my last blog post (if the world ends tomorrow)

i really don't believe that the world will end tomorrow. there are so many reasons it should, but there are many more why it shouldn't. still, i'm 100% sure it isn't going to happen. but for the mayans' sake, let's say that they didn't just run out of rock space and actually predicted that december 21, 2012 is in fact the last time anyone will say tgif. oh how fucked we all are.

but what's going to occur? there should at least have been a global doomsday precursor every day for two weeks, each being different from the other. and no, the recent catastrophe in our country or the shooting in sandy hook are to localized to signal the approaching apocalypse. (and damn every priest and person who'll say it's the rh bill) it had to be something felt worldwide. so far, we've had none of that.

i'd also like to point out that we have different timezones. it will still be thursday in america when it's friday in the philippines. it can't be like, everything's crumbling to ashes in our part of the globe and it's all peace and quite in another. it also cant happen to us on friday while someone in the u.s. would be like, but it's thursday. a warning-less armageddon has to strike in one go.

to me, only one scenario is possible: alien invasion, the same aliens who met the mayans and told them, yousa be prepared on this date, bitches, 'cause wesa gonna be back to do some shit (yes, they were gungans). the mayans owed them big and there was no way to pay it back at that time so the space mafia gave us thousands of years to come up with the cheese. so tomorrow, a ginormous wormhole will appear near the moon, aliens will come out and bust through our ozone to do some damage.

i typed a bunch of farewell messages but they were quite awkward so instead im going to link to an article i wrote on the topic at hand. click here before the earth disintegrates.

the end?

baroque concerto grosso

today's topic, kids, is music. but first a little music background (not background music). i basically like rock and, to cut the inevitable long story short, i used to buy casette tapes and cds. but then the internet happened and mp3s became the universal format for auditory stimulation. however, unlike most downloaders, i give a shit about musicians losing money to piracy. buying overpriced albums at this day and age of physical player extinction is impractical. and the only other option for me to pay those guys back is to go to their concerts.

im a casual fan. i do not idolize any of them. i do not define my life by their lyrics. i just love their music and want to see them perform live and actually pay for it which is worth every peso because no amount of speakers or hertz of quality can match the real deal. there, it's not just listening anymore. it's an entire experience. you the vocalist actually sing the lyrics and the other members actual play their instruments all while surrounded with (hopefully) other true fans. so i find it stupid to see people brand themselves as big fans of some bands and not go to their concerts.

Or, inversely, i find it even stupider that there are people who worship musicians and claim to be diehard fans just because of one song, as dictated by being in. a coworker of mine just now said that psy is her idol, because of gangnam style. my wife showed me someone's tweet about a girl saying she is the number one fan of maroon 5 despite the fact that the only song of theirs she knows is payphone. these people are not fans. they're trend slaves. if for some reason, justin bieber released a song of nothing but farts and the media eats it up, these people would be preaching it's the best thing that penetrated their ears. this "phenomenon" is also because of the internet. it is now easier to start a fad and follow them, regardless of everything else.

i watched the first maroon 5 concert in moa back when payphone and moves like jagger weren't hits. they just played their classic songs. im sure there were people there who just went because they thought adam levine was hot and could care less about what he sang. but there wasn't this thing that there is now. on the night of the 2nd concert which was in araneta, i was watching the news and this guy was interviewed. he said he'd been a fan of maroon 5 for many years. and then the clincher: he said he was excited because it was his first time to see them live. so i was like, no, dude, you just drank the kool-aid.

p.s. also, may the idea of walking around wearing headsets is cool die.

blueprint for disaster

somebody awesome, god-looking and very humble is celebrating his birthday next week and so i thought a little blog overhaul is in order. and by little, i mean some minor visual changes, and by overhaul, i mean i really did not want to use the word makeover. which kind of explains my preference for some big words and different ways of conveying messages. unlike a lot of the pretentious blogs ive encountered where they trade sense and clarity for forced scholarly meta-bullshit, my vocabular druthers are mandated by inner writer voice and there are words i would not speak with that voice. id even invent a word or phrase in place of such verbal aversions.

anyway. so the plan is to do some digital renovation and then, for the umperteenth time, post regularly. as much as possible, weekly. will i be able to strictly adhere to this? probably not. but with the recent developments life-wise, the necessary factors to accomplish this goal are present so failure to comply is to be blamed on laziness (which, as my millions and millions of imaginary fans know, i have an abundance of). by the power of his noodly appendage, i will do my best to stick to the shtick.

edit: just gave the blog a thorough eyeraping and decided to hold off on the overhaul. i really want to make some changes but i admit i pre-typed the post above without having decided on a new look. still contemplating on going retro red and using a static banner.

