are more competitive than cooperative. well this is a contest anyway, but in the previous seasons there were teams who go out of their way to help other teams like giving portions of their allowance to a team who didn't have a dime, or sometimes helping in tasks. the previous seasons saw the kinder part of human nature. this season, most the teams wouldn't blink an eye if another team needed help, with the exception of the coalminer and wife team david and mary who gave their last bucket of water to lyn and karlyn in the detour task. earlier however, lyn and karlyn just passed tyler and james who had a flat tire on their way to the detour task in terelj, mongolia. other teams just passed them by. when it was david and mary's turn to have a problem with their vehicle (getting stuck in the mud), no team also came to lend a hand. oh well, i guess competition really is in these people's heads.

i also watched emie's recording of america's next top model cycle 7. this season's contestants aren't as pretty as the ones in previous seasons, although that can be arranged after this week's episode when the girls get their makeover.

thirteen ladies made it to the cut and one was eliminated on the first episode. monique, a 19-year old marketing representative from chicago seems a fake to me. in the elliminations, she was all humble and felt bad about herself because, she said to the judges, that she felt like the ugly black girl in the family. when she got in the magic 13, her attitude made a 180-degree turn and she was all bitchy. she's playing the eva card (eva won cycle 3). although monique is really pretty and has a great body, that kind of attitude won't get her far.

my favorite this cycle is brooke. she's cute and bubbly. :) also a.j. and meg. i like both for their eyes.

i also got to watch the office, out of emie's insistence. hehehe yun lang. hehehe lang talaga hehehe

fall tv shows

2006-09-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

it's fall once again. another season of good shows on tv. just last week, survivor and amazing race had their season premiers. this week saw a lot of good shows coming back for a new season and some new series starting.

survivor this year takes place in cook islands, a group of Pacific islands north-west of the french polynesia. there are 4 tribes this time with 5 persons each. the tribes are divided according to ethnicity. aitu for the latinos (ozzy, cecilia, christina, jp, billy). hiki for the african-american (nathan, rebecca, stephanie, sundra, sekou). raro for the caucasians (adam, candice, jessica, jonathan, parvati). puka for tha asians (cao boi, yul, brad, jenny, becky). in last week's pilot, puka won the challenge that gave them the reward (materials for making fire) and the head of the immunity idol. yey go asians! hehehe! oh jenny is pinoy while brad is half-pinoy/half-hawaiian. the other 2 teams that won immunity were raro and aitu. hiki was the first team to go to tribal council that saw sekou as the first person voted out this season. jonathan from raro was sent to exile island when losing tribe hiki chose him because of "stealing" puka's chicken. jonathan failed to find the individual immunity artifact that he could use when the tribes merge in the future.

this week's episode saw aitu planned for billy's expulsion from the game by selling out the next challenge. puka once again won the reward/immunity challenge. yey go asians ulit! but after a review of the challenge, jeff awards the reward to raro, too. the reward was a pair of tarps. hiki won immunity, too and aitu lost as planned. aitu chose yul to go to exile island. with the same clue given to jonathan the day before, yul managed to locate the individual immunity artifact (a compass made into a necklace). yey go asians ulit! hehehehe!

at first i wasn't so excited with survivor (i didn't watch the last 2 survivor seasons) but now i am! hehehe

in amazing race 10 last sunday, 12 teams started out from seattle and flew to china. phil warned the team of a twist in the game and bilal and sa'eed were caught by the twist when they got into the overnight hold last and was the first team to be eliminated. the following day, newly weds arti and vipul were the next team eliminated when they were the last team to scale the great wall of china and reach the pit stop. wow. 2 teams eliminated in one episode! bilal and sa'eed's elimination got the other teams stepping up their games as they realized that they can never be complacent in the amazing race. models and formerly rehab classmates tyler and james received $20,000 for winning the first leg. woo-hoo! the other remainng teams are kentucky coalminer and wife team david and mary, father and lesbian daughter team duke and lauren, beauty queen friends dustin and candice, san francisco asian-american brothers erwin and godwin, cheerleader friends jamie and kellie, mother friends lyn and karlyn, dating tri-athlete couple peter and sarah, dating couple rob and kimberly, and boyfriends tom and terry. this sunday's episode is gonna be exciting!

this week also saw the season premier of criminal minds, with the conclusion of last season's finale. that same night, wednesday, was the season premier of america's next top model cylce 7. i haven't seen it but will watch emie's recording. it was on the same time slot as jericho, a new series from cbs.

speaking of jericho, i was a bit disappointed with the pilot episodes. pilot episodes are supposed to catch the viewers' attention and interest so that people follow the series for the entire season. but i'm giving jericho another chance next week, hopefully a better episode.

last night was the premier of grey's anatomy's third season. it was a bit toned down with regard to drama. chris o'donnel guest stars ( i prefer to see him with short crop hair though he still looked nice with more hair) with isiah washington (caleb in desperate housewives last season). after grey, it was the series premier of 6 degrees, a new show from abc. i think it's gonna be a good series, what with its collection of interesting characters. not to mention jay hernandez looked hot in this series.

speaking of jays, jai rodriguez of queer eye for the straight guy had another great performance in celebrity duets. hal sparks also had a blast in his rock performance. i didn't catch lucy lawless. cheech marin was on his way to the exit in tonight's results show. alfonso ribeiro also did a good number with chaka khan. last week, olympic gold medalist gymnast carly patterson was eliminated. tonight, 2 celebrities will be sent home as the remaining 3 will compete in next week's finale for a chance to win $100,000 for the charity of their choice.

last week also saw the premier of dancing with the stars with journalist tucker carlson being the first to be eliminated. this week, former miss usa shana moakler was eliminated. fil-am choregrapher cheryl burke, who won last year's finals with 98 degrees' drew lachey, returns this season with football legend emith smith. last week, cheryl and emitt sailed through with a good cha-cha performance. but it was cutie host and actor mario lopez with partner karina smirnoff that got the highest score. this week, mario and karina were cited for doing an untraditonal quick-step while cheryl and emitt once again wowed the judges and the audience. however, it was actor joey lawrence with partner edyta silwinska who stole the show with a wonderful quick-step.

this sunday will be the premier of season 3 of desperate housewives. after that is the series premier of brothers and sisters, which stars ally mcbeal's calista flockhart and sally field. ano pa ba? daming palabas!

:)

essay say say

2006-09-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

well, what a pleasant surprise. i got a special recognition prize in our company's philosophy essay writing contest. that gives me a 4" ceramic knife teeheehee :)

hopefully i get the latest model (the black, high-end ceramic knife) pero asa pa. then again, it's better than getting a ceramic pen hehehe

i wonder what the winners wrote in their essays. the thing about this essay writing contest is that the winners often write about their own experiences in the company that almost bounds the territory of autobiographies. weird. maybe next time i should do that and not write an analytical literary piece, as what essays should be.

anyway, i'm still glad for the recognition. :) next time, i'm going to write something even better so that my work gets published in the company magazine, much like one of my photos that got an honorable mention and was published in one of last year's issues.

oh, speaking of photos, i've got something coming up in the next few days. will prolly write about it when something good comes out of it. lotsa luck for now. :)

profiler test

2006-09-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

took this test from CBS' crime show Criminal Minds, which starts its second season this wednesday, september 20 at 9pm.

so am i good enough to work for them? hehehe

nous sommes tous les mortels

2006-09-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

whenever i hear someone i know dies, or someone i know encounters a death in the family or in his/her circle of friends, it always hits me. that we are just mortals.

my lolos and lolas from both my mom and dad's sides had already passed. just recently, my uncle (the husband of my dad's elder sister) died from a freak accident (he fell while watering his plants). my dad's friend in the village also died recently. my dad, still recovering from stroke, doesn't know any of the recent deaths until now lest his condition might worsen.

just last week, a friend/officemate's mom passed away, prompting him to leave for manila the following day. hearing of somebody's death itself is bad enough. it's just worse when the one who died is family.

a friend said that you begin to think that the days have come when you think about your parents and how close they are to the end of their journeys in life. it's a harsh thought but is very much true. suddenly, it makes you reeavaluate your relationship with your parents. somehow, you need to prepare yourself for the inevitable. someday soon (or sooner), we will be orphaned.

it's even harder if you're away from them. as i told a friend, mga ganitong pangyayari damang-dama mo talaga pagiging OFW. i began to understand what most overseas pinoys feel... the fear that they couldn't be there for their loved ones when something bad happens... the constant thought of their conditions... the anxiety of being so far away from them.

seeing those ads by western union on ktsf doesn't help either. just makes me feel dreadful even more.

then again, we all shall meet our ends. it's just a matter of time. that's why it's important to live life to the fullest. to live life with no regrets. to experience life like no other. to be grateful that we are alive. to value to life even more.

to live a meaningful life.

september and more on going retro

2006-09-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

had a short hiatus from blogging. next thing i knew, it's the first day of september already. and what has happened in my life so far? nada. for all i know, days just flew by while i sank back in the shadows.

first day of the buhrr months. start of another lonely season for the lonely (whatever might be their reason for their loneliness). fishing? choz. hahahaha!

in line with my going retro for the remainder of the year, i've collected a few really nice but old OPMs. that's pinoy music for you. compared to the newer OPM hits today, the classic ones are really better, lyric-wise. not to mention grammar-wise. tagalog na 'to ha.

most OPMs these days hide under the cloak of poetic license to justfiy their ill grammar. kakahiya. tagalog na nga lang eh. there are exceptions of course, like ogie alcasid who writes good songs, lyrics- and grammar-wise.

going through my list of classic OPMs, the great george canseco is at the top of my list of very, very good songwriters. his ako ang nasawi, ako ang nagwagi to me is prolly his masterpiece, coupled with a very emotional rendition by another great: dulce. of course, everyone knows her showstopping performance of the song at the Hong Kong Song Festival several years ago, where she deservingly won. my friend john mentioned that dulce was supposed to sing the english version of the song, but at the last minute, she decided to sing the original pinoy version because singing the english version didn't give her the emotions she needed to interpret the song. buti na lang! nobody can ever sing this song the way dulce sang it. naman kasi, intro pa lang mapapa-tumbling ka na! the song to me is the best moving-on-with-my-life-after-a-big-heartbreak-or-so-i-thought song.

anyway, other oldies in the collection that i currently enjoy listening to include anthony castelo's hahapin ko (a jose mari chan composition) and balatkayo (a tito sotto-joey de leon collaboration), kuh ledesma's paano kita mapasasalamatan and dito ba (two george canseco masterpieces), raymund lauchengco's saan darating ang umaga (another canseco song), ric segreto's kahit konting pagtingin (a levi celerio masterpiece), basil valdez' ngayon at kailanman and gaano kadalas ang minsan (another pair of canseco originals), iduyan mo (by master ryan cayabab) and hindi kita malilimutan (a manoling francisco obra). speaking of basil valdez, the last song (hindi kita malilimutan) has become a staple music in funeral marches, although i doubt that the song was written for that purpose. iduyan mo has been remade by a number of artists but the best remake for me was done by grace nono, who's also my favorite (i have her first 3 albums). of course, who would forget leah navarro's kailangan kita, penned by george canseco. then you have a lot of sharon cuneta hits like sana'y maghintay ang walang hanggan by willy cruz, george canseco's kahapon lamang and dapat ka bang mahalin and high schoo life, willy cruz' bituing walang ningning (or unshining star as my friend fondly refers to, hahahaha!) and pangarap na bituin, mr. dj and p.s. i love you by rey valera. it's also interesting to note that most of ate shawie's songs became movies that starred, who else but her.

rey valera's songs are also great classics, a number of which had been remade by sharon cuneta. not to mention that most of his songs became theme songs of movies of the same titles. he's a great musician and songwriter. did i mention that i'm very particular with song lyrics? that's why i like the works of george canseco, levi celerio, rey valera, ogie alcasid, jose mari chan, vic sotto, and other great songwriters.

going back to songs that became movies, i still remember sinasamba kita (a vilma santos-christopher de leon movie). then there's gaano kadalas ang minsan with vilma santos and hilda coronel. other rey valera hits that became movies include maging sino ka man , kung kailangan mo ako, and a string of sharon cuneta movies.

as i mentioned earlier, i've become less of a fan of current OPM hits. there are a number of current hits that are good, but very few that are as great as those that were written by those that i noted.

as a tribute to the great george canseco and the incomparable rendition by THE Dulce, here's the lyrics to that uber-powerful song. hear something in the background? hehehe

ako ang nagwagi!
naitago ko ang damdamin kong sawi...

o kay saya ko
malaya kong nasusunod ang gusto
kasama kong ngumingiti ang mundo
at di humihikbi sa 'yo

ang sabi nila
ako'y larawan ng ligaya't saya
mapalad daw ako sa pag-iisa
at nalimutan daw kita

ako ang nagwagi!
naitago ko ang damdamin kong sawi
sinong magsasabing ito ay mali?
kahit alala ka bawat sandali
ako ang nagwagi!
paglimot daw sa iyo'y ganyan kadali
naniniwala nga sila
na ako'y malaya na

salamat na lang
hindi lantad ang isang pusong sugatan
bawat tibok hindi rinig ang sigaw
tinatawag pa rin ikaw

ako ang nagwagi!
naitago ko ang damdamin kong sawi
sinong magsasabing ito ay mali?
kahit alala ka bawat sandali
ako ang nagwagi!
paglimot daw sa iyo'y ganyan kadali
naniniwala nga sila
na ako'y malaya na

salamat na lang
hindi lantad ang isang pusong sugatan
bawat tibok hindi rinig ang sigaw
tinatawag pa rin ikaw
na tanging mahal...

kahit ako ang nasawi...
ako pa rin ang nagwagi...

mordor stirs...

2006-08-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

things started to become a blur lately. it's like something's on the verge of coming to being or that something big is bound to happen real soon, and yet i have no idea what it is. or what they are. but there's that nagging feeling that change is at hand. it's so near that sometimes i get goosebumps from the passing thought.

whatever that may be, i just hope i'm prepared whet it or they come(s).

in other news, i recently bought a new OLD phone. it's an old model (really old) but i got a stocked unit, probably an unsold unit of long ago. anyway, i got a nokia 8890. yup, the very classic 2000 released model from nokia. i would've liked to get the 7110 (you know, that banana-shaped phone in the first Matrix movie?), but it's a bit bulky compared to the 8890, albeit as classy-looking as the 8890.

wala lang. i just felt the need to go retro. back to basics. just a phone and no other extra features. i've got my iPod for music and my O2 XDA II for pda and my nikon coolpix 8700 for camera. i'm shying away from all-in-ones for now. so that means bye-bye to my trusty xCute DV2, my tri-band phone cum mp3 player cum 6-megapixel camera. might give it to my nephew who's turning ten this last week of september.

hayyy that eerie feeling is afoot again. what is it anyway? and what does it mean?

duda

2006-08-11T06:50:00.000-07:00

what else could go wrong this time? i'm slowly sinking back into an emotionless state. ah indifference. it's a safe haven for me.

i seldom doubt my decisions. but i'm beginning to doubt the one big decision i made almost eight months ago. was it the right choice? i don't know anymore.

i make every effort to make things better. not only for me. but, as the U2 song goes, sometimes you can't make it on your own.

i don't feel anything anymore.

shitty days

2006-08-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

the past days had not been anything good, one reason or another. it must be me. or whatever. i dunno.

in the past there had been times when my days would really go bad. but it was nothing that would last like a week or so. i would recover quickly. these days however, i dunno... feels like everything is going in the wrong direction it's crazy.

sanity is still in check but barely hanging by a hair strand. not that i'd let myself give in but then again, a man can only carry too much weight on his shoulders.

it's been weeks now that everything seems to be a blur to me. where's that freakin' light at the end of this dank and dark tunnel?

hayyy... i need something or do something to get my mind off or get rid of this shittiness. i'm gonna lose it.

ukinam shet

2006-08-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

this is the first time i've encountered a bad seller on eBay.

i won an auction for a Powerbook G4 more than two weeks ago from this seller on eBay. i paid for the item using the same moment that the auction closed on july 19. according to the auction, item will be shipped 5 days after the end of the auction. so i waited for 5 business days before i contacted the seller (via email since he didn't have a listed phone number) to inquire about the shipment status.

nada. no response from him. after several emails to him without a single reply, i decided to file a dispute on PayPal on saturday july 29. the following day sunday, i received an email from him apologizing for the late response, coupled with excuses about his busy work yada yada yada. he asked me if i could close the dispute so he could send the item. he explained that he had experiences before when a buyer filed a claim on him for not receiving the item even though the buyer did receive it. i understood his concerns and told him that i would close the dispute since he promised to send it immediately. he gave me the would-be tracking number on UPS.

the following day monday july 31, i inquired about the status of the shipment and he replied that the item was shipped 10 minutes ago (ago = 1:58 pm PDT) and told me that the tracking info would not be available online until that evening or the following morning. of course, i knew all about this since i've tracked a number of packages on UPS before.

tuesday came and i tried tracking the item on UPS and surprise surprise! no tracking info available for the tracking number he gave me. i sent him an email trying to find out what happened but i didn't receive any response. at this time, i still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt so the following day wednesday, i sent him another inquiry. i sent him a couple more emails but still no response.

yesterday, i called up PayPal to report the problem but the person on the other end told me that they couldn't do anything anymore because i closed the dispute. she said normally, they tell their users not to close the dispute until the item or refund is received. okay. i was such an idiot trusting this guy. to think that he had good eBay rating. the lady from PayPal told me that when a dispute is opened, never ever close it until i get the item or the refund because an open dispute prevents the seller from using his or her PayPal account until the dispute is resolved. okay, points added to experience. but that didn't solve my problem still and didn't bring back my $595. the PayPal lady told me that i should file a police report citing fraud by the seller.

the same day, i called up my credit card company to report the seller. the kind lady on the other end told me that they would trace the payment i made to the seller and that they would contact the seller and pull out from his account my money. hopefully, she said, i would be able to get my money back. she said they will get back to me within 4 days.

this morning, i also filed a report with Square Trade, without the mediation (since mediation isn't free). i also sent filed a report on the east hartford police department in connecticut (the seller's location) via email. if i don't get a reponse, i'll probably call up the police department and might also file locally here.

this frustrates me a lot. people like these give a bad name to internet commerce. i've always considered myself a good eBayer ever since i started buying stuff from eBay. i mean, i pay promptly, i leave feedback accordingly, and i communicate timely with the sellers.

anyway, i hope he gets what he deserves. and i hope i get my money back. like i emailed him before, i didn't mind delays in shipment (whether he's too busy to ship it or what), as long as he provided timely information to my inquiries. otherwise, just send me the fucking refund!

how about..?

