Monday, November 26, 2012

Are you Carmina? Hi I'm Zoren...

Just saw a comment on Facebook:

"daming nagwiwish na sana magka bf sila na ala zoren.. eh ala carmina kaba?
#dyuskoday"

Good point. But to be honest, everyone deserves to find their 'Zoren' and 'Carmina'. It doesn't have to be EXACTLY like him, but what that person's vision of an ideal partner is. In short, everyone wishes they had a love like that: dedicated, romantic, loyal, sweet. 

Just saying.

An Eventful Friday at work --> Saturday early morn at home

Current Mood: Smug. Sleepy. Tired.

Today was an eventful day. Office was totally hectic. I had meeting after meeting after meeting... and all of which were important to some degree. Couldn't even get out long enough to enjoy a long drag on a cig break... Basically, we took care of everything that had to be taken care of for the next couple of weeks. So many things still need doing, plus more on the side. I mean, aside from having to handle some of the projects up close, had to act as arbiter for some internal office problems... whew!

then had to stay in the office till 10 in the evening (I repeat... TEN in the evening) because I owed someone a website... well microsite anyway. And still wasn't able to finish it. that wasn't my fault anymore because a) I was alone in the office and I could SWEAR I saw something graze past my blind side and b) the site where I was getting the info from ran out of bandwidth and couldn't be accessed anymore.

I did manage to finish about 70% of it... so by tomorrow morning it'll all be done.

Was getting kinda hungry too... so I guess it was a good idea I packed up and left already. Got home at around 11 PM because for pete's sake it was still traffic in Katipunan. When will it EVER clear up?!

Still have to take care of the vid thing for my dad. I doubt I'll be able to finish it now. Still a long way to go. And I am totally tired. I still have to fix so many things for tomorrow.

On the way home, while listening to the radio in the cab, the driver was listening to Doctor Love's radio program. The callers or phone ins were totally pathetic. I mean come on! The first guy called because he said he couldn�t forget his girlfriend. Naturally, Doctor Love replies by saying of course you can't forget your girlfriend, she's already a part of your life! Then the good doc asks how long they were together. The poor sod answers, "2 months po..." WTF?! I could tell the doc was getting a wee bit sarcastic... I mean come one dude... he was asking Doctor Love how to best forget his relationship with the girl... something like Eternal Sunshine...the conversation that went on after that basically dropped my IQ about 10 to 20 points... This Doc knows good advice� and he�s not afraid to make his poor heartbroken callers feel that they�re the dumbest sons of bitches in the planet�.

The next caller was even more pathetic. He said he�d been living in with his girlfriend for almost a year already, but the girl wanted to break up with him already. When the Doc asked him why, he said that his girlfriend suddenly �changed�� and just started biting his head off. And then, poor sod that he already is� Doc Love starts telling him that he should just let her go, and that he should�ve thought about marrying her instead and that whatever the guy does the girl�s the one who gets the short end of the romance stick� I mean come on Doc! The guys already going through shit and you�re telling him everything he did was wrong! He didn�t even hear the whole sob story to begin with! That�s hat you get I guess when you have more sponsors than airtime�

I feel sorry for those dudes who actually listen to the show� and those that actually depend on the doc for an answer! Not that I�m being condescending or anything� but I mean come on� even if you weren�t at least knowledgeable in matters of the heart, you wouldn�t subject yourself to humiliation of that magnitude.

That other guy even started asking Doc Love if he could give his number over the air so he could find a new �friend� Gee-zus!

My advice? Stop listening to his show! Why do you think they put his show at a gawdforsaken hour?

