nice dream

i've just finished season 3 of how i met your mother. the season ender, miracles, is notable for the mushy stuff: lily, marshall, robin and barney all running to the hospital; ted getting engaged; barney's loves flashing in front of his eyes.

however, there's also the little matter of the soundtrack to ted's accident.

nice dream. by radiohead. from my favouritest album ever.

---

incidentally, i'm on the bends lss mode. particularly, sulk.

life in mono

everything is not all right.

i feel rotten. i ate a piece of cake for merienda but was not satisfied. i want to go out tonight but i feel guilty leaving my aunt and dad to care for my mum. my feelings of being ignored by some people are getting more magnified by the day. i'm trying to write a post for another website but can't seem to get it together. not to mention i've been trying to write this post since forever but couldn't hit on the right note to go on with it.

thing is, my mum is suffering from depression and whenever it happens (it's been off and on for the last 20 years) we're put in a rather delicate situation. now that i'm older, and supposedly more mature, i no longer have an excuse to leave it to the adults - not just the finances, but the daily management of the house and, more importantly, my mum's mental (and emotional) well-being. but all i want to do is hide in my bedroom with my gazillion romance paperbacks and come out when it's all over.

today we had to take her to a dermatologist to have her skin problems checked, and it was somewhat a production. considering that this episode of depression came about from her increasing number of health problems, she was worried that going to another doctor meant another treatment and another type of medicine to remember (which is usually the case). i can't help but get frustrated along with her trying to wrap her head around what needed to be done, when there's so much that needed to be dealt with at the same time.

(and here i stopped being emo and just forced myself to watch some tv. it distracted me a bit, but not much from my food cravings...)

so, anyway, life is rather different for now. other times i might shake my head a little whenever my mum is in hyper mode, but times like these i kinda miss it. almost. and to be quite honest, some of the depression spills over to me. it's pretty hard not to be depressed when you're living with someone who is.

world turning 'round

shocking news greeted me the other day as i got on the elevator with several officemates. one of our colleagues passed away the night before due to a heart attack. the guy was just a few years older than me.

it was a sad day for all of us.

i didn't know my officemate that well, but with our office the way it is (geographically speaking), people we know however slightly become fixtures that decorate our lives. i had one game against his team in our bowling tournament last year, yet every time we bump into each other at the pantry, we kept ribbing each other about our game. our ties might not have been as strong as chains, but they're like wisps of cotton that comforts because they're there. and now they're not.

that even mere acquaintances are feeling a keen sense of loss is somewhat a testament to the way he has lived among us. and maybe it is through this loss that god is teaching us what may be lacking in our own personalities. but mostly, i think god is teaching us how to be basically human - reaching out to other people not for any reason other than that they are also people.

god bless you lee van.

my life is a tv sitcom (hi, i'm ted mosby)

it was only last friday that i felt well enough (at times) to plug my ipod to my ears. but sheer boredom loves company, and i had just downloaded new stuff on the pod. like s1 of how i met your mother.

aside from being a comedy, and witty at that, the striking thing about it is that ted, the lead character, is my age. like, really. granted, he's a few months older, but it's rare to find a show that has a lead character my age. i always feel they're either too old, and as life went on, too young.

plus, it's the life of a single guy, in nyc. so, i'm not a guy, and i'm not in nyc, what do i have in common with ted? i've not even been in any relationship like he has. but he has four friends in the show, which kinda reminded me of my own group of friends when i was 27. (or to be more accurate, when i was turning 26). unlike ted, there were three girls and two guys in that group. lily-and-marshall were my other best friend and her now-husband. barney would be my best friend, who, while not as comedically bad as barney, is adventurous in her own right. robin would be the newcomer guy, who went to the same uni as the rest of us but only really hung out with after lily-and-marshall became an item. and needless to say, he could have been the one, but probably not for me.

