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Disclaimer: All photos ripped from the intarwebz. Thank you Google image search.
Category Archives: Arts, Lifestyle & Literature
Soy to the World!
Because Christmas is just around the corner, let me greet you a warm and merry Io Saturnalia! Let there be peas on earth and a good vegetarian meal to all men! (Remember early this year when I mentioned about achievable goals?)
Confused with the true meaning of the Holidays? Here’s something for you to enjoy:
Have a Merry Christmas one and all! Just remember before you stuff yourself silly with all the Christmas dishes: there’s happiness beyond being morbidly obese.
Why I Cried Like a Lost Little Boy In A Mall (I Blame the Japanese)
This is a story of how I sobbed like a big crybaby in a mall. (And no, this didn’t happen way back when I was six because my mom carelessly left me to ogle at the pretty dresses I strayed too far away like the naughty boy that I was.)
Beware: Doing Good Deeds May Turn into a Cheesy Melodrama
In the midst of all the disturbing current world events happening — the nuclear reactor in Japan spreading the kind of toxic stuff Britney Spears will definitely not approve of (okay, bad joke there) , the rise of superbacteria in New Delhi, and Rebecca Black’s embarrassing music video garnering tens of millions of views as of this writing — I would like to update everyone (that is, my five loyal readers who keep on hitting refresh, thus getting me 1,000+ views, thank you) with some good news about my life.
Remember this?
Shitty Shitty Bang Bang
I guess you can call my past week a rivetingly fast-paced and excitingly happy week, if you define fun as living a jet-setting spy-on-a-mission life ala-James Bond. Ok, I exaggerate, but then again where’s the fun in telling everyone that I went to Davao overnight without a change of clothes to handle a media event and I had to stay awake for almost the rest of the night because I was wearing contact lenses (and we’ve all heard of horror stories about people sleeping with their contacts on)?
I say ALMOST all night because at the end lack of willpower prevailed and I was just like, fuck it, I’m sleeping. But then I still woke up an hour after because our flight was scheduled at 7 AM and we had to leave the hotel at 5:30 AM.
But I’m skipping the whole story so let’s backtrack a bit. Last Wednesday was the start of Ramadan and one of our clients had their product Halal-certified. So we all flew in to Davao to announce the certification. I wasn’t really supposed to be part of this and everything was sudden — and I don’t say that to complain but to stress the point that I was 67.83% caught unaware (I like making up figures, it makes everything seem so important). To top it all off, I wasn’t informed that it was going to be an overnight thing, so imagine my surprise when I saw the client’s team and my officemates with luggages and all I had with me is my tofu adobo lunch inside my mailman bag. I had every reason to be pissed at that moment because I just came rushing from the office, thinking that we would all congregate there and then head to the airport — only to find out through text that everyone just went straight ahead without informing me.
But I’m Zen and all that so I didn’t really go berserk on the person who conveniently forgot because you know, people make mistakes right? You forgive them (but you don’t forget UNLIKE THEM) plus making a big fuss out of it won’t exactly give me what I needed at the moment. Worrying that I don’t have my medications, spare newly-laundered underwear (at the least), and my contact lens kit wasn’t going to ruin my first time in Davao and Marco Polo Hotel.
It was a good thing the event was successful. So after, we headed out to celebrate at Blugre Coffee just before our boss flew to Manila (she had her flight that same night). She (our boss) ordered durian coffee for everyone, and since I was such a big fan of free stuff I didn’t think of declining even if I thought coffee was the least desirable permutation of liquid caffeine. Now, I want you to carefully remember this story because this is, presumably, where it all headed downhill.
Come Thursday upon arriving at Manila, I was already feeling a bit groggy and delirious from lack of sleep so the moment I got home I had brunch, took a shower, went to bed, and dozed off. The plan was to sleep for an hour or so then head to work so I can finish some pending work stuff I’ve left. However I ended up waking hours later — panicking that it was almost night, and rushing to finish whatever it is I had to do by sending my files through e-mail. I wasn’t feeling extra special and sunshiney but I presumed it was just because I woke up at the wrong side of the bed. So after I’ve finished everything, I headed back to sleep only to wake up with a nasty case of diarrhea-fever-puking triple hit combo.
I never really thought much of it until Friday evening, even if I spent the whole Friday staring blankly into space like a mindless zombie who fell into coma every now and then. Most of my waking moments were spent either pooping or puking or drinking juice (the brand that was Halal-certified by the way). Finally unable to tolerate the pounding migraine which I took as a sign that I was dehydrating very fast, I asked my brother to drive me to Asian Hospital, where they diagnosed me with acute gastroentritis after they took blood samples and made me poop in this little container. I also had to be rehydrated intravenuously for nine hours which I spent dozing by the way.
To digress, I know a lot of people hate them but I love hospitals and doctors. There’s a certain antiseptic quality to them that borders on the holy. Maybe it’s just me, but think about it: they heal the sick, bring the dead back to life (to a degree), and reattach limbs. Heck, as far as miracles go those are nothing short of miraculous.
Anyway, right now I’m just resting at home — quite an anticlimax to my very exciting week. But really, I have the most fun life ever and that everyone who dreams of flying off to some place on one day and shit water on the next must really struggle hard to fight for their dreams because you never know, your dreams might just come true.
I Goth A Feeling
Friday last week, I went to Katrina Pallon’s exhibit opening at Penguin Gallery with Megan, Angelo, and Chloe. Was strolling at SM Makati at first, debating inside my head whether it was worth buying a big carton of Tipco Broccoli. In the end I settled for the small one. Then I bought yogurt. The yogurt should give me enough lactobacilli to kill the fungi growth. For posterity I should remind myself to not drink tetracyclines for vanity reasons, ever. It’s not worth it. I’m definitely poorer from the experience and my pimples aren’t gone and I still have a blister pack of unused medication just waiting there, tempting me to pop them all. Having a lot of choices to consider makes me want to jump at them all.
Anyway, so while strolling at SM Makati I texted Megan if they were going to Pallon’s exhibit and turns out they were eating at Fish & Co. at Greenbelt 3. So I went there and we all went to Penguin Gallery and Bar, which we couldn’t find despite the map Megan printed since there were no signs outside the place. So Chloe suggested we go look for the place where there are a lot of people wearing black. True enough, there was a sea of black-garbed people waiting right in front of it.
I don’t understand goths just like I don’t understand emos. Is it about wearing black? Even if I’ve been a friend to one for the longest time I still don’t get it. I used to think it was about being dark and depressed and wanting to be a vampire, but then the emos came and they invented stuff like vampire social clubs and Twilight. I don’t get wanting to be all glittery but maybe that’s because I’m not emo. Still, I don’t see much difference between them and goths because they both like wearing black and putting eyeliners on. With our tropical weather it must feel like hell to go out wearing black. Like that woman Diane Pernet. But she’s not goth, they say she’s just fashionable. Beats me.
The next day I went to Shangri-la Mall to watch “Inception” with Randy and the people from Planet Zips. It was trippy. But I guess everyone’s already saying that, plus gushing about how Christopher Nolan’s a genius. It felt like “The Matrix” all over again anyway — the paranoia of an alternate universe just really has a way of making people go crazy.
I wonder what sorts of dreams I would have if people went inside my head. I used to remember some of my dreams but lately everything’s been blank. It’s weird for someone who works as a creative to have the dullest dreams. Or maybe I don’t have dull dreams; maybe, I’m dreaming of the color black. Now THAT’S trippy.
My dreams are goth, perhaps.
Camera Chameleon
I have a thing with cameras. Not like a perverted fetish sort of thing. I happen to like them but I’m quite undecided with what to make of them. Are they good or bad?
Of course some would argue that a camera is like a hammer. The same hammer that can pound a nail can crack open a skull and clobber someone to death, or torture people by prying off their teeth one by one as they scream for mercy and hope the heavens strike them dead and spare them from excruciating pain. That Korean film “Old Boy” opened me up to the many possibilities the hammer offered aside from its common hardware purpose.
In Britain, the surveillance capital of the world, there is one CCTV camera for every 14 people. In total, that’s around 4.2 million cameras peering at each Briton’s every move — from crossing the streets to driving their cars, and shopping in malls as well as peeing in public places plus picking up street hookers and inconspicuously having public sex in some dark alleyway somewhere. The irony of it is that George Orwell, the author of “1984” — that dystopian novel of a future where everyone is closely monitored by an authoritarian figure dubbed as Big Brother — is English. In the land of irony, the British are kings.
Anyway, cameras are very effective tools for fame-whores. Andy Warhol once predicted that in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. The future has come, and now we have the likes of that guy doing the Numa Numa dance in Youtube and all sorts of faceless fat men jerking off at Chatroulette. The web has become an avenue for posers and ADHD-afflicted bloggers who stupidly jump from one topic to anoth — ooh wait there’s a
Yesterday, my officemates and I attended the first anniversary party of Flippish.com in Fiamma at Jupiter Street where we had our fill of margaritas courtesy of the open bar. The local website positions itself as a purveyor of a “wide variety of original online shows made with the Pinoy in mind”. Think current tv programming — except with the virtual world as its newest platform. What’s great about this is that people don’t have to endure a boring show, and the producers can automatically track which show isn’t gaining its fair share of viewers.
That’s one thing I like about the internet: it empowers people with choices. But then again, the existentialist in me asks, is there really a choice? Are we really free? Are we in the Matrix? Has one of the Wachowski Brothers completed his quest to become a full-fledged woman?
closely monitoring
