Stupid E-pass Machine!

I can't remember when this happened exactly, I think it was last week. My mom and I went to the mall just to pick up a few things from the grocery, then I remembered that the e-pass in the car had already run out of credits or load or whatever you call what's in it, and there was this e-pass load dispensing machine thing right beside the mall's entrance. So we went to the machine and my mom gave me a crisp thousand peso bill. So I pressed on the 1000 peso value card button and then the machine asked me to insert the bill into the slot, and I did, and in went the money. Then to my surprise, it said on the screen: "Amount Escrowed: 100 pesos". What the f*ck!!! I tried to cancel the transaction but there wasn't any option on the screen to do that and a few moments later, the screen just went to the original welcome "page" or whatever. I was like, 'stupid fricking machine, give me back my thousand bucks!!!' Well, it wasn't really my money, but whatever. The stupid thing "ate" the thousand peso bill and recognized it as just 100 bucks! So naturally I called the emergency number printed on top of the machine and the person who answered said she really couldn't do anything since their office hours are only from 8am to 6pm. What??!?!?!?! Shouldn't their emergency services be available 24/7 or just as long as those stupid machines are available for use by the public? So I said, "So there's absolutely nothing you can do right now?" and she said, "I'm so sorry but the best I can do is take your name and contact number and you'll have to wait until 8am tomorrow for somebody to process your complaint." So what was I supposed to do? Nothing. There was no point in getting angry, that's not going to get the money back any faster. So I just grudgingly gave her the contact details and asked for her complete name so that I would know who exactly I should hound the next day. In fairness to them, they put the money back into the epass account the following day. Lesson learned: don't buy epass load from a machine after 6pm.

Gonuts Pizza!

Last night my mom came home carrying a huge box that said "Gonuts Pizza!" and I expected to see a rectangular pizza inside (something similar to Magoo's Pizza), but was surprised to see little individually packaged pizzas that look like donuts. I later on thought, "Oh riiiiightttt... there were pictures of teeny weeny pizzas on the front of the box, duh!" My mom said these things are selling like crazy. Remember that time when the store first opened and people just went nuts and bought boxes and boxes of the stuff, and you even had to reserve the donuts or fall in line that's miles long and then there was a time when they actually had to set a limit as to how many boxes of donuts each person can buy, that was just insane! Well, it's not like that this time, only just a bit. My mom did make a reservation for this box 'cause she tried buying these pizzas the other day and the day before that and they were all out.


So, is it good? I guess so, but I didn't go like, "Omigod! Heaven in my mouth!" like I do when I eat something really really good. The pizza crust tastes like a donut... that is not sweet. You can't exactly eat the pizza straight out, it's actually only half cooked, you need to put it in the oven, microwave, or toaster. I tried using the microwave for one pizza, I just heated the pizza for a minute, then I used the oven toaster for another, I let it heat for about 5 minutes until the cheese melted and the crust browned a bit. Naturally, the one that came from the toaster was yummier. The one that I heated in the microwave tasted basically the same, but the texture was rubbery. So it would really be better to heat these things in the oven toaster or a conventional oven, but if you're in a real hurry, the microwave would do just fine, that is, if you like rubbery food.

Flavors? Hmm, there was hawaiian, cheese, pepperoni, and I think ham.


How much do they cost? 29php up to 35php a piece. How big are they? I guess as big as a donut.

Vegetarian Chicharon???

Chicharon (deep fried pork rinds) is among the list of my favorite snacks, however, the mere mention of its name makes the back of my neck ache and my arteries constrict. I mean, it is fat cooked in another vast pool of fat. Fat that swam in fat. If that doesn't scream cholesterol and heart attack, I don't know what does. So my heart sang with joy when I discovered that there is such a thing as VEGETARIAN chicharon. It was actually a friend of mine who discovered this wonderful new creation, she brought one during our summer swimming and passed the bag around for everyone to share. I wasn't even aware that what I was munching on was of the vegetarian variety. It's not that it tastes so much like the real pork chicharon, but its more of the texture that resembles the real thing. And what I love about it is the salt and vinegar flavor. I think I've been eating it everyday for 5 days now. I'm actually snacking on a bag of it right now, LOL! The brand is Oishi, and the name is Marty's Cracklin' with the description: Salt and Vinegar Flavor, Vegetarian Chicharon, Old Fashioned Style, Zero grams trans fat, 0% Cholesterol, Guilt Free. It's not exactly guilt free since it packs 400 calories per bag (70grams). I guess you're not supposed to eat one bag all by yourself since it says 2.5 servings at the back, but then, how can you not eat the whole thing? Not possible. For me that is, LOL. So if it's not pork, what is it then? Let's see... hmm...


