Still a bit chilly, but I'm just glad I'm no longer freezing my ass off everytime I have to step out and take the trash out.

Springtime's here!

(well... technically, it's been around for over a month now)

Anyhoo... hibernation's done. Got reacquainted with my SLR last weekend (it's been sitting on the cabinet gathering dust the entire winter) and looking forward to all the hikes this summer and thankfully be able to shed off the ten-fucking-pounds I stacked on while I sat in front of the PC and enslaved myself to my World of Warcraft addiction.

Oh, and I'm bored and Multiply's the only place I can yak on that's not blocked or firewalled by the company techies downstairs. And it's not that I haven't been online here at all, I do usually visit this site for contact updates. It's just that I've pretty much been lurking in the background given that I didn't really have anything meaningful to post anyway. Y'know what? Scratch that. This post in itself is meaningless, so there you go. I'm back to talking nonsense and bullshit over here simply because I'm stuck here in my cubbie when I could be enjoying the nice sun-shiny weather outside.

Woot.

 

I'm hanging on for dear life.

Sticking my fingers on whatever crevasses I can manage to get a firm grip on as I tiptoe and steady my legs on unimaginably narrow footholds while the wind relentlessly blasts me in the face. My entire body rocks and weaves as I struggle to maintain my balance... where one little miscalculation can lead to a fatal plummet to the hard, brutal surface that seemingly yearns for me down below...

I grin widely as I withstand the latest gust of wind. Brows furrowed as I anticipate the next one. Each second I spend here on this narrow ledge is a personal challenge to my sense of equilbrium. "Don't let go". "Focus". "Keep your balance".

It's a familiar feeling that I haven't experienced for a long, long time. I smiled. Even chuckled as I adjusted my fingers on the narrow handhold. It seemed like eons since I last did this, I thought to myself. 

But as much as I enjoyed the familiar adrenaline rush, it was over. As quick as I started it... I was done. With no belays, no gir-gri locks, no 'biners, no ropes... I realized it finally time to let go.

So I did.

It seemed like it took forever for my two feet to hit the ground. Like I was in slo-mo as I free-falled through the gusts of wind. I finally hit the hard surface with a thud. 

It was a perfect landing. Not even a wobble. Like a gymast primed for the world stage. I threw my head up to soak in the applause.

No crowd though. Just the jeepney's "kundoktor" throwing me a puzzled look as the vehicle rolled to a stop while the other passengers disembarked.

"Nagkabit ka gid nga pwerte man kahalog sang pulungkuan sa sulod!"

Tagalog Translation:

"Sumabit ka talaga eh ang luwag-luwag naman ng mga upuan sa loob!" 

I merely chuckled as I handed him my fare. The maniac behind the wheel was already screaming at him to get back on. Time's a wasting. There were passengers along the way to be picked up and he'll be damned if he let's the other passenger jeeps zipping past him get to them first.

Standing on the sidewalk, I lit up a cigarette as I watched them roar away with the incessant clang of a loose muffler and a cloud of smoke. I look on as another young man jump and occupy the narrow ledge I just vacated at the tail-end of the passenger jeep.

Yet another "urban cliff-hanger", I mused.

A passenger jeepney bearing the signs for the next leg of my journey screeches to a halt right in front of me. It was a virtual sardine can as I spied the packed seats inside. The driver yells at me: "Gadali ka boss!? Puno na ni pro kabit ka lang!" (simply translated: "Nagmamadali ka boss!? Puno na sa loob pero kung gusto mo sumabit ka na lang!")

I smiled.

And I jumped on.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------

(I'm back in Bacolod for 3 weeks and I couldn't be any happier) 

 

 

 

 

The Democratic candidate has garnered the necessary number of electoral votes.

Republican candidate John McCain has officially conceded the presidential race through a beautiful concession speech in Arizona.

Barack Obama is the new president-elect of the United States of America.