that year i became 26 was probably the most emo year i ever went through. i was coping with big change professionally, struggling to graduate from grad school, and learning about dating for the first time in my life. actually, all the angst stuff went on until the next year, and a necessary lifestyle change put the brakes on that situation. again, needless to say, things did not work out as hoped, and love was one of the many things that frustrates me up to now.

but like ted said, these are my mistakes to make, and i had to make them even if i knew they were mistakes.

and now, time to start on season 2.

the story behind the picture

ok, i promised, and i intend to deliver this time, contrary to all expectations. i never considered myself lucky. i wasn't very good at games, i nver won anything big like a car or even a fricking cellphone. but evidence has been building up until i could deny it no longer. i was lucky in my own way. i really had to admit that when i realized i won a palm m105. wtf?

but a few years after that incident i still bemoaned the fallacy that i was unlucky. i got tickets to a movie premier once while listening to magic, and when i became a dedicated follower of klite i reckon i won a lot of prizes. but i'm getting ahead of myself now.

the klite cd box set was probably the biggest prize i ever won in klite, specifically on the morning brew. i didn't even win it the first time it was raffled off, i think as another anniversary promo item. it's not as collector-worthy as the sting cds i won on my 25th birthday (damn, that was five years ago?) but the sting cds i could have gotten anywhere. not the cd box set.

obviously the set came with a box, like you'd expect. but it is so flimsy that i threw it away in a fit... i kinda miss it in a way, but i'm well rid of another piece of junk in my room. but the cds, man. the songs probably represent all that i love (and some of what i hate) in rock music, and the station. pearl jam. blurry. third eye blind. sheryl crow. incubus. man, if maroon 5 had already been making waves st the time, they'd have been on the cd. most of all, the songs represent my life in music. i just can't say it enough, klite and i are soulmates. and like all good things, the relationship had to end.

so, thank you klite, for this cd box set and the sting cds, the couple of vcds, and the numrouse movie tickets you gave me through vito and mylinda and anjanette and whoever else. thank you for letting me watch batman begins with one of my best friends, and giving me and excuse to take a guy friend on a movie date (suspense thrillers aren't something i'd pick to watch on my own). thank you for getting me and my two best friends free entrance to tapika to see paolo santos, and giving my friend ten fricking passes to gateway cinema so i could catch some movie with him and our two chaperons (another looooooong story). in fact, thank you for giving me a semblance of a love life, because now that you're gone, guess what? that life is now over. but that's ok. all good things come to an end.

take me dancing

so, it isn't my intention to chronicle every-frickin'-day of my last fifteen days as a twentysomething. it just happened that i'm feeling a bit better than i have since five days ago, and i have a little time on my hands, and i'm holding off the season 1 finale of how i met your mother. and i suddenly saw these:

a large part of my twentysomething years is spent with one ear glued to the radio and the dial pointing at 103.5. if my high school had LS, and the cool college kids (ahem) was listening to NU in the wee hours, my soundtrack for the MBA years was klite. it started one morning, my first month at school and consequently first month living alone for the first time evah! and i was dial-surfing. i couldn't quite catch magic, and i was annoyed with chico and delamar (still am, actually) and i happened on this radio station at the other end of the dial where the music is just right down my alley and the djs were just the right amount of witty. thus began my 5-year love story with klite 1035.

...five years? but the story started six years ago!?!

sadly, kids, every love story has to end sometime. and no matter what the books say, it always ends in death. november 2006, i was astounded to hear vito (my favorite dj of all time) make the announcement that the morning brew was signing off for the second time (looooong story). after eleven years, the station itself was closing down and being made over. though the loyal army of listeners probably isn't half as many as those rushers, we were a pretty decent lot, and we were... loyal. and i think i speak for everyone by saying no other station was ever like klite. like, no one else had that eclectic mix of rock and not-quite-pop spanning even as far back as the 70s (or 60s, if you count the doors). i still miss the feeling of hearing maroon 5 (before they got teenage-girls-popular) right next to hall and oates and sting. damn.