Ingredients:
Dehydrated green peas (doesn't taste much like peas to me!), Vegetable Oil, Tapioca Starch, Dehydrated Potatoes, Iodized Salt, Sodium Diacetate (what's that??), Sugar, Citric Acid, Hydrolized Soy Protein, Yeast Extract, Spices, Sodium Citrate, Garlic Powder, Disodium Inosinate (what??), Disodium Guanylate (double what??), Lactic Acid, and TBHQ (triple what???).

The ingredients seem pretty harmless, except for those that I can't spell, much less pronounce. I really have to say kudos to the R&D team of Oishi, they keep coming up with new stuff. There was a time when I was totally addicted to Pillows, and then Bread Pan (wait, is that made by oishi?), and then Sponge. I wonder when my new addiction will be created....

And no, I wasn't paid py Oishi to write this blog. Nobody in his right mind would pay me to write anything for them.

Is being a total bitch fun?

Sometimes, don't you just want to be a total bitch? Because I might be getting tired of being too nice all the time. The thing is, I've tried. I mean being a bitch, and I only felt horrible afterward, and I just stayed up all night feeling sick, thinking about how horrible I was, and wondering if I'm going to burn in hell for what I said. So why is it that some people seem to enjoy acting like bitches? Or do they really?

Kris Allen American Idol 2009

Yes, I know I know, this is so late, and kinda, okay well, VERY outdated. But, I am very bored, as usual, and I wanted to write something, anything actually, which is why I wrote down the first thing that I thought of. Not that I wake up in the morning and immediately think, "oohh kris allen". That's weird. Anywayyyyy, why do a lot of people think that it's such an upset that this guy won? Hello, it's not exactly rocket science, people love underdogs, hence, the win. The guy is also talented, so it's not like he wasn't deserving. Although the "who's more deserving" topic is highly debatable, I don't particularly care. What's the big effing deal anyway? He won, so what? If you got it, you got it. Doesn't really matter if you came in last or first or whatever, if you have what it takes, then it will happen for you. The instant contract the winner got was just something extra, but hey, its not like Adam is not going to get a contract soon, hello! He's got his own type of audience, Kris has his, everyone wins. So get over it why doncha? And don't make up ridiculous theories about why so and so won and so and so lost as if you feel like you're Newton tackling the laws of gravity. It's a TV show. It's supposed to be for entertainment. So please don't burst a vein overthinking. By the way, I like Matt Giraud. Hehe.

American Idol Season 8 Top3 Results May 13

American Idol says goodbye to Danny Gokey today.

Its gonna be a head to head between Adam Lambert and Kris Allen next week.
Simon said at the end of the show: "This could be what we might call a big ding dong next week".

All I can say is YAY KRIS ALLEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Restaurant City Daily Food Quiz ANSWERS

For those of you who find the daily food quizzes difficult and don't get the daily free ingredient because you frequently get the answers wrong, here is the list of the daily questions and correct answers.