It's a great leap forward. This is historic. It's an electoral decision that's a clear break from some of the dark stains that taints America's history.

Change is good. But the change that everyone, not only in this fractured country but all over the world, has been yearning for won't happen overnight. The next couple of months, nay, the next four years, should prove to be an interesting time for everyone.

And amidst the cheers and inspiring chants of "Yes We Can!" from the crowds gathered all over the country, I am quietly smoking a cigarette outside the house; breathing deeply as I contemplate on what this historic milestone holds for me and my peers over here.

A new dawn is upon us all.

Cool Runnings, everyone.


 

I've always had this sort of "unofficial" rule that I spend my weeknights at home; with me just flicking on the TV rather than make the 15-20 minute drive to Boston and check out whatever the hell is happening in the city just to kill my usual weeknight boredom. I call it my "Week-night Rule". It's cheap, I get to catch up watching my recorded "Scrubs" and "How I Met Your Mother" reruns on the DVR and let's face it: an evening sojourn into Boston always ends up the same way no matter how or where in the city me and whoever it is I'm with start it anyway: us tossing back several beers in a pub/bar while some metal band abuses our eardrums followed by our occasional sidetrip to this 24-hour restaurant in Chinatown whenever we feel the "munchies" before making the drive home usually around 1 to 2 am.

Same old shit, really.

And I really can't afford to let myself get wasted on weeknights anymore; given how I always end up looking like a zombie right out of Night of the Living Dead trying to run data reports at work the next day, I'd say it's a good rule to have; "unofficial" or otherwise.

I do have to say that my buddy Jan did manage to coax me off the couch on a weeknight to watch a metal gig at the Great Scott Pub in Boston a couple of months ago. Sexcrement; one of the local extreme metal acts he's been closely following, was playing along with Copremesis (a wicked good grindcore metal band from Brooklyn), Mucopus, Dysentery and Defeated Sanity (a metal band from Germany). Turns out the gig was part of their East Coast tour and weeknight-rule be damned, he wasn't about to let my phone stop ringing until I shot him a text message that I'm picking him up at his place in half an hour.

I remember being a wee bit surprised to see the pub pretty packed when we got there. 'Never knew Sexcrement and Defeated Sanity had a bit of a following among the local metalheads. The show even started on time, and amidst all the din of the guitar shredding and the moshers slamming in front of each other in front of the stage, I found myself relaxing a bit more 3 beers into the second set. The show's pretty good actually, I mused, before inching my way among the moshers around the stage to get to the men's room, where apparently, someone was too drunk to distinguish where the wall urinal was and peed right on the bathroom wall. I navigated the puddle of piss on the floor and joined the two other guys peeing on the wall urinals, occasionally chuckling at the graffiti scribbled on the wall right in front of our faces as we held our respective weiners and tried not to splatter and add to the nightmares of the unforunate soul who gets the exciting task of cleaning up the men's room at the end of the night. "George Bush has a pussy!", one of the wall's graffiti screamed at me. 'Really!? 'Wonder why CNN hasn't gotten around to reporting that yet.

I made my way to the back of the crowd towards the bands' merchandise tables and saw Jan talking excitedly with someone I recognized as the guy who just did the lead guitars for the band that just performed onstage, Copremesis. Jan saw me and waved me to come over. It turns out that Copremesis' lead guitarist; Paulo, was actually a true-blue Pinoy. He overheard Jan talking in Filipino and they hit it off talking while I was in the bathroom giggling at hastily-scribbled wall graffiti. The following is an excerpt/paraphrase of our introduction:

Me: *reaches out to shake Paulo's hand* "Hey man, nice to meet ya."
Paulo: *shaking my hand* "Same here man. Hey, are you Filipino too!?"
Me: "Yeah... wait...! You're Pinoy!?"
Paulo: *giddy*  "Fuck YEAH! Awesooome! Where you from in the Philippines!?"
Me: "Bacolod!"
Paulo: "Really!? You're from Bacolod!? I'm from Iloilo! I'm Ilonggo like you!"
Me: *eyes wide open, switches to dialect* "Ilonggo ka!?!"
Paulo: *grins widely* "Huo, Ilonggo ko!!!"
Both of us: *laughing maniacally while high-fiving and hugging each other* "YUDIPUUTAAAA!!! WAHAHAHAHA!"