2006-07-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

just when you think that things can't go wrong any further, you'd be surprised at the gravity that things can get any worse.

it's not like me to be this pessimistic. but when you see things around melting like ice cream under the sun, what else is there to do or feel? hayyy... life.

why do bad things happen at the same time? okay not really at the same time as in the same moment, but hello?!? di ka pa nga nakakarecover sa isa, meron na naman. is this what life's all about?

sana nga may liwanag sa dulo. i've kept my fingers crossed for the longest time...

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes...

italy and germany prevail

2006-07-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

germany wins third place over portugal 3-1. german striker miroslav klose won the golden shoe award for the most number of goals this world cup with 5 goals.

in the finals, the italians beat the french in the penalty round 5 to 3. the game started with an early goal for france by french captain zinedine zidane, who retired from professional soccer right after the conclusion of the world cup. the zidane goal on the 7th minute was the second of only 2 goals that italy gave up this world cup (the first, being an own goal versus the US in the opening round).

italy bounced back on the 19th minute via a head goal from marco materazzi on the 19th minute which tied the game until the end of regulation time. france almost made another goal on the first half of the overtime period when zidane came out with a head strike off a kick from sagnol but italian goalkeeper gianluigi buffon was there to tip the ball up and away from the net. zidane shouted out in frustration as he saw the ball go over the goal.

things went ugly on the 2nd half of the overtime period when zidane was booted from the game via the 28th red card this world cup (a new record from 22 in the 1998 games). this came off when zidane headbutted marco materazzi on the chest sending the italian down on the field. italian goalkeeper called the attention of argentine referee elizalde who did not see the incident. after consulting his assistants, elizalde gave out the record red card on the 110th minute ending zidane's professional soccer career with a shameful thud.

overtime period ended and the score was still tied 1-1, sending the match to be decided by penalty kicks. italy made the first kick with pirlo. france tied it when wiltord made his kick. materazzi made the second kick for italy. unluckily for france, trezeguet sent his ball to the crossbar and out of the goal, missing france's second kick. de rossi makes it 3-1 for italy on his turn, but sagnol brings france close when he made his kick, 3-2. del piero makes it 4-2 for italy while abidal makes it 4-3 making france trail by only one kick. italy though, not feeling the pressure as zidane was not around, made the winning kick with grosso sending italy to claim its fourth world cup title.

ironically, zidane won the golden ball award for being the best player this world cup, winning by around 200 points over italian captain fabio cannavaro.

Italien ist der Meister!

ang raisin bread...bow!

2006-07-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

this has got to be one of the weirdest days of my life. all because of some bread. i don't normally blog during work hours, unless it's lunch break, but this one's an exception.

this morning i brought with me to work a loaf of raisin bread that i planned to share for breakfast with the pinoy peeps at work. i sent an email to the peeps around 9am. an hour later came a reply from this guy asking kung "ano palaman?"

my first reaction? seryoso bang tanong to? masyado pa yatang maaga para magbiro, i thought to myself. i replied thus. then i got a not‑so‑funny reply from him: fuck yes. to which i just replied, utang na loob. i have no plans of ruining a friday so i told myself that that was the last reply i'm going to make. and then an even less funny reply came: one word, four letters: kebs

i emailed my friends mart and emie kung ano problema nung taong yun. repressed ba? sabi ko nga, masarap patulan pero wag na lang kasi nakakapagod mag-type. masyado pang maaga para masira yung araw ko. friday pa naman.

the thread went on, but not once did i reply anymore. save for one message to mart saying na wala ako balak patulan na 'to. the exchange between him and mart went on for a few more minutes.

one thing that caught my attention on the exchange was when he said he felt he needed to defend his self after i asked him if the palaman question was serious. ek. bakeeeet? this is interesting. roots obviously run deeper than just the raisin bread palaman issue. that's why i asked my friends if the guy had a problem. gawing issue ba ang raisin bread?

it was a mistake on my part to fall into the notion/typecast that he might be kidding with the palaman question. it's not my problem if he's viewed as patawa magtanong palagi. then again, as my friend emie pointed out, i could have just answered a simple wala and that would've probably not started him being slighted.

it was a mistake falling into the typecast trap. it was never an intention on my part to slight him. and a simple yes would have warranted a simple no from me. well maybe not so simple but at least he'd get the answer he wanted.

is it the weather? climatic weirdness has caused some to act likewise? echos. basta ako, i'm at peace with my raisin bread. no palaman needed.

nandyan ang sintomas. ano ang sakit? ma.

futbol finals

2006-07-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

okay, so from my predictions, only one came to being so far. this is probably the reason why i never win in any lottery game.

anyway, i was expecting argentina to win over germany in the quarterfinals, but alas they were beaten in the penalty kicks round. germany went on to the semis...facing italy, the only team i predicted that will make it through to the finals. yup, italy beat germany in the semis, after beating ukraine (which i expected) in the quarterfinals.

in the other bracket, i was hoping beckham and his englishmen will beat portugal for a slot in the semis, but they were denied by the portuguese of this chance. oh well. then i didn't expect 2002 world cup defending champion brazil to succumb france, what with ronaldo playing well this world cup despite criticisms. so it's portugal vs france vying for the chance to meet italy in the finals. as of this writing, france led by zidane who's playing his last world cup, leads portugal 1 to 0 in the second half.

hmm... i'm thinking it's gonnay be an italy-france finals, with italy taking home the cup.

===update===
yup it's going to be an italy-france finals courtesy of zidane's 33rd minute goal against portugal. the finals will be this sunday in berlin with germany battling portugal earlier for 3rd place (7:55am pacific time) then the championship match between italy and france at 2:55 pdt.

things will go my way

2006-06-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

been doing some things lately. things for the better, i hope. if you want change, be the change.

it's not yet clear, but in time it will be. basta, things will go my way.

I came to tell you
How we've all began
Nothing seems to work out right
I'm broken down again
So hold me now
And say it's not forever
Maybe someday
In time

Things will go my way
Things will go my way

I've pushed to get through
The crowds in twisted zone
Just to find I'm right back here
Doing what I'm told
So take my hand
Don't let me surrender
'Cuz maybe someday
Yeah, in time

Things will go my way
Things will go my way

For all the lives
I've tasted
Just looking for the truth
For all the dreams I'm chasing
What am I to do
With everything against me
The answers are all wrong
Open now, I'll find out
It was working all along

So hold me now
And say it's not forever
Maybe someday
In time

Things will go my way
Things will go my way
Things will go my way

For all the things
I've tasted
Just looking for the truth
For all the dreams I'm chasing
What am I to do
With everything against me
The answers are all wrong
Open now, I'll find out

Things will go my way
Things will go my way

--The Calling

futbol giants made it to the quarterfinals

2006-06-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

yesterday saw the completion of the round of 16 matches. the first match was another powerhouse-underdog game, this time between defending champion brazil and "the brazil of africa" ghana. despite ghana playing really well yesterday, brazil dominated the entire match with ronaldo making the first goal on the 5th minute. ronaldo had been critized earlier on for not being in-shape entering the world cup. but that early goal (a one-on-one with the ghanaian goalkeeper) proved to all his critics that he still had the moves. then on the 46th minute, adriano makes another goal, albeit a bit controversial as ghana claimed it was offside (the replay did show it was offside). finally on the 84th minute, brazil made another goal, this time by roberto ending ghana's road to the world cup, 3-0.

as for ronaldo, that 5th minute goal, his 3rd in this world cup, broke the record for most world cup goals with 15 goals. the previous record was held by german muller with 14. fellow brazilian, and futbol legend pele had 12.

the second match between two powerhouses spain and france was the best game i've seen so far in this world cup. first of all, there wasn't much controversy on the side of the referee (think: portugal vs the netherlands) and the game had so much life, a stark contrast of which was the game between switzerland and ukraine who both played for the penalty kicks, it seemed.

spain makes the first goal on the first half via a penalty kick by villa. but france bounced back with a goal from ribery, also in the first half. usually, the team who made the first goal went up to win the match. but france proved this theory wrong by with a goal from vieira via a kick from french captain zidane. speaking of zidane, i think this is going to be his last world cup, being in his mid-30s already. and what a better way to make his exit from the world cup than making france's final goal on the 95th minute, sealing spain's bid for the title.

for the quarterfinals, with the exception of ukraine, it's going to be a battle between futbol giants:
germany vs argentina
england vs portugal
italy vs ukraine
brazil vs france

my guess? argentina, portugal, italy, and brazil will make it to the semifinals. and it's going to be an argentina-brazil finals :)

quarterfinals starts this friday.

more on futbol

2006-06-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

i watched a recording of the 2 games yesterday. the first game between underdog australia and powerhouse italy saw the italians sailing through to the next round. totti made the winning point via a penalty kick on the 95th minute from an unnecessary foul by o'neil.

italy faces ukraine on the next round after ukraine beat switzerland on the penalty kick round. my trusty tivo recorded 2 hours and 35 minutes of that game, but it wasn't enough as the match went to overtime and then into the penalty kicks. kainis ha. i was able to watch the entire 2 15-minute periods of the overtime but then the score was still both zero. there were a lot of thunderous boos from the crowd as the game between the ukrainians and the swiss was so lackluster and the players seemed to be emasculated.

germany, argentina, england, portugal, italy, and ukraine had so far made it to the next round.

bend it like beckham

2006-06-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

or to be precise, nobody bends it like beckham. that's how one would describe the round of 16 match between england and ecuador at the 36th world cup in germany. the match was held in stuttgart.

i'm not a big fan of football (or soccer to the americans), but watching the game last saturday between mexico and argentina got me hooked. argentina beat mexico with a goal by maxi rodriguez in the first half of the overtime period (the first overtime game in this world cup). that, by the way, was a great goal by maxi. he caught the ball on his chest bouncing it a few feet forward then strikes it the left foot to towards the goal. unbelievable!

then yesterday, england won 1-0 against ecuador via a 60th minute penalty kick from english captain david beckham. everyone was on their feet when the 35-yard kick sent the ball to the net. well 97% of those on the stuttgart field were english anyway, according to the game commentators. if not for that penalty kick, it's hard to tell who's going to win because ecuador played really well.

anyway, i had the game recorded and i played that part of the penalty kick over and over. it was so perfect it's no surprise that the catchphrase (that inspired a movie of the same title) was invented. indeed, nobody bends it like beckham.

(in the seoncd match, portugal wins over the netherlands via a goal by maniche on the 27th minute. it was record game with so much red and yellow cards given by the referees. portugal faces england on the quarterfinals.

at this moment, australia is playing against powerhouse italy on another round of 16 game. later, ukraine faces switzerland.)

ilong vs eroyaji

2006-06-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

yesterday i got a call from eroyaji asking me to come over the brit's desk. they wanted to know if there was a way to retrieve the files he modified and were lost. earlier he performed a "sync to head" with our version control tool, effectively overwriting his local copy of his project files. he was pissed off that he lost 2 days worth of work because of the sync operation. he kept on saying that he'll never ever going to use that tool again. he already erased his copy of the tool.

i find it funny that some people get frustrated easily when something goes wrong, when a little reading beforehand could have avoided it. firstly, i told them before that the quick reference guide that i wrote was available on the network. secondly, they should know better to have a backup...ALWAYS. and thirdly, they should have told me earlier that there was something "different" in his copy of the tool. it appeared that he modified files without checking the files out. the tool allows that, but he won't be able to check the modifications in because the tool won't know that the files were modified unless they were checked out. so anyway, after modifying, he performed a sync thinking that it was a way to check the files in. bad decision. a sync to head performs a forced sync. or in other words, getting a fresh copy of the files from the server by overwriting his local copy. while eroyaji and sikat no. 2 were discussing with the brit what changes were affected, ilong on the other cubicle was chuckling, or at least that's how it appeared to eroyaji since i didn't see ilong chuckled. although i was lauging lightly at the trio for what happened to them.

suddenly eroyaji told ilong, in a not-so-friendly manner, to "Stop laughing. This is not funny." a few times too many. ilong, got up, face grim and serious, and made his way to where we were discussing the brit's problem. i thought the two were gonna face off coz ilong was just a breath away from eroyaji's face when he told him, "I'm not laughing. And you don't tell me what I want to do." at this time, sikat no.2 was telling them, "Okay let's cool down everybody." it would have been a scene if they did slug it out.

later, when i went back to my own desk, i got an email from ilong apologizing for what happened. i told him not to worry about me because i totally understood, and that i thought eroyaji was the one who was out of line. i said i didn't want to take sides, but eroyaji's remark was uncalled for. i told him to just keep his cool. ilong replied that he finds it difficult because eroyaji has a thing against him so eroyaji creates this hostile environment and that any chance eroyaji finds to talk him down, he does so. so ilong gets defensive most of the time.

again, i'm not taking sides with anyone. but i thought eroyaji was really out of line. i have no idea what went on between the two of them in the past that created this animosity between them, but i'm just speaking/writing from what i observed.

regarding the brit, he might be a good engineer but i find him too stubborn with his declaration not to use the tool. like he has any choice? we're all migrating to the tool and everybody's trying to learn it. if he gave it a few hours or even just a few minutes to study the usage, he wouldn't have any problem using it. plus he should know better to install the tool, or any application for that matter, fully rather than just copying the executable file. [yes, in macintosh it okay to just copy the executable fiile and then you can use the application, althought some options may not be present] it should have raised an alarm to their team when he realized he didn't have the exact context menu items (which commands for getting the latest version and checking in and out) as eroyaji and sikat no. 2 did. the fact that they had the same version of the tool, and yet with different contents should've been pretty obvious to them, being software people that they are. yes, i'm sure that they had the same versions since the brit said he copied the executable file from the same mac volume that sikat no. 2 and eroyaji got their installation.

refusing to use the tool isn't gonna help any of them. eventually, they would really have to take some time (and not too much time really) to get themselves familiarized with it. heck, i didn't know anything about this tool when it was given to me for administering. i didn't even know how to do perl scripting, an essential skill for administering the tool. but it's a job. and a job is still a learning experience.

audio alert

2006-06-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

for the past 2 or 3, even more, weeks, i noticed that i didn't have audio streaming (i still don't). only RT and the other stations i listen to via eradioportal.com. this morning my source told me that 3 weeks ago, the sysad sent an email to the managers about disable "some" features of our internet access because they're eating up too much bandwidth. if somebody needs a particular disabled service (uhm, audio streaming?), just come to him.

okay. so that was why. coz at home i was able to listen to RT. but here, nada. zero. nil. zilch.

earlier, debra liz told me that 2 weeks ago, bruha was complaining that she didn't have audio streaming and that she couldn't listen to her christian music. gasp! she listens to christian music??? really now. anyway, this week, well, she didn't seem to be complaining. one can only guess why.

debra liz said that bruha told her she's gonna do her best to try to hide her audio streaming. so if she indeed has audio streaming again, then she's not telling.

regardless, i am disheartened by this turn of events. i would understand it if the disabling of "certain" features was done as a matter of policy. but when you start dishing out exceptions, and not work-related at that, then there's something wrong there.

debra liz was telling me that her access to a certain community site was disabled after bruha saw her checking out her daughter's profile. what a coincidence huh? even my friends who checkout this gaming site found access to the site disabled.

again i would understand the blocking of sites to protect company interests. but if it's just an exercise of power, which to me it is, then again, something's wrong here. sites visited by certain people are being blocked. certain is defined as those who are not close to aquino. this selectiveness is an abuse of discretion. and it's not doing much to boost employee morale.