I got this from http://restaurantcity-tips.blogspot.com/

This site contains all the tips and tricks you would need for playing restaurant city, and a couple of cheats, which, personally, I would not want to use since I like to play games without cheating and enjoy more when I advance from my own efforts and not from using hacking software. Reading the list of questions is not cheating for me, its more of like, studying for a quiz. :D

Q: Agar is a gelatinous substance derived from what?
A: Seaweed

Q: Bechamel sauce is also known as...
A: White Sauce

Q: To blanch a vegetable, means to?
A: Boil and Cool off quickly

Q: Calamari is fried?
A: Squid

Q: What is a Calzone?
A: A turnover made of pizza dough

Q: In which restaurant would you typically find Calzone?
A: Italian

Q: Caviar is made from?
A: Fish Egg

Q: What kind of pizza is chicago style?
A: Deep dish

Q: Chilli is a?
A: Fruit

Q: Which of these chillies is the spiciest?
A: Naga jolokia pepper

Q: What is chinese gooseberry called in ancient time?
A: Kiwi

Q: What is chocolate bloom?
A: Cocoa fat or sugar

Q: The chuck is found where on the cow?
A: Front

Q: Which continent produces the most cocoa?
A: Africa

Q: What is coconut?
A: Fruit

Q: Q: A crepe is typical a ...?
A: Thinly cooked pancake

Q: Dim sum originated from which country?
A: China

Q: Dulce de leche is prepared by heating...?
A: Sweetened Milk

Q: Which sauce used in Egg Benedicts?
A: Hollandaise sauce

Q: Where did Feta Cheese come from?
A: Greece

Q: The flank is found where on the cow?
A: Mid

Q: Foie gras is food made from which part of an animal?
A: Liver

Q: In England, French Fries are called?
A: Chips

Q: To garnish a food means?
A: Add final touches

Q: Granny smith apples are?
A: Green

Q: Grapes grow on?
A: Vines

Q: The main ingredient in Guacamole is?
A: Avocado

Q: Where is the hamburger originaly from?
A: United states

Q: What is Hashi?
A: Chopsticks

Q: Honey comes from?
A: Bees

Q: What is the main ingredient in Hummus?
A: Chickpeas

Q: Kimchi is a Korean dish made of fermented?
A: Vegetables

Q: What is Ketchup made of?
A: Tomatoes

Q: Lard is the fat obtained from which animal?
A: Pig

Q: Naan Bread is served with... ?
A: Indian Food

Q: Natto, a traditional Japanese food, is made from fermented?
A: Soybeans

Q: New-York Style Pizzas are generally?
A: Thin crust

Q: The pizza originates from which country?
A: Italy

Q: To poach something means?
A: To cook in boiling water

Q: To Proof dough means to...
A: Allow it to rise

Q: Prunes are dried...?
A: Plums

Q: Raisins are dried...?
A: Grapes

Q: Ratatouille is?
A: A vegetarian dish

Q: The main ingredient of Ratatouille is?
A: Tomatoes

Q: To refresh vegetables is....?
A: To immerse in COLD water

Q: What is the color of Rhubarb?
A: Red

Q: The rump is found where on the cow?
A: Back

Q: What is Saffron?
A: Spice

Q: Sauerkraut is made from?
A: Fermented Cabbage

Q: To saute a dish, means to?
A: Fry quickly in hot pan

Q: The sirloin is found where on the cow?
A: Mid

Q: What is the most expensive spice in the world?
A: Saffron

Q: Which of the following spices is the most expensive??
A: Pure Vanilla

Q: Steak tartare is a meat dish made from raw?
A: Beef

Q: What is Stracchino?
A: a fresh cheese from Italy

Q: In which restaurant would you typically find sushi?
A: Japanese

Q: Where does taco orignate from?
A: Mexico

Q: In which restaurant would you typically find tacos?
A: Mexican

Q: In which restaurant would you typically find Tapas?
A: Spanish

Q: Tofu is made of .... ?
A: Soybean

Q: A tomato is a?
A: Fruit

Q: What color is Tuna meat?
A: Pink

Q: Where is Tuna from?
A: Salt Water

Q: The main ingredients in Tzatziki are?
A: Yoghurt and Cucumber

Q: Venison is the meat from what animal?
A: Deer

Q: What is the main ingredient of wasabi?
A: Horseradish

Shoutout to those who have actually read my blogs

I am very very surprised to discover that people actually read my blogs, no matter how senseless they are, lol. Thanks to those of you who willingly spend your precious time to read my posts and even more thanks for saying they actually made you laugh, its so much more than I could ask for. For you guys to simply visit this page is more than enough for me, but to actually read what's on it, I am greatly honored, seriously. I'll try to make more sense on my upcoming blogs, I'll TRY. :))

and the person doesn't even know i was hurt..