Not really sure why the three of us got so giddy in the first place. For our part, maybe it's just that after all the shows and gigs we've been frequenting here, we finally encounter a fellow Pinoy we can connect with. Goodness knows it's hard enough to connect with most of the other Filipinos and Fil-Ams we meet here especially when they know jack-shit about their Filipino heritage. The fact that Paulo still knows and speaks the local dialect after 12 years in the US, and that he's a proud Pinoy who shreds his guitar barefoot onstage as well as any guitar-dude we've seen is pretty much the proverbial foam at the top of the beer mug. 

The rest of the night pretty much whizzed by as Jan, Paulo and I talked about an array of subjects; from discussing his stay in the US after moving from Iloilo, about how rare it is to see other active Pinoy metalheads in the East Coast, about his band Copremesis and their tour, us explaining to him the directions to the Filipino store/restaurant in Quincy, and explaining to one of his buddies and the guy's hot blonde girlfriend (yes, we're pigs) what kind of dishes Adobo and Dinuguan are.

Defeated Sanity pretty much ended the night with their set. Me and Jan, along with our haul of Copremesis CDs and shirts to support Paulo and his band, capped it off by taking a photo with him (that's Jan on the left, Paulo in the center, and me) along with some last-minute pre-departure chatter; something that is pretty much a Pinoy staple. Aalis na nga magdadaldalan pa. Promises to keep abreast of the band were made as well as websites and emails were exchanged so that copies of photos can be emailed. Finally, hands were shook, high-fives were made and we took off. 

It was around 1:30 in the morning but me and Jan were still babbling as we got in the car; still psyched about what turned to be a surprisingly enjoyable and remarkable night. I rolled down the window and lit a cigarette just as Jan inserted the Copremesis CD in the player. I took a long drag on my cig just as I backed out of the parking space and pulled into Commonwealth Avenue. We spent the next 3 minutes in silence savoring the chug-chug-chugga of Copremesis' "Tetsuo" as we cruised past Fenway Park; Boston's hallowed baseball stadium.

"Tsong...!", Jan yelled above the din of the track.
"Ano...!?", I yelled back.
"Alam mo kung ano masarap ngayon..!?"
I started chuckling; already knowing what he was about to say.
"Salted fried calamari and seafood soup!", he yelled with a grin on his face.

I gave out a laugh as I merged into Beacon Street to make the usual 10-minute journey to the 24-hour Grand Chow-chow Restaurant in Chinatown and gorge ourselves with their scrumptuous fried calamari and hearty seafood soup combo that has been our usual dishes after watching a gig or a simple night in the pub. Hell, we've done it often enough that the waiters know us by sight and pretty much recite our orders to us the moment we sit down.

What did I tell ya? Same old shit.

In the next few hours, I will walk into work looking like something out of one of George Romero's zombie flicks. I will try to get myself to become productive enough by bombing my system with enough caffeine to put an Ally McBeal neurosis episode to shame. And as usual, I will pretty much end up slacking off in front of my PC the entire day. Just about everything my "Week-night Rule" was supposed to prevent and then some. 

Although that night somehow, I felt like it was worth it. Some rules are worth occasionally breaking after all.