klite would have celebrated its thirteenth anniversary two (or three? i forget now) days after my birthday. i kinda regret now not taking the 10th anniversary tickets my friend offered me for my birthday three years ago (there were guilt-inducing circumstances) and if i had a chance i'd really love a similar music- and booze-filled night this year. except that i'm not very aware of any such similar circumstances at this time. anybody got any ideas? and tickets will be much appreciated ;)

oooh, btw, i actually attended a klite anniversary bash four years ago and i told the story here.

thirty days

other people would be hung up on their age. never me. but with time passing rapidly and the days till i hit the magic number decreasing at warp speed, i find that i am way too obsessed with age. although for my part, it's the regret that i'll be without an excuse to stay immature. because somehow, hitting that big 3-0 comes with a certain... something that behaving in a manner less than responsibly will seem like an insult to the wisdom that comes with age.

---

i have always deplored my tendency for inaction. (if there's any consolation, i don't have to be bitter about grad school anymore, because i finished.) but i feel like i missed out on so many things that i could have done. some are little things, that are more like way-of-life as opposed to single events. like, i'm not fully exploring career options. or, i've not gone out on gimiks with friends more often. i've not gone out more often, more like. and there's that delaying the driving lessons thing. and that whole hoopla on love and relationships. i've barely scratched the surface of twentysomething independence, and it's being taken away from me.

maybe the reason i'm thinking too much about the implications of the impending birthday is that too many things are coming to a head all at the same time. i just finished grad school, so no more reason to put everything else on hold. reorg at the office made me think more than twice on my career direction, and whether i still wanted to hang on or finally let it go. then, losing the guilt over grad school should have been my ticket to doing more of the things i wanted to try. and i'm feeling a deadline because it's a little less becoming to stay at home dreaming when i should be mature enough to take action.

the point is, i'm not ready to be thirty.

but there's nothing i can do about it.

i want to write but i'm mental-blocked

hold on, is "mental-blocked" even a proper phrase (or compound word or whatever)?

i got home early today because the office declared a semi-half-day, which pegged quitting time at 3pm. so i've been spending enough time on the internet clicking on the usual suspects, and i was running out of stuff to read. i did come across baddie's post this afternoon, which prompted me to think of my own rainy day pet peeves, which in turn reminded me that i almost had another klutz incident this morning.

...

(stopped current train of thought because it's getting really lame.)

...

then i came across jewel's blog, and i am reminded again of another dilemma of sorts.

ever since i decided to create my latest blog at wordpress.com, i've been (un)seriously contemplating migrating my main blog from blogspot. sentimentality aside, i am reluctant to move from blogspot because it is the only one that provides an email backup of my posts as they are published. and in my experience, the sidebar html widget is much more user-friendly than wordpress html widget. i was seriously pissed that this was the only site i could show off my last.fm artists and recent playlist using the flash widgets - multiply, lj and wordpress failed massively. and my plurk widget only worked here. in fact, blogger wins at widgets, period.

however, wordpress (and i'm using the free hosted one) has a lot going for it as well. it has more themes (blogger is seriously lacking in themes); there are "pages" which are similar to posts except that they aren't constricted by the date; there's a cool spam filter; there are "categories" and "tags"; and it's compatible with gravatar. the clincher, however, is the "read more" (or "summary") option (though i have to admit livejournal is one-up with the lj-cut). installing this option in blogger takes a bit of patience, some css knowhow, and a lot of hits and misses.

there are a few things that aren't found on either platform which i really really like, such as lj's multiple userpic (i haven't used up all 15, and my lj friends have lots and lots more on their paid accounts). lj also has a nifty lj user graphic, such as this one:under_crisis. it also has several fields besides the post title and tags, such as music, location and mood (and moodthemes are customizable!) and all of these can be specified if you emailed your blog post. best of all is the lj-cut, which allows the author to hide several non-continuous portions of the post.