So, I know for a fact that nobody really reads my blogs, which has now suddenly become a blessing because I can vent all I want and nobody would know, because, I repeat, nobody reads my stupid effing blogs. Yeah yeah I know, its pathetic, and its even more pathetic that I'm whining about it. Whatever. I don't give a shit anymore. Anyway, today, I was very very hurt, and the person who caused it is not even aware of the pain that her/his actions has brought about (I don't want to reveal any details, hence the his/her tag, even if there's a zero to little chance that somebody would actually see this). I am going through a very trying time, and I've always kept my happy face on even as I've been a wreck all this time. I've always been supportive of everyone around me and I always try my best to help, and I HONESTLY have never expected anything in return all those times I've helped anybody out. But I would expect some kind of courtesy specially in this time that I am struggling like an effing fish out of the water and its not even a secret that I've been having problems. I don't expect people to help me out, I don't expect anyone to return any favors, all I expect is for people to not deliberately hurt me, is that too much to ask? No its not. Everything has been going downhill for me and I've been fighting to keep my sanity and to not have a breakdown, all I'm asking is to please not add up to what problems I already have, to please not give me any additional emotional burden to carry around, I already have way too much and its so heavy I'm practically sinking to the ground with the weight of it all. I already feel like the stupidest person who ever walked on this earth, please don't try to make it worse just to make yourself feel good. Everybody already thinks I'm stupid and that I can't do anything right, some are just too nice to say it straight to my face. Yes, you're better than me, everybody's better than me! At the end of the day, I am just scum at the bottom of the pond that not even a starving and dying fish would be interested in. So why do you feel this need to push me lower? I am already lower than low, have mercy and don't push me over the edge straight down to hell. I am this close to snapping. But then nobody knows that. People know that I'm having problems, but they all think I'm coping jjust fine. Because I've been pretending that I'm okay. Well, I'm not okay. I am so not fricking okay.

American Idol Top13 Results Show & New "Rule"

Straight to the point >>>> This week, we say goodbye to Jorge Nunez and a tearful Jasmine Murray.

Kanye West performed "Heartless" while Kelly Clarkson performed "My Life Would Suck Without You". Each week, they would be bringing back old American Idol contestants.

The new "rule": The Judges' Save. Each week, during the elimination show, the judges can "save" the person who got the lowest votes for that week, if they think that this person does not deserve to go home and deserves another chance. The decision should be unanimous among the 4 judges. However, at the next elimination show, 2 people will go home. They can only use the "save" once for the entire season. They're doing it in response to people saying that contestants like Chris Daughtry, Michael Johns, & Jennifer Hudson went home too early in the competition. I'm not sure if I like this new rule, but hey whatever. The person who always gets the most number of votes would win anyway. It's a popularity contest, whether we want to admit it or not. Would Chris, Jennifer, or Michael have won those past seasons if this rule existed? Maybe. Maybe Not.

As for the two people who went home, did they deserve the boot? I guess so. Personally, I was not a fan of either of them, but I do think they can sing well, they wouldn't have made it to the top 13 if they didn't. But I was wondering, were Megan Corkrey and Anoop Desai really in the bottom 4 or were they just made to stand beside Jasmine and Jorge to create more drama and more talk? I mean, Anoop IS one of the most talked about contestants on the show. Everytime I browse AI videos on youtube, he's one of those who has the most number of views, along with Adam Lambert and Danny Gokey. And speaking of youtube, what the hell is up? I can't find any videos of AI performances anymore, all I'm seeing are videos of pictures with the audio. I guess everyone's getting slapped for copyright infringement shit and stuff. That totally sucks. That's just weird 'cause AI has been on for like how many seasons already and before, they only removed those vids that still has the judges comments on them, now they're removing ALL the vids. Soon they'll be removing even the vids with just audio on them. Can't blame 'em, they want to make more money, so they have to make sure that viewers won't rely on youtube anymore and you're forced to really watch the show and MAYBE watch the commercials as well, or that you'll pay to download the performances you've missed. Oh well...