"Unofficial" or otherwise.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Copremesis Website:
www.copremesis.net
www.myspace.com/copremesis

Defeated Sanity performance videos:
-  Defeated Sanity, video 1
-  Defeated Sanity, video 2
-  Defeated Sanity, video 3

 

I decided to name the CR-V in the hopes that maybe treating it like a good drinking buddy would encourage me to become a better owner and not keep forgetting to take it for it's routine oil changes and maybe fill-up the tank every once in a while (horrific gas prices these days notwithstanding. someone should invent a car that runs on pee and then let's all just fork over the Nobel Peace Prize to the guy). I thought "Kiko" might be a good name to tag onto the car, never-mind the fact that it does bring up memories if the dead janitor fish I flushed down the toilet a year ago with the same namesake. Something about me not changing the aquarium water in over a year and forgetting to feed it a couple of times. Oh well.

Anyhoo, so I'm typing all this down now from one of the PC terminals in the dealership's waiting room, having brought "Kiko" in to the dealership for his 75,000 mile maintenance check since that little annoying "maintenance required" light on his dashboard has been on for a couple weeks now and it's one of those things that I just can't ignore anymore given how I keep getting paranoid about what could possibly go wrong the next time I take a long drive and find myself stuck in the middle of nowhere. Lord knows I've experienced that twice already to know how horrendous that feels. I think I went through an entire pack of Marlboros in a little over an hour the last time while I waited for roadside assistance to come bail me out. That's got to be a record of sorts around these parts. Hmm. Maybe I should check.

The guy doing the paperwork at the dealership told me that I haven't brought "Kiko" in for his 60,000 mile maintenance check as well and that hey, if I was taking the car in for the 75,000 one, why not just do the 60,000 check which is arguably more extensive for a little more than a hundred bucks, eh? The price for this particular service care for my newly-named mechanical buddy?  387 dollars, labor and parts included. I can almost hear a cash register ring in the distance and I think I caught him stifle a bit of a chuckle when I gave a resigned nod and signed the paperwork.

An hour into my wait and the same guy goes up to me and explains to me that the technician found out that one of the tin plates that covered Kiko's catalytic converter from the heat had fallen off and needs to be replaced. I spaced out. Huh. "Catalytic converter" sounds awfully cool and seems something like the Millennium Falcon would have so it begs to be protected. Lord knows we can't jump into hyperspace with an unprotected Catalytic Converter, right...!? I gave a resigned sigh and told service-guy to go ahead. Oh and how much would that be? "It's only 204 bucks, sir", he smiled. Somewhere in the distance a wookie screamed in triumph.

$387 plus $204 equals 591 fucking dollars and jolly good kick to the nuts.

I dunno if the air-conditioning here in the dealership is just fucking broken or maybe that exponentially-increasing warmth in my right ass-cheek is just a by-product of my smoldering wallet but hey! SEE HOW MUCH OF A "GREAT BUDDY" I'M BEING TO KIKO RIGHT NOW ...!? 

All I know is he better be a damn good wing-man and have Princess Leia in the passenger seat when they wheel him out of the service area.

*sigh*

I need a fucking cigarette.

 

I find myself slightly bemused while reading this particular blog entry by Gang Badoy of RockED. 

I've been living here in the US for 4 and a half years; long enough for me to have had the chance to have an "outside-looking-in" perspective about the socio-political issues our country has been dealing with and I'd have to say that I found myself nodding in agreement when she wrote this about us Filipinos: "Oo mabait tayo... kahit hindi dapat".

Sometimes, I feel like we're a nation of hopeless romantics and bleary-eyed dreamers. Day in and day out, we're bombarded by infuriating news about politicians and media personalities making an absolute mockery of logic and the public consciousness. We all see through their facades, call the bullshit of their words, we hear so much talk about how jaded and fed up we are ...and YET so many of our countrymen can be so quick to forgive and even quicker to forget.

I hear righteous indignation both from the online intellectuals and the wailing activists in the streets and I begin to wonder when that righteous indignation can ever translate into discernible positive change. I find myself wondering because I've been there. I've shouted the slogans before. Stayed up late writing papers, project proposals and correspondence. Even talked and urged the people we were trying to help; whose cause we were trying to fight for, to do their own part to push for change.