Anyway, I honestly believe that there are some things� especially love-related problems, that you should only either keep to yourself or share only with your closest friends� not to some quack on late night radio. Hope those two callers don�t decide to kill themselves� jeez�

On a lighter note, have been preparing my list of songs to play for our next jam session. I�d really like to play Scissor Sisters� Take Your Mama Out, but babe�s the one doing the singing� so we better choose a better song. Heard a sister duet on the radio jam session the other weekend, Joy and Bev I believe they were called� and man! They sounded so good on the radio! Their blending was pitch perfect� I want to sound better than that� because I know we can. Whew! If anything they inspired me to pick up where I left my music shoes�

We�re jamming on Sunday. Hope all the guys can make it� and I really hope babe doesn�t get hit with another bout of laziness� Sundays can do that to her� hehehe�

I�m off to Neverland now� Rivermaya and Velvet Revolver are playing in my head� so I need a little music before I finally doze off. Peace out! Tomorrow�s update will be totally out of this world� I promise� =P

ADD-ON: Just got off chatting with an old friend, si Zsar. She was my friend since Grade School� probably my first ever crush too� hehehe� it�s amazing how the internet can bring lost friends together even across time and continents� hope I didn�t sound redundant there� ;) right Zsar?

Friday, October 2, 2009

I survived Ondoy! Top Ten Things I learned from Ondoy

Talk about a life experience. If at the end of my days, my children and children's children would ask me what I recall from my life, I would probably include TS Ondoy and how we lived through it as one of my most memorable experiences. Life experiences change you or you bring something with you at the end of it... Ondoy was a mix of both and more.

so without further adue... here's what I learned from Ondoy... my own Top Ten list of things I learned while flooded in my home.

1. First, it never hurts to be prepared.

No one expected the water to rise to high so fast... it's a good thing I've always been Mr Boyscout. I had the necessary tools, goods and knowledge to prepare myself and my family for the flood.

For example, we always keep our water at least half full before we start to order more drinking water... and we keep our rice bin always half full as well whenever we can. I knew to turn the circuit breaker off the second the water started hitting our floors, so as to avoid any dangers of electrocution... and I always keep batteries handy (although I always forget where they are) for our mini lamp/flashlight.

Buti na lang talga marami pa kaming drinking water and we had a good stock of canned goods in the house from the previous grocery run.

In short, we had enough for a few days. Kung kaya nyo, always keep stock of your stuff na pwede pang ilang araw... kasi palaging delikado pag running low on something important or basic like water, food, rice.

2. Magaling pala ako mag-swimming

Yes. Lumangoy ako sa baha. Baket? Kasi naubusan kami ng yosi. Which bring me to point 3...

3. I will not survive a calamity without cigarettes.

Nilangoy ko yung baha nung Sabado nang hapon para maghanap ng mga kandila at tinapay at yosi. Pero priority talaga ng biyahe ko, yosi.

But because the flood had unusually strong currents, I had a hard time reaching past the sari sari store near our house. Good thing it was elevated and it had stock.

Pero nauwi ako sa Champion cigarettes at Fortune reds. You should have seen the look on my face when the tindera said wala na silang yosi...

4. Malakas pala ang current ng baha.

This is dangerous. In all honesty what I did that day was foolhardy, and yes I will get it from my Mom and my sisters. But hey, I had full confidence in my swimming ability and I was familiar with my surroundings... kahit mataas baha I know which areas had walls safe for grabbing on to etc.

What I didn't account for was how strong the current would be. The water was flowing towards the lower part of Cainta... which was the subdivision next door, Vista Verde. There was a point when I was swimming dog paddle that I WASN'T MOVING AT ALL... I was swimming against the current and it was that strong...

5. Pwede palang floating device ang...

Mineral water container or those gallong jugs na kulay blue. Pwede ka din magputol ng kahoy ng puno ng saging. Put a couple or more together and you have a raft like the one in Castaway. Pwede din bola... (WILSOOOOON). Pwede din pala lumutang ang ref...

But one thing I did learn while floating around on my big blue water gallon was that, with a long enough stick (say the handle of a mop or something similar), you can use it as an anchor and use it to push you along like the rear oar of a gondola. It works and it really helped. Just be sure you still have a firm grip on your floatation device.

6. Rainwater = good. Floodwater = bad.

Pag tubig ulan, pwde mo pa ilagay sa containers at ipangligo, hugas. Yung tubig baha, mas lalo na pag naging kulay putik / lahar na... DEINS. Mas lalo na pag may nakita kang mga lumulutang na kung anu ano... it was fine swimming through the flood on the first day. But Sunday was terrible... it was already the color of mud... and it smelled terrible. Plus all the cards that had drowned spilled oil into the water, which made it even worse.