The Great Davao Adventure

I know. This blog entry was supposed to have been written and posted MONTHS ago. However, I just didn’t feel like writing and nobody reads my stupid blog anyway (poor me ahuhuhu). But right now, I am totally bored and wide awake at 1:30 in the morning. PC Games? Well, it’s either I’ve finished them or got extremely tired of them. Chat? Who’s online at this ungodly hour??!?!?? Everyone’s sleeping like normal people should, heck, even my dogs are asleep. Clean my room? Nooooo. Eat? I weigh as much as a house as it is. Sleep? I canttttttt! So, there is absolutely nothing to do, and then I remembered that my blog has been neglected for so long, so here I am writing an entry, which would probably end up being effing boring as all my other entries are. And yes, I’ve been told to get a life, so don’t ask!

Anywayyyyyy, after that unecessarily long introduction… the journey to Davao City begins. I really wasn’t planning on going on this trip. My highschool friends have booked their tickets a long time ago ‘cause there was some sort of promo thing going on. They invited me to tag along, and I said well, why not. I’ve never actually been anywhere. Despite being pathetically unemployed I had a little money left, and I haven’t gone out of the house for almost a year (but then that’s another story, a long boring one). So my friend Pammy booked a ticket for me and sent me the e-ticket, which I didn’t really look at. That precipitated what happens next… drum roll please! It was October 24, 2008. My ticket was booked for October 23. Which means the plane left without me. The day before. Apparently, I was a no-show. I watched as my friend Pammy’s usually chinky eyes go wide as saucers as she realized what was happening. I told her it was okay, that it was totally my fault for not having checked the ticket when she sent it to me, it was my responsibility and I should have read it myself. We asked the airline personnel manning the check-in counter if there were any seats left and she told us (quite unfeelingly too!) that the flight was fully booked. ALL flights were fully booked. We kept pestering her and she kept telling us that there was really nothing that she could do.

So we went to the ticketing window and the guy there(obviously gay actually) was also quite unhelpful. They should put friendly people to man that desk by george!!! I mean, people wouldn’t go to the ticketing desk at the airport if they weren’t having problems. People at airports usually have tickets in their possession already. This guy was so unfriendly and unhelpful, and he spoke to us in such a condescending manner that I wanted to smack his face right then and there. Lucky for him I don’t approve of violence. He informed us that the next flight available was for the next day, absolutely none for that day. We finally resorted to buying a one way ticket to Davao for the first flight the next day. Things were looking pretty bleak. Truth is, I wasn’t even feeling dismayed or anything, just annoyed at myself for not checking the stupid ticket. I kept telling Pammy not to worry and not to feel guilty, that it wasn’t her fault, but she still insisted on paying for the ticket which cost almost as much as my round trip ticket (so I still owe you Php -,000.00 Pammy! I still plan on paying you back, maybe I could secretly slip money in your wallet or something, lol). We tried to get my name on the chance passenger list and thankfully I was priority number one. It was really bad of me, but I was hoping that somebody would get diarrhea or something and not make his flight, so that I could get on the effing plane. And yay for me, as the check-in counters closed, I was informed that there was a seat available, somebody didn’t make it. (Now that I think of it, I hope nobody died or anything major like that. I hope the person who didn’t make his flight that day simply forgot or just woke up late or something.) So, there I was, officially holding my boarding pass going to Davao! Woohoo! And finally, Pammy was able to smile and laugh along with us. The whole time during the ticket fiasco, she was restless, looked worried, and couldn’t even crack a smile even as we were having our pictures taken with the Miss Earth candidates. Um yes, we’re total suckers for celebrities. So what??!? I could tell the other people looking on while we were rubbing elbows with the Miss Earth beauties were secretly wishing that they could too, only that they felt too embarrassed and didn’t want to be called jologs or uncool. Well sorry, haha, WE have cool pictures and they don’t, ahaha!

Finally, I was able to comfortably sit, and I noticed as the plane took off that there were even a few more vacant seats left, I would really have been able