And yes, numerable changes have happened since then. But did any of it do anything to move us forward as a nation? Did any of it even make a lasting impression upon the collective maturity of the Filipino psyche?

Sometimes, I feel resigned to the idea that we're all doomed to repeat the same miserable mistakes of our past due to our bizarre tendency to forget every couple of years. We continue to watch movies and shows with the same rehashed and cliche`d plots and formats. We re-elect the same buffoons who've screwed us over again and again.

When will it end? I'm forced to admit that at this point, I don't think it ever will.

Maybe it's a cycle after all. Chaos leads to Revolution leads to Change leads to Progress leads to Complacency. And after a couple of years/decades, we find ourselves yet again in the throes of Chaos; ready to start the cycle all over again.

Nakakainis. Nakakalungkot. Nakakatuwa. Nakakaloko.
Ang daming problema. Ang daming reklamo.
Laging inis. Mababaw naman ang kaligayahan.
Sala sa init, sala sa lamig. Hindi mo alam kung magagalit, tatawa or magkikibit-balikat.

Juan DelaCruz can both be so infuriating and endearing at the same time.

We are assured however, that though it all, he does carry with him at at least two positive constants in his young journey:

Hope and a resilient smile.

 

Belated Happy Independence Day.

Gwyneth Paltrow's near-perfect casting as Pepper Potts.

John Favreau doing a terrific job with regards to selling the Iron Man comic property and not "cheesifying" it in the way the Ghost Rider  and Fantastic Four movies went.

And Robert Downey Jr.'s reneaissance as Tony Stark; Marvel's weapons-mogul-slash-genius turned gold-and-crimson-clad-tech-knight being nothing short of brilliant.

Just a couple of initial thoughts we were yapping about as me and a buddy of mine stood smoking outside the AMC Lowes Theater in Braintree, minutes after watching "Iron Man"; the opening salvo of this season's summer blockbuster flicks.

Incessant geektalk, cigarette butts and slight drizzling rain aside, it didn't take us long to overhear this particular snippet of conversation:

"Excuse me sir, are you leaving...? I was hoping you could help me out. Would you happen to have any jumper cables?"

It was from one thirty-something father with his son in tow, who had sheepishly walked over to a car driver sitting idly in front of the theater entrance waiting to pick someone up. The driver said no.

"Oh", the guy said, sounding very disappointed, and began surveying the wet parking lot for signs of cars leaving with a look of utter hopelessness and dejection. The drizzle was beginning to get stronger, and it didn't look like any of the parked cars were leaving any time soon.

I remembered the length of long-ignored jumper cables in the trunk of my CR-V. I was tempted to finish the last drag I had on my cigarette and duck back inside the theater when I distinctly recalled having found myself in an eerie familiar bind 2 years ago; blowing out my left back tire during a particularly rainy afternoon right in the middle of Interstate 93 and would've ended up stuck for the night if not for the help of a kind truck driver who went out of his way to park his 10-wheeler rig in the breakdown lane behind me and helped me fix my busted tire enough for the car to be able to drive on home.

Flicking the cig aside, I motioned to my buddy and we both walked over to the dejected father, who have now taken shelter with his son right at the theater entrance to avoid getting wet. The man was still surveying the parking lot for cars that might be leaving.

"Err... excuse me sir, but I kinda overheard you asking around for jumper cables. I have one in my car right now. Do you need a jump?", I asked.

The man brightened up, "Thank you so much!", and then added embarassingly, "...I took my kid here to watch Iron Man and kinda left my headlights on." 

"Hey, 'happens to all of us," I chuckled.

"Ugh, tell me about it," the man laughed back as he carried his son and walked with us to the car.

It only took us a probable five to eight minutes to drive my car around to where he was parked, pop both hoods open, connect the jumper cables to both batteries and pretty soon, have his engine roaring back to life to the muffled cheers of the guy's kid; who was now sitting in the comfort of his dad's passenger seat.

