Screw this.

It's 7:52. Plans of going home=nil. The whirr of the aircon. Alone again in a two-room office. The hard rain that just died down. Noises from vehicles. The semi-bitter after taste of orange juice. Christmas lights from the department store up front visible from the slits of the window sills. Picture frames in front of me that should convey meaning, but don't. The music player that stopped playing my self-professed favorite person of the year. I want to shrink or implode and let the universe just forget about me. Dammit. Fuck this spontaneity. Fucking overrated.

No surprises

When I realized that I left my laptop charger on top of a table inside a municipal gym somewhere in Davao del Sur, it was already too late. Or maybe not really that late; the vehicle could turn back, amidst the drizzle, and allow myself to realize once more how disoriented I am. I should be alarmed. I know a charger costs that much enough for me to surrender one more time my desire to buy a new pair rubber shoes, a pair that has eluded me for more than a year now, hell, like forever. How destitute, yes. But I wasn’t alarmed. And I am even more alarmed that I wasn’t surprised I wasn’t alarmed at all, enough to just shrug it off and tell my companion if she can just check with the people there tomorrow if they’ve seen the stupid charger. I checked at a computer store and found out that a universal laptop charger costs 2,700. The Adidas shoes I’ve been eyeing since 1939 costs 2,995. So there, goodbye Adidas. Waking up the next day, my sister pointed out that the stupid charger is sitting comfortably atop the DVD player, one of the most reliable, cheap things I’ve bought. In my mind - Oh - and I wasn’t surprised at all. My usual self would have attributed it to some craptastic supernatural shit. But I took it and put it in the bag as if it was some lost pen I’ve stopped searching and caring for.

I didn’t event surprise myself smoking a joint, something I haven’t done in, what, like an eternity? I had three joints (not marijuana, as the am-slang would usually put it) for the past two weeks and don’t plan to go back at lighting one, but lately I saw what used to be my favorite brand and felt an inexplicable itch. It’s as if the joint and my lips are meant to make some forbidden kind of love. It’s obscene I know, but again, didn’t bother myself at all. Is this from reading too much Ellis? Obviously not because the characters in an Ellis book are either usually drugged out, boozed out of fucked up. I am not some Clay Easton or Victor Ward (Glamorama I am reading now; Less Than Zero I just finished), and don’t aspire to be, but the disaffection kind of transcends from the pages of the book to my own version of fucked-up reality. A few days back, or maybe a week ago, I caught myself staring blankly at the wooden stairs. Or maybe I didn’t really catch myself at all. The distance between the steps, the spaces between the cacophonies of neighborhood sounds, are solar systems, eternities away. You know, it’s really kind of dangerous. The plunge into those unknown eternities can pull you into oblivion that you need to have some kind of earthly force to pull you back. It’s like spacing out from too much dope only ten times scarier, I think, though I haven’t really spaced out because of dope, though, for the nth time, I think it wouldn’t even surprise me at all.

existentially beleaguered

They call it microblogging but for whatever purpose it may serve to other Facebook users but the ubiquitous box wherein you place your thoughts is for me the most easiest I can get to a rant, or an outlet. So thanks, Mr. Zuckerberg, whom I just read in GQ’s men of year as, what else, 2008’s “Boy Genius”. (Jon Hamm who’s terrific as Don Draper is on the cover.)

But back to the FB thought-box. So I was posting that I was kind of “existentially beleaguered”. Besieged was the first word, but mukhang OA. That mood kind of pervaded for around 2 weeks, which is actually kind of long already (sometimes a different thought would appear the next day, or even within a day as sometimes I post good quotes from books, novels, personalities and from wherever I get these pretentiously sensible crap. The thought posting is actually kind of fun, eliciting a plethora of reactions and what-have-yous from friends.

A colleague asked why was I “existentially beleaguered”. I can’t provide the answer, to my surprise, and I had been placing it for around 2 weeks. When I heard the first bout of Christmas songs wafting in the commercialized air of the yuletide, that’s when it hit me. I always get this mood, which is actually a shitty kind of mood to feel given that everybody’s all giddy-up for the season. I felt this last year, and just like the universe’s many inexplicable mysteries, I dunno why I give a shit. Or maybe I don’t really. I still like the Christmas songs though. But maybe I lost something, or what? Christmas is not for me, its for the corporate slugs and people who have fat pockets after the season because of humongous bonuses that seem to pile up their already humongous paychecks. I need to have some fun, right? I’m just fucking thinking too much probably.

