Food for Thought

It's the New Year! Finally I'm back in the blogging world. You'd think, though, that after a year of sporadic blogging, I'd be back in full force. Still, there are few instances that happened in the past year that were blog-worthy (or I chose not to remember them, of course - that's always as good an excuse as any not to blog). But, since I got my home computer back up, I'll be able to blog with a little more regularity than last year.

Anyway, just to share a little food for thought...

"You can take a monkey out of the jungle, bathe him, dress him up in clothes, put expensive perfume... If he chooses not to change his ways, then that's all he will ever amount to - a monkey trying to pass for human."

To the Monkey Man

Man, you really outdid yourself this time. From the first glance I already knew that you were an asshole, but now you've just proven it to the rest of the world. No wonder no one likes you.

Spinning the Wheel of Fortune

"Bankrupt! Lose a turn! Big Money! Higher! Nooooo!!!"

Famous words from the Philippine version of Wheel of Fortune. After all the days that have passed, I still can't believe that I was able to go through the whole experience of being a studio contestant (and conversing with Kris Aquino, if only for a few minutes, but that's not the point).

I didn't win the big prize that I wanted (not the car - I'd rather win money than the car), but at least I was able to bring home a substantial amount of money in exchange for all the money and time I spent during the whole screening process. And of course, even if only for a few hours, I made a few more friends. And I had my fifteen minutes of fame.

Life is good.

Inday! Ang Sosyal na Katulong

Amo: Inday, bumili ka nga ng mga isda.Oo nga pala, Inglesera ka na ngayon. Would you please purchase many fishes for our food this week?
Inday: Judging from your statement, I believe you meant a variety of fish. The term “fishes”, although rarely used, connotes a plethora or an array of different kind of afformentioned gilled creatures. But the more pressing question before I traverse the road to the market would be : What certain type of fish? Fillet or not? Frozen or just right smack the day’s catch?
(pauses)
Aaahhh….by manner of careful extrapolation, given the meager budget of this household’s quasi-peasant middle class taste, I assume then that I will source the staple ga-lewng-gowng, am I correct?
Amo: Leche!
Inday: You meant the freshwater milkfish? Then, ba-ngooz, is it?
(Hanep, hindi lang nosebleed, internal hemorrage pa!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just a sample of the many text messages that were circulated regarding the life and times of Inday, ang Sosyal na Katulong. Now Inday has her own blog! If by any chance you missed out on any of her trademark comments, you can check it out at Blog ni Inday. Be sure to check out her Biodata! Heh heh heh...

Finally!

For a few months I felt as if I've been sent back to the Industrial Age. Well, my computer broke down (I think it was just time for that computer to finally be put to rest). Well, right now I feel revived, or more accurately, reborn. I got a new PC today! Yes! I'm back in the blogging world! Hehehehe :P

Watch for a few more updates in the coming days! :P

Dreams

I have a phlegmatic personality. Yes, I am pessimistic by nature. Yes, I am also an introvert - I'd much rather spend my time reading or watching videos than interacting with other people (at least people I do know personally, anyway). But that's not to say I don't have dreams of my own. Every so often, I find myself wondering about what I want to be doing in a few years' time. But pessimism rears its big ugly head more often than not - engulfing my visions of paradise in roaring flames of disappointment.

Whatever. I do have dreams. I do want to make my dreams come true (though, of course, that is limited to those dreams that are physically possible). For instance, I don't want to spend the next 40 or so years of my life working at a job I don't really enjoy, and finally retiring with 40% less than what I made in my whole career working. And there are other dreams I want to make into reality. Sometimes it's what keeps me going during those tough times.

As a wise man once said, not all our dreams come true. But those dreams that come true would not have come true were it not for an idea to make it into reality. Now, all it should take for our dreams to become reality is for the right idea to keep us striving to fulfill our dreams.

Live in the present, but place importance on dreams as well. It really helps a whole lot.

Finally!

Yes, I finished Book 7 of Harry Potter. Yes, my previous post about the so-called "spoiler" wannabe is totally unnecessary. Yes, what he mentioned about the story is a pile of do-do. But no, it didn't take me more than a week to finish Book 7.

I went to claim my order from Trixie last Saturday. Months and months of waiting, all to be gratified, with all questions to be answered. The final leg of Harry's journey into the Wizarding world is upon us (Now, I'm actually kinda glad I ordered from Trixie, since I was able to avoid the tidal wave of Muggles all eager to pursue Harry's adventure in the final installment of Harry Potter; I have to repay her back somehow).

Well, suffice to say that I was able to finish reading the book by Monday morning (I would have been able to finish the book by Sunday morning, had I not have had some other things to do as well). I was almost teary-eyed as a lot of the characters met their ends. But the final showdown, the epic battle, whatever you might wish to call it - that really was the best! Kudos to Ms. Rowling for such an amazing run with her brainchild.

