Yep, unfortunately, I will no longer be able to tend to my garden of blogs starting well, next month when I again surrender to the call of money and prestige. I tell ya, corporate slavery is an affliction and making money the usual way is an incurable addiction. True I could have made money on my own just sitting on my ass the entire day and just bang away at the keyboard but somehow, it felt kinda lonely. I am already alone in this part of this universe and to spend the rest of my days basking in my computer’s glare and talking only to the demons inside my head is something that I can’t do forever. No matter how comfortable I am at being alone, it seems I am still a social animal and would require several avenues for contact to feed my subconscious beast. The SO’s visits, although increased in frequency, were still not enough to quench my thirst for banter, for interaction with creatures of the same species.

So creeping headaches aside, I think I’ll continue to blog and surf and read the things that I read online until the first fingernail of the sun start scratching my heavily draped windows. That’s the only time when I know I should stop.

As an aside, it’s funny how certain words bring to mind memories of things that have affected us greatly in the past. Take the word masquerade for example. There was this girl during my early years who would suddenly burst into song whenever she felt a certain kind of feeling. Not that I know the specifics for her bursting out so suddenly but I do know that she always sings the first few words of this wonderful song. I was heavily infatuated with that girl, truth be told, but it wasn’t something that I pursued seriously knowing that I have already chained myself to a rock that now resides in the bottom of the ocean– something that I can no longer break away from nor did I ever entertain any thoughts of breaking away. Heh.

A character in Beck, one of my favorite animes of all time said that music has the power to change the world. Perhaps that’s a rather lofty ambition but I do think that it can change an individual. If anything this song has made me a firm believer of Phylum Band’s music. I checked out all their other songs and I thought it’s such a shame that these guys are not doing any gigs in Manila. I would move heaven and earth just to watch them (lame).

For those who don’t understand Bisaya, the band has come up with a tagalog version of the song titled Laro Laro. I still have to hear the song and I’m searching high and low all over the internet and couldn’t find it. I hope it gets published online soon. If you want to know more about the band, they have their own website at http://phylumband.multiply.com. It’s a crappy site though. lol. I think I can do better and for free at that. Heck I’ll even create a .com site if they want.

Sabot Sabot is about a guy and a girl who had an affair with the condition that once the girl’s boyfriend comes back from somewhere they’d end it. When the bf returned, the guy actually ended the relationship as agreed and hoped that he will be able to forget the unique kind of happiness he felt whenever he’s with her. But wait, theres more! Now the guy feels hurt everytime he sees the girl and the boyfriend together and asks the usual universal question:

Why only now?

Cheesy na kung cheesy, but the singer’s voice captured all the prerequisite emotion to convey the song’s message. The song also has a good ebb and flow melody that carries the listener to the depths of the hurting guys pain (argh, somebody stop me!).

There’s not much point in this article really, just a little power tripping maybe in trying to dominate the Google search rankings for San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok. And then there’s nostalgia.

The memory of me literally kissing the hallowed walls of SLRAP men’s toilet because some jerk-assed rich kid who wrote a few letters as a tribute to some bald economics teacher remains fresh in my mind to this day. Which was kinda vexing because when I visited the same toilet a few years ago, there was practically no space left to vandalize that I wondered whether the discipline of the school has relaxed or whether the current students there are simply uncontrollable. I don’t know which is which, and whether at present the same still applies.

I do know that back then, when I was studying there, vandalism was treated like the plague. Fine, this was the time of Magellan but still. Oh well, whatever.

I could still remember the time when the school had a different name. It was Jose L. Valencia Academy I think, and sometime during my stay there, the school got renamed to San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok. It wasn’t a very happy day for the alumni of Jose L. Valencia Academy for sure but there were no mass demonstrations that happened when the powers that be decided to change the name. Not unlike the protests that happened here in Manila when the Yuchengco group wanted to change the name of Mapua Institute to some other god-awful name which of course resulted to the school retaining it’s name.

It must have been hard for those who graduated under the Jose L Valencia Academy to realize that the four years they studied under that school have been completely erased, reduced to ignominy (sorry, I’m being cruel here). It must be terrible to attend a high school grand reunion and not see the original name of your school. Again, oh well.

Still, it’s nice to remember once in a while my old high school, all those silly hand-holdings behind the science lab, the legend of Ilyang and Tibor, the indomitable and forever-Miss Fajanela (gad, how we used to quarrel back then), and of course the eternal principal Mrs Lamboso (not sure if she’s still the principal now).

For sure I’ll be revisiting San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok one of these days, if only to remember that once upon a time, I was part of its shrieking and hysterical high school student body who once wholeheartedly believed that SLRAP is the greatest high school on the face of the earth. And you know what, it might well be– as far as SLRAPians (what an absurd monicker, lol) are concerned.

Anyway I saw a video of Haley singing King of Leon’s Use Somebody in an acoustic version and I thought she sounded really good. Unfortunately I think her version can’t quite capture the emotional range of the original. Which is only natural I think. It’s quite a feat to be able to sound better than the original especially more so in this case when it seems the song has been created only for the frontman of KoL.

If only one of my friends could read this, I would tell him that this is for him. Dude, you gotta stop feeling sorry for yourself, it’s fucking gay.

Having freed myself from my former life’s bondage, one would think that I would be eagerly jumping from one bus to another excited to see the world. That’s not what’s happening however. I have instead indulged myself in all those things that I’ve only been ‘stealing’ before. Those guilty pleasures that have kept me up all night and and were the cause of my perennial grogginess in the office.