expert bloggers have probably worked around my complaints and devised how their platforms could work for them. but i'm no expert, and i don't have the patience to get into the nitty gritty programming. so i'll just keep on wishing that someday blogger will create their version of the lj-cut, and i'll be the happy camper forever. or until the next hot platform comes along.

time for some recs

last.fm has not given me a headache in the last few weeks. recently, i noticed that some tracks kept appearing in my scrobbles list and they were last played on the ipod over a month ago. so i had to reset the play count on the ipod itself. wonder if it'll work. and the site was recently overhauled, and is sporting a clean, new look. methinks every audiophile should seriously think about going with this application. i love how ne-yo is slowly creeping up into my top 5 artists. lolz.

speaking of favourite artists, no. 6 is (surprise, surprise) smashing pumpkins. i loved this band since today, but i found that i'm not that big a fanatic because i only like about half their songs - at least the half that i'm familiar with. i recently added their greatest hits album into the pod, and with some luck managed to single out this gem. it's called try, try, try.

the top song in my ipod is ne-yo's closer, followed closely by because of you. now that is a big surprise, though the playlist cleanup may be partly to blame, because i usually don't go rnb when i could go alternative. a few spots down is this lovely depressing song by little bit, called forget about me. it asks the question: why don't you love me? which coincidentally is a question i've been asking in my mind a few short years ago toward a certain person. at the risk of being accused of sour graping, i still want to know the answer. dammit.

i think i regret not paying more attention to lifehouse's concert here, based on the few reviews i bothered to look at. but this song from who we are on constant repeat more than made up for my loss.

i finally succumbed and bought the first book in stephenie meyer's twilight series. i lent it to my dad and he promptly returned it - that's how easy it was to read. i haven't tried reading it yet; i think i want to savor it and save it for a rainy night. also, i didn't want to be interrupted while daydreaming about robert pattinson i'm in the middle of an exciting part.

oh, and i bought tracey thorn's (everything but the girl) solo album from last year. it sounds just like ebtg without ben watt. whatever.

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i'm too old to be this confused

moodswings are weird. only yesterday morning i was lighthearted, but it seems the events that transpired since then have given me much food for thought. today, i struggle with the confusion that has stuck with me over the last few weeks.

i thought finishing graduate school will help me at least get an idea where i'm going. months after everything has been settled, i find that i have no fricking idea where to go from here. i still feel underqualified for anything. more to the point, i have no inkling at all what kind of work i'm suited for.

i don't know why i won't give up my actuarial career track. my knowledge isn't even current. but just like the scraps of paper i still keep in memento boxes, i can't seem to let it go even if i know i won't make it to fellowship.

on the other hand, career change is scary. i've long wanted to work in UN, but again, i don't know what exactly i'm suited for. it's times like these that i envy my former officemate, who decided to shift to another career four years ago. i could have done it then, too - we were in the same boat - but i was too scared to make the first move.

i've always been the wait-and-see sort of person. almost everything i do has been thought out and debated on at least a hundred times. but there have been instances that i could have acted with haste and gotten better results (hindsight is always 20-20). i'm betting this is one of those times.

dirty sexy money

money's a bitch. especially when you don't have much of it.

over the past several weeks (months?), i've been putting off logging my bank transactions into my financial worksheet. the file was last updated beginning of march, before strama took over my whole world. with my shaky financial standing and my spendthrift ways, i knew i had to reconcile my allowable expense with my actual spending soon, or else chaos will ensue. the lesson i learned a few years ago was a costly one, and i only just finished paying for the consequence.

today i finally progressed a major step, which was track my "petty cash" account. taking down five months's worth of transactions seemed overwhelming, especially when i get home at night and i just wanted to surf the net. but i knew putting it off will only cause me more headaches, so i finally took the whole bunch of slips to work, sorted them by month, and worked on them after lunch. voila! i'm one step closer to reconciling my accounts.

but the really tricky part is still ahead of me, which is distributing the cash into the several sub-accounts i devised. even now i know that the allowance will turn out negative, because of all the spending i did during strama. i'm disappointed, because i really wanted to have extra money to finally invest in mutual funds. but that's life. hopefully i'll manage to plan the next four months to pay back all my debts to myself.

randomize

another meme from ladybracknell, who i think has posted several in the last few days. hehehe.