p.s. the other day, i had some sort of nightmare marathon. i wanted to tell my wife about it but she said she'd die did that as per a superstition. but what if i post it here? does that cancel out the curse because i wont be telling it to anyone directly or would everyone who reads the post die?

this is where your taxes go

sometime ago, they decided to strictly enforce the speed limit. fast and furious drivers traversing the south luzon expressway suddenly received a piece of police literature. it's a good law. it lessens accidents. but what about those bozos going way below the speed limit? do they flag them down and ticket them as well? i bet no or else i wouldn't find myself driving in a very long queue behind a hearse-velocity truck on a highway which i paid the toll for. why do they let these slugs go by? don't say they don't cause accidents because im pretty sure that a lot of those accidents were due to drivers overtaking these motherfuckers. cop dudes, dont single out the speedsters. implement the law completely. go after motorists who go over and below the speed limit. get these slowpokes out of my way and stick tickets up their shitholes. i mean, chasing them shouldn't be that hard, right?

one of the things i hate seeing on the news is the shenanigans against piracy. they confiscate piles of 8 in 1s, apprehend the vendors and give a job-well-done interview. that's it? that's the only thing in their job description, mission and vision? take the fakes and smile for the camera? what about the legal ones in the video stores? why are they overpriced crap compared to the pirated copies? how about the theaters? why are they still showing the same old pinoy ideas-stolen-from-hollywood movie crap in the cinemas? where can the rare films destroyed in dvd form be seen? why rate a film r and release it if there are going to be cuts? and why are the cuts done by a 5-year-old using windows moviemaker? your job does not stop at hunting down the dvd cloners. make those films available legally and ensure quality viewing in cinemas. (also, instead of showing a stupid comedy skit about illegal recording along with the trailers, they should threaten the morons and the assholes that they'd be kicked out with no refund for talking, texting, answering calls, commenting loudly, reacting unnecessarily, bringing children and ruining other folks' experience during the movie.)

now the issue regarding plagiarism, i don't want to even begin. ive already wasted two long paragraphs worth of your time and i'd rather start concluding this post than make it any more longer due to a topic i so strongly oppose. i'll just say: plagiarism is wrong, whether there's a law against it or not, and anyone who does not understand that simple fact should not be in public office.

why are there road constructions (ongoing or abandoned) everywhere? why do streets quickly turn into lakes after a little rain? why do we get our butts kicked in the olympics? why is it that no matter how hard you work, you'll never be richer than the already rich? because this country is being run by a bunch of buffoons doing half-assed jobs for double/triple the pay stolen from our pockets.

whose timeline is it anyway?

every week i take a bus to go home and i ride a particular line because it has a lower fare price. in fact, it is even lower than the regular discounted price for senior citizens. so i find it irritating, nay, insulting that an old man, with all the free movies on monday, dedicated queue and car on mrt/lrt, and all the other discounts available for him, would think that he deserves a discount for the already low fare. his reason? everybody was paying the same price so him being above 60 years old should pay less. the gall of this geriatric goon.

why people have this false sense of entitlement, i'll never understand. in this vein...

everybody, please shut up about not wanting to have your facebook timelined. this issue is really getting on my nerves. facebook is free. you are posting irrelevant blow-by-blow details of your mundane life every minute as statuses for free. you are connected to a ridiculous amount of people not even half of which are your real friends for free. you are sharing hypocritical quote photos, linking music videos, and putting stuff nobody cares about day after day on your wall for free. you are given the privilege of doing all of these things for free and yet you act like everything should be done the way you want. you are no different from a bum begging for money and scoffing if its a mere peso or that old man demanding his extra special treatment.

if getting timeline is that much of a problem for you, then by all means, deactivate your account and slither back to friendster, myspace or multiply. but if you can comprehend that not paying a single cent makes your complaint pointless and invalid, then shut that bitching hole up and deal with it.


p.s. how do you protest against protesters?

thar she blows!

nope. this isn't about pirates or piracy (whichever definition) nor is this about porn either. this one is about a question that has been poking at my neurons for a long time. and despite the hilarity of the premise, it is a very serious question that must be considered.

the backstory: morning rush hour. picture yourself on your way to a very important appointment. let's say that it is an interview for a job so life-changing that you need to be there and be there on time. but for some reason, you have to use public transport. for this exercise, let's use the mrt (because i ride that every day). your car's broken, license is expired, no one can drive you to your destination on such short notice, whatever. you're taking the mrt. picture yourself dressed to nines. let's use male pov. new long sleeves tucked in, shiny belt buckle, polished shoes, clean cut hair, shaved face, you don't even want to sit and wrinkle your pants. you know you have a 99% chance of nailing the job. you just have to go through this final one-on-one looking, sounding, smelling and being your best.