He extended a thankful hand to me just as I slammed down the hood of my car.

"Thanks a lot you guys. I really appreciate all the help"

I grinned back at him as I shook his hand. "Hey man, don't worry about it. 'Just paying it forward."

Hot damn. I've always wanted to say that.

I was still grinning with my buddy as we climbed into the CR-V and watched the father with his jubilant kid drive away into the now-pouring rain. Nothing like a good movie and helping someone out in one day, I guess.

Iron Man has a multi-million dollar suit of hi-tech armor.

I have a pair of jumper cables. Give or take, about 6 to 10 dollars.

Take that, Robert Downey JR.

I'm Jumper-Cable Guy.

 

....aaaand by "NEHMF", I mean the 2008 New England Hardcore and Metal Festival!

Alright, to be more accurate, ONE day until the NEHMF since the festival officially kick-starts on Friday (with the Megadeth-powered Gigantour line-up) but me and my buddy won't be driving to the Palladium in Worcester until Saturday. There's this friggin' thing called "work" that we have to attend to. Aaaaand the Friday line-up's pretty much sold-out.

Anyhoo, still a plethora of good metal and hardcore bands playing on the Saturday line-up but I'm actually looking forward to seeing Keep of Kalessin play, as well as getting a copy of their "Armada" album along with one of their shirts (which for some reason, I seem to have trouble finding online).

On a related tangent, I decided to just go nuts a month or two ago and have been growing both my facial and scalp hair just for this very occasion... which explains why my scalp now looks like a beaver up and left it's fur on top of my skull. Although on a more positive note..! -- the facial hair's not so bad. My disheveled beard only makes it look like I'm sporting an unkempt bushy italian vagina (or as I would call it: a "bushyvavahjeeh") right on my chin. And don't be upset at me about that bushy italian referrence. An online buddy who lived for two years in Italy coined the lovely description.

And YES. I do look like a fucking hobo. Or a true bona-fide 70s Hippie. Depends on who's looking at it, I guess.

Given how I plan to clean-up all the scruff for Monday after the Metalfest weekend (hell, I'm beginning to get some weird looks at work after all),  I just might go for the coup de grâce; buzz away at the sides of my scalp and go to the show wearing a mohawk in tandem with the bushyvavahjeeh.

"Ahm Mistah Tee and ahm ah night-elf mow-hawk!"
(...don't know what the relevance of the above statement is? Here's the link)

Should be a fun show, methinks.

In the meantime, Blue Hills Reservation along the Ponkapoag Trail exit in Milton off I-93 South is next on the scouting list this coming Saturday. I'm sure the listed 7000-acres should yield some nice spots for a couple of landscape photos. 'Heard there was an observation tower somewhere in the Reservation so I'll probably have to check that out as well and see if it's open for public access. Not really a lot of choices with regards to high vantage points in the area so methinks the tower's definitely worth checking out. Will probably have to bring the SLR along to help meter the lighting conditions and take some test shots. I'm just hoping the good weather holds up this Saturday but a jacket might not be such a bad idea despite the warm conditions these past couple of days given how it still tends to get pretty chilly around sundown.

And I've been winging it for over a year and a half now with my camera's 18-55mm kit lens. It's a nice lens to start off with but I feel like I've taken it as far as it can go. I think it's about time I treated myself to that 10-22mm wide-angle lens sometime in June/July; which should also perfectly coincide with my planned shoots in Bare Cove and Blue Hills around that time frame.

If everything falls into place, this could shape up to be quite a productive spring and summer. If I get into a good groove, I might even be able to pull off either the Lighthouse photo series or the Cape Cod shoots I've been ruminating on all winter.

10:30 pm: Went to Outback Steak House with my buddy Jan to get a couple of beers at the bar and watch the US speedskaters in their "Damn-it-I-will-not-wear-that-stretchy-Hey-everyone-look-at-my-balls" speedskating suits try to win a couple of medals in the Winter Olympics.