a cat fight and disabled scripts

2006-06-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

this is ridiculous. just because kate and manika had a quarrel, we all had to suffer. yesterday after lunch, i noticed that the Yahoo!Mail website was not displaying graphics correctly. that is, checking mail yesterday was a Pine experience (read: text only). i thought the Yahoo!Mail site had a problem until last night when i checked my mail at home. it was fine.

just this morning, a source told me the reason for the graphics-less Yahoo! experience. he said it's most likely related to an argument that kate and manika had yesterday. kate, who used to come really early for work (sometimes earlier than i), was 15 minutes late yesterday. if my source didn't tell, i wouldn't have known that she's ever late. anyway, because of that, kate's boss, who was also manika's boss, missa, sent a memo through email to kate, short of reprimanding her for being late, telling her to watch her time. kate, who normally emails missa in japanese, sent a reply in english. quite understandably since she was furious for being cited for a single incident, when in fact, manika was normally late, and was just doing email and talking on her cellphone all day, kate said. missa, for reasons that escape me, forwarded kate's email to manika, who of course, was apparently not happy with the "revelation" of her daily activities.

the next thing we knew, Yahoo!Mail was in safe mode. bummer. in addition to that, audio/video streaming was removed from our internet access, because, according to the sysad who was a close friend of manika, such activities take a toll on our bandwidth. that i understand. what i don't get is why be selective? why not disable Yahoo!Messenger too since it also has audio streaming. ah...because, according to my source, manika and sysad use YM to exchange videos. and where do these videos come from? malamang downloaded. ay bandwidth. bwakananginanamano! talk about abuse of discretion. leche.

nakakainis ha. this isn't funny anymore. and i'm not happy anymore.

i have to finish editing my resume tonight.

no, it's never okay

2006-06-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

the other day we had a problem with our defect tracking utility. our remote engineers could not log in to the server and i was barraged with emails both from our remote engineers and from our local contacts for our outsourced projects. since wednesday, i've been trying to figure out what went wrong on our defect tracking server. problem was, none of us in the local site are having any issues. i asked our system administrator about it and he said he'd check it out, must be some problem with accounts getting locked out.

before i went home yesterday, something in the admin change log caught my eye. somebody changed the web authentication settings of our defect tracking tool. as i'm still new to administering this tool, i decided to tell our system admin about it this morning. i told him i didn't know what the original setting was (there were three values), so i changed it back to what i thought was the original value. so the system admin tested the setting using one of our remote user's account and it worked.

and now he's pissed off. no, he's furious. he was already telling me that he's gonna be really angry if that was what caused the problem. and it was.

so now i dunno what they're gonna do with it. they, meaning that guy's manager and our sysad. we're both surprised why he was able to change a system setting since his access was only on project adminstration level. it was a system administration level access, so how come he was able to do it? and the bigger question (and what made the sysad infuriated) was...WHY??? to quote him, "Why would he do such a thing?!?!?"

earlier the guy went to my cubicle to ask about the incident. earlier in the morning, before i told our sysad, i sent him an email asking why he changed the system variable and what the original value was. he came to my cubicle when he got into the office and said something about testing configuration on the utility. to which, our sysad who also came to my cubicle after i told him about the admin change log, said to him, "Why would you do that on a production box? You have a test box where you should do that." and then the QA guy (oh did i mention he was in QA?) kept on saying something about he wanted to show yada-yada-yada about setting the utility. and again the sysad kept asking him, "Why would you do that?!? So you just clicked OK and not cancel when you changed the value?"

i could feel the heat, and it wasn't shower-friendly heat mind you. :)

anyway, the guy's manager, who was also there, just said "Okay, Okay." when the sysad told the guy never to touch any system settings, that if he needed to change anything, he should ask moi or him. he just said "Okay, okay" like his manager. when the two left, i told the sysad, "No, it not okay." to which the sysad told me, "Yeah i was about to tell them it's not okay to play with a production box."

moral of the story, huwag makikialam kung mayrong log. :p eh curious pa naman ako sa mga logs weh!

basta ako, mabait ako. hehehe

musings...

2006-06-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

this day isn't proving to be anything normal. must be the weather? i dunno. but i'm feeling uneasy. well i've been feeling uneasy the past couple of days. not to mention a bit cranky lately.

i get irritated by the slightest provocation. or even the slightest mistake. if i had ovaries and a uterus, that behaviour would have been justified. oops! gender sensitivity alert! hahaha!

seriously, i'm in the brink of losing myself if it's not for my innate talent for summoning indifference and insensitivity when the need arises. and now is probably a time of need. detaching myself to things that happen around me has always been the best defense mechanism i have learned throughout these years.

===

i'm tired. really tired.

===

i want to get L'Eau D'Issey this weekend. it's the summer scent from Issey Miyake. i took a whiff from the macy*s catalogue i got from the mail. i love the scent! also CK's Eternity Summer out again this year.

===

oh how time quickly flies. it's almost the middle of the year. next time i blink, half of the year has just passed by just like that. snap-snap!

===

i don't feel like going to the gym today. but i only have 8 more months to go. no choice there i guess.

===

i still haven't decided which path to take. i'm so confused. i already told a friend about it and he said to just think it over. exactly what i've been doing for almost a week now.

===

this day should be over. i'll just do an hour at the gym later, just enough for my trainer's satisfaction. then i'll slug in bed the rest of the evening. tomorrow we're off to six flags marine world in vallejo. it's a company thing.

===

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. how do you measure a year?

quandary

2006-06-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

i'm in a state of uncertainty right now (no pun intended). i have two paths that lay before me: one that leads to a box with a key to the house; and one that leads to another box that contains a different house pass that might eventually lead to a key to the same house. i'm not so sure now if i want to sign the guest list that puts me in a line to the key box.

which one should i take?

wedding pics

2006-06-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

it took some time to compile these pictures from mart and emie's wedding.

pics at my hotel room (preparing for the wedding that day):

at the church before the wedding:

the wedding ceremonies:

photo op after the wedding:

at the reception:

"horrible, horrible x-men movie!"

2006-05-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

at least that's what most people were exclaiming when the movie ended. i saw the movie last saturday. "disappointed" is an understatement. to think that i have been warned by a lot of friends prior to my watching the movie. i had very little expectations about the movie, and yet, i still felt robbed of my $9.75.

x-men the last stand was a case of too much action, too little character development. not to mention inconsistencies here and there. and one of the worst dialogues i've heard! ("I'm the Juggernaut, you bitch!") i think brett ratner and his writers murdered the movie. if only bryan singer didn't bring with him his writers to the Superman Returns movie.

x-men: the last stand focused too much on display of mutant powers at the expense of a mishmash plot. rogue, who was central to the first x-men movie and still had a big role in the x-men: united sequel, had a very negligible role in x‑men: the last stand that you could omit anna pacquin's appearance in the movie and still have the same story, which wasn't much anyway. if ratner explored rogue's quandary between keeping her powers at the expense of not ever be able to touch her loved one, and taking the cure and not be an x-man anymore, then the movie could have been more interesting.

emotional struggle is such a powerful movie that could have made a better movie out of x‑men: the last stand. even in jean grey/phoenix, none of that emotional struggle was evident. or if there were any, there was too little of it to actually develop famke jansen's character.

speaking of phoenix, i was expecting her to be engulf in fire like she should've been. the last x‑men movie hinted that much in the end when a silhouette of the phoenix was gliding through the river. but alas, none of that much-anticipated effect was seen.

there were too many action scenes that were too short. consider the iceman-pyro duel, which lasted for a few seconds i think. okay, maybe a minute or so. after iceman turned into solid organic ice and touched pyro, that was it. THAT'S IT??

and jean grey/phoenix, what the hell was she doing just standing behind magneto while the mutants battle it out. if magneto wanted the worthington labs destroyed, as he intended it to be, she could have just got into the action and destroyed everything. that was the essence of the phoenix in her, to search and destroy. and please don't give the "maybe she's struggling inside" excuse for her immobility during that important scene because none of that struggle was ever developed.

and what's up with storm killing callisto??? maybe they fitted storm's character to halley berry instead of the other way around. storm is a very compassionate x‑man, maybe the most compassionate among them. and yet she didn't even think twice about killing mutants in the movie.

and callisto's power? uhm i don't recall her being that fast (or even fast at all) or having that ability to detect mutants and their power levels. i thought another mutant that latter power (calliban, i think). and what's with the OA poses? arclight making a trinity pose minus the aerial maneauver, before clapping her hands for the thunderous sonic boom, which they should have done before sending out the other mutants just to have some fighting to watch ("That's why pawns are sent to the battle first." yeah whatever.)

whatever happened to angel? he just went there flying around. "Oh, hey, Dad, don't go playing near the edge or you'll fall. Here let me catch you." eeeeeek! with all the publicity about angel, you would have expected him to be very central to the movie. but apart from him being the supposed guinea pig of the cure, he did nothing significant in the movie (i don't consider saving his dad that important).

cyclops dead? now there goes jean's emotional struggle with the phoenix. and wolverine being the only who could come close to her? she could have sent him to the other side of the world with a wave of her hand, or mind. but noooo. that scene was an attempt for some drama... too unsuccessful for me.

speaking of wolverine, it appeared to me that there's going to be a wolverine spinoff movie from the x‑men. just a hunch, given that hugh jackman's character was all over the place. even halle berry was everywhere that i wouldn't be surprised if they made a storm movie, too.

plus points: i love kitty pride. i love it when she was running away from juggernaut. speaking of juggernaut, his power isn't mutant-born, so he shouldn't have been affected by leech's presence. geesh. anyway, collosus did well too in the movie. i also liked storm's scenes except that part when she electricuted callisto. i like that part when magneto appeared to still have his powers in the end, even if only a little. i liked xavier's death, but i wished they showed more struggle on jean's part so that the phoenix/jean dual personna was established some more.

overall, i didn't like the movie because of a bad plot, bad character development (or the lack of it), and obvious inconsistencies. the effects are okay, but didn't have much to be desired, really (if, because only there wasn't any phoenix effect at all). a movie's franchise is only as good as its sequel. so will there be future x‑men movies? who knows.

pa-siyam

2006-05-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

i watched erik matti's pa-siyam on dvd (borrowed it from blockbuster). matti's one of these new age directors who's got a fresh approach at filmmaking. but then again, a director can only do so much to a film with a lousy script.

pa-siyam refers to the nine days after a person's death. in other places in the philippines, pa-siyam is refered to as the nine days after burying the dead. in both references, a prayer for the one who died is held for each day of the nine days. this prayer is often conducted by a hired tagabasa, or by any member of the family.

the start of the movie was okay. the camera movements were trademark matti (i've seen this in his other films Ekis, Scorpio Nights 2, Mano Po 2, Prosti, and Dos Ekis). the suspenseful atmosphere was established immediately. i especially liked the shot of the house with nilo's (roderick paulate) back facing the camera. couple that with a good background music, and the eerie atmosphere was created.

nilo came home from saudi arabia for his mother's funeral. the movie didn't elaborate what his work in saudi was, and was only refered to as something mahirap na trabaho sa saudi when his brother angel (yul servo) asked how the work was abroad. nilo's other siblings sylvia (maricar de mesa), cherry pie picache, ruth (aubrey miles) and angel.

what was supposed to be days of peace for the mother who passed away turned out to be something horrifying. (well, an attempt to be horrifying). apparently, the mother was so pissed off at her children for letting her die in the hands of strangers that she let them know through pagpaparamdam: leaving messages through scattered poop and vomit, scratching sounds on the dining table, knocking sounds from the tower room, blood on the stairways and on maricar's crotch (while sleeping), and urine creeping towards yul's makeshift bed. as if the siblings still couldn't get what the mother wanted to tell them, which was who killed her, they started tearing off the wallpaper from their mother's tower room only to find writings made of her own blood. the writings had their names on it, except for their youngest ruth, who was mentally challenged.

from that point on, the story became predictable. it was already apparent that ruth was only a half-sister. and instead being more horrifying come revelation, the movie became more and more hilarious towards the end. not hilarious funny, but more of hilarious na nakakainis. first of, it was very clear from the writings who killed their mother, or at least that's what their mother wanted to tell them, which was that they were the ones who killed her by leaving her in the hands of the caretakers. this, they didn't get until she had to appear to them through the espiritista, who was also acting really funny, and had to explain to them in detailed fashion. talk about lengthy dialogues in horror flicks, all suspense was killed by the mother's mile-long monologue.

so that she could exact her revenge on her children, she went on to declare that she's gonna kill one of them. okay, now that's one really angry dead woman. and no, she didn't intend to kill just any of them, she went on to claim the life of ruth, the only innocent character in the lot, being mentally challege and had no idea whatever's happening around her. i was like, ha?????? what gives????? it didn't make any sense.

directing? commendable. script/story? walang kuenta. but if you're looking for something to fill your boring day, this movie should do it, kahit papano.

the fuss over The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

just heard that the movie The Da Vinci Code got an R-18 (for adults only) rating from the MTRCB and that the movie was banned in the City of Manila.

i don't mind the R-18 film rating, but i don't understand why a city, or its council rather, would ban the movie altogether. don't you find it insulting that somebody else decides on what movie you can or cannot see? especially since these councilors who made the resolution aren't any older than your mom and dad.

if the movie offends these Manila officials, then they shouldn't see it. but the rest of the millions of Manileños who want to see the movie shouldn't be deprived of the choice to do so. the movie is nothing but a thriller meant to entertain, as was the book where it was based from, was merely a work of fiction and nothing more. dan brown may be giving mixed messages with his ambiguous answers when asked about the so‑called facts in the book, but one shouldn't treat these "facts" as the whole truth. come on people, the book is a work of fiction and not a replacement for the Bible!

i saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel earlier where these so‑called "facts" that brown mentioned in the book were analyzed and debunked. they went on to explore brown's other book Angels and Demons. brown might have used too much poetic license in writing the books, but that's his privilege as a fiction writer. so readers of his books shouldn't take them with more than a grain of French sea salt. same thing applies with the movie. (i'm guessing Angels and Demons will also have its film debut anytime soon.)

i have to admit though that the book and the movie are good bases for hearty (and most likely, lengthy) discussions. but that's where the book and the movie should stay. if you want something to talk about, the book or the movie or both should break the ice. but neither should melt the polar caps. :)

am watching the movie tomorrow. and yes i've read the book, and his other book Angels and Demons. i'm not a fan of his writing style, but his books are still a good read.

willpower

2006-05-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

the one week i spent in manila wasn't really much of a vacation. days i spent with family in cavite, nights with friends.

when friends asked me how my dad was, i told them it was an effort to remain stoic and unperturbed. a little show of emotion would probably bring my mom and sisters to tears so i had to block all sad thoughts when i saw my dad.

each day that i went to visit them in cavite, i would look at my dad with glassy eyes lest i'd be overwhelmed by feelings of pity and sorrow.

i'm proud of my mom for remaining seemingly strong. seemingly. i know that she cries by herself at night or whenever she has time for herself. i do the same, remembering how my dad looked.

my mom said he was so much better already. i can just imagine how he looked when they first took him out of the hospital. they he said he was really frail and was lantang gulay.

my dad let out a silent cry. yup, no sound ever came out. there were just tears. he also let out a muffled cry when angelo and his brother came with me for a visit. my mom said he would always cry whenever somebody visited him, even if he didn't know the person. i told my mom that they shouldn't let him succumb to self-pity so that he would recover even faster. the therapists apparently told them the same thing.

his therapists said that speech would be the last to be recovered. they were particularly happy that he had recovered motion in his left arm and leg, and that his back and neck were quite stronger then. that was just less than two months under physical therapy. normally, they said, a little bit of motion would be recovered after the first 3 months of therapy. my sisters and cousins would tell me that the therapists would acknowledge my dad for recovering faster than they anticipated.

will power, i suppose. i know how much guts my dad has. i know the stories from the time he ran away during his high school days to his stint in mindanao to manila to eloping with my mom to where we are now. it's the same will power that's keeping my mom strong and my sisters steadfast beside her.

i would have stayed longer, if only i didn't have to go back for my work. i left my dad a token that made him cry again. i told him to keep it until i got back. and when that time came, i told him he should be back in shape.

collide by howie day

2006-05-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

i sooo love this song. last song syndrome hehehe

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you
Yeah

I'm open, you're closed
Where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find
You and I collide

I'm quiet you know
You make a first impression
I've found I'm scared to know I'm always on your mind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find
You and I collide

Don't stop here
I've lost my place
I'm close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to ryhme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find
You and I collide

You finally find
You and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide

let me get this straight

2006-05-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

first of all, i'm not dissing PAL with what happened to me last sunday. and if i were dissing them, i have every reason to do so. but again, i'm not. it's not in my nature to do that. i was only airing my disappointment, which i hope inspires them to improve their service. being a flagship airline of the country (and once upon a time, of the whole asian region), such mediocre handling of the situation wasn't expected of them.

my friend neil said "when you take people's hard earned money in exchange for a service, you gotta make sure that they should feel satisfied with ANY outcome." i agree. sabi ko nga, naperwisyo na kami when they couldn't take us in on our morning flight kasi delayed, naulit pa nung nadelay yung pinaglipatan nila sa min na flight, without any compensation. not even free snacks since most of us, if not all, didn't have dinner due to the supposed early boarding time. and as if that wasn't enough, the inflight experience wasn't any good, too.