But at the height of the flood, we were able to take a bath using the rain water we accumulated in drums and pails. Even after the flood, it rained for a short bit, we put the pails under the roof drains and got a lot of water for cleaning the house and walls.

But the floodwater... it was a bad idea for using it to clean the walls... it wouldn't get the mud off. And did I mention it smelled terrible?

7. In a calamity, the first living things to go are pets.

Plants can survive. Cool. Pets will mostly die.

My neighbor's cats, all four of them, were indoors and stuck in their low ceiling bungalow when the floods hit. Poor cats had nowhere to hide when the water rose to their roof. They died indoors. While swimming out of our house on the second day, I came across 4 floating dead dogs and one huge dead rat.

My janitor fish escaped from the aquarium too while I was removing some water from it to make it lighter to carry. He's probably still alive somewhere.

8. Electronic devices CAN STILL WORK even when drenched in water.

You just have to dry them properly before you plug them in. Neighbors' TV sets and radios were all able to work again even with all that flood water. My refrigerator still worked even if it was submerged knee high in water. And according to stuff I read online, even your cellphones can work... all you have to do to properly dry it out is to submerge the drenched cellphone into a bowl of rice overnight, and the rice will absorb all the water out.

9. Through a calamity like this, we really are all dependent on technology.

We had no communication for a day or so. The only real way was through cellular phone. Once the electricity was out, there was no internet, no phone lines, no TV... I had no idea how bad the whole thing was until Wednesday when our electricity came back and I saw how bad it was other areas.

So many people had no other way to get in touch with their loved ones. And i shudder to think what would happen if, knock on wood, we all lose communication... even radio. How in the world are we supposed to talk to everyone else? Ito ilang araw lang di mo ma-contact kaibigan at kamag-anak mo... hysteric na yung ibang tao... what more pag linggo... buwan... taon?

But then again, it was technology that allowed a lot of the relief and help to come in. I remember, the only radio we had was an FM transistor radio... and Jam 88.3 Rock Ed Radio kept broadcasting people who needed help, updates on the flood, and they were reading twitter, plurk and facebook updates on people who were looking for friends and family. It was really cool what they did for that, and how they helped the whole thing. If it weren't for technology like this, a lot of people would have probably been left stranded on their roofs and houses.

10. It's the simple things that matter.

Family. Friends. Food. Water. Clothing. Shelter. (Add cigarettes to my list.)

But seriously, we were lucky. One of our friends and her husband stayed over Friday night because they had a new born baby (1 month old) and wanted to visit us since we hadn't seen each other in a while. They live in Marikina. Today their house is gone, all that's left is a shattered rubble of wood and metal. We all shudder to think what would have happened if they didn't sleep over that night.

During the few days that we had no electricity and our first floor was flooded, we had no bathroom (bathroom is only on the first floor) and we had no cold water. We had no electricity so we could not sleep with all the mosquitos at night.

All of these things we took for granted because we were used to living well... just to lose something like the use of a toilet or an electric fan... it was quite tough.

And yes, being with close friends and family... I wouldn't have it any other way. If it truly was the end of all things, you'd rather spend the last moments with your loved ones than alone on the street. Like some people I know who were stranded that day and could not get home, or could not get in touch with their loved ones... that must have been terrible. I would not wish that on anyone, that fear and anxiety of not knowing.

Which is why at the end of the calamity, we were still happy and ok. We had what we needed... the essentials. Sure we lost some of the basic necessities but hey, even with the rising water we were having fun and joking around and basically happy.

...

Now that there's another storm coming in, I pray that it doesn't get worse than what has already happened. Looking at pictures and walking through streets seeing the aftermath of the floods, I still can't believe it's the same city.

Whatever happens this weekend, I know we're prepared. I hope everyone else is ready as well, and I hope that we've already seen the worst of it.

To my friends, thanks for all the support. You know who you are. Your words and prayers are already more than enough help.

To my Level Up family and the entire PLDT group of companies... wow! You guys did a stellar job of keeping your employees at the top of the priority list. Thank you thank you thank you. My family and I will never forget this.