Shuffle your player and select the first 20 songs that come up. Post the first line of the lyrics and have your f-list guess the songs.

1. now tell me whatcha gonna do when there ain't nowhere to run, when judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you
2. all i can say is that my life is pretty plain, i like watching the puddles gather rain
3. now and then, do you wash your hands of me again
4. ninety miles outside chicago, can't stop driving i don't know why
5. all is quiet on new year's day, a world in white gets underway
6. breathe it in and breathe it out and pass it on, it's almost out
7. i do not understand what it is i've done wrong
8. words like violence break the silence, come crashing in into my little world
9. may mga kumakalat na balita, na ang misis ni kuwan ay madaling makuha
10. i'm afraid to fly, and i don't know why
11. i see us in the park, strolling the summer days of imaginings in my head
12. somebody told me you were leaving, i didn't know; somebody told me you're unhappy, but it doesn't show
13. and here's to you, mrs. robinson, jesus loves you more than you will know
14. waiting, watching the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop
15. in my eyes, indisposed, in disguise as no one knows
16. take me as you are, push me off the road; the silence, i need this time to be with you
17. i was blown away, what could i say, it all seemed to make sense
18. do as i say not as i do because the shit so deep you can't run away
19. the first, the last, my everything, and the answer to all my dreams
20. every breath you take, every move you make

i only listed those songs that i actually knew. i have 5000+ songs on my pod, and i have a lot of albums i haven't even listened to in full. or at all.

yes, i know, nos. 5, 13, 19 and 20 should be dead giveaways. what can i do.

some of these were actually covers when they appeared on the shuffle; i need the original artist. track no. 4 was a cover by paolo santos; no. 9 was done by brownman revival; no. 15 was a live concert performance by alanis morissette; no. 20 was a performance by brooke white on american idol.

yeah, i think i've read more than six

this is a meme I've seen do the rounds at lj a few weeks ago, but never found the time to do myself. then a high school friend posted it, so i thought i might as well.

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1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you LOVE.
4. Reprint this list in your own multiply/lj so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;)

The 100 list:

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - my favorite of all of Austen's, hands down.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – tried reading it when I was a kid but gave up after one page.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling – I love love love this world. And the fandom.
   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
   
6. The Bible – I don’t think I’ve read half of the whole book
   
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
   
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
   
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
    
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott – this is one of the first three books that my granny sent me while she was in TO, and led me to appreciate children’s classics. Jo&Laurie = OTP
    
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
    
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
    
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – is it possible to find them in prose? I love the themes of the stories; unfortunately, I’m just distracted by iambic pentameter. Which is why I love watching movies based on Shakespeare – I understand them better.
    
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
    
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
    
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
    
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
    
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
    
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
    
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
    
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
    
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
    
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
    
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
    
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
    
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
    
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
    
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
    
34. Emma - Jane Austen – not as good as P&P, but I loved the idea of her falling in love with a man she knew very well, almost all her life.
    
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
    
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
    
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
    
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
    
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
    
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne – I’ve read The Te of Piglet (which is a sequel to the Tao of Pooh), but not the original.
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
    
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown – issues about Christians aside, the story is brilliant.
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
    
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
    
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery – I am such a romantic. But I read the Emily books before this, and I found Anne a more engaging heroine.
    
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
    
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
    
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding – Good story, but really scary.
    
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
    
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
    
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
    
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
    
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen – I liked the movie too (yay Alan Rickman!)
    
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
    
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
    
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
    
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
    
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
    
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
    
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
    
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
    
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
    
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
    
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
    
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding – the first movie was a v. good adaptation. The second one, not so much.
    