well, i do hope that PAL will get its acts together. sayang eh. neil said it's ironic that not too many pinoys patronize PAL. i wouldn't know since i've never flown with PAL before except for the one last sunday. but if it's true that pinoys put PAL as their last resort for flying international, that's really a sad thing. tsaka, hindi rin naman ganon kamura sa PAL.

next time i go home, i might fly with either JAL or China Airlines. but if i hear good stories about PAL from my friends, then i might consider flying with them when i take my vacation next year.

about my PAL experience posting

2006-05-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

i got a message in friendster from a college friend. he was reacting to a bulletin board post i made in friendster (which was a copy of an entry in this blog) regarding my first experience with PAL.

quoting verbatim from the message:

hi edil!

what an experience!

last saturday. my cousin was supposed to fly to
SF via PAL. he was one of the 8 (16 for the LA
flight) who got bumped off because the flights were
overbooked. good for them, they were given free
round-trip tickets to SF/LA plus P5,000.

anyway, the next day, sunday, we went to the
airport together. he took the SF flight and i took
the LA flight. yes, it was indeed delayed. we
arrived at the airport 8pm but when we entered the
terminal, it was already written on the flight info
board that the SF flight would be leaving 11:30pm.

for some reason, they gave me an upgrade to
business class so i couldn't really complain.

i am a frequent PAL flier. i feel safer with their
pilots and planes. i get the jitters when i take cebu
pacific. asian spirit, air phils and seair? forget it!
despite their really bad service, i dunno, i still
choose this carrier even for my international flights.
siguro mas gusto ko pa rin ang sariling atin,
at "sayang ang miles" hehe.

in 2003, i almost missed my flight from KL to
manila when KLM was 4hours late in departing
amsterdam. they made an announcement that we
(passengers in amsterdam) will be delayed for 2
hours. when the 2 hours came, they extended it for
another hour, then another hour. and all they gave
us was bread. if we didn't ask, they wouldn't give
the food stubs.

anyway, bottomline is, masama talaga ang service
ng PAL but so are the other well-known carriers.
hehehe.

i replied that i'm not closing my doors on PAL. i've mentioned this in my entry. but i doubt it that i would fly with PAL again in the near future. not for the mean time at least.

it was good for him and his cousin that they got all those perks. i'm really surprised that none of us on that flight that night got any such treatment from PAL. sana man lang ginawa na rin nila kaming Mabuhay class. but no. we had to wait, and wait, hungry and all. and were served only 2 meals inflight? that's the worst flight experience i've ever had.

i do agree with him that PAL pilots are really good. as i've written, that was the smoothest take off and landing i've experienced. i could only wish, i told him, that the rest of the experience was that good.

my friend here who just arrived tuesday on a similar PAL flight, told me that she and her hubby did not encounter such problems. it might be that mine was an isolated case. but again, that's not the point. they could have done more to make the wait bearable.

just this morning, i checked my email and got a reply from PAL. i sent them an email yesterday detailing my experience with them last sunday. here's what they have to say:

Dear Mr. Cadenas,

Thank you for the message we received apprising us of your recent experience with us. At the outset, please accept our regrets for the disappointment you may have felt as a result.

A request for feedback from the offices concerned had been initiated to provide us with the full circumstances of the reported incident. We will be communicating with you again, as soon as we complete our reports. Meanwhile, you are assured of our most preferential attention.

For easy access of your file, we have assigned you REF:MNL/CPN/040506/10042. Please quote this reference code, in your future correspondence with us.

Sincerely yours,
CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Philippine Airlines

well, it's good to hear that they're actually going to do something about it so that such an incident won't happen again in the future. or if it does, at least they should know how to properly handle the situation.

before i forget, my kudos go to the CRO also who took care of our change of flight from PR 300 to PR 114 that sunday morning. i really appreciate her efforts to look for ways for me and angelo to get a different flight in hong kong in case we pushed through with our PR 300 flight. i know that she could only do so much and i am grateful PAL has someone like her.

i hope next time, if i decide to fly with PAL again, it will be a better experience.

la muerte

2006-05-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

last thursday (or was it friday?), i got a text message from my sister that our uncle, who we fondly call Tatay, passed away that morning. it wasn't clear to me whether he died of stroke, or if he fell while watering his plants, or both (my mom and sister have different stories). anyway, on saturday, the day before i left for the US, my sister dropped by at the hotel to give some pabaon. she said she was going to visit my uncle's wake in san andres.

they haven't told my dad yet, lest it might impede his recovery. among my dad's relatives, we're probably closest to his elder sister Nanay, and her hubby Tatay. so you can understand why my dad shouldn't find out until he has fully recovered.

just the week before, my mom told me that a friend of my dad also died. and just like Tatay's passing away, they haven't told my dad about his friend's death.

this morning, my friend Alvin told me that uncle of his passed away just recently. also, he handled the wake of a famous local beauty queen/actress/model who gave in to cancer last week.

with so many deaths happening around me, i'm very grateful that my dad survived a not-so-mild mild stroke and is on his way to recovery. hopefully, just like what his therapists wanted, he could walk before his birthday come May 17. he'll be 58.

my roommates' wedding

2006-05-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

last saturday's wedding went well, despite the heat. i'm happy to see two of my closest friends tie the knot.

emie and mart had been my housemates before in cainta. i've worked with both of them on separate occasions in japan when we were still working for the company-that-must-not-be-named.

i'll probably post the pictures in my Yahoo! photos folder as soon as i find the time to edit them. here are some pics taken during that day. siempre yung kasama lang ako hehehehe. i'll post the rest of the pics later.

with kats while they were doing makeup in my hotel room

with gaby, my inaanak

with the groom mart

with the groom mart, secondary sponsor soy, and fellow groomsman tibo

oo, groomsman ako hahaha!

with kats, jinky, genny, sherwin and rachel (with gaby and ethan, too)

with kenken, partner ko sa entourage

with gaby and doc

with soy

more pics to come soon...

flightplan (a not-so-ordinary horror story)

2006-05-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

angelo and i woke up at 4:30am sunday. sandy, his brother was picking us up at the hotel and was gonna drive us to the airport at 5am. we got to the airport a few minutes before 6am. it was both our first time to take PAL and to be at the Centennial Airport.

our flight, PR 300 was set to leave for hong kong at 8:10am, according to the ticket. in hong kong, we were to transfer to our connecting flight to san francisco via United Airlines flight 862 set to depart at 11:45am.

when we got to the airport, we went straight to the check in counter and i noticed that the PR 300 flight was set to leave at 9:30am. i told the PAL staff at the counter that we had a connecting flight in hong kong at 11:45am and if PR 300 would leave at 9:30am instead of the original 8:10am, we would never make it to the UA flight. like he didn't know that already. wala lang. nagmamaganda lang. apparently, there were others who were also connecting to different flights to different destinations in north america. apparently, the plane from san francisco, which will be used by PR 300 hasn't arrived yet and thus PR 300 was delayed.

anyway, we were ushered to the office of the CRO ( don't ask me what that is, but it's supposed to be some officer position). the CRO told us that she'll try to reach Cathay Pacific in hong kong to check if they could accomodate us in case we pushed through with the PR 300 flight. later, she said that all Cathay flights from hong kong to san francisco were fully booked. as for United Airlines, they couldn't get a confirmation.

she then told us that she could put us on a PAL direct flight to san francisco but the plane would leave at 9:30pm. i told her that my friend would be expecting us at 8am sunday (PDT). she said she'll give me a 3-minute credit for calling to the US. but wait, there's more! hehehe not only would she give us free hotel accomodation for the day at century park hotel, to-and-from transport would also be provided. plus free buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner.

o sige na nga.

she then asked me for my friend's number here in the US as they tried to make the phone call. wala namang nangyari. i ended up calling my friend through my mobile phone. walang kuenta.

when we got back to the airport (the cab picked us up at 7pm), we went straight to the boarding area. we didn't take our dinner at the hotel since the cab arrived too early. angelo kept himself busy with his psp while i carried on with my date with Memoirs of a Geisha. on one break from reading, i looked at my watch and thought i was dreaming when i saw that it was already 9:30PM. and there was no boarding nor flight delay announcements. boarding should have commenced at 8:45pm.

saya di ba.

people were agitiated already. most, out of hunger na rin siguro. later on an announcement came that due to some mechanical problem on the plane that needed to be fixed, the new estimated time of departure was to be 10:30PM. WHAT???????

one lady was complaining loudly, talking to everyone about this and that. she even went outside the boarding area to get some complaint forms and distributed the forms to people. dapat daw magreklamo lahat. okay. like that would help fix the mechanical problem.

minutes later, another announcement was made that the new estimated time of departure would be 11:40PM as they were still trying to fix the mechanical problem. people were now groaning out of anxiety.

i understand that there would be delays due to mechanical problems. but the problem was, they should have made the announcement on time. and they should have compensated us passengers for making us wait for centuries.

they announced that the ground staff would be distributing snacks but none ever came. until we boarded at around 11PM, there wasn't any sight or smell of snacks or drinks. not even a bottle of water was in sight.

during the flight, i noticed that we were only served 2 meals. all the waiting, and we only got 2 meals??? sobra. i'm not sure if i want to fly with PAL again in the future. that was my first time to fly with PAL and my first time at the Centennial Airport, and man oh man, not only was it unimpressive, it was discouragingly traumatic.

the only kudos i have for them are for the pilot who made a very smooth take off and landing, and the flight attendant who was very pleasant and apologetic, even though she had nothing to do with the delay. the JAL pilots were my favorites when it came to smooth take offs and landings, but the PAL pilot that night was better. i never felt we took off nor we landed. if only the rest of the experience was that good!

a friend of mine told me earlier (before i wrote this entry) that PAL stands for Plane Always Late. i wouldn't know since that was my first time to fly with PAL. if i knew, i would have not taken that flight. or maybe it was just that particular flight. my friends later, who flew with PAL before, said that PAL was always late or delayed. but for long haul flights, like the one i had, they usually serve 3 to 4 meals, not the 2 that angelo and i had that night. so minalas lang talaga kami?

like i said, i really don't mind the plane getting delayed as long as they make the announcement on time and that the passengers are properly compensated, be it in the form of hotel accomodation, food during the wait, ticket discounts, or even upgrades.

i'm not closing my doors, but i don't think i'll take a PAL flight any time soon.

talk about heat

2006-05-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

35 degrees? 36 degrees? how about 40?

i can't remember manila heating up that much. the hottest i experienced in my twenty-plus years of living in manila was 33. back then, everyone was complaining about the heat already. my dj friend neil wasn't kidding when he told that i should expect a really hot (hot is an understatement) summer in manila.

don't get me wrong, i'm used to the heat. but it's the air/humidity in manila that's not bearable. it may be hot in the summer here in cali or in tokyo, but at least it's not humid (that's maalinsangan for you).

last thursday, angelo's brother sandy drove us to cavite to pick up my old PC. the air conditioning inside the car was at the coldest and yet it still felt so hot inside. the warm air enveloped the car and it felt like we're inside a microwave oven. angelo almost fainted from the heat so we had to stop at bluewave for a few minutes (and eventually had lunch at jollibee there) before proceeding to imus.

on friday on my way to the MRT station in ortigas, i was already walking under the shade of the covered walkway but then again, the hot air was everywhere. ganon pala feeling ng isdang buhay na mina-microwave!

first time that i went home on a summer. not the best thing to do. tickets may be cheaper but the heat is not worth it. next time i go home, it won't be anytime between april and june.

define makulit

2006-05-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

i went to the philippines two sundays ago to visit my dad and attend my former roommates' wedding. i was there for a week.

i took the UA flight to narita (862) and waited for my connecting flight to manila via Japan Airlines flight 745. after almost thirty minutes of waiting, the boarding announcement was made. with so much effort, the ground staff announced in english, "Japan Airlines flight 745 is now accepting priority boarding. All business class, first class, diamond members, and gold members please board now. Other passengers please for your boarding announcement."

malinaw naman di ba? but no. a lot of people were crowding the boarding gates. that i couldn't quite understand. what's the hurry?!? i overheard one lady say, "We're on business class and we had to go all the way around just to get inside?"

sarap sabihin sa mga makukulit na, "Which part of priority boarding was not clear????" ano ba. imagine our flight got delayed for 30 or so minutes just because boarding took longer than necessary. don't get me wrong, hindi naman lahat ng pinoy ganon. but the pinoys that i was flying with that time, soooobrang kukulit. o baka sobrang excited lang. i dunno. but the thing is, hirap na ngang mag-inggles yung ground staff, yung iba dyan, makulit pa rin. sabi nang business lang muna, ang kukulit!

when it came for other passengers to board, the ground staff said, "All economy passengers please board on the left gate. Business class, first class, diamond and gold members continue to board on the right."

okay. so hindi naman sila masyadong excited di ba? wala atang gustong pumila. for the first time in my years of travelling, ngayon lang ako nakakita ng mga pinoy na sobrang kukulit. ang gulu-gulo as in walang pumipila. tuloy nahaharangan nila yung right gate kaya hindi rin makapasok yung mga may priority boarding.

other enlighted pinoys (yes, there were still a number of us that night) just waited for the makukulits to finish boarding before we got in line and boarded. di ko talaga magets yung mag-unahan mag-board. eh hindi naman sila iiwanan ng eroplano! hello?!?!? napansin ko lang din yung, most of them na nag-uunahan pumasok, ang dami-daming carry-on luggage. kaya siguro nag-uunahan para may paglagyan ng mga gamit nila. sabi na kasing limit of one carry on luggage lang. ang kuliiiiit!

when i finally got to my seat, ayun nga, there was no more space in the the overhead bin assigned to my seat so i had to look for another one that can accomodate my backpack. mga taong 'to, inuwi yata ang buong amerika at sangkatutak ang dala.

apart from that event, the flight was smooth. plane landed a little before 10pm and before 11pm i was already at the hotel.

my thanks to james for dropping by and staying till 5am despite having to go to work at 9am. angelo went straight to the hotel too that night with his luggage.

a time when the company-that-must-not-be-named could be named

2006-04-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

i'm amazed at how much the atmosphere in the company-that-must-not-be-named has changed from the time i started working there (ten loooong years ago) to the present. having stayed there for nearly eight years, i have witnessed how this organization has evolved from a really homey, friendly, and warm company to whatever it is now.

don't get me wrong, i do appreciate having worked there. at least before the evolution started. now those years were the best. back then there were "what the f@#$" rules and policies already, but these were kept at a minimum and i believe the powers-that-be during those times were more open to communication and much, much more understanding and, most importantly, reasonable.

for some time now, since i left centuries ago, i've heard of not-so-good stories of ex-slaves' experiences with that organization. i wouldn't want to call them horror stories, but by the way they were told, they seemed to be. come to think of it, it's not so much as an evolution that that company has undergone. evolution implies changing for the better. but this? devolution (yes, there is such a term. i had to consult Webster for that before i used the word here).

anyway, i'm overwhelmed at the rate these horror stories are reaching me. and for most of these stories, i can't help but shake my head and wonder how long or what will it take for someone to step up to the powers-that-be. not that i care. but i do care about some of the people who were treated that way as these people were and still are my friends.

i've heard of stories of ex-employees who got public notices for apparently leaving the company or for not following their "rules." (thank goodness not all newspapers carried the notices, according to my sources, apparently for lack of legal papers to support the notices.)

in the case of one of those who got a public notice, the ex-slave submitted his letter of resignation way ahead the required month-long notice (from what i've read on the Philippines' labor code, resigning workers are required to provide their employers notice for only 15 work days). the problem was his manager did not transmit his resignation letter to the higher powers, thus the higher powers didn't know that the person already submitted his notice. apparently, his manager kept extending his last day (most likely without the knowledge of the higher powers, too). so when he finally left, it appeared to the higher powers that he went AWOL or something like that.

talk about managers supposedly protecting their staff, huh?

this manager apparently does not know what it means to be a manager. he probably doesn't know that he, as a middle manager, should shield his staff from administrative eklavu. i'm not surprised that his staff, both former and current, talk about him behind his back. he's a pleaser of the higher powers, an ass-kisser if i may say, so. but not a responsible manager to his immediate subordinates, a role that he ought to take to heart first.

another one who got a public notice apparently went ahead with her vacation in the US despite the higher powers revoking all submitted vacation leaves. the problem was, she already had the ticket way, way before the christmas break, and had her leave approved way before that (as per policy of the company-that-must-not-be-named). however, just a few days before vacation, it was announced that everyone must not skip work on the 24th and thus all leaves were cancelled (gee! on the 24th of december! man, shouldn't people be allowed to take that much deserved holiday break???). major DUH!?!?!?!? however, her manager (same manager as above) didn't do anything so she could still take her trip to the US without any hitches. it appeared that some other slaves were able to skip the december 24 work day, thanks to the efforts of their own managers. i mean, come on. it's not like her US trip was planned yesterday, right? so off she went, and out went the public notice.

i've always thought that employees are rendered powerless in the philippines as the labor laws are never fully enforced. but with the company-that-must-not-be-named? it's ridiculous.