the sitch: standing in front of you is beautiful woman (handsome man if you're using the female pov) who looks like she's on her way home from an all-nighter party. she's holding on to the poles to stay upright. she looks like she'll pass out any minute. you realize the inevitable but you can't move in this sardine can. you hear her stomach turn over. you close your eyes as she hurls everything she ate and drank at you. her mouth is a barf geyser. you are immediately drenched by her stinky, sticky, chunky vomit. after the pukefest, the girl faints. the people who were previously standing so close around you are now miles away.

the question: what are you going to do?



p.s. nope this didn't happen to me. but i once rode in a bus and some kid puked and a small amount caught my shoe. i also almost always imagine a person on the back row of the bus vomiting on the person in front of them and then that person would then vomit on the person in front and so on and so on. vomit domino. vomino.

the write stuff, part one

int. office cubicle - night
jai, early 30s, is writing an entry for his blog instead of working. his team leader approaches and cuts off his arms with a chainsaw. his blood floods the office floor. a paper boat floats by, with two ants in the titanic pose. it is suddenly eaten by a great black shark.

seriosuly, i could really see myself writing shit like that for a living. not exactly like that but something that makes more sense. currently, i have about a dozen movie ideas and a bunch of random concepts gestating in my brain. i want to write them down, i really do, but:

1. i dont have the time. well, of course, i can make time but with a family and a job on top of my priority list, i just won't be able to make enough. all my film ideas, from beginning to end, every line of dialogue, every sequence, they're all in my head. and when i write them down, i have to finish because one of my flaws is the moment i write an idea down, it gets erased in my brain. i dont now why (maybe to make space for new ones) but i just forget them completely. ive tried it a couple of times, just writing the first act. but when i come back to it, i just cant continue where i left off because i couldnt figure out a lot of things and tend to edit too much that i cant move on. its like retracing my steps and going, wait why did go this way again? i also tried making notes but that caused even greater headaches, sitting down, staring at the overlapping lines and arrows, words and names with double underlines, and wondering, what the heck did these mean? the solution to this is if could just do that thing that stephen king's protagonists do, cut myself off from the world, take a vacation in a strange town and type away without interruption.

2. its sort of pointless. i used to write by pencil and actually finish short stories. but in relation to #1, when i read them again, there's so much i want to edit. some i even want to throw away and burn. i guess during those years, i just wrote whatever came to mind, not thinking about sense, purpose, or marketability. a few years ago i did a couple of pitches for an indie film to a friend. he said they weren't socially relevant. i never knew they had to be. since then, ive lost hope. i still dream of making films but ive accepted the fact that it just might not ever happen. no one's willing to invest in my ideas. i dont have the funds to do it on my own. i could still try and go straight to the big guys but we all know that requires connections and i have this fear that they would reject a pitch but use it anyway as if it was theirs. my last chance to penetrate this filthy industry and clean it up is to save up and go back to school.

i remember when i was filling out forms for college, i wanted to tick the checkboxes for film and literature as my first and second course choices respectively. my mom talked me out of it (she said i wont earn anything from them) and instead made me choose business administration. i dropped out after two years. now i cant really blame her. being the eldest grandchild, i was the principal candidate for taking over the family business. but i do think that my parents shouldn't have expected that i'd actually fit that role, having seen grade schooler me rip out used pages from notebooks to turn them into comic books at the end of every school year. they never stopped me but they didnt support me either, not until after college did they realize that maybe it was the path i was supposed to take. but by then it was too late. my mom said that i could have simply just switched courses instead of dropping out. but it still meant i wasted so much time away from honing my craft. that's like riding a bus to destination a, getting off at midpoint, going back all the way home and taking the bus to destination b. except that i had already missed the bus.

but like i said, i dont blame my parents. i have learned to understand that they just didnt understand me. they didnt know what to do with a boy who refused to go out and play with other kids so that he could live in his make-believe world. the most they could do with my "talent" was have me do my siblings' projects that involved writing or drawing. my mom took me to a painting class once which i didnt like because all we did was copy things. here's a photograph, clone it using a pentagraph. let's go to the park, paint that monument. no thank you, sir,  i want to create. (but also because im bad with colors)

i love my parents. i love them the way they are. if i could relive the past, i'd still pretty much want them the way they were. it would be me that would do things differently. i'd be more of a rebel as i should have been. i'd pursue my dream regardless of what they say. because it's a dream that should not be ignored, put aside, or shunned, like it's a dream of being a murderer and killing people (although it basically is, fictionally). it's a great dream that should be embraced, cherished and encouraged with fervor. had it been so, i would not be constantly tormented by ideas hankering to materialize right now. i'd probably be hunched over a laptop typing a screenplay or a novel at this very moment, instead of this blogpost.

and so, i close with a promise to fully support my daughter's ambitions as long as they have no direct negative effects to anyone, most especially to herself.

gamechange

oh yeah, i have a blog.