boobtube boohoos

What is the most schizo show on local TV today? Roughly translated, it's us two, if you get what I mean and if you watch it in the first place. Oh I do catch it sometimes, and there's no point really trying to battle it out with the rest of the household because the goddamn TV that we have is such a crap. By crap means 5 channels. I don't really know if there are a dozen of schizo shows out there on local tv but I can single out the star-studded ABS show that smacks accolade-naming right in your face if only to compensate how lame-ass the "main stars" are. One minute is like a badly drawn dramatic sketch but then you really couldn't say if it is what it depicts itself to be or maybe a fucking comedy because the joke is really on us. You thought a particular moment was great acting, like in the case of Jake, who I think does better in some scenes than Amboy Gerald who delivers his lines in spasmic gasps you think he's dying or something like a bad case of hiccups. But then who are you kidding really. It's the usual disposable junk they churn out. And of course, there's Kim Mantis whose idea of acting prowess is through crying a Ganges river of tears. But what's the point right? Who gives a damn for people who appreciate 30 Rock, because they practically have cable tv anyway, or like me who have to resort to buying bootleg. Which I think I'll have to talk about in another entry because it's really fucking hilarious I can't even begin to cite which episode.

On a sidenote, I think I just came. Shit, the day ends fantabulously at least. A friend just forwarded to me Fat Segal's full version of the Skins theme, which is already too much since I was just looking for the 26 second version of it. I'm on a unit in a friggin' net cafe because martial law has been deployed on anything related to download at the office. So I asked my friend over YM to download and email it to me. So I'm like listening to it now and having a friggin' time of my life. In Cassie's words: lovely. And she's drugged and has not eaten in three days.

I'm suppose to continue on another boobtube boo-hoo but it suddenly, wait... yes, another freak of nature, Papa P, sang the Idol song this year on ASAP. The show is kinda so-so compared to crap they put up in the other channel. Fuck, he sounds like a balloon out of helium that I can see the veins on his neck on the verge of eruption. Plus, why do they even let him sing? Even Martin wasn't any good. Proof that we should refrain from being too updated because it would just suck, and they sound like phonies singing something which they think would make them cool and hip. Again, pointless inquiry. Ladies, people, would put up with it, notwithstanding.

Should I talk about the recent AI results? Well it's not really recent but I would just like to say that I predicted Kris when he sang Ain't No Sunshine. I think that's 9 weeks before the big showdown. Like when I predicted it to be Cook when he did that awesome version of Billy Jean, that was way before the Always be my Baby craze. Again, 9 weeks before he crushed Archuleta. I dunno if that says something.

Death and his friends.

I don't want a battle from beginning to end
I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge
I don't wanna follow death all of his friends.
-Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, 2008

It's Easter and I'm talking about death. Christ resurrected today so I really should be talking about life or renewal, or anything like it but I'm not really capable of such. And I think I've run out of things to say about life for the moment, especially since I always equate it with suffering and perpetual struggle. Before I fell asleep last night, which was Black Saturday, this Coldplay song was the last one I heard on the mp3 player. It can be pretty vague, the meaning. But that last line may as well be fear, I dunno. Death, after all is as inescapable as life, or so the phenomenology stuff we've managed to get ourselves into in our collegiate philosophical discourses would make us believe. The first cry of the then unborn signifies the inevitability of its final breath. Death is like life's partner easily put. This month, about 5 immediate family members of my colleagues died, mostly because of some illness. Last Monday, an aunt of a friend whom I briefly met in Manila died of a chopper crash. That's too much death in a month I would say. The office ought to be blessed or exorcised with whatever demons or curse it has, again I say. Because this silly idea of a death pattern perpetrated by the Final Destination series has again to me occurred. FD was kind of influential because after seeing the first installment, morbid thoughts on ways one dies occur to me regularly. While in transit, I'll imagine a monstrous vehicular accident and bloodbath. Walking on streets, I get a feeling of worn-out sharp debris like GI sheets or metal tubes bludgeoning the unmindful passersby. And blood, blood like geysers out of decapitated limbs courtesy of The Bride. Then came the sometimes funny and insignificant ways people die at the start of every Six Feet Under episode made me feel like shit sometimes. The fascination over death turns into it being a normalcy, a kind of everyday happening, deduced into a newspaper headline or an exclusive TV report. A statistic that becomes significant over time decorated with all kinds of analyses. But how do we discount the loss, the pain, the anguish, the years? Who am I really kidding with a veneer of bravery?

Doppelgangers and lobsters

Third consecutive night of staying late at the office. Sorta big thing tomorrow, by office approximations. Last night, I logged out around 230am. At midnight, I saw our guard's doppelganger. Might be my astigmatism. Second time I saw something like it though. I told my colleague before she has one and she jumped at me. Friday night I was with 2 guy colleagues here also and out of the blue I plugged in Smashing Pumpkins and crazily mimicked Billy Corgan's voice doing Butterfly With Bullet Wings. "Despite of my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage." Junee freaked out with the freakish precision. Then I did Gary V's Di Bale na Lang. Hay. Stress and the boundaries of insanity it pushes you to.