anyway, once again, this leads me back to managers being responsible for and to their staff. back in the days before the devolution, i had a pretty good relationship with my own manager. and i can say the same with my colleagues back then. though people left even during those times, it wasn't because the company was bad or had bad managers. it was mostly because there were greener pastures elsewhere.

in an old article i read somewhere some time ago, there was a line that caught my attention. it said, "Employees don't leave companies or jobs. They leave managers." How true.

i know of a number of horror stories still. but i'll write about it when i have the time. writing about the company-that-must-not-be-named requires effort and for something that really doesn't matter to me anymore, i don't want (and i'm not about) to use up any amount of energy more than i use to clench my fist with the middle finger raised.

as a friend said, nakakatawa lang pag-usapan. even if you don't want to.

lingering apathy

2006-04-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

i was going through some posts in a Yahoo!Group that i'm subscribed to and i got to this guy's entry about his encounter with 3 hold-uppers.

he was waiting for a bus/jeepney ride in baclaran on his way to his aunt's place in las piñas when suddenly 3 men clobbered him - one guy behind him with a knife pressed against his back and two men in front of him. one of the men in front of him slapped him while asking for his wallet and the other man asked for his cellphone. of course he couldn't resist as there was a knife pressed against his back.

all these happening in broad daylight, with people everywhere. heck it was baclaran anyway, hindi naman nauubusan ng tao dun. but what was surprising was not the fact that he got held up during the day, but was the fact that he was held up in front of everyone, and not a single one lifted a finger to help. or even call for help.

how much more apathetic can people become? i refuse to think that we are becoming worse as a people in terms of behavior and attitude. but events like this one doesn't help. even in the news, our politicians have become too cynical and self-serving to be really worth any trust.

this country is in a sorry state. and i don't mean anything related to economic progress. but we are in a sorry state because we have become less of a nation whose people were known to be warm and kind and helpful, always ready to lend a hand to one in need, not just to foreign visitors, but to fellow Filipinos as well.

sad.

that's why it's called a blog

2006-04-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

heard that the company-that-must-not-be-named is monitoring blogs of ex-slaves (yours truly got his freedom three years ago).

doesn't it strike you as odd that an organization as big as the company-that-must-not-be-named will go through all the trouble of peering into the personal thoughts of its ex-employees and perform a code walkthrough of their personal online diaries? that is, their blogs. well reading these blogs isn't a problem since these blogs are online and are thus accessible to all. but to tell its ex-employees that they should edit out entries in their blogs that the company-that-must-not-be-named thinks is affecting its image or its trade secrets, that is beyond ludicrous (as franz would describe it). it's outright derisory.

i do understand that trade secrets must be protected. and i do believe that its ex-employees, including yours truly, know how to protect these secrets. after all, we are principled engineers from well respected universities. and to be treated that way is not only preposterous, but more so is insulting.

well, in case my blog is up next in their QA, i don't think they'll find anything useful in my entries. after all, it's not worth spending too much time, energy, and thoughts on something that doesn't matter to me anymore. or that doesn't matter at all.

not so lent lent

2006-04-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

am off to manila next weekend. i'll be attending my ex-roommates' wedding. will stay in manila for a week. sabi nga dave, "Tatae ka lang sa pinas?" hahahaha!

hopefully by that time, my dad has very much improved. my sister told me he's become quite mobile now. i'm hoping he'll recover his speech soon. sis said that there's sound already when he laughs. that's a marked improvement, considering that it wasn't as mild a stroke as we first thought it was.

although i'm booked the entire week at the hotel, i'll be spending most days at home in cavite. most likely i'll only be able too meet up with friends in the evening.

then on the 30th i'll be on my way back to work. :)

a love that will never grow old

2006-02-26T23:17:00.000-08:00

I finally got the chance to watch Brokeback Mountain. You'd think that the story of Romeo and Juliet was already tragic. Jack and Enis' was even more.

Theirs was a love that cannot be expressed in public. They were unfortunate enough to live in a time when homosexual love, let alone homosexuality, was not tolerated. And in the cowboy states for that matter. There had been similar attempts before to depict homosexuality in these states (Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboys come to mind), none had a story as powerful (and ironically as tragic) as Brokeback Mountain.

For Jack Twist and Enis del Mar, theirs was a love that happened in the wrong place, at the wrong time. They wouldn't admit that they were "queer" but they couldn't deny what they were feeling for each other either. Enis (Heath Ledger) showed this when they got back from the mountain and they had to part ways. When Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) drove off, Enis couldn not contain the grief in him that it was the last time he was going to see Jack. He walked off, got on his knees and started punching the wall, trying to muffle his crying. Jack, for his part has never ceased to love Enis. He would come back to the sheepowner to ask for work, a guise for his trying to find out anything about Enis.

Four years passed and Enis got a postcard from Jack, telling him that Jack, who's now based in Texas with his own wife played by Anne Hathaway, will be coming over for the weekend and invited him for a "fishing trip".

It was a kilig moment when Jack finally came. Enis had been anxious the entire day. So when they met, it was one helluva hug...and kiss! And more kisses! Kissess that did not not escape the eyes of Enis' wife Emma (Michelle Williams). Imagine the shock hahaha!

So the romance continued. Jack would go up to Wyoming from Texas from time to time. Later on, Emma would divorce Enis and Enis would live alone. Still they would continue with their relationship.

But the relationship would not end with a "happily ever after" line. Heath Ledger was awesome in the scene where he hugged Jack's bloodied denim shirt. Major tearjerker.

In the end, Enis would never marry again and would live his life alone. Once upon a time in his life, he met and fell in love with the right person. Only that theirs was a love that society would never accept. Jack had moved on to a place where he could watch over Enis until such time that Enis could follow him. For theirs was a love that would never grow old.
Hayyy...can't wait to get my hands on the book now.

"You have life. You make plans. You fall in love. You have fantasies. And none of them include all of them ending in the blink of the eye." From Grey's Anatomy

picto-personality test

2006-02-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

saw this test in mela's page... killing time...

The Picto-Personality Test

You are a person who is very ambitious, and constantly thinking of ways to further your own goals.

When alone, you like to relax and do exactly what you feel like doing at the time.

You are intelligent. You use your time to its fullest potential and will go very far in life.

In the future you will be happy and live richly.

Take this Test at QuizGalaxy.com

mag-ingat sa patay!

2006-02-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

kanina habang payapa akong nagtatrabaho (read: nagsu-surf ng internet hehehe), nilapitan ako ni rolly at ni babauta. si rolly yung pinuno ng s/w, si babauta naman sa mga tagasuri. pagkakita ko pa lang, parang may ideya na 'ko kung anong pakay ng dalawa.

nung tanghalian kasi, may tsinismis si emie na aalis na raw si eddie (yung isang tagasuri na may hawak sa pansubaybay ng kulisap). kasi daw, sinumbong ni patay kay babauta na madalas daw makipagkuentuhan si eddie kina aquino, atbp. [si patay ay isang tagasuri na kamakailan lang ay naging pangalawang tagapamahala sa pangkat ng mga tagasuri. si aquino naman ay pangalawang tagapamahala ng mga sapot.] kinausap daw ni babauta si eddie tungkol dun. tapos hayun na, nag-abot daw ng liham si eddie kay babauta. hindi lang sigurado kung kusa ba ito o sinabihan siya ni babauta na umalis na.

kanina nga, nung kinausap ako ni babauta at ni rolly tungkol sa paghawak ng pansubaybay ng kulisap, eh nabanggit ni babauta na hanggang martes na lang si eddie. so totoo nga ang tsismis.

grabe. makapangyarihan na talaga si patay. sabi ko nga, pailalim pala tumira 'to. puede naman niyang kausapin nang diretso si eddie kagaya nung ginawa niya kay porky dati. pero di ba. kailangan talaga padaanin niya kay babauta.

may isa pa ngang kuento tungkol kay patay na may kinalaman naman sa proyektong tsuper. nagtalo raw sila ni binibini kasi sumulat daw si patay sa mga tagapamahala tungkol sa mga hindi gumaganang parte sa na-release na version. bakit daw kasi kailangan pang sulatan lahat ng mga tagapamahala. sa pagkakaalam ko, medyo protective din itong si binibini pagdating sa proyekto niya. siempre.

kung anuman. matindi rin talaga 'tong si patay. pailalim talaga tumira. mag-ingat!

weekend activities

2006-02-15T22:11:00.000-08:00

this weekend heralds new beginnings. firstly, my roomies are moving out and are moving in together prior to their wedding come april. then my baby's moving in with me at the current apartment, which i'm keeping until the unit that we're waiting for gets vacated sometime in march. and yes, we're moving in together, too.

in preparation for the new living arrangements, the other day, right after my dental appointment, i already bought dinnerware, flatware, and cookware. next up is some bakeware i saw online. but no hurries though. only the essentials first. :)

my roomie emie already transfered the utilities and pg&e bills to my name since i'm keeping our current unit till end of march. for the cable service, i asked her to have it disconnected since i'm gonna get satellite tv when we move to the new apartment.

this weekend i might also get a TV from best buy. right now i have in my room mart's old tv, which i'm borrowing till i get one for myself.

there are a lot of other stuff that i need to get or do. i need to keep another list. am not good at making to-do lists, worse keeping them. hehehe!

anyway, hopefully this weekend's activities will go smoothly. the mommies are doing some shopping at gilroy by the way. damn. much as i'd love to do some shopping, too (S H O P P I N G ! ! !), well i can't. for now. :) next time...

happy birthday to my mom!

2006-02-14T01:32:00.000-08:00

yup. valentine's day. it's special not because i have someone right now, but because it's my mom's birthday. so valentine's day has always been special. and will always be special.

i remember my pop used to kid my mom about leaving her for kris aquino. nope, my pop ain't a fan of her (nor any of us in the family), it's just that the local actress shares the same birthday with my mom.

anyway, right now my mom's getting better. not that she's sick. but i could hardly talk to her when Papa was hospitalized for stroke. understandably, of course. but now that Papa's at home, i was able to talk to her and greet her a happy birthday.

so HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mama!

===segue===

speaking of my pop, he's home now. or has been home for the past week or two. he's still doing therapy at home and has gone back to his personal doctor in las pinas. latest word from my sisters is that Papa can now move his right limbs at will. soon, his physical therapists said, he'll recover his speech . they said that Papa's recovery of limb movement is quite fast so it won't be long now for him to get his speech back. that's really good news.

that's one of the things that i really admire about him. Papa's got strong will. and that will alone is prolly giving him so much boost right now that he's recuperation is fast-tracked. hopefully when i see him this april, we'll be able to go out and have some fun. as a family.

almost, but not quite...ngek.

2006-02-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

yesterday i paid the holding deposit for the apartment that i was going to move in to next month. this morning however, i got a call from Meg, the apartment manager. she asked me if i was willing to help her settle some problems. well, a BIG problem.

apparently, there was another prospective tenant who was aiming for that unit. she was supposed to have an appointment with Meg the day before yesterday, but Meg cancelled the meeting for reasons that i didn't ask anymore. well, it turned out that the lady was ready to place a hold deposit for the unit that day. so this morning when she called up Meg for the unit, she was infuriated when she found out that somebody else has placed a hold deposit for the unit. that somebody of course was me.

anyway, i told Meg to just give the unit to the lady since she really got to the unit before i did. i just told Meg to keep my check and use it for any unit that might come up before Feb 12 (that's the time i need to submit a 30-day notice of vacating to my current apartment manager). although i could've insisted on keeping the unit, i just don't want to make life any more complicated that it already is. besides, i can still keep the current one for another month. there will always be new opportunities. :) and another thing, i'm also waiting for the unit near the BART station to be vacated. the current tenant already gave a verbal notice to vacate the unit. only she couldn't find a new home yet so she hasn't provided a written notice to the apartment manager.

ay-yay-yay! a lot of things are swirling in my mind. too many things to think about...

thankful

2006-02-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

the first quarter of the new year isn't midway yet but a lot of things have already happened [and definitely a lot of reasons to be thankful for, too.]

although my dad is already out of the hospital, he still needs to undergo regular physical therapy. he's still under observation, which i think translates to weekly medical checkup. his doctor said that there's a lump of mass in his brain and they aren't sure yet what it is. hopefully, it's nothing serious. and i also hope that Papa recovers his speech soon. in any case, i'm so grateful that he made it through his not-really-a-mild stroke.

===

and i am thankful that someone out there has been my pillar of support throughout the three weeks of uncertainty since news of Papa's stroke reached me. in a couple of weeks, we're moving a step further into this relationship.

in the past, i've met a lot of people who, back then, i thought was the one i wanted and was going to spend life together with. each one didn't turn out to be just as i thought it would.

this time, i don't want to think about spending the rest of my life with my baby. let's just see what happens. for now, i'm happy and thankful that my baby and i are going to be together real soon.

===

last tuesday, my baby had an accident. fortunately, there wasn't broken bone or any injury. it was raining and the car skidded when the brakes didn't bite as my baby was trying to avoid running under a six-wheeler truck in front. instead, the car went off the road and hit a post.

anyway, my baby got rid of the car, which was a very old, second hand vehicle. and am thankful that there wasn't any injury [though i still insisted that a medical checkup should be in order.]

===

happy birthday to my friend Zheila!

light

2006-01-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

my youngest sister told me that my dad's checking out of the hospital today. i'm glad to hear that. he will continue his therapy at home.

what they told me about dad's mild stroke wasn't as mild as i thought it would be. luckily for him, he can now move his left arm and leg on his own. his physical therapists are working on his right arm and leg. also, he's still stuttering, typical effect of stroke. but in due time, he'll be back on track.

i hope he's well when i see him on april.

dark clouds keep racing up above

2006-01-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

despite having turned 30 already last december, and having lived by myself for quite a long time already, and having found a person whom i think i'm gonna live with forever, i just realized that i'm still not ready to lose any of my parents.

3 days ago, i got a frantic call from my sister that my dad was rushed to the hospital. a bit later they were told that Papa suffered stroke. i didn't know if i was gonna get mad at my sisters despite their crying because if they could've detected the signs, they could have brought him to the hospital at a much earlier time. when they told me about what happened prior to Papa's being brought to the hospital, the symptoms were all there. it made me wish that i was there in cavite.

the last three nights were ones i had a hard time sleeping. tuesday night my baby came over for to be at my side. this morning i got a message from my sister that Papa's respirator was removed already and that he's breathing normally now. prior to his physical therapy yesterday, he could only move his head and left arm. today he can now move the rest of the body. doctors said his condition has improved dramatically and they might move him out of the ICU if his condition continues to stabilize.

am very happy for these developments. i know that i'm not ready to lose my dad. or my mom. or even any of my sisters. or my nephew or my niece. not even my baby.

the gift of the magi

2006-01-05T16:55:00.000-08:00

the one gift that i asked for my birthday and for Christmas...well i got it.

to my baby...mwah! i love you! thanks for the best gift i got.

there's too much to tell. but am still caught up in a daze. yup. still heady from that gift. :)

it's the new year. and what better way to start it than the line AKO LEGAL WIFE...na. hahaha!

anyway, we're looking for apartment near my workplace and near the BART station. and one that accepts cats. baby's got a pair of pussies. err cats. :p

we'll see what happens next. :)

for now, Happy New Year! it's the year of the dog and i'm looking for an apartment that allows cats hahaha!

i met you just tonight...

2005-12-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

...but i keep wonderin' why. it seems i've always known you all my life.

it's not even a month yet. but it feels like i've known this person forever. just like how julie vega's song went. hayyy...

I met you just tonight but I keep wonderin' why
It seems I've always known you all my life
I held you only once but I keep wonderin' why
It seems I've held you forever

Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past I fell in love with you
Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past there was also me and you

I've kissed you only once but I keep wonderin' why
It seems I've kissed your lips so many times
I've known you only now but I keep wonderin' why
It seems I've known you forever

Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past I fell in love with you
Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past there was also me and you

Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past I fell in love with you
Can't it be true, could I be wrong
That somewhere in my past there was also me and you

I've loved you only now but I keep wonderin' why
It seems I've loved you forever
Somewhere...
there was you and i...
somewhere

the end is the beginning of the end

2005-11-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

today is the last day of November. in a few more hours, it's December na. where did the time go?
come end of next month, i'll have been here for two years already. yet somehow, nothing seemed to have changed, money-wise that is.

well, i hope what i couldn't gain in money, i'll find in love. bwahaha! must've been the cheesiest thing i've said in a long while.

===segue===

speaking of beginnings and ends, i'm in a crossroad right now. a stage where someone will have to choose. someone will cry and someone will be happy. choices, after all, reward someone with the one he's been waiting for and leave the other at the losing end. c'est la vie.

all is fair in love. never mind war.

and as the year ends, it will also be the end of someone's love. and the start of a new one for someone else come start of the new year. now who's who? i don't know yet... but i hope i won't be the former...

the right thing about love

2005-11-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

when it comes to loving, is there really a "right" thing to do?

i guess now i understand what it feels like to be caught in this kind of maelstrom. as if finding love in normal situations isn't complicated enough. why i have allowed myself to be pulled into this vortex escapes me at the moment.

it's a good feeling. no, "good" is an understatement. this might not be the right thing to do for some people. my friend john told me exactly that. that this isn't right. but then again, is it also right to let yourself pass on a chance? things happen for a reason. and i know there's a reason why this person came into my life.

i told my best friend aaron that for the first time, i jumped into a situation whose risk are so great, and yet i'm so willing to take. i know that i'm on a losing end here. i don't care. i'm ready to fail. i'm still hoping for some good thing to happen. but i'm expecting the exact opposite. i know what i'm getting into. and i know that only a glimmer of hope lies at the end of this long, dark and unknown tunnel.

whatever happens, i'll still be glad that i went through this. sabi nga, i'd rather have this one night with that person than spend an eternity not knowing that that person existed.

me anti-mushy but forever a hopeless romantic.

in love o lonely lang?