Now, if only Jo would satisfy the needs of all the Harry Potter fans and complete her planned writing of the Harry Potter encyclopedia...

No Spoilers!

Amazing how some people would go to such lengths to spoil other people's happiness.

(I guess I don't have to hide the text anymore, as the information that the hacker supposedly got from the publisher is a load of - well, you know what I mean :P )
[BEGIN]
************************************************************
* Harry Potter 0day
*
************************************************************

Dear my brothers,

Voldemort killed Hermione. Yes, that's true. And we knew that 2 days ago.

This is the end of the not yet published (someone could call that 0day) book

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows .

At the end of the story Hagrid was killed by Snape in the attempt of ambush Hermione and Ron.
Ron and Hermione flees in privet drive but Voldermort, surprising them, engaged a magical duel with Ron and Hermione.

Voldemort attacked trough the imperius curse and Hermione, to protect the life of Ron fight hardly for more than 6 pages and then finally die.
(boring, very boring... it's always the same story!)

Then, to make a long story short, Harry came up, killed all the bad guys and Hogwarts against became a good place to stay and have fun.

Ah, i missed one important information about Draco Malfoy, he started to create Horcrux (for fun and profit!).
The end.
************************************************************

Yes, we did it.
We did it by following the precious words of the great Pope Benedict XVI when he still was Cardinal Josepth Ratzinger.
He explained why Harry Potter bring the youngs of our earth to Neo Paganism faith.

So we make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring.

The attack strategy was the easiest one.
The usual milw0rm downloaded exploit delivered by email/click-on-the-link/open-browser/click-on-this-animated-icon/back-connect to some employee of Bloomsbury Publishing, the company that's behind the Harry crap.

It's amazing to see how much people inside the company have copies and drafts of this book.
Curiosity killed the cat.

Who kill curiosity?

To protect you and your families

God bless you

Gabriel
[END]
Quite amazing, really.

By the way, I don't believe that Harry Potter is a vehicle of Neo-Paganism. I mean, come on! We're all rational people here, right? And just to get things straight: I'm Catholic. I am secure in my faith, and my being Catholic doesn't prevent me from enjoying the Harry Potter books. Conversely, my enjoying the Harry Potter books doesn't prevent me from fulfilling my duties as a Catholic. It's not as if my reading these books will damage or shatter my faith in God, since I understand (as I am quite sure many others who read Harry Potter do) that Harry Potter is a work of fiction. And if anyone who reads the books understand this fact, then there's no way that this will damage one's faith in God.

Now, I hope nobody will say that the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings are works pertaining to the devil, and that Jack and the Beanstalk is blasphemy. That would be too much.

Techie Repression

I can't surf at home! My PC's in one of those days when you can't browse the web, a lot of things are going wrong with the system, and the system doesn't respond as fast as it used to. Well, I could still watch online episodes of Bleach at home, but it would take probably 45 minutes to 1 hour to watch a 23-minute episode, even with DSL. Darn it!

So here I am, making a shopping list for my PC. New hard drive, more memory, maybe a video card and a sound card, but my top priority right now would be the hard drive and the memory. Ubos na naman ang sweldo ko. Where's a pot of gold when you need one?

Hmmm... might as well buy a new PC. Or maybe a laptop. Maybe later, when I'm already earning twice as much as I do now.

Me as a Character in LOTR

Apparently there are a lot of name generators floating all around the web, telling people what their names would be were they characters in fiction. This is one such generator: http://www.myprecious.us/name_generator.php

Now, were I a character in the Lord of the Rings, I would be known as:

* Merebo 'the Small' Goatcloset , Ring-bearer (Hobbit)
* Sylla , King of the Noldor (Elf)
* Telin son of Rorin (Dwarf)
* Rynry King’s Archer (Human)
* Tharkûn , Lord of the West (Wizard)

...

Tumatanda na 'ko! Damn.

1] I crave more sleep, but end up getting less than what I'd hoped for.
2] Videogames rule my world I don't have time for games.
3] Spendaholic Budget freak; I'm much too worried about future repercussions of my spending money today
4] I don't enjoy partying as much as I used to. (Oh wait, I wasn't even a partyboy in my teens, so maybe that's just my nature)
5] Alak pa!!! Hic! Hic! Hic! I give up after three bottles of beer.

Oh wait a sec. I'm not even in my mid-20s, and yet here I am yammering away like an old geezer on Viagra. Jeez.