10:45 pm: Barely 15 minutes after we sat our fat asses on the bar stools and our beers only half-empty, the bartender already gives us our bill. "You guys closing already?", I asked incredulously. Apparently, I haven't been chummy enough with the bar scene here in our area to know that bars here close early (about 11 to 12 pm) during the weekends. Jan and I decide to just go back to his house and have a go at that Tanqueray Gin Bottle he's keeping.

11:00 pm to 12:00 pm: Jan cranks out his Pinoy CDs on the player (care for Typecast, The Late Isabel, Greyhoundz, Kamikazee... anyone?) while we keep tabs on who's had more shots of the gin and try to keep up, popping salt & vinegar flavored chips on our mouths like crazy.


1:00 am: I'm dead drunk. The gin bottle's about empty. According to Jan I've got two shots more on him but hell... the guy's as friggin' drunk as I am and dimwits in our condition aren't really popular for our counting skills. I can barely walk straight to the bathroom upstairs without grabbing the handrail with both hands. Jan tells me to crash in his place for the night.

1:15 am: After drinking a couple of glasses of water in hopes of somehow diluting the alcohol in my system, I do the most stupid thing I've ever done since I got here: I got behind the wheel hammered on gin and drove home.

Somewhere between 1:45 to 2:00 am: I dunno how I did it but I somehow got home in one piece. I swore off gin for the rest of my life and was tearing off layers of my clothing on my way to my bedroom and probably passed out even before my head hit the pillows.

11:30 am: I wake up with with the feeling like there's a battle of epic proportions a la "Lord of the Rings" being waged just inside my skull. I sluggishly got up and made my way to the bathroom, swearing off gin for the rest of my life.

11:45 am: Realizing that I need to get some food in my stomach, I slouched my way into the kitchen to see my teen sister chopping onions and tomatoes. "Anong lulutuin mo?", I asked. "Tuna", Kaye replied, just as I spied the openned up can of tuna on the counter. "Pahingi ha?", I said. She grunted back just as she started sauteing her ingredients in the sizzling oil pan and squeezed a liberal amount of ketchup in it. "Ba't mo nilalagyan ng ketsap...?", I asked. "Eh sa gusto ko eh!", she snapped back. Fair enough, I thought as I eased my way into a chair in the kitchen, massaged my thrumming skull and swore off gin for the rest of my life.

12:00 noon: "Food's done!", my sister called out and put her finished product right in front off me. I eyed the smoking heap of tuna, tomatoes and onions in front of me with a certain degree of suspicion and sighed what the heck... it's food, one way or another. I put a careful amount of it in my spoon, put it in my mouth and started chewing. I closed my eyes as the taste of the Tomatoe team aided with the Ketchup Cavalry easily kicked the asses of the Tuna and Onion team. "What do you call this dish again?", I asked my sister who was happily digging in on her 'masterpiece'. "Tuna with Onions and Tomatoes!", she said. Should've been Tomatoes with Onions and Tuna, I thought. Kinda like how Pork & Beans should've been renamed as "Canned-Beans-with-One-Tiny-Pork-Goodluck-Trying-to-Look-for-It-You-Imbeciles" kind of thing

1:00 pm: My stomach starts rumbling. Man, that Tomatoe-Tuna-Onion dish isn't getting along with my stomach, I thought. I ran to the kitchen sink just as my stomach decided it really didn't like my sister's dish one bit and kicked it out by way of my mouth. I spent 10 friggin' minutes puking on the sink as my stomach cleared itself of tomatoes, tuna and onions. "So much for lunch", I mumbled as I wiped my mouth and cleaned up my mess.

2:00 pm: I decide to take a shower just to get some water pounding on my thrumming head. Just as I got stripped, my stomach realized there's still some more of my sister's dish inside it and kicked it out. I spend another 10 minutes puking on the bathroom sink, swearing off gin for the rest of my life with every heave.