2005-11-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

minsan, pag may nakilala tayong tao, tapos hang-out hang-out. later on, magiging kapalagayang-loob na. comfty na kung baga. then you start to feel something different. kasi matagal na rin naman na nagkaron ka ng kakilala na madaling kasama. weird ng feeling. in love ka nga ba o feeling lonely lang?

alam kong hindi puede. meron sya. meron din ako. bawal. pero masarap ang bawal di ba?

yung sa kanya, malapit na silang mag-two years. kami, mu pa lang for almost two months. although magkaiba ng status, parehong may commitments na.

for some time now, i've never been scared again in my life. scared that this won't go anywhere.

alam ko. alam din niya. pero takot pa rin ako na mawala siya. na mawala na lang ng ganon-ganon yung mga nangyari. ngayon ko lang muling nadama yung kailanganin ako. ngayon, kahit papano, dama ko rin yung kailanganin siya.

ang gulo. mixed emotions. feeling ko mababaliw ako pag inisip ko. ayoko tuloy mag-isip. sabi nga nung friend kong si dave, "Eh di ma-in love ka. Wala namang masamang ma-in love eh." wala nga. pero, "Don't expect anything in return." sabi nya. i know. pero mahirap na hindi umasa.

labo. ba't ba kelangang maging magulo?

ngipin pa rin

2005-11-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

i just realized yesterday that after all this time, i never knew that my tooth underwent root canal when i had my tooth filling in japan seven years ago. it started when i had my cleaning in megamall. that's when the dentist there killed a nerve in my fronth tooth. a portion of the tooth started to yellow. when i went to japan, the tooth started to ache menacingly. that's when i decided to have the filling. yesterday when my dentist showed me the tooth x-ray, that's when i found out that it's been root canaled.

it doesn't matter anymore. :) i'll have my permanent dental cap in two weeks time.

todo na 'to! hahaha!

just a smile away

2005-11-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

indeed, a great smile boosts confidence. this morning, i came from the dentist smiling like i've never smiled before. that's because i had my discolored front tooth fixed. well, it's still the temporary dental cap. i'll have the permanent one in two or three weeks...just in time before i take my vacation.

my first visit to the dentist in two years was yesterday when Dr. Angeles did prophylaxis and pocket cleaning on my teeth. when i left her office yesterday, it felt good to have clean teeth. i couldn't stop running my tongue on my teeth hehehe

this morning i had another appointment, this time for the front tooth. apart from the three injections to numb my gums, i felt no other pain during the session. we were supposed to do the broken molar, but that could wait since she wants to prioritize my front teeth first (there's another one up for a dental cap but it's gonna be for next week). besides, i don't feel much pain on the molar anyway, except when i'm doing really heavy weight training.

i am so happy with the results. i feel better now. and i know that i'll feel even better once the permanent dental cap is fitted two weeks time. i should've done this way, way earlier. i've been too lazy. now i realize how much i've taken my teeth for granted. there's a lot of work to be done but i'm gonna start with a keeping them free from decay and calculi. next year, when my dental insurance resets, i'll have the other teeth fixed or maintained. :)

happy happy happy!

when being single isn't good...

2005-11-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

...in the workplace that is. and i'm not even talking about the impression that people get when they find out that you're single. that is so 90's already. these days, nobody cares anymore if you're single or not. or nobody minds anymore to be more precise.

but then again, i do mind. i find single people at a disadvantage in a workplace where majority of the workers are married, not mention with kids. insurance-wise, that is. this year, one co-worker single-handedly brought the increase in our group health insurance deductions. i'm not blaming him if his wife had to stay at the hospital for over a month until she gave birth. i mean, things like these happen. but the idea of single people like me sharing the burden of insurance increases brought about by situations like these does not sit well with me.

i mean, come on. what do single people like me do with our insurance coverage? annual physical exam? sure. that's almost it.

this society is really unfriendly to single people. or i mean this company. maybe i should go somewhere else where there're more single workers than those with family.

don't get me wrong. i am pro-family. but i think there's an injustice when single workers are made to share the increases in deductions brought about by family workers' availment of insurance benefits.

oh well. this is how the human society works. this human society. maybe i should just get married and have kids so i could also enjoy those benefits. it's just making me wonder why single people don't have work benefits that they can truly enjoy. it's like saying being single isn't any good at all.

oh well. this human world is really unfair.

malas

2005-11-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

putek. my left hand got burned this morning while i was preparing my oatmeal. mahapdi sya, promise. good thing that i'm right-handed. hehehe

speaking of malas, last saturday we failed to get home after a short shopping spree in Great Mall in Milpitas. why? the battery of john's mustang went dead. our friend sherwin, who lives in the san jose area, came to our rescue and tried to jumpstart the mustang with his accord. of course, i was only watching since i was the only one in the pack who knew nothing about cars.

after quite some time, nothing happened. guess that when i said dead, i meant really dead. no Lazarus phenomenon for us. we hailed the roaming security guy, who happened to be pinoy rin and asked if he knew anything about jumpstarting a car. without saying a word, manong got off his patrol vehicle and went straight to the opened hood, and exclaimed, "Eh lumang-luma na pala 'tong battery nyo eh."

uhm, like yeah, we didn't know that. john naman kasi. sinabihan na pala sya na palitan na yung battery the last time na nagpa-service, di pa nakinig. hehehe after a few butingtings, say ni manong, "Wala na 'to. Wag mo na ituloy yan masisira lang yang kotse mo." (referring to sherwin). then he added, "Wala na 'to. Nag-asin na 'to oh." eheheheh

john asked manong if we could leave the car for the night at the parking lot and just come back for it in the morning, since the autoshops were already closed, according to manong. (later on, we still tried to push our luck and went to Kragen that manong pointed us to. but like he said, sarado na yun ng 8pm. galing ni manong di ba?)

we ended up spending the night at sherwin's, which turned out to be something good, too since we got to see ethan. grabe laki na ni ethan. not to mention sobrang hyper. even in the morning, it was fun playing with him kasi hindi nangingilala. well, not yet. i guess being in the daycare also helped him become accustomed to being surrounded by people.

after brunch, sherwin drove us back to the mall. on our way, we stopped by a Kragen where john bought a new car battery. when we got to the parking lot, operation battery replacement commenced. but not without konting pahirap. konti nga ba? hehehe challenge number one, tanggalin yung mga probes (yun nga ba tawag dun?) sa mga battery terminals. after konting haggardness, zheila, ang mekanika ng tondo, managed to loosen the screw and remove the positve terminal. when it came to the negative terminal, effort na sya. summon all strength. kuchiyose no jutsu!

after getting a set of wrenches from home depot, they were able to remove the probe from the negative terminal. and as soon as the new battery was in place, voila! the mustang was back to life. a few minutes later, and after thanking sherwin, we were on our way back to contra costa. (before going home, we had a late lunch at red brick pizza, and made a short stop at honda concord where john planned to get his honda civic hybrid).

i was exhausted when i got home. isa na namang misadventure hehehe bad combo yata kami ni zheila since second time na 'to na nagka-car trouble kami. ehehehe. kebs.

hora hora hora!

2005-11-01T00:17:00.000-08:00

deng. it's november. christmas is just around the corner. thank goodness i'm almost done with my holiday shopping. about 80-90% done.

i got the accessory box for my xCute DV2. now i'm waiting for the 1GB miniSD card that i bought online last week.

my dvd recorder just arrived too. looks like it's okay now. i bought a wifi adaptor online, to avoid using the phone line for program or firmware updates. might get it next week.

===

things to do:

1. make dental appointment...check! hopefully on a weekend
2. call up Safestway for driving class...check! tentatively on the 26th
3. go back to the gym...check!
4. go back to my diet...uhm...we'll see hehehe
5. remaining 10-20% of my shopping...in three weeks time
6. ano pa ba?

===

hindi naman ako excited umuwi 'no? hehehe
well, not really. it's not that i'm not excited. parang oo na hindi. i dunno. unlike last year when i took my vacation. weeks before i left for manila, i was Uber-excited. as in.

ngayon? ewan.

xCute DV2

2005-10-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

last wednesday i got my xCute DV2! woo-hoo! no bluetooth, no irDA. but who needs it when you got a removable media option and a USB cable? besides, i haven't really used my O2 XDA II's bluetooth and irDA that much so having none of both in the xCute DV2 won't make that much difference for me, in terms of experience.

okay. i got the black one. the DV2 also comes in white but i opted for the black since it looks much, much cooler. 6 megapixels, mp3 player and ring tunes, DVD quality video recording, mini SD, 20MB internal memory, 108 grams (battery included). it doesn't come with a memory card so i bought a 1GB mini SD online last thursday, which i'll receive probably next week. i also purchased the accessory box (desktop charger, an extra battery, a leatherette pouch, and the USB data cable) today from the same seller of the phone. hopefully i'll get it next week.

saya!

voyage into the unknown

2005-10-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

i took a respite from blogging. not that there wasn't anything to write about. it's just i've been occupied with work and some personal concerns.

personal concerns. :)

last time, i mentioned about not being quite there yet. well, i just realized it was never there at all. there wasn't anywhere to move to at all. so i decided to keep it at the friendship level. it's the right decision because i also realized some traits that i don't think i can live with. much as the person claims maturity, uhm i still beg to differ. hopefully that's settled.

now comes the journey that i know i want to take even if i'm scared shit that things won't go my way. but then again, life is all about taking risks, right? so i wouldn't really know how things will unfold unless i take the plunge.

problem is, i've got this nasty habit of getting lost in a whirlphool once i jump in. and when i say lost, i do mean blindly falling. i just hope that this time (gawd how many "this time"s had there been?), getting lost means finding home at last. well, only time will tell...

tivo or not tivo, again.

2005-10-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

i got my laptop back friday before last. i'm really happy with hp's customer support. i got my unit back the same week. now it's working perfectly. of course, i don't get to use it that much since i had my desktop running already.

the only problem right is my toshiba rx-ts20 dvd recorder with tivo. i had it shipped back to toshiba the same week i had my laptop picked up for repair. yesterday i got my dvd recorder back. when i set it up, the problem was still there! demmit. the audio static noise from playing recorded programs and live TV was still there. i checked the work order sheet that came with the unit and saw that they replaced the hard drive and dvd drive. apparently, that wasn't really the problem. as far as i can recall, the tech guy that i talked to when i first reported this problem concluded that the tivo module of the unit might be defective. so it was a surprise for me to find out that they also replaced the dvd drive. not that it's a problem to me. but the thing was, the dvd drive wasn't the problem! i specifically noted when first reported this, that the dvd playback was perfectly working.

so anyway, i called them up again earlier and told them about the problem once more. i tried upgrading the tivo software to 7.2 (the unit came with 5.4 geeweez!) in the hopes that that fix the problem but alas, nothing changed. the guy i talked to earlier told me that they're gonna send me a shipping label tomorrow to have the unit shipped back to the depot. this time, he said, he's noting down specifically that the problem isn't the dvd playback but playbacks from the hard drive (which includes the recorded programs and the live TV). well, they better fix that unit or else that's gonna be one big lemon.

anyway, it's gonna be another two or three weeks more of waiting before i can finally get a really working unit. hopefully.

so it's back to the vcr for now. :)

october na pala

2005-10-01T22:27:00.000-07:00

can you believe that? i haven't even recovered from the coming of september and now here comes october. geesh! how time flies!

in a way, i'm quite excited to go home again. yup, only two months and ten days to go before i fly home one more. my good friend alvin (probably one of the few people closest to me) offered to pick me up but i'm thinking of renting a car. that's assuming i can get myself to take that driving class soon hahaha! heck, i'm gonna get that driver's license before i take my vacation. in any case, there's always avis so getting a ride won't be such a problem. i can even arrange my sister to have my brother-in-law pick me up. oh yeah, i told my sister that i'll be home for Christmas. there's no point not telling them since i have to make sure that they'll all be available during my vacation.

yada yada yada.

so it's october. in a couple of blinks, it's gonna be over, too. and it'll be november. then december. then 2005 will be history. damn. another year will have passed and i'll have to assess my situation once more. whatever happened to my goals? aargh.

well, there's still time to make up for the wrong decisions i made this year ($2000 phone bill? hello? hahaha!). i keep telling myself to refocus and i always end up astigmatic. somebody should rescue me! anyone out there?

nuff said.

a destiné à être seul

2005-09-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

suis-je? est-ceci où c'est tout mene à...solitude? hayy...si c'est ainsi, alors ainsi il sera. il n'y a pas beaucoup qu'on peut faire.

oh well. i just don't get it. time and again i'm embroiled into this situation where things aren't so clear to me. but isn't that what makes life interesting in the first place? the unknown.

maybe i'm really meant to live this life alone. maybe. but i cannot accept that. hahaha! whatever happened to "No man is an island?"

hayyy... basta. itaga sa bato. i'm gonna do something about it. i can only go with the flow for so long. it's time to take hold of the steering wheel. echos.

not quite there yet

2005-09-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

things are not always what we expect them to be. sometimes, in our dire (or self-induced) need for fulfillment, we try to settle with what's available. puede na 'to, ika nga. but like the TV ad of DBP years ago, for me, hindi puede ang puede na.

i was almost there. but not quite. i took a step back and realized that i'm about to fall into another comfort zone. into a situation that would satiate my longing for companionship. at least for the meantime. but you see, jumping into a relationship just to be in one is not something that i've done, and am about to do. i will never get into one just to be in one.

true, one can never say never. but this is one situation that i will do so.

right now there is still uncertainty. i've rushed myself far too many times before. i don't want to do that again. i don't want to be with someone that i would have to take care of nor someone who would have to take care of me. i'm tired of too much dependence on one another in a relationship. i want someone who is self-reliant and able to make it through the day alone. is that too much to ask?

i don't want compromises. i don't want to give up something and i don't want that someone to give up something in return. but if compromises in a relationship are inevitable, then that someone must be willing to compromise, too, as i would. love, after all is a two-way street.

so what now? i don't know. we'll see what happens next. if things go well, eh di okay. if not, then life goes on. throughout the years, i've learned to accept that i could never have everything that i want. but maybe, just maybe (like in the Rolling Stones song), i just might find what i need.

song of the moment: the rolling stones' you can't always get what you want

I saw her today at a reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

No, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she was gonna meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

Oh yeah, hey hey hey, oh...

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
Sing it to me now...

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need
Oh baby, yeah, yeah!

I went down to the Chelsea drugstore
To get your prescription filled
I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy
And man, did he look pretty ill
We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, cherry red
I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy
Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was "dead"
I said to him

You can't always get what you want, no!
You can't always get what you want (tell ya baby)
You can't always get what you want (no)
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need
Oh yes! Woo!

You get what you need--yeah, oh baby!
Oh yeah!

I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need

You can't always get what you want (no, no baby)
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need, ah yes...

libog

2005-09-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

was that what it's all about?

i've never met somebody as libidinous as this one. not even my ex was that driven by lust. not that i'm complaining though hahaha!

one of the things that didn't sit well with me was having to do most of the rice milling. at least with my ex, there was some form of compromise when it comes to having sex. but this? uhm. hardly any.

and the person doesn't really fit the profile. far from the yardstick i measure everyone against. well it's not that a factor really. but non-compromise in bed is. it's a big, big factor. it's a reflection of how one will treat the other in a relationship, in and out of the bedroom.

unless there is a glimmer of hope for change, i guess it will just be that: libog lang.

why are we having this conversation?

2005-09-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

...or how i prevailed over an argument with my boss about taking vacations.

here's the thing. i don't enter into an argument that i'm not sure of with what i'm saying. medyo mataas pa naman nang konti kahit papano yung respeto ko sa sarili ko.

anyway, yesteday i filed for a 12-day vacation for december. that translates to 3 weeks since we have 3 company holidays in december. this morning i got a reply from him saying,

Max PTO days is two weeks or 10 days. Why you take 12 days? (wrong grammar pa di ba. kano na yan ha.)

i was like, huh?!?!? are you serious? kelangan mong malaman kung bakit ko gustong magbakasyon ng labing-dalawang araw? ahm, kasi gusto ko lang? at bakit gusto mong malaman kung anong meron sa 12 days kong bakasyon? but of course, that all in my head. civility prevailed and i just replied,

It's a vacation that I'm spending with my family that I don't get to see everyday. (mawindang kang hitad ka.)