Drive

I've been learning how to drive these past few days. Well, I can certainly say I've improved a lot, since I can already drive myself to and from places (yay!), but I'm not a full-fledged driver yet. For one thing, I can't navigate well (yet) if I'm the one behind the wheel. It's one thing to point out every possible shortcut when you're in a taxi, and it's quite another to use the shortcuts as a newbie driver altogether. And another thing, I've been driving for four days, or a grand total of five hours. I still can't cut it as a driver (yet). Maybe in a few weeks, I'll be better than I am right now. Still, there's quite a long way to go.

"It's driven me before, and it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal. But lately I'm beginning to find I should be the one behind the wheel." - Incubus, Drive

The Year That Was...

It may be a bit too late to write about the past year, but hey - better late than never, right? Oh well, whatever.

2006 was the year when...
... I really enjoyed hanging out with my workmates, but not at the workplace
... I learned that sleep is very very important
... I regretted not sleeping in the afternoons when I was a kid
... I first stepped on the sandy shores of Puerto Galera
... I got transferred from campaign to campaign
... I got 15k in June, but spent almost all of it in about a week
... I got 16k in November, but spent all of it in about 2 weeks
... I saw a lot of friends come and go
... I finally got fed up and retired my TSR headset, and resolved to never wear one again
... I started (but never finished) dieting at least 10 times
... I first learned how to care for an infant
... I had less than 500 bucks in my wallet at Christmas
... I renewed old ties with some of my classmates
... I resurfaced as a Rock Ed volunteer, but due to financial constraints was unable to participate in a lot of the events
... I learned the real difference between love, infatuation, and lust
... I was out of blog action for at least 6 months
... I remained the only one of my siblings who can't drive a car
... I tried to put my energies into writing poetry, but the words just wouldn't come to me
... I learned that the best time to go to the movies is at the first screening
... I gradually increased my beer capacity from 3 bottles to 5 bottles
... I resolved to never drink gin without mixers again

That seems to sum up much of my 2006, though this doesn't cover all of my doings. Maybe this year would be better. Somehow, the next year always is.

Options

In life, you don't get a lot of options. You could be a thumbsucking infant waiting for your mom to give you your baby formula (which you might not like the taste of, but you have to endure because that's the only one available). Or you could be a grammar school kid assigned to the seat behind the smelliest kid in class who does nothing but pick his nose all day long. Or you could be a bum, period. With no options whatsoever.

Well, that's how I used to see life then. Back then, it was always do this, and there's no OR to the bargain. As a programmer might say, it's not always a CASE:1,2,3... scenario. It might not even be an IF...THEN...ELSE scenario for that matter.

But enough with the rambling. I've had something which you might call an epiphany of sorts. It goes something like this. It might seem that you don't get a lot of options in life. It might also seem sometimes that you have no options whatsoever. But what we fail to realize is that there are lots of other options available. It's just up to us whether we choose to recognize these options or not. It's just like finding what's behind the door that is one door away from heaven. If your heart is closed, you will find nothing behind that door. But if your heart is open, you may find other people also searching for the door to heaven, so that you may search for the door to heaven together.

-----------------------------------

While browsing through my other archives, I noticed this particular entry that I made three years ago:

"...My friends Gheoffrey and Rheza say I never look or seem worried about anything, not even a bit ruffled about anything that goes wrong. I know I seem like the laid-back sort, but I still am human. I worry, I panic, just like any other normal human being. I suffer from panic attacks and stress, I break out in hives, almost anything that falls short of a massive attack of the proverbial shakes. It's just that I try very hard to handle everything that comes my way. The question is, how long before I truly break down?"

Now, my question to myself is, do I still project that same aura of an unconcerned, laid-back person? I still worry about stuff that has happened or is yet to happen, that much I know. But can I still manage to project that particular aura? Or am I already non compos mentis and just not realizing it?

-----------------------------------

To sleep early, or not to sleep early - that is the question (to me, that is).

Who Cleans Up After Spiderman? At Kung Anu-ano Pa...

(All English entry? All-Tagalog entry? Taglish entry? Oh well, bahala na.)

Spiderman roams the streets of New York in true swinger style, making full use of his webslinging abilities. Pero do we even stop to think kung sino ang naglilinis nun pagkatapos niyang gamitin ang web? Or does it dissolve into thin air kaya walang trace ng web ang makikita sa mga walls? Wow, magic.

Damn. I need physical exercise. Hindi lang sex (although mukhang kinakailangan ko na rin nyan para maka-focus na ako sa ibang mga bagay bukod dito), but physical exercise na may physical exertion, yung tipong pagpapawisan ka at nakakapag-pa-energize sa 'yo. Pero di ba sex also meets these two requirements? :P

Thinking is good mental stimulation, kaya kung hindi ka marunong mag-isip eh mabuti pa magtanim ka na lang ng kamote sa bukid. Ay teka... kakailanganin mo ring mag-isip pag magtatanim ka. Hehe. Pero it's also bad kung masyado kang nag-o-overthink sa mga bagay-bagay, baka mabaliw ka naman sa kakaisip ng lahat ng possible consequences ng pagtayo mo sa upuan mo matapos mong basahin ang entry na 'to.