2:10 pm: I finally got under the shower and turned on the warm water. Ice-cold water sprayed out of the shower head, making me jerk back. I waited for the water to warm up for 10 minutes, clutching my body as I shivered from the cold before I realized that my sister just finished her hour-long "I-don't-care-if-you-shit-in-your-pants" bath routine and probably used up all the hot water. It'll probably take a half-hour for the hot water to recover so I just winged it and thought: "Cold water it is then".

2:20 to 2:30 pm: Spent the ten minutes under the shower violently shivering while lamenting how my stay here in the US has softened up my body's alcohol tolerance, blaming it on sissy light beer and federally-regulated alcohol-content laws. Also alternatingly cursed the ice-cold water, my throbbing headache, and swore off gin for the rest of my life.

2:35 pm: Dried off from the shower, my stomach decided to have one more mop-up operation. I spent 5 more minutes of my day puking whatever's left of my stomach's contents and dry-heaving for 5 more. Groaned and swore off gin.

2:45 pm: Decided I've had it and crashed back into bed. Flew off to La-la land in just a couple of minutes.

5:30 pm: Woke up with my head feeling a whole lot better. There's still a battle in there alright, but it's probably just Gimli and Legolas one upping each other as they rack up "who-kills-the-most-orcs" points compared to the Battle for Middle-Earth headache I had a couple of hours ago. Spent another 10 minutes just lying in bed before I decided to get up and see what's on TV.

5:40 pm: Met my sister in the hallway and gave her a hug. "Your Tomatoes with Onions and Tuna dish made me puke so hard I probably emptied my stomach of whatever alcohol I had left in there!", I cheerfully exclaimed. She sniggered, pushed me away and said: "Gago!". I laughed as I made my way to the living room.

5:45 pm: Decided I should put this miserable experience here on my blog for me to look back on a couple of months from now and laugh at. Seriously though, I really think it was pretty dumb and irresponsible of me to drive under such an alcohol-impaired state last night.   I was very lucky I didn't crash into anything or that even if I couldn't remember if I was swerving or not, there weren't any cop cars on my way. The last thing I need is for me to land myself in the freaking hospital or in the local police drunk tank, which is probably going to make mom go into fits either way. I've had a clean record so far since I got here: I haven't gotten myself into any kind of trouble, job's okay, finally quit smoking, worked out a couple of my kinks with my mom and my sis... so I'd have to say even if it looked like I trivialized it a bit here in my entry, I am kinda disappointed in myself. I won't drink and drive again. Life's just too precious for me to be that irresponsible with myself like that. I don't want to bite the bullet too early. There's a lot of stuff that I've yet to do, plus I've got mom and kaye to worry about.

I probably won't be keeping my "No-More-Gin" Oath for long, but I should know better to surrender my car keys to whoever the hell it is I'm with next time I get hammered and stay where the hell I am for the night until I'm finally okay to drive...

...That or until I've had another round of my sister's special Tomatoes with Onion and Tuna dish.

Sometimes, you just tend to overthink stuff.

I love Gary Larson's "The Far Side" gallery of comic strips. It's twisted. It's weird...

It's like reading a strip while toked up on mushrooms... minus the mushrooms.

Haven't really blogged anything for eons and I'm not really stoked about starting another one here in multiply when I still have my xanga blog with 3 years worth of entries up and running over there. I do seem to remember trying to maintain a multiply site about... oh I dunno, a year ago(?) before some freak of human nature deleted that account.

I could import some of my xanga entries over here though.

Hmmm...

Or I could upload my photos from the 2006 and 2007 Boston Tattoo Conventions over here.

Crud, I'm pretty much just typing to myself over here what with this gad-awful boring day at work.

I really should be tinkering around with our databases and business reports. Whoop-dee-doo-dah. That should be fucking fun.

*sigh*

oh alright... I'm going back to work.