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
    
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
    
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
    
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett – another one from that first set of books. Unfortunately I lost that copy, so I bought another one.
    
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
    
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
    
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
    
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
    
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
    
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
    
80. Possession - AS Byatt – I read this in parts after seeing the movie. Have yet to read it in full. Maybe soon.
    
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
    
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
    
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
    
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
    
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
    
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
    
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
    
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom – yeah ‘tis good. Bought it for my parents’ wedding anniversary gift. Hehehe.
    
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I have the complete works borrowed from my highschool friend, but I have yet to start.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
    
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
    
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery – I think I loved the snake most of all. And the boa constrictor.
    
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
    
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
    
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
    
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
    
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
    
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare – Lorybeth says this was required for high school, I seem to remember only Merchant of Venice.
    
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
    
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

finally

yesterday was my graduation day. after six years of bluffing my way through, with three of those years devoted to the struggle that is my strategic management paper, i finally got my degree. and if i wanted to, i have the right to add those three letters to the end of my name.

i didn't have major problems during the graduation ceremony itself, except for my academic gown almost choking me and my cap weighing about as heavy as an anvil. no missteps or major boo-boos. but it was the other stuff surrounding my graduation that gave me major headaches. after i finally submitted my paper, which was late, there was the clearance (an issue i'd rather not discuss). then not knowing if i made the cut, because according to the rules, i should have submitted my paper earlier (though i had the defense before the deadline). then finding the right dress, where normal dress-shopping is already a traumatic experience. then, after the ceremony, it was as if our trusty '94 civic was on strike. just as we were ready to leave, dad discovered the battery was discharged, so we had to have a replacement delivered. then, on our way home, we landed on a massive pothole on the slex and got a running flat. imagine all of that accompanied by heavy rainfall.

i hope to write about all the different details soon. the subject matter from the speeches during the ceremony were inspiring, though not enough to spur me to write extensively. i'll try to get back on my feet in a couple of days.

2008 MTV ASIA AWARDS - vote for URBANDUB!

plurk! plurk!

wahahahaha! i succumbed!

in view of copycatting from baddie, and getting bored with twitter, i set up a plurk account. like i need another username-password combo.

is anyone else on my friendlist, aside from baddie, who's on plurk? please let me know. better yet, friend me? (desperado?)

shabby chic food challenge # 1: vanilla affogato

for lack of a better name, i'm calling this the shabby chic challenge. (but i hate it, so i'll probably change it later on. be warned.)

objective: to discover cheaper alternatives to (my) favorite food items, which are usually expensive (i have a spendthrift attitude when it comes to food, and it was the leading cause of my previous ballooning credit card debt problem - but that's another story).

to quote an officemate (who quotes a popular tv ad) - 'sing sarap, pero 'di 'sing mahal.

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affogato: a coffee-based beverage or dessert. "affogato style", which refers to the act of topping a drink or dessert with espresso, may also incorporate caramel sauce or chocolate sauce. - wikipedia

i first encountered this drink at starbucks around 3-4 years ago. the way starbucks made it, it was actually a blended ice drink (either vanilla or chocolate cream) and the espresso shot is added last, creating a beautiful drip pattern down the side of the plastic cup. it's no longer in their regular menu, i think, but the baristas can make it if you place an order. at today's prices, the tall cup probably costs around 130 pesos.

now, even a spendthrift like me will balk at shelling out 130 bucks every visit - i do work for a living, and i don't have a trust fund to fall back on. if i had to spend that much, might as well get a mocha frap.

cheaper alternative # 1: granita (aka ice coffee at 7-11 or mini stop) - i could be wrong, but a 16 oz glass from the convenience store could set you back 30-40 bucks. whatta deal. the coffee experience granita used to cost 50 pesos, about 8 years ago. no idea how much it is now.