Haay buhay talaga. Parang life. :P

La di da...

Go USTE! Go USTE! Go USTE! Go go go go!
Go USTE! Go USTE! Go USTE! Go go go go!
Go USTE! Go USTE! Go USTE! Go go go go!

It's been a joy being able to shout these words again with pride. For the first time in 10 years, the UST Growling Tigers, under first time coach Pido Jarencio, won the UAAP seniors basketball crown against Ateneo de Manila. As they say, it's been a Cinderella story for a team with a 6-6 standing at the end of the regular season. Who knew that UST was gonna go from 6-6 to champions? Congratulations to my alma mater!

~~~~~

Donate old books to Rock Ed Philippines' Bookbigayan Night @ mag:net Katipunan on Monday, October 9, 2006. Stay for the concert at 9pm, featuring Salindiwa, Bagetsafonik, Cherry Cornflakes, Shifting Sand, etc.

Wow...

Almost one month has passed since I retired my TSR headset. Well, here I am still, enjoying(?) my one-month vacation from life's harsh realities. But still, life's realities are already starting to intrude in my existence. Gone are the days when 'having coffee' meant going to the nearest Starbucks chain to order my favorite Mocha Valencia frappuccino. Nowadays, 'having coffee' means opening a pack of Nescafe's finest 3-in-1. Sucks. Yeah, I know. And now, with my wallet screaming drought, hunger, despair, desolation (the list goes on and on), I begin to think. Maybe hanging up my TSR headset was too soon. After all, my wallet was at its straining point when I wore the headset. Hmmm. Whatever.

In other news, my nephew was deemed 'obese' by his pediatrician. Geez, obesity affects even the most innocent of people. And my nephew is already deemed obese at a mere 2 months. How obese, you might ask? Let's just say that his weight at 2 months old is the weight that any other 6-month old baby should have. There. And the verdict: milk at lesser intervals, and vitamins every other day or so instead of every day. Geez, dieting at 2 months old? Almost unheard of.

I went to Eastwood last Saturday on a 'date' with Trixie. Suffice to say that we spent 2 hours talking about stuff over frappuccinos and hot tea at Starbucks, then 2 hours of watching "John Tucker Must Die" (where she learned that getting even isn't all it's hyped up to be), and 2 more hours talking about more stuff over pasta, pastries, iced tea, and a chai latte at Gloria Jean's (everything, of course, was her treat, but don't get the idea that I forced her at gunpoint to do so - everything was voluntary on her part, I think).

With nothing else to be said, I bid thee farewell.

Pic Sharing

This will be all about pictures of the past few months.


My first ever Keno bet, where I won over three thousand bucks in cold hard cash


The facade of the UST Main Building. See how the front has changed drastically in under two years?


Some of my pictures with my officemates (err, I guess I should say former officemates, since I already resigned from 24 by 7). First three pictures are with Jada, then with Ria, Happy, Dorcas, and Ria again.

Pictures taken by yours truly on my Nokia 3660 phone, 2006.

Changes

Change is constant. We are always reminded of this basic fact. Wherever we go, whatever we do - nothing else is constant. We are taught to accept change, or embrace it if we can.

Change is constant. Changes affect everyone no matter how little or how big these changes may be. With change, we either learn to accept and grow with these changes or remain closed and stagnant and never really moving forward.

Change is constant. With change comes the maturity of accepting whatever comes our way, and then doing what we feel is right for us. For it is never without change that we progress. And it is never without change that we really learn to appreciate whatever it is that we have right now.

*************

I haven't been blogging for so long that I've almost forgotten how to blog. Again, it's real hard to blog when you're not at your own computer and you don't have the luxury of customization and limitless leisure time with which to use for blogging. Sigh. I miss blogging.

*************

It's only now that I realize fully that being a student is the best life experience ever (maybe going back to school and taking up something new might be a good option, but then who knows? I might even do it soon). It's real easy to apply changes in school than it is in work. At least, in school, the eraser is always within easy reach, and if you screw up, it's easy to make corrections.

Sigh.

Gyaaahhh!!!

IT's been so long that I almost forgot how to blog... I miss my PC (too bad I still haven't had the time to fix it, I've got lots of ideas for blog entries and it just isn't the same blogging on a different PC)... Maybe a longer blog entry is in order, but perhaps after my PC's fixed...

Puerto Galera pix soon!