Is this two weeks a policy? Last year I was allowed the same. Besides, if this is a policy then how come there are people in the company calendar right now who have 14 days ({insert name of chingining}, this month) and 17 days ({insert name of pambansang hayop ng chingining}, for December)? Mine is just 12 days and I'm even coming back to work on the first day of January. (first work day, that is. hindi pa naman ako ganon ka-martir para pumasok ng holiday).

gusto ko talagang idagdag na, Why the hell are we having this conversation?!?!? puede ba, tigilan na ang kabalbalan.

tumambling ako sa reply nya. kasi ba naman, i-cc ba sa lahat, and i mean LAHAT ng mga managers:

FYI,

Just because it's on the calendar, doesn't mean it's approved. I can't speak for {Thumbelina}'s group, but I know it was a big issue at the last manager's meeting.

In last manager's meeting, as I recall, 2 weeks is acceptable, beyond is treated case by case. {Missa}, correct me if I am wrong.

According to handbook 3 weeks is max unless you have been here more than 5 years, then case by case. But then handbook says we can take 1/2 days, but {Niyebe} always says no 1/2 days and in reality the {bakasyon} system doesn't support 1/2 days. {Missa} can clarify existing policy. {Chukchakchiva Company} Handbook does not necessarily denote our policy at {Chenelin Company na subset ng Chukchakchiva}.

I recall asking for 3 weeks many years back. {Niyebe} said only because my trip was once-in-a-lifetime situation.

If you need to take 12 days, then I can consider, but also be aware that you are taking over holidays so actual time away from office is more like three weeks.

magre-reply pa sana ako, kaya lang lunch time na. :) nah, actually, nagpupuyos na ko sa galit kaya di na muna 'ko nagreply. baka kung ano lang masabi ko. meron na kong naihandang 3 draft reply bago umalis ng for lunch. pero buti na lang hindi ko sinend kasi...

lapit si bentley sa cubicle (kasi kelangan ko ng access niya dun sa isang website na kelangan kong mag-download ng hotfix para dun sa isa naming tool na ginagamit). tinanong ko siya kung ano comment niya dun sa sinulat ni rolly na naka-cc nga sa kanya at sa iba pang managers.

sabi niya malabo talaga yung policy na yan (two weeks) na sinasabi ni rolly, kung meron man. kasi nga pati siya hindi niya alam na may ganong policy. sabi niya, sumulat daw ako kay niyebe and get it straight from the horse's mouth. echos.

sabi ko nga kay bentley, kung may policy mang ganyan, hindi ko alam yan kasi wala sa intranet. eh dun lang naman namin tinitingnan yung mga policies. unless may memo silang ginawa na hindi umabot sa min?

i told bentley that as much as i don't want to think of it in this manner, but somehow i feel that this supposed policy is selected. how come it applies to some (us Pinoys in particular) and not to the others?

when we got back from lunch, i saw the three draft replies i made prior to leaving the office for lunch. i-send ko pa kaya? habang nagko-contemplate ako, may na-receive akong email galing kay rolly,

How did you make the FDF form?
The FDF form contains the link to the PDF on the server, but it is in HTTP format.
This is causing problems for opening the original PDF as it is not working with the merge capability with Acrobat 7.x.

weh? seryoso? ano na nangyari dun sa pinagtatalunan namin kanina? ba't bigla atang nagbago tono ng usapan? hmm... dahil ba hindi na ko nagreply? hehehe well, mabuti na rin na hindi nga ko nagreply. i've made my point already, so there's no reason to further prolong this argument that's going nowhere. anyway, reply ako ako kung pano ko ginawa yung bakasyon form ko. email ulit siya:

FYI,

Three weeks or longer (>14 bakasyon days) is not permitted unless you have been with the company 5 years and still is at the discretion of the department manager.

12 is fine - just be aware that you will be away from the office for 3 weeks with holidays included.

If you feel you can 'afford' the time away from work then OK, I have no objection, but we have to make strong effort before then and afterwards on these projects like {chuva project number 1}, {kaechosan number 2}, etc. (yada yada yada)

Anyhow, it's usually slow over x-mas...

zhwiiickkk! ulit? so does that mean okay na? hmm... i smell a rat. tsaka, objection ka dyan. puede ba, stop making excuses. leche.

punta ko sa office ni bentley para sabihin na na-access ko na yung account niya para ikontak yung M$ para sa hotfix na kelangan namin. tapos sabi ko nagreply si rolly. tinanong ako ni bentley kung ano sabi ni rolly and i told him the emails above. sabi niya, kasi daw, nag-email si missa sa lahat ng managers na:

ANG POLISIYA SA PAGBABAKASYON AY HINDI LALAMPAS SA TATLONG LINGGO KUNG WALA PANG LIMANG TAON SA KUMPANYA. KUNG LAMPAS LIMANG TAON NA SA KUMPANYA, MAAARING MAGBAKASYON NG LAMPAS SA TATLONG LINGGO DEPENDE SA PAGSANG-AYON NG TAGAPAMAHALA.

intiyendes?!

ohhhhh kaya pala biglang nag-iba tono ng email niya after lunch. pasalamat pa rin talaga 'ko na hindi na ko nagreply hahaha! eh di nakatikim siya ng katotohanan.

sabi ko nga kay bentley kanina habang lunch, ayoko nang makatrabaho si rolly. pag naulit pa 'to yung ganitong pagtatalo nang walang katuturan, sasabihin ko na kay niyebe na ilipat na ko ng grupo. malabo talaga tong si rolly. akala ko puede kong i-ignore na lang forever and ever amen yung mga kabalbalan niya. deyns pala. nakakapagpuyos talaga. promise.

just a few minutes ago, lumapit sa kin ang pambansang hayop ng chingining (kasi nga sinabit ko yung pangalan niya dun sa isa kong reply). tinanong niya ko kung okay na ba. sabi ko hindi ko pa alam kasi hinihintay ko pa. ay, interested? pano, lampas tatlong linggo yung bakasyon niya sa december AT wala pa siyang limang taon huh. o ano, policy ka ngayon diyan. pag yang pambansang hayop ng chingining ay na-approve ang bakasyon, ay iba na talaga to. malinaw sa policy na walang consi-consideration pag wala pang limang taon sa kumpanya. unless of course, eh ikakasal, or kung ano pa mang once-in-a-lifetime event na mangyayari sa buhay ang dahilan ng bakasyon.

anyhoo, i made my point. and tonight, i shall celebrate my small victory. :) bakbakan na!

i have one word right now: vindicated.

winds of change

2005-09-21T00:28:00.000-07:00

whenever we're in a mess or whenever we feel that everything's going wrong, something happens that or someone comes along who lifts our spirit and helps us get back on track.

my friend told me that in a world full of wrongs, there's one right thing that's bound to happen. that's another way of saying there's light at the end of the tunnel. lately i've been feeling depressed at how things have started going in the wrong direction almost at the same time. when i decided to have my dvd recorder and laptop fixed, i decided to fix my desktop so i'll still have computer at home. i didn't care how much the memory module would cost, just as long as i get the desktop running again. it was a pleasant surprise that the memory module that i needed was on sale. happiness. :)

yesterday, i shipped my dvd recorder to alabama, where the toshiba service center is located. turn around time is three weeks at minimum. in the afternoon, fedex picked up my laptop. hp's customer support told me that the usual turn around time was 5 to 7 business days, but i might get my machine back by friday this week. whatever. i could wait since i was able to fix my desktop.

i'm beginning to feel better. work, of course is another thing. i'm doing a lot of contemplation lately. well i always do a lot of contempation. is that a problem? geesh. so anyway, i need to ready myself for some big change. i can feel it coming. i should be on the lookout. ;)

resurrección

2005-09-20T03:21:00.000-07:00

past 3am. my desktop PC has just experienced a rebirth.

earlier i bought a PNY 512MB memory module for my desktop. i decided to bring it back to life because the following day HP will pick up my laptop and will have it repaired. and i cannot not have a PC at home. i. just. can't.

finally, the recovery CDs that i bought from HP for the desktop has finally been put to use. after the full system recovery, my Presario SR1030 NX seemed as good as new. somehow, i felt stupid about spending a big sum for my laptop when my desktop "gave up" on me earlier. if i knew then that i would only need to replace the memory module...

oh well, what's done is done. c'est la vie. on the brighter side, i'm glad that i won't have to throw away my desktop. i'll give it to my sister when i take my vacation. i know she's having a hard time with my old PC. it being Japanese and all.

in the mean time, i'll try to enjoy my PC once more until HP returns my laptop.

quand le monde conspire contre vous

2005-09-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

at times do you feel that the whole world is consipiring against you?

that's exactly what i'm feeling right now. it seems that everything's going wrong. a few weeks ago, my desktop broke down. well, the memory module got busted. right now it's sitting at my room waiting for me to fix it. i'm still waiting for the price of memory modules to go down.

last week, i set up my dvd recorder that i bought almost two months ago. i found out that the TiVo audio processor isn't working correctly so now i have to send it to their service center in alabama.

last night my laptop's video display is acting weirdly. all the whites have become magentas. the machine is perfectly working except for the display adaptor. it's so irritating.

this morning there was an unauthorized charge on my credit card. i gave my credit card company a call and told about the unrecognized charge and i already filed an online dispute. i checked on google to see what info i can gather about the merchant. to my surprise, other people have experienced the same thing from this online merchant, and other similar "companies." what these companies do is charge small amounts to "random" credit card numbers, between $8 to $10. small amounts that can easily be overlooked. check out http://www.wiphey.com and http://forums.applenova.com. it's such a hassle going through the dispute-and-wait part. if only it wasn't convenient to have a credit card, i wouldn't get one (or a lot for that matter).

anyway, i hope this friday turns out to be a redeemer of sorts.

song of the moment: r.e.m.'s everybody hurts.

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone

ang pakikipagsapalaran ng dalawang bru

2005-09-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

biyernes nang hapon. walang magawa. ako, balak umuwi nang maaga. tinanong ko si zheila kung gusto nyang mag-Sun Valley Mall. shopping-shopping sana pero deyns nya feel. so uwi na lang ako. tanong nya kung anong magandang gawin. isip ako. carmel? okay. deal. tutal di naman kami natuloy last Labor Day.

anyway, before going home, i went to Fry's to get me a copy of Norton Internet Security 2005 with Norton Ghost 9.0 ($10 after a $70 mail-in rebate) as my trial copy was expiring in a few days. went to sleep after installing.

saturday morning she picked me up at 15 past nine and then we started the long drive to Monterey.

eto na. somewhere along the freeway that i don't know the name, towards our exit to 156, the car started to rumble. she maneuvered the car towards the shoulder. buti na lang may shoulder di ba. so ayun. hmm...ba't kaya? bukas ng pinto, tingin sa gulong. okay lang naman. tingin sa ilalim (as if naman may makikita 'ko dun di ba tsaka as if naman may alam ako sa kotse. i don't even have license, much more know how to drive! hehehe). so anyway, hmm... mukhang okay naman. sige, try ulit magdrive.

a few meters from the shoulder, the car started to rumble again. eeek iba na 'to. so off to the shoulder again. this time, we both got out of the car to check out the car. well, she did the checking out since i knew nothing about cars hehehe. i suggested we opened the hood. wala lang, baka may makita lang. kaso mo, wala rin daw syang alam sa loob ng hood. hmm... saya! pero sige, open pa rin ng hood. uhm, paano?

hahaha! galing di ba, we didn't know how to open the hood. ako, tingin ng manual, sya kapa sa ilalim ng dashboard. malamang nandun lang yun, sabi nya. !click! so dun nga. punta sa harap ng kotse. angat ng hood. ay, ayaw!

hmm... baka matigas lang? hehehe kapa ng hood. hmm... kapa.

anyway, may latch syang nakapa. okay. angat ng hood. ugh! more power ha. ang bigat nya, promise. pagkabukas ng hood, may stick. ano ba tawag dun? hood stick? yung pang-angkla ng hood para di ka bagsakan? kung anuman. so pano iaangkla yung hood stick? baka dun sa butas.

ay hindi! hahaha nagmarunong pa kasi 'ko. eventually, nakabit din nya yung hood stick. so buyangyang na yung makina area.

hmm... ganito pala itsura ng makina ng kotse ko, sabi nya. ngik! ngayon lang pala nabuksan ever yung hood! okay so ano titingnan namin? hehehe malay ko!

road assistance? we need a gas station, she said. drive. hazzard lights. more busina from the passing cars. leche naka-hazzard na nga busi-busina pa. uy my exit! este may exit papuntang park and ride. sige dun muna. hinto.

bukas ng hood ulit. tingin ng manual. maybe there's something there. fluid? she suggested. so we identified which fluid was which. brake/clutch fluid. power-steering fluid. engine coolant. automatic transaxle fluid. eklavu-eklavu fluids. and finally, washer fluid. so anu-ano yung mga yun? tingin ng manual. blah-blah-blah.

kelangan daw between MIN and MAX yung level ng lahat ng fluids. more tingin. engine coolant, below minimum pero may laman pa naman. others, okay pa. washer fluid: empty. pero washer fluid??? di ba pang windshield washer lang yun? yup, sabi ng manual. but then yun lang yung empty eh. she said puede na siguro tubig. tingin ng manual, yeah puede raw. and by the grace of the Greater Powers above, she has a bottle of Crystal Geyser mineral water in the car. she poured all 500mL into the washer fluid container.

okay na kaya? test drive sana, pero wala namang space sa park and ride. balik na ng highway? sige, bahala na si Batman.

patay ang aircon, patay ang sounds. uy mukhang okay na...? but i didn't say anything. feeling ko may masamang nagyayari pag sinasabi kong okay na hehehe. wala na nga. weird. yun lang yun? washer fluid??? pero nga di ba...wag na nga. baka mausog pa. sige na, washer fluid na kung washer fluid. [later when we went home, we dropped by sherwin's place and told him about it. he thinks it's the engine coolant. why the car was suddenly okay after filling the washer fluid container, he didn't know why but it can't be that, he said.]

finally, we were on our way to Monterey. we were both starved. i suggested luigi's linguini in cannery row. tita feli, dott, rosemary (tita's friend) and i had lunch there Thanksgiving last year. we tried fisherman's wharf first. hmm... may bayad parking. at mahal ha. sige balik sa kalye, this time on our way to cannery row. we got there a little past noon.

ikot konti. then punta luigi's linguini. we had calamari, clam chowder, and cioppino. after lunch, more ikot.

i wanted to get something for rangel, pero next time na lang. zheila got a baby tee from one of the shops. i got a double scoop (coffee and blueberry cheesecake) ice cream, a large white cholocolate mocha and a bottle of mineral water (yup don't leave home without one!) from ghirrardeli, we were on the road again.

she suggested taking the 17-mile drive. she said she's heard a lot about it and wanted to find out what's up with it. ako, go lang nang go. it was only when we got past the entrance that i realized i've been there na pala. last year Thanksgiving.

first stop, Shepher's Knoll. hmm... wala namang special. moving along...

Huckeberry Hill. hmm... wala rin. eto na lang: senti ang lola ko:

skip na ang Poppy Hilss Golf Course. kebs lang sa golf-golfan.

ito. wagi ito. Spanish Bay. at ang mga katibayan ng mga mudil-mudilan:

lonely girl and lonely bird (hahaha!)

echos lang.

itaga mo sa bato! ang ano? :p

gaya-gaya hehehe

dito...sa mga batuhang ito...

we passed by The Restless Sea. restless. growwwlll. hehehe next venue of our photo shoot (photo shoot daw oh! laban?) is Point Joe. dito wagi talaga ang lolo't lola ko.

the view from the top.

the view from below. hehehe

nasaan ang kasagutan?

naro'n. echos.

wala lang.

hala. akyat ka ngayon.

daanan lang ang drama sa China Rock and Bird Rock, pati Seal Rock at Spyglass Hill Golf Course. walang masyadong drama dun kaya move along na lang. Fanshell Overlook, in-overlook na lang namin. mukhang hindi kaigaigaya. same thing with Cypress Point Lookout. nothing that caught our attention.

Crocker Grove, hmm... interesting sana. pero yun lang. sana lang. and to the right, The Lone Cypress. maximum senti ang kadramahan ng puno kaya maximum ignore na rin kami.