cheaper alternative # 2: ice cream and brewed coffee - this is if you want to stick closer to the definition of affogato. i tried it this morning, and it was a pleasant change from the typical brewed coffee we get at mcdonald's or jollibee. an a la carte order of sundae cone + brewed coffee will set you back 45 pesos. if you're having a breakfast meal at the aforementioned fastfood chains, just add 15 bucks for the ice cream.

cheaper alternative # 3: the ultimate cheapskate - get the ice cream cone from mini stop, which was 14 bucks a year ago, and a nescafe 3-in-1 (or san mig 2-in-1) for 6 pesos. better yet, just steal the 3-in-1 from your officemate. prepare the coffee, then dump the cone into it.

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disclaimer: i am not affiliated with any of the brands or restaurants mentioned here. but i wouldn't mind if i got compensated for advertising :D

made of what?

i just finished watching made of honour on my ipod. i was supposed to see it on the big screen with a friend from work, but fate intervened and the girlbonding got busted.

okay, i wasn't expecting too much from the movie. but for some reason i got really kilig afterward. (so maybe someone should provide bad reviews to me for films that i wanted to enjoy. heheheh.) anyway, i just can't help but be sad about my own (lack of) love life. yes, i know it's not the end-all and be-all of my existence. it doesn't define me. i'm quite happy being my own mistress. i'm not mature enough to handle a relationship. the right guy will come along at the right time.

what a load of b.s.

i'm definitely not wishing for a serial one-night stand player like patrick dempsey's character. i don't even wish for someone as good-looking as him (but it wouldn't hurt). actually, i don't know what i really want. but at this age, i feel like i'm losing out on the whole experience. i don't even go out much with other people, just the people who i know well (and there are no prospects there). i mean, how can i follow bo sanchez's advice of going out on friendly dates, when i don't have dates to begin with? *sigh*

yes, i know i sound so bitter; worse, i don't seem to be doing anything about it. so what do i do?

where there's smoke, there's fire

still on a high from last night's school of rock gig. (coincidentally, i loved that movie.)

then i read my pinoy blogosphere mail and got the biggest surprise.

now, i don't have anything new to contribute to what has already been written, so better just read it yourself.

all i can say is, it seems raimund's segue last night may have more meaning than i initially thought it did.

it would be a really brilliant 30th birthday gift. kahit next year na yung u2.

our song plays on

ah, the joy of being without guilt.

for some reason, i decided last night to visit the urbandub yahoo group page. i almost flailed when i found out they were playing at elbi tonight. it's common for the big deal gigs to happen on thursday nights here in elbi, so it's no surprise. still, i was undecided if i was going to make the effort. but i posted my dilemma as my ym status, and a friend of mine from high school buzzed me that she and another friend of ours are watching. yay!

got home at precisely 8pm, and broke all records in wardrobe change because i was meeting my two girlfriends at bean hub (near the up gate). they seemed not to be in any hurry, as the gig was apparently just starting and dub wasn't on yet, so i grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee for supper. afterwards we started on our short walk to the venue.

the gig was in between bands when we got to the social garden, and it was just our luck because urbandub came on immediately after. wheee! they played songs from the latest album, under southern lights, and a couple from the previous one, embrace. kevin, another high school classmate whom we saw there, was impressed with the technical quality of urbandub's sound (i was like a proud mother hen when i affirmed his observation). and linlin was excited to find she actually knew one of their songs, evidence, which was on heavy rotation at mtv.

i wasn't really planning to hang around for sandwich, but luckily i did, because i didn't know they were that good live. i was really impressed. i actually had newfound respect for myrene academia, their bassist. and their new guitarist is cute (i forgot his name, i read it somewhere a while ago).

not bad for a thursday night gimik, was it? it's just a pity best buddy mike wasn't able to come, but there'll be other chances.

special mentions:

• urbandub riffing a new tattoo (god i miss that song)
• raimund singing masilungan, then changing the lyrics to the first verses of alapaap. panalo! long live the eraserheads!