I’m reading manga like crazy and re-discovering the joy of writing. Writing however has become a more multi-faceted tool in my case. I still write ‘stuff’, but I balance it out with err.. commercial activities. Whoever said that you can’t mix business with pleasure has a cork stuffed somewhere in the vicinity of his genitalia.

Back to Mondays. It’s a pretty amazing feeling to have a three-day weekend every time. Although I am no longer confined to hours and should not have a care in the world as to what time or what day of the week it is. I still like to keep an unofficial work week. Maybe it’s something that has been deeply ingrained but having my own peculiar work week allows me to schedule things. And lord knows I need to schedule things.

Nevetheless it’s pretty amazing how a stress free life feels. I wish everyone gets to experience this thing even for a short while. And just because I’ve banned Monday from my ‘work life’, here’s Hey Monday!

The acoustic version is more fantastic but youtube.com won’t allow it to be embedded. Boo. Still, check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnvxqiMiIcA

The SO has been worried about my health because I’ve been staying up very late everyday it’s almost like I’m only sleeping every other day. I’m not really doing anything in particular, well blogging, yeah, and some other personal projects. But the idea of sleeping only when I’m on the verge of collapsing is fucking awesome. You sleep dreamless sleeps and you sort of pass out the moment your head touches your pillow.

For almost 120 days now, I’ve been doing whatever it is I felt like doing interrupted only by the necessary errands ordered by she-who-must-be-obeyed. I’ve been fishing every weekend too which is really awesome by the way. Some folks fish to get away from the stress brought about by their daily work. But when you’re fishing and you don’t have any stress to speak of? Bliss man, absolute fucking bliss.

Sorry for the cussing. I don’t know why but when I was driving back home after one of those errands (haaay) I felt like cussing. I wasn’t angry or anything, perhaps I just felt like imitating one of my former mates who cusses like a pirate when he gets drunk. In english. Fuckin’ A. That’s what he likes to say.

Anyway, back to the song. Don’t you think it’s kinda sad when you’re only happy 3x a week? Not that such was the message of the song but in a lot of cases I know, even a thrice weekly happiness cycle is quite rare. People are mostly miserable. Shit, when I was working I was miserable 5x a week. True I got more money then than things to buy (wahaha) but it couldn’t buy me any frigging happiness. I still felt miserable every single day.

Oh well, no need to take that bus.

It would be horrifying to be a fish I think. Although that’s always been the natural order of things. The food chain if you will. Nature has designed this predator-prey system so the strong can prey upon the weak. Natures intention however was for the strong to be able to eat the weak although it frowns on same species feasting.

I thus find it reprehensible that men would hunt or fish for sport. Even more reprehensible are those catch-and-release fishing variety. For fuck’s sake man, if you’re gonna catch fish, then dammit eat the fucking thing! Unless there’s really a compelling reason why you have to release it.

Oh well, man is a vicious being and sometimes getting an explanation on some of the barbaric things that men do can be futile.

In my case, the life of the fishes I’ve taken nourished a few friend’s stomachs, although I can’t get myself to partake of the food they’ve become. Looking at the now grilled fishes, I can still see them squirming while life exited slowly from their gills.

What can one really say to that? Sorry?

Here in the province, people are greatly divided over Noynoy Aquino, or Manny Villar, or Gibo Teodoro. Personally, despite my non-voting persona, I am leaning towards Gibo. It seems to me, despite his distasteful association, he will be the one who can cause some serious dent on Philippine politics. He’s been called an ingrate by Danding Cojuangco once– which is not necessarily a bad thing. It just goes to show that the guy has backbone to not lick the ass of those who have given him money if what he thinks is right.

Manny Villar? Phooey! If he’s got his integrity in the right place, he wouldn’t even be running in the first place. But what can you do, the Filipino people have shown time and time again their short term memory syndrome that they can’t look past the here and the now. But Villar? Really? If we had the honor gene, that guy would have bought a rope by now and you know.

And what about Noynoy. Give me a frigging break. The guy has everything handed to him in a silver platter. When you have giants for a mommy and a daddy, then you practically have doors opening for you. Must we open the door to Malacanang for him then? True, as Conrado de Quiros said, those who don’t aspire for the mantle of governance are those that could ‘potentially’ govern the most might be true, but you can say that to every infant still in diapers. Unfortunately this isn’t applicable to Noynoy. Sorry Conrad. If we go by Noynoy’s political performance, dang, let’s not go there. And now without anything to back him up except mommy and daddy and his reluctance to take on that double edged position, are we just gonna bend over and let him fuck as over? Puhleaassee.

Anyway, I still do not think that Gibo can really turn everything upside down within six years but I’m hoping that he can.

If I’m to diagnose the ills of Philippine society, it’s not really the lofty halls of Malacanang that needs radical change (though that would be a huge huge achievement if we can have somebody there who can think, has a backbone, and for one fricking half-dozen years not think of enriching himself) it’s the basic community.

The Philippines unfortunately is a feudal country disguised as a democracy. Consider the number of provinces in the country and examine how many families have been lording over these same provinces for decades now? Political families are the new royalty. Well it’s not really new, it’s been happening for decades, and titles such as governor and congressman are kept within the family.

How many times have we seen it? First it’s the father, then the mother, then the son, and then the father again. If that’s not monarchy, then there’s no tea in iced tea, there’s no chicken in arroz caldo, there’s no cream in ice cream, theres no… But you get the point.