The Ghost Tree. hmm... eto may character. puede. puedeng photo shoot location bwahaha! and that's exactly what we did. eto ang proof:

ghost tree ba kamo? ma.

sige, ghost tree pa.

diwata hahaha!

impakto. hehehe

matapos ang nakapapagod na piktyuran, skip na namin ang Pescadero Point, Pebble Beach Lodge at Peter Hay Golf Course. destination? Carmel-By-Sea. now that's a great, great way to end the 17-mile scenic drive. in fairness, scenic talaga ang 17-mile drive na yun. yun nga lang, kung feel mo mag stopover sa lahat ng points of interest (at least point of interest sabi ng mapa), eh di go lang. it's worth the $8.50 fee.

we got to Carmel possibly around 3:30 to 4pm. the beach was exactly how i remembered it when i first went there a year ago. and just like last year, my camera's battery drained just as i snapped a couple of pics. kainis di ba? pero okay lang. buti na lang dala ni zheila phone nya na may cam. puede na rin sa mga photo shoot addicts hwehwehwe!

the few pics that my cam's battery could spare:

hindi po. walang picnic dito.

wade-wade kuno. malamig ha. promise.

one of very few pics that didn't include either of us hehehe

and from zheila's phone, after my trusty cam shutdown:

hindi. this ain't a mag's cover. feeling hahaha!

we left Carmel around 5:30pm and drove to san jose to stop by sherwin's place. we got there before 7pm. kuento here, kuento there. kuento ng misadventure sa kalye. sabi nga ni sherwin, malamang yung engine coolant. baka nagkataon lang daw na lumamig na yung engine nung huminto kami sa park and ride kaya okay na. puede. pero malay ko ba di ba? baka mauna ko pang mabilang ang mga bituin sa langit bago ko magets kung pano i-diagnose yung kotse.

oa naman. gets ko naman. hehehe anyway, more lagay ng engine coolant sa kotse bago kami umisquierda para makasiguro aabot kami ng concord ng buhay. sayang, wala kaming pics dun sa bahay ni sherwin. ang laki na ni ethan.

speaking of sayang, dapat pala nagpicturan na lang kami dun sa tabi ng freeway, dun sa park and ride. dapat nagpicturan kami habang nagbubutingting kuno ng laman ng hood. hmm... di ko naisip yun. siempre survival muna di ba bago ang mudil-mudilan.

so there, we got home late na siempre. kumpleto naman at walang galos. hehehe

tivo or not tivo, survivor, inxs

2005-09-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

last tuesday i opened the box of the dvd recorder i bought almost two months ago. i bought it in july 21 because of a 50% coupon i got from a friend (it was $599.99 but i only paid $300 plus tax).

i never had the time to set it up when i bought it so it was only this week that i had the chance to do so. after going through the manual. oh yes, i'm a sucker for manuals. i always go through the manual before i use any gadget i've bought. that's what the manual is for in the first place. so anyway, after about 30 minutes of setting it up, including setting up the TiVo service, i had the unit running.

only i noticed one problem.

there's a lot of audio static noise when i'm playing live TV or playing a recorder program (i recorded the World Music Awards 2005 that night). i checked the dvd playback, the audio was okay. i checked the RF bypass mode, my cable reception was okay, too. so what's the problem? i thought maybe the composite cables? nah, dvd playback was okay. it's not the coaxial cables either since the RF bypass didn't have any problem.

the following day, mart told me he also tried replacing the cables but the audio static was still there. that night (wednesday), i wrote to Toshiba's customer support to report the problem. the following day (yesterday), i called up Toshiba's customer support at lunch time. i told the csr, dave, the problem. after holding for a few minutes, came back to the line and told me that the problem might be on the TiVo audio processor. apparently, the audio processor for the TiVo component is separate from the dvd and cable playback. he asked me for some details and told me the fastest way to have the unit repaired is to ship it to their main service center in Alabama. turn out time would be between 10 to 14 business days, max, he said. this would still be faster than going to the local service center (the nearest one's 30 minutes away in dublin), he said. so he gave me the reference number, return address, and all other info i would need to have the unit shipped.

that night, as i was watching survivor guatemala, i noticed that the live TV was okay now. weh? what gives? even this morning when i was watching the Early Show, live TV was okay. when i got to work and checked my email, i got a reply from the customer service and gave me instructions on how to restart the unit and reset some settings, all of which i already did before. so what happened? i have no idea. i'll probably wait for a couple more days and see if the audio static noise returns. if it does, then i'll send the unit back.

my hunch is my TiVo account wasn't activated yet that why there's a noise in the audio. sort of of a means so that unactivated/unregistered account won't be able to use TiVo service. i don't know. it's just a hunch. if my guess is wrong, and the noise returns, it's gonna be at least three weeks withouth TiVo for me. yaiks, there's a number of shows that i want to record! survivor, america's next top model, alias, amazing race, medium, lost...ano pa ba?

===segue===

speaking of survivor, i'm ecstatic to see stephanie back in survivor. i was rooting for her in survivor palau. she really deserved to win that one, being the sole survivor from her tribe. hopefully this time, she gets closer to winning. bobby john, her other former tribemate is also back. they're the least two survivors from their tribe in palau. bobby john lost to a tie breaker to stephanie when their tribe (composed by just the two of them) lost in the last group immunity challenge.

this time, i hope stephanie or bobby john wins. :)

===segue===

in other news, i didn't get to watch the encore of rockstar: inxs last wednesday but found out yesterday from zheila that suzie got booted from the competition. i was expecting that. i don't think inxs is really that up to have a female frontman. even if they were, i think jordis unga (who was booted from the competition last week) would make a better female vocalist for them than suzie.

so now there're three guys battling it out for the title of inxs vocalist. canadian JD Fortune, american Marty Casey, and london-based australian-raised filipino MiG Ayesa. last tuesday, i think JD's performance was the best. it's surprising to see him really do well in the latter part of the competition. Marty's performance was also good, except that part when he tried to stretch his vocals for radiohead's creep. MiG's rendition of seal's kiss from a rose was also good. i didn't like Suzie's version of 4NonBlonde's what's up. her voice is too flat and didn't give justice to the song. two weeks ago, i didn't like her bohemian rapsody either. it was too flat. anyway, i really expected her to go home this week, which she did.

of the three guys that remain, i think Marty Casey is the best choise to lead inxs. of course, i would love to see MiG bag the prize. who wouldn't want a fellow pinoy to win and be internationally famous? JD is actually a good choice too, if only for his charm, but i find him too irascible.

anyway, goodluck to MiG! hehehe

consistency. daw.

2005-09-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

what's consistent in naming your client workspaces after cosmic bodies? and while we're at it, why are some client workspaces named after planets, others after constellation, and then you have client workspace named after a voracious fish? what's up with that?

yesterday i had a little exchange with my boss about this scm tool we're using (which continued until this morning when i got to work). i was trying to setup my workspace to begin the conversion of one of our projects from our current scm to the new scm. as i have been busy in the past weeks helping out in the project, i never got enough time to read through the entire admin documentation of the new scm, as what i have done with the current one when i had to take over its administration.

anyway, so i emailed him to ask for the settings i need to create my environment. the reply came like centuries later, and being the impatient one that i am, i eventually pored on the manual and set up my workspace. as if on cue, i got his reply as soon as i finished creating my environment. i emailed back that i already created my workspace, but thanks anyway. to which he asked what i named my client workspace to. i answered i didn't name it to anything and just allowed the scm tool to do it for me, which by default takes the pc client name as the client workspace name. he said that i should rename my workspace to #@$#@!% (that's the name of some constellation) for consistency.

huh? say what??? consistency??? medyo nawindang ako dun ah. i asked why the pc name wasn't used for naming the client workspace since it's much simpler and easier to map the user to the client (as what our current scm is doing). plus it's more consistent with the use of our pc network name.

then i got the reply: you want to change everyone's client specification here, there, and everywhere? changing the client specs now is a big pain, he added.

i thought what the?! i thought he was talking about consistency. so why the change in focus? after i recovered from that sudden episode of bewilderment, i sent a reply:

I’m just saying if you want consistency, then we should use the pc client name since each pc client name already reflects the user.

Maintenance point of view, there’s no need to know whose client is "” etc since the client name already tells us who the user is.

If it’s a big effort to change the client specs, I still think a one-time-big-pain-now is easier to handle than having to contend with maintenance issues later on. Besides, it’s much simpler to take note of the client name as the pc name, admin- and user-wise.

Just my two cents. I just prefer simplicity. But if that is where you want to go, then by all means.

then after that, i got a reply, which he cc'ed to our sysad, saying:

I also don't think we have a perfect naming strategy for hostname. Some systems are like chuvanesque-unggabungga-280. I don't think it should be 280, but rather test. Perhaps we should coordinate the effort of a consistent hostname strategy before changing the client workspace specifications.

before i could send my reply, our sysad came to my cubicle and told, is an a$#%&@e. i couldn't agree more. he was widely surprised why he got cc'ed on the last exchange. i was glad that he agreed with me about questioning the alleged consitency in naming client workspaces after cosmic bodies and a fish, as against using the current pc network name. later, his boss (the IT manager) joined in and totally agreed with my viewpoints.

so anyway, when they left i sent my reply:

I agree. And it should apply to all naming conventions that we make or plan to make in the future, if only to be consistent, as what you mentioned.

i didn't get a reply after that. but i could feel he didn't like the way i was acting. i know, i'm being bitchy and assholy myself. but he's probably used to people agreeing with him, either through exhaustion from arguing with him, or simply just to avoid having to argue with him. but i just couldn't resist answering back. eventually, he will pass the admin work to me. and these problems won't be haunting him in the future, but will going to be my own burden. it's not him who's going to contend with maintenance issues later on, but me.

i told our network sysad earlier that i couldn't find consistency in the use of fancy names when you already have available names to use. and in general, i couldn't bring myself to agree to use fancy names at all. sysad agreed and said that before, when the organization was small, fancy names were okay as it was easy to know who's using which, like in high school or in college. but now that the organization has grown, it's much simpler to name each machine after the user and the type of the machine. what's more consistent and simpler than that?

sysad's boss told us that a#$%#@e has this nasty habit of coming up with such "random" ideas and putting them into motion without consulting the IT department, who should be handling such things as uhm, client workspace naming? talk about what he said on consulting each other first for agreement. blech.

i'm foreseeing a very bumpy ride ahead. i think we're not gonna get along in the coming months. and i'm guessing that this will greatly affect my evaluation come March next year, which also decides my miniscule salary increase. time to seek out alternatives before he gets to me. one thing's for sure, i won't allow myself to be dogged by someone who, even if he's the boss, don't know what he's talking about. i really hate people who gives this aura like he knows everything. heller!?!? hindi lang ikaw ang anak ng Diyos.

i told my friend/roomie that i feel that our boss doesn't respect us Pinoys. with the exception of john, we're the lowest paid engineers in the organization. but then, never mind the pay. i cannot accept how he dismisses other people's ideas that easily, coming up with gazillions of excuses just to win the argument, to the point of straying entirely from what you've been arguing with him in the first place.

sheesh. writing about that is exhausting already. how much more when the real action begins? yaiks. anyway, let's see what happens next.

i will not be cowed.

birthdate

2005-09-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

ngik. funny, i don't see much congruence of the text below with what i am right now hehehe!
got the following from alvin's blog.

Your Birthdate: December 16

Your birth on the 16th day of the month gives a sense of loneliness and generally the desire to work alone.
You are relatively inflexible, and insist on your being independent.
You need a good deal of time to rest and to meditate.

You are introspective and a little stubborn.
Because of this, it may not be easy for you to maintain permanent relationships, but you probably will as you are very much into home and family.
This birth day inclines to interests in the technical, the scientific, and to the religious or the unknown realm of spiritual explorations.

The date gives you a tendency to seek unusual approaches and makes your style seem a little different and unique to those around you.
Your intuition is aided by the day of your birth, but most of your actions are bedded in logic, responsibility, and the rational approach.
You may be emotional, but have a hard time expressing these emotions.
Because of this, there may be some difficulty in giving or receiving affection.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

peaches, nectarines, plums

2005-09-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

now that the impeachment is officially over, or should i say officially dead, i hope everyone involved in the brouhaha will turn their attention on the surging oil prices and focus on means of alleviating the impact on the prices of basic commodities.

but alas, bitterness of bitterness, these people are talking about taking the case to the parliament of the streets. these very people who have sworn to uphold the integrity of the Congress by virtue of being a member of that institution. if these people cannot respect the decisions of the institution that they belong to, they should relinquish their posts in Congress and spend their lives on the streets, as what they always proclaim to do if they couldn't get Congress to do their bidding.

such a waste of votes. these people shouldn't have been voted into office in the first place. if they think they represent the will of their constituents, as what they proclaim to do, then they should leave the Congress if they think their principles do not jibe with that of the legislative body that they have been sworn in. i find it ridiculous to see these people act like kids throwing tantrums in the halls of Congress when they couldn't have candy in the middle of the night.

Congress is definitely lacking in statesmen. well, there are some. i admire opposition congressman francis escudero and the administration's raul del mar and speaker jose de venecia. they are, for me, statesmen, exuding coolness, finesse and, command for respect. i wish i could say the same with the rest of the lot.

anyway, so it's back to the streets for those who didn't get their way in Congress. fine. but i hope these people who do so will think for one moment what is it really that they're fighting for. i hope they look at the people surrounding them and i hope they can say to themselves that those surrounding them are of honest hearts and of good intentions. because personally, i don't think so.

these people should stop their propaganda that it is the will of the Filipino people to have the President impeached. pardon me, but i wasn't born yesterday. i'm a Filipino, too but i don't recall willing for the President's impeachment. those clamoring for her impeachment should stop generalizing what the entire country thinks. apparently, the President still enjoys the confidence of the bigger number of Filipinos in the cities and towns and provinces outside of Manila. after all, Metro Manila is not the Philippines. and despite the presence of former President Corazon Aquino in the rallies (whom some refer to as representative of the middle class, which i beg to differ), they could not get the support of the majority of the middle class who have been essential in the two previous People Power. without the tax-paying middle class, who will support the next government that these people plan to establish if ever the President was impeached?

and of course, the military and the powerful arms of the Catholic Church and the Iglesia ni Cristo have not supported these demonstrations. reason still hovers over these groups. as well as over the tax-paying, thinking middle class.

although the impeachment is dead for now, people are expecting its resurrection in a year's time. one year is not a long time. i hope by that time, more people will realize that rather than clamour for chaos, we should all work together to help this country to its feet.

tigilan na yang kaka-masa-masa na yan. hindi lang masa ang Pilipino.

a not so holidayesque labor day weekend

2005-09-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

last saturday i went to gilroy with zheila. four quadrants of outlet stores. my oh my. vacaville doesn't compare. but surprisingly... i went home with only 3 small bags. yup yup! i got to visit all the stores in the four outlet areas. the gilroy outlet was big, but i was a bit disappointed with the Gap and Banana Republic stores. they didn't have much men's clothing as the ones in vacaville. anyway, i bought a michael kors dress watch, a red Oakley, and three eddie bauer shirts. that's it. :) oh and i got asher a gift from wilson's leather.

the following day, we had a small barbecue party at koji's place. it was barry's birthday treat. some pics during that day/night:

the following day (oh that's today! hehehe) is labor day. i was sleeping and watching tv and doing the grocery. was planning to go to the city earlier but thought against it as i was feeling sleepy the entire day. got a text from my best friend aaron asking me if i was in the city. i didn't reply anymore as i read the message three hours later (yeah i was still sleeping at 3pm).

===segue===

in other news, i'm beginning to like this person a lot. we'll see what happens next...

when it rains, it pours

2005-09-03T00:20:00.000-07:00

truly!

first, i found a new friend who's got a potential to be more than just that. we ended up talking till 4:30am but i didn't mind.

then, nadiligan na naman ng suka ang uhaw na lumpia. go figure.

earlier at work, i got an email from our HR [and a number of congratulations from friends at work] about my being... jan-ja-ja-rannnn... [drum rolls, please] Employee of the Month for September. bwahaha! me? well, i get to have a reserved parking slot for the whole month of september. like i have use for it hahaha! i don't even have a car. heck i don't know how to drive yet teeheehee! anyway, i'm giving it to my friend John.

then i got to finish a crash issue that was forwarded to me in the afternoon. actually, i got to finish all the issues on my queue, including those that were just forwarded to me from somebody else's queue. i felt good finishing a lot of work stuff.

then just a few minutes earlier, i got to talk to Tim [ym-style]. haven't caught up with him in a long, long while. Tim's got good news to tell. apparently, he's found someone to love and who loves him back. that's nice to hear. it brings a smile to my heart when a friend finds happiness in the arms of the one he loves. anyhoo, Tim tells me that they're still on their first month. well, best wishes to Tim and his love.

so there. it hasn't flooded, but enough goodies have been poured today. gosh i really love the rain. i remember the penshoppe commercial when i was still in college: sometimes it rains. i feel happy when it rains. and for me, i feel even happier when it pours. :)

do you remember the 21st night of september?

2005-09-01T00:17:00.000-07:00

it's seventeen minutes past midnight. it's the first day of september. i always say this: how time flies. followed by a long sigh.

september. the first of the burr months. i expect the in the following days the cool touch of fall to start creeping in. will it signal another cold and lonely winter? hahaha! whatever.

anyway, i have been doing a lot of thinking lately. too much thinking i believe. i've allowed myself to get lost in a lot of maelstroms of emotions. but what's a man to do when he only wishes to find happiness?

september. why do i get a feeling that a lot of things are gonna happen this month?

song of the moment: green day's wake me up when september ends (obvious ba?)

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Like my father's come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars

Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost

Wake me up when Septmber ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when Septmber ends

Ring out the bells again
Like we did when spring began

Wake me up when septmber ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars

Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost

Wake me up when septmber ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when Septmber ends

Like my father's come to pass
Twenty years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Wake me up when September ends
Wake me up when September ends

question.

2005-08-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

what's the point in wanting something that i know will never be mine? it just occurred to me how most of what we have in life are never ours to begin with, including those things that we want. so why waste time running after something that isn't ours anyway? or will be ours but only for a time and then it'll be gone?

just thinking out aloud.