Anyway, I caught this short story by Woody Allen in The New Yorker in the light of the Madoff hullabaloo and its whirlwind of entanglements. The story is hilarious though, about fucked-up clients who ended up as lobsters to exact their revenge on the crazy sonofabitch by pincering his nose.

When at a loss for words...

...give them that look on your face.

quatre coups

(A) Four places I go over and over:

Davao-Bukidnon-Cagayan Road – I’d trade a plane ride for a land trip in this long strip of Mindanao landscapes.

Booksales of Victoria Plaza and NCCC Mall – In about a year, I will prolly memorize every book in every nook and cranny in these sections of the local malls.

Piracy havens of Davao City -- Because of the intensified campaign of OMB, I’d rather not divulge the specific locations or else I wouldn’t enjoy scouring my precious films anymore.

The bathroom -- how in the hell would i get clean...hehehe... (*evil grin*)

(B) Four people who e-mail me regularly: people of the Mindanao Bloggers forum; people at Google Alerts who keep updating me on Mindanao, BIMP-EAGA and peace and development news; wait that’s a lot of people already…

(C) Four of my favorite places to eat? If you’d see me now then you’d prolly say I’d eat anywhere as long as there is good food…

(D) Four places you'd rather be? A wheat farm in Oklahoma or fishing village in Rhode Island; a vineyard or apple orchard in the French Riviera; a stone house in one of the islands off Sicily; or a nipa/makeshift hut in the Phi Phi Islands of Thailand.

(E) Four people I think will respond: ugh, I hate to impose but bad sex daw for 4 years (*evil grin*) JP, Chard, Mauro, and Kuya Jon (you have to ‘Ya, hehehe).

(F) Four TV shows I could watch over and over: Arrested Development, The Practice, Six Feet Under (even though I haven’t finished all seasons yet), and Roswell or X-Files.

Everybody wants to rule the world.

Dahil kelangan ko ng muna ng diversion and jumpstarting activity dahil holiday ngayon at eto ako nagpapakasasa sa trabaho. Hi Chard, I'm finally responding to the tag.

Three things that scare me:
1. cockroaches (and smashing them to death till their icky juices come out of their exoskeleton)
2. (I'm not afraid of death but I'm afraid of) dying alone and dying young
3. heights (dahil wala na akong maisip at talaga naman nakakalula pag tumingin ka sa ibaba)

Three people who make me laugh:
1. friends
2. ang walang-kamatayang patutsada ni Rosie Buhian
3. Tobias Funke, AnalRapist (analyst and therapist)

Three things I love:
1. the arts (film, literature, visual arts)
2. music
3. food (syempre)

Three things I hate:
1. slow internet connection (or the lack of it.. work related.. hehe)
2. check network services status
3. overpriced things (because I can't buy them)

Three things I don't understand:
1. understanding itself
2. love's shenanigans
3. Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel

Three things on my desk:
1. laptop
2. cp
3. notebook

Three things I'm doing right now:
1. sinasagutan 'to
2. nakikinig sa 80s music (Now Playing: Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney - The Girl is Mine)
3. figuring when I will have the motivation to start working

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. write a screenplay
2. get an award for it
3. have lots of children

Three things I can do:
1. sing
2. dance
3. act (artista ata ito...hahaha)

Three things I can't do:
1. drive a car
2. think for a long time (and produce output) while people are noisily chitchatting
3. mag-audition for PBB

Three things I think you should listen to:
1. inner peace
2. the sound of music
3. dashboard confessional

Three things you should never listen to:
1. when people say you can't
2. words that come out of know-it-alls
3. paris hilton

Three things I would like to learn:
1. astrophysics
2. foreign languages
3. screenwriting

Three favorite foods:
1. tortang talong
2. spaghetti
3. instant noodles

Three shows I watched as a kid:
1. Sineskewela
2. Batibot
3. Okidokidok

Three people I'm tagging:
1. Isko
2. Jap
3. Mitchie (dahil kelangan mo ng exposure)

Jayclops Simpson

Got this from Mitchie. Not a particular fan of The Simpsons but I badly need some diversion. Simpsonize yourself here.

corn cob on the loose.

Doesn't this sound more like a basketball superstar? Anyway, the caricature is cool.

Your Porn Star Name Is...

Magic Johnson

What's Your Porn Star Name?

i should learn French.

How apt. I would really really infinity really love to learn French and maraud in Paris. I think it's the perfect place to learn new things about/and for yourself. Huh, I'm sounding like Russel Crowe in A Good Year.

You Should Learn French

C'est super! You appreciate the finer things in life... wine, art, cheese, love affairs. You are definitely a Parisian at heart. You just need your tongue to catch up...

What Language Should You Learn?

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