To my family, thank you for all the help. Even through each other's troubles you guys still stuck it out even further to help me. Thank you from all of us... I thank God you're all safe and the floods didn't affect you as badly as it did me.

Lastly, to my baby, thanks! Thanks! Thanks! You made this life experience truly memorable.

Yihee sobrang cheesy!

See you all on the other side. Ingat!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

BRUTAL POLICE AND PSG RESPONSE!

I just saw this off of JuanCountry.com and then the corresponding photos from the linked Facebook album.

From JuanCountry.com
Here’s a picture of the PSG dragging the chairperson of the UP-CSWCD Student Council by the hair. Picture taken by Alanah Torralba.
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PNP couldn’t find weapons so they decided to get the steel railings so that they could bash this guy in for good. Photo by Aaron Favila.
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Apparently they got tired of using the steel railings so they decided to bring out their guns. Picture by Danny Boy Pata.
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And here I thought Randy Orton was the only guy who would kick a man on the head while he’s down. Photo from Danny Boy Pata.
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And I quote from JuanCountry.

I understand that the PSG and the PNP had to move against the demonstration since they were already inside the Palace grounds and they had no permit but they could have done this in a more civil manner.
However, I am in no way condoning the actions of the students as well. If they really wanted to stage a rally, they should have secured the necessary permits. Going inside Malacanang and suddenly staging a rally is just asking for it. I hate to say this but they were really inviting trouble the moment they went into the Palace with a plan to do a sudden rally.
Regardless of what happened, I still condemn the violence committed by the PSG and PNP. I hope that the policemen and the PSG members caught on camera doing these despicable acts will be fired and then jailed. The pictures speak for themselves.


I totally agree with what this 100%... the students that went there with no permit and stormed the palace grounds were really asking for it. But there is no excuse for the kind of brutality that the PSG and police showed.

And what really sent shivers down my spine were the similarities of today's happenings and the pre-Martial Law events. I know I wasn't even around then or too young to really experience them first hand, but I've read and seen a lot of the remakes and documentaries on Dekada 70 already to know that this isn't right. My Tita even commented that this was just like the First Quarter Storm right before Martial Law happened.

All I can say now is... God help us all.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Even Games are Having Cory Tributes

Original post here:

Who says the Pinoy youth, particularly gamers, are apathetic? Not these guys.

Grand Chase joins the nation in mourning the death of our most beloved President, Cory Aquino.

Event 1: Tribute to the beloved President
Period: Aug 4 ~ Aug 10

Details
Get Yellow Flowers and a Yellow Ribbon Accessory at your first log in during the event period.

Rekindle the flame of democracy that Cory began, as a tribute visit the Grand Chase Park to offer these flowers by clicking on the Altar.
and

Yellow Flowers (1) and a Yellow Ribbon Accessory (7 Days), in memory of the late President Cory Aquino, who inspired the Filipino to fight and win back freedom and democracy.



And it's pretty cool too because the actual Cory Tribute items have their use!

Read more about it here:

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Haaayz... ibang tao talga hindi maka-GETS!

Here's my latest CNET blog. I wrote about how Friendster is still the number one freaking social networking site in the Philippines despite the rapid growth of Facebook.

And this one guy JUST DOESN'T GET IT. Lol. (Read the blog comments. Sigh)

Anyway my last reply to him was funneee.

I said, and I quote:
Anyway, as is with any online enterprise, a lot of what's going on in the site is because of the audience it has... and like what imageguru mentioned in her comment, FS is, demographically speaking, your DE audience. That's where FS gets its numbers from, so regardless of how vastly superior FB is in terms of web features, FS is doing something right because they're still keeping their audience, and still keeping them happily active.

Along that line of thought... I wonder what would happen if Willie Revillame tells his viewers to add him on Facebook? Or to play Mafia Wars with him? Is there a Wowowee Facebook App in the works?

Lol.

So what do you think? Now that Multiply has declined the top spot to Facebook, will Facebook be able to topple Friendster? Is everyone playing Mafia Wars? Restaurant City? Farm Town?

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