this part is where im supposed to explain why i havent posted anything in a long while but screw that. also, the answer to the riddle of the last entry is the letter a. also, you shouldnt really start a sentence with also but screw that as well. formal writing is raped in this joint.

so, on with the show: i keep realizing how being married and having a kid has change my life, especially being in a workplace populated mostly by single people. now, enumerating and discussing everything that's different between statuses warrant time and effort im not able to provide, so i'll aim the crosshairs on the top of the list: money.

my current job salary is almost the same as my previous job's. and yet back then, the last week before the next payday was when i suddenly would acquire budgeting skills. there were even times when i was actually flat broke on payday eve and slept off the hunger (sometimes id clean up my apartment and hunt for spare change). i used to think fate was being exclusively mean to me, torturing me for my poor finance management. but, as my work friends would attest to, zero-responsibility stable job woes are quite common.  paydays are like divine drizzle to desert dwellers despaired of decades-old drought. (yay alliteration)

anyway, after a year of putting off the purchase and prioritizing family necessities as a good husband and father ought to do, a couple of months ago, i splurged a bit and bought a pc. my first time to buy with my own, hard-earned money. the primary reason for this was pity. pity for myself, having endured the headaches of using an old, ultralow end pc that frequently required excessive force to turn on; and pity for the said pc. at first, all it needed was a gentle shake to start up. but it quickly escalated to punching and kicking it to life. when kratos, the name i chose for the new machine, came i went to the old guy to transfer some files and it miraculously turned on at first button-push. and i was like, too late to plead for your salvation, asshole.

kratos is quite fast and capable. specs are not as  high as a hardcore gamer's but it runs the latest games pretty well. my wife also uses it for photoshop and it runs smoothly. my daughter loves watching the clownfish swim around in the aquarium screensaver. i have yet to used it for video editing but judging by how fast it converts videos (to mp4 for my psp), render duration likely wouldn't be as much of an exercise in timekilling as it used to be. inevitably, it'll start showing its age and decrease in performance a bit, but i have plans to gradually do a few upgrades by then. for now, it's perfect. the workstation thin client i use in the office is its bitch.

observe & retort

woke up, couldn't return to sleep, decided to blog... but with two conditions. the first one is i must write ten sentences or more. the second one is to be kept secret, which hopefully visitors will find out themselves by the end of this post. this exercise might be difficult for some but those with clever minds or keen eyes will surely spot the puzzle quickly. if you know the solution, put it in the comments. you win nothing, however, except for the pride of figuring the mystery out.

i'm not sure i'll write enough so i'll just include some nonsense. 1 to 999. i love odd numbers. crocodiles on tv. dinner tonight is porkchop. the bell curve sucks. sherlock rules!

googling isn't prohibited. not sure it would help though. unless someone else did this before me, which isn't impossible. how to look for it, now there's the tricky piece. still, i don't think i'm the first one to do this on their blog, but if so, then the better it serves my scheme. so people of the web, i implore you, use your intelligence to decipher this condundrum. the clock's ticking. time limit: one week.

p.s. i dont know where i got this from. someone committed suicide in my subconscious world then i opened my eyes to this concept which would not let go lest i digitize it. do i think it's cool? yes. will it be news/link worthy? i doubt.
p.p.s. guessed it yet? do not give up though. clue: something very common is missing from this post.

ii

day after tomorrow, my daughter turns two years old. day after today is when we'll celebrate it. day after yesterday, i post my blog opener for the year and as i flip through my memory tome, i realize how much has changed. iaine has grown a lot as a little lady and i have grown a lot as a man.

during my bachelor years, i often questioned my purpose. i went from job to job, none of them lasting for more than a year. i'd withdraw my salary and spend it all. then i'd be broke and alone and i'd space out contemplating my life. i was trapped in that cyle for too long with nary a penny put aside for the proverbial precipitation period. even when jeean came into my life, i still lacked that special skill to cope with workplace bullshit.

when iaine was born, something was triggered in me. when i saw her for the first time, i knew the answer. suddenly, my life had reason. that i had to man up and take care of this child. it was my chance to prove i was worth something. no more impulse buying and pointless splurging. no more happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care attitude. no more quitting when the corporate heat is unbearable. iaine is my north. iaine is my bottomless hero drink. iaine is my gravity. iaine is my 42.

now, i have a stable job and i could provide for my family with more than enough to spare. i have had two promotions and very much inspired to pursue the next rung on the ladder. it has been two years of watching a slice of evolution unfold before my very eyes, of bragging about her early milestones and pwning parenthood copycats, of going home tired and sleepy but staying awake to watch her dream, of feeling complete. im sure that as time goes by, she'll have more ways to make me happy, amazed and proud as a father.

happy second birthday, iaine. i love you very much.