TV is NOT my friend...

This thing conked out on me last night. It just decided that it didn't want to work (I probably just forgot to charge its batteries, but then it's always more convenient to blame it on the machine). I could've used the old reliable pen and paper to write down my thoughts or even draw something but it would be a big hassle working in the dark. The dark helps me relax. Helps me think.

I was so mad when I got home last night. Mad about a lot of things. Mad for lots of reasons. Reasons I may not even know or am aware of. And for the life of me, I do not understand why when it comes to this one person, I have the shortest fuse. I explode. But I do not hate this person. Not at all. You could even say that this person occupies a special place in my heart. Does familiarity breed contempt? It may, in some cases. But I don't believe it's true in this one.

I know it's not right and I have to apologize. It's wrong for me to take it out on this person.

Maybe we just need to have a long overdue talk.

***

This song sounded strangely familar...

7 Seconds
Youssou Ndour & Neneh Cherry

Boul ma sene, boul ma guiss madi re nga fokni mane
Khamouma li neka thi sama souf ak thi guinaw
Beugouma kouma khol oaldine yaw li neka si yaw
Mo ne si man, li ne si mane moye dilene diapale
Roughneck and rudeness,
We should be using, on the ones who practice wicked charms
For the sword and the stone
Bad to the bone
Battle is not over
Even when it’s won
And when a child is born into this world
It has no concept
Of the tone the skin is living in
It’s not a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting
It’s not a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting x3
J’assume les raisons qui nous poussent de changer tout,
J’aimerais qu’on oublie leur couleur pour qu’ils esperent
Beaucoup de sentiments de race qui font qu’ils desesperent
Je veux les portes grandements ouvertes,
Des amis pour parler de leur peine, de leur joie
Pour qu’ils leur filent des infos qui ne divisent pas
Changer
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting
It’s not a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting x3
And when a child is born into this world
It has no concept
Of the tone the skin is living in
And there’s a million voices
And there’s a million voices
To tell you what she should be thinking
So you better sober up for just a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting
It’s not a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting
It’s not a second
7 seconds away
Just as long as I stay
I’ll be waiting

***

Two equally beautiful ladies who talk equally funny, the hosts of VH1 Cindy and Maike.

***

I don't mean to be a prude, but I honestly think the "MTV Generation" shouldn't be seeing this. (or maybe they should?)

Behind the lens again...

Yesterday, after what seemed an eternity, we head off to the distant urban jungle on the borders of Pasig and Cainta to shoot this guy. Tired and lost amidst the nauseating hot pink and electric blue MMDA overpasses, bridges and male urinal booths, we braved the Marikina, Antipolo and Cainta traffic. Just thought I'd put this down. :-D

Later...

"B" is for Boredom

I'm not really the type of person that makes plans for myself (except maybe for work, which I take very seriously). When it comes to work, I would like it to be more or less predictable. Predictable in the sense that I follow a sort of time table or schedule (or some semblance of it). But when it comes to personal time, I like to keep it open. So when something comes up, I could make a decision right away. The downside of it though is when nothing comes up. Then I'd have to think of something to do. And there are a million things to do. Problem is, I couldn't think of anything. :-(

I was going through my dvd and vcd collection and I couldn't find anything that I felt like watching. Before I left the office I thought that I'd start drawing again, something like a-drawing-a-day sort of thing. So I brought home my sketchbooks and my pens and pencils so I could do a drawing for tonight. But I really didn't feel like doing that either.

While having dinner, I turned on the TV. I don't have cable cause I find it impractical to have it (and did I mention that I used to have cable? No? Well I did. Paid the cable guy off with the joining fee and he got me connected permanently... Well not really, but I did enjoy it for a little over a-year-and-a-half ;-)). Since I usually go home late at night and i'm more often than not too tired to do anything else but sleep. So i had to make do with my indoor antenna. I surfed whatever channels the TV was getting. Channel 2 had really bad reception, there was hardly any picture and the dialog were only murmurs. Channels 5 and 7 were coming in faintly. Channel 9 looked fairly ok as well as channel 11 and 21. The only channels that were coming in loud and clear were channels 23 and 41 (MTV).


On Oprah:
I really don't have that much to say about Oprah since I don't really watch it... In fact, I rarely watch TV. Anyway, I just found out that the episode I saw was an old one which was about Tatum O'Neal's explosive (Oprah kept repeating that, "explosive" to the point of irritating...) confessions.


On American Idol:
I've always been wondering what all the fuss was about. I mean I've seen the audition videos and that William Hung guy's video circulating around in e-mail. I'd have to admit, it was very entertaining (or was it because I watched the finals with all the celebrities and stuff?).


On Chicks with guitars:
Just what is it about chicks with guitars? Don't you think that a girl playing guitar is hot, or is it just my fetish? I caught an old Jewel Kilcher video and Sade's Cherish The Day video (she was playing guitar in that one) on MTV and... Oh my... *breaks out in sweat* And on Inquirer TV, they did a story on the indie music scene and I think Aia of Imago is really purrrty.

That's too much TV for one night. Now back to our regular programming...

Murphy's Laws

After a week-long hiatus (read: a week-long DVDmarathon with occassional bathroom breaks), I finally got to catch up with sleep and doing practically nothing, which is a welcome thing since me and KV had our noses buried in tons of corrections and revisions, re-corrections and re-revisions of a project that started in November of last year. Its been passed on from Kat to KV around late February and she had been learning the ropes from then. And it has been our nightmare for the past several months.

Just when I thought it was finally over (I mean given that we weren't pressuring the supplier to deliver on a close-to-impossible date and we were just relying on their 5-day delivery guarantee), it wasn't. My cover girl looked like lechon and I did NOT like it one bit. And so did the client, of course.

I wouldn't really want to get into the details. It doesn't really deserve to even be remembered.

It's something I don't really subscibe to or actually believe in it but Murphy's Law seems to have a way of actually happening. Other than that or its just pure bad luck.

MURPHY'S LAWS

1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
4. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
6. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
7. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
9. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
10. Mother nature is a bitch.
11. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
12. Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
13. Every solution breeds new problems.

Honestly, I think it's just superstition. And I think Murphy's an optimist. ;-)

Finally... (I hope...)

I get to go home today. I get to sleep tonight, on my bed. At home.

But I'm not quite happy about it. My water supply got cut off. Building administration's way of extorting association due payments from hardworking citizens like me. At least yesterday I had a full bucket stored. But I used all of it when I took a much needed dump.

Oh well, out from one hell hole and into another. Its probably not my day. Or the whole past couple of weeks for that matter. I'll probabaly just treat myself to a new pair of sneaks when we put this effing magazine that we've been working on since God-knows-when to print.

I'm looking forward to sleep though. and if ever I couldn't, at least I'd have DVDs to keep me company. One's a macho movie, a chick-flick and a comic-book-to-movie adaptation. And I get to play with this while watching... :)

Perhaps it's not that all bad.

Flesh & Blood Nightmare

This is what has been keeping me awake for the past week. My living nightmare. If I had a voodoo knife set I would name it after this and cure myself of this sleeplessness...

WTF?!?*(^))(^&*^%(*&%*(&%&*(%

Haloscan deleted old comments? >:-(
*buntunghininga*
I'll figure this out (I hope...) :-(

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Mother's Day

Finally got to get some sleep after those "lamay" nights. How I wish that was the end of it but unfortunately, we had to go back on Sunday evening to finish all the effing work. Sunday is a much needed and welcome break.

Got home around midnight so I guess that's technically Sunday already. I was hoping I'd be sleepy enough to just plop on my couch-slash-bed but I wasn't. I brought home Alexandria's "company" ECS hoping I could do some of my Kamiseta layouting on it despite the "slowness." I was supposed to re-format it anyway so that's what I did. I couldn't just stare and wait for the machine to finish reformatting and have Windows installed so I popped-in a borrowed DVD from Ral. Then I got sleepy.

Woke up around 7AM. Windows was done installing. Did a bit of multi-tasking installing the other programs while watching the parts I missed on the DVD I was watching. When all that was done, I took a very welcome cold shower which definitely woke me up. Got dressed, packed up and went on my way home.


Alexandria's newly formatted and setup ECS


Sceenshot of Alexandria's ECS. Weird? :)


Texted my sister to tell her that I was on my way home. Texts me back that dad wanted me to come home first and have lunch before going to the mall. When I'm almost in Alabang, I text my sister to tell her I'm almost here and asks her if I should still go home. She texts back for me to go to the mall.

It was effing hot! I could feel a vein at the back of my head throbbing. Like it was about to blow. I hurried getting to the mall 'cause it felt like I was going to die out there in the sun. I had to cool down. Texted my sister that I was going to wait for her in Starbucks and I ordered one of my current favorite drinks. Effing expensive but I believe I deserve it.


So my sister arrives. We chat a bit. She tells me that mom and dad decided that they didn't want to go to the mall anymore. I thought we were going to have a Mother's Day lunch out or something like that but they finally decided that they'd buy two lechon manoks and just eat lunch at home. Found out too late.

Decided not to go home anymore. The heat is going to kill me. Went to my lola's instead. My Tito Mike's home from Belgium and I was supposed to see him the day before but I got stuck at work (for several effing reasons). Caught up on sleep when I got to my lola's. Stayed there till dinner. Exchanged stories with Tito Mike a bit and left at around 9 PM. The end of my otherwise "uneventful" weekend.

Texted KV that I was on my way to the office. Now I'm here. Back to reality. God help us. *sigh*

Lamay night - Day 4

2:17 AM. Just finished a loop listening to Launchcast online. Currently working on our horse newsletter. Taking a break from looking at all those plasma TVs. Its actually starting to make me sick. I feel a vein at the back of my head throbbing.

John Mayer's "Your Body Is A Wonderland" is currently playing. I wish I was playing in some girl's wonderland right now. But reality holds me firmly in its grasp. And the reality at the moment is that my back and feet hurt. I just finished a bag of Philippine Brand Dried Mango Tamarind which nobody wants. I emptied two mugfulls of Extra Joss and Coca Cola mix down my esophagus and into my stomach which fortunately, is not acting up.

Lindsay Lohan's "Rumors" is playing now. I remember seeing the video of that song somewhere. Steamy. Chewing on some ice cubes. My teeth hurt but I like it.

Mother's Day on the eighth. My mom would probably kill me if I don't go home (but she won't. I would've been dead a looong time ago). My Tito Mike arrived from Belgium a couple of days ago and my mom says he wants to see me (maybe he brought pasalubong for me :-)).

Oh well. Back to work...

Dysmenorrhea

Took this photograph of Eva last night. I found her like this and she wasn't moving. I eventually found out that she was having cramps. Something that even if I read about it is equally mysterious to me as multiple orgasms in women.

Japeeenimation

What brings this about is four days of little or no sleep, irregular meal schedules and one insanely unreasonable individual... We bring you, The Dancing Japeeeneze Family!!!

Rediscover the myth...

I did some research about my friend Arnold and his The Mythology Class comic books. The last Issue of his four-part obra was launched in 1999. I think I wasn't able to read these books for a couple of reasons: During that time I was living in my own little world and I haven't been in touch with my college buds. Another thing is that these books got sold-out real fast. So its really a good thing that Adarna House is coming out with the Special Collected Edition of The Mythology Class.

I got a "short" synopsis from this article:

"The short of it is: a college class on Filipino mythology turns into a whole field trip into the realm of the supernatural, where the barkada of heroes, under the guidance of Professor Engkanta, captures creatures who do not belong in this world and need to be returned to theirs."

Most of Arnold's characters are based on friends and family (I heard he based one on me, something like a shaman or an ermitanyo). :-) I think I'll rediscover it when it hits the newsstands... Here are some sample pages from the books:
Sample pages courtesy of www.arnold-arre.com

Tokugawa Grandpa

7:33 PM on my Philippe Starck-inspired desktop clock.

I'm hungry. I'm feeling dirty. Not quite losing my mind. Everything's fine. I'm kidding.

I'm just hearing that Tracy Bonham song in the back of my head. It has nothing to do with me. Well, it has a little to do with my situation.

This little Tokugawa man on top of my monitor was given to me by Chikki from her Japan trip. Helps me relax a bit. My little Tokugawa Grandpa.

Sponge

This is Shankee. His real name is Christian. He's one of the youngest cousins in my Mom's side of the family. I don't know how Christian became Shankee but you know how kids are, inventing their own vocabulary. They make up a name or a word and soon somebody adds something, or someone says it differently, and pretty soon you end up with one which everybody gets used to but nobody really remembers how anybody arrived at that specific name.

Anyway, with a brain like a sponge, television, and so many cousins looking after the kid, he picks up stuff from here and there. His vocabulary is steadily growing. Curious though, instead of learning to say "mama" or "papa," his first words were "Sponge Bob."

Monosodium Glutamate

The Nissin Cup Noodles Pinoy Favorites
Bulalo Flavor

Ingridients: wheat flour, palm oil, modified starch (cassava), iodized salt, dehydrated vegetables (cabbage, corn), desxtrose, natural and artificial flavors, monosodium glutamate, onion, fish sauce, texturized vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, spices, carbonates, polyphosphates, flavor enhancer, caramel color, citric acid and antioxidants

That, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much comprised dinner this evening. It was bitin though. Went to Chowking for reinforcements. The Beef Chowfan with siomai and Nai Cha did its job and now I feel sleepy. It must be the monosodium glutamate.

Lamay night

Its been several nights that we've been doing this. Its not really necessary... well... actually, it is. Our apparent lack of a social life has led us in seach of other means of entertainment (also known as "un-productivity").

A view of our PBCom call center neighbors...

Akira...

I came across this one in one of hungryalien's friend's blog. I got interested cause I recently watched Akira again, and the last time I've seen Akira was in freshman year in college.



Kaneda's Fusion bike was asteeeg. I wanted one (if they made them at all). I guess somebody did. And they actually sell it. Check these out:



It would be neat to drive around the metro on one of these...