Happy New Year

This afternoon I was walking my dog with my niece when a strong wind forces a young mango fruit to fall from a tree. I was lucky enough to just be there before it rolls downhill. I brought the yummy fruit home and put in some vinegar. Hahaha.

If life throws you lemons you make lemonade.

 

****

 

I don't know if I really just have a few friends, I grown old or it is just not the thing anymore but there are no more greetings thru text messages anymore. Times have changed. We have wi-fi now. The text message is not that preferred compared to Skype, Facebook, Viber or other apps out there.

oth·er·world·ly

Count your blessings.
Seduce a stranger.
What's so wrong with being happy?
Kudos to those who see through sickness yeah


***
This blanket is freezing, it's been out in the hall
Where you've had me for hours
Till I'm sure what I want
But darling I want the same thing that I wanted before
So sweetheart tell me what's up, I won't stop, no way 

***
Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

*** 
Take my photo off the wall
If it just won't sing for you.
'Cause all that's left has gone away 

/playlist

December 2013

Have you met with old friends lately? It is December, the time for all kinds of reunions. I don’t have really close friends that I always keep in touch with but there are these people I take time to meet every once in while, especially this time of the year. Five years ago, conversations would range from work, who’s dating who, who’s got some girl knocked up, plans to go abroad, travel plans, schooling and some news and rumors with people we know. This year, it is evident that we have aged. People have kids now. The oldest child is around 7, the kid is born even before I got a job. Conversations about Cesarian sections, parenting and the hassles of raising a daughter: "bayad-utang".  New topics now  include diseases(not just joke on venereal diseases) and medical procedures, signs of aging.

Christmas also throws the annoying question "so when are you going to get married?" Well I am engaged now. It took a while to  plan. I am not in a hurry. No pressure. I don’t want to be like the other couples I know who got married, then needs to live with the in-laws afterwards or rent an apartment. We want our ow place. I also took my time observing old married couples I know and see that I am ready. I saw how these couples fight and how the fights, raised voices does not matter afterwards. I have been in a tumultuous year with my relationship and I know I an in a good place. I love her, and her family is great. I feel they like me. When a friend who’s having a kid next month asked me that question, I got a real answer now. He even asked me about our condominium and he thought it was a nice area, and the project is good and fairly cheap. So after this, I bet questions on will we have kids.

I think right now, I am planning the New Year right. I have disappointments this year but I am getting better. Physically, I think I’m kinda fit right now compared to my fat self on some Cebu-Bohol pictures. I am also starting to lose acne. It’s about controlling stress and eating right.

Wallpaper-worthy

Ito yung gusto kong gawing wallpaper dati kaso nagugulat yung tao sa likod ng cube ko. Ibang klase pa naman reaksyon nya kapag nagugulat. I'll leave it here.

source

History

I recently liked Ambeth Ocampo’s page on Facebook, sometime after the super typhoon. I stumbled upon it when I saw on the ticker that a friend from high school also liked him. It turns out I already have 11 friends who liked him. Yeah!!

We learned about him back in high school. He is a famous historian. That history show of Lourd’s shown in TV5 could easily be from his works.  He is also kind of the authority when it comes to Rizal and anything in the 19th century Philippines. We have read his book "Rizal Without The Overcoat" way back in 3rd year Filipino class  and it was never dull to read. I did not own the book of course, a classmate lend it to me. I had to return it several years after, around 2009 I think, really years after college because his sibling needs it.

The thing is, we are history buffs. Studying history is never boring for me; memorizing names, dates, events and places. Moreover, a lot could be learned from history in a political and social standpoint. It has to be one of my strongest subjects. My notebooks on social studies are full of notes. There was an old Philippine History book by Teodoro Agoncillo which from marking on the book shows it is from the library of Roosevelt College Marikina, Rizal. It was a really old book but I did read it when I was in 4th grade. I found public school textbooks to be insuffucient by that time.  I guess I craved for more that early.
The thing with history is it is written by people, people has biases too.Kim Jong-un wipes his uncle out of North Korea’s histoy; Daniel Tirona’s granddaughter in a Cheche Lazaro documentary denies his cowardly acts towards Bonifacio during the Tejeros convention.

Inspite of that, what’s important are the lessons we have to learn to prevent something bad to happen, we are humans and errors are meant to be made, and history will repeat itself. We need to learn on what history teaches us. Ambeth Ocampo had this column on Inquirer detailing Tacloban and the super typhoons it encountered in the past, in 1897 and 1912. Typhoons are normal and we experience it every year. It’s just that we never learn how to deal with it the right way and be prepared.

Email Addresses of my Generation

One time Angel asked me if I know anything about Boy Bastos and if that character is anything new, if that character came prior or later with Boy Pickup.  She said some of her new officemates are talking about Boy Bastos.

Well, as I remember Boy Bastos was a character from a stupid spam more than ten years ago. Very ancient that it exists in spam. It has been a while since some spam thread has hit any of my mailboxes. There's Facebook now to handle anything that needs to serve more than two persons.

Anyways, I forwarded her the old email, circa 2004 but what caught my attention was the email addresses of us receipients. Hahahaha. Almost all are yahoo users and the words used for most of the email addresses contains the following:

1.    maldita (anyone has had a maldita in a yahoo list)
2.    cute, kyut or qt depending on which is still available
3.    rinoa or squall(everybody loves Final Fantasy)
4.    A cartoon character (e.g. taz, piglet)
5.    Any character from pop culture (piper, dawson)
6.    Favorite anime character(e.g sanosuke, mitsui, akagi)
7.    A catchy adjective (sassy, isnabera)

8.    A color (blue, pink, purple)

I could post some real email addresses but that would be hilarious and stupid. When people finally became adults so were new acceptable email addresses fit for a résumé were created.

So why were our email addresses that way? Because it was cool. When IRC chat started to be uncool and Yahoo chat were the thing, you got to have a cool enough handle and does not contain any part of your real name especially if you are a troll or just fooling around. It has to be catchy too just as the name you will use when playing Counterstrike.

Royals Snob Appeal

"Snob Appeal" is the counterpart of "Bandwagon" in the advertising world. I guess this applies higly with this song. This is "the song" of the moment in terms of radio plays or billboard charts is concerned. It is snob in a way that it is the first one I heard which denies the need for money and the whole nine yards. Kinda old by months as it just hit the local playlist lately.

Songs like "Billionaire", "Money to Blow" and all stupid rap songs which mentions everything expensive: drugs, cars, shoes, alcohol, fashion brands etc.

The last kinda snobbish song of living the glamorous life I have heard must be Thrift Shop. So the trend is here already.It is about spending "$20 in my pocket" in the thrift shop. Who needs famous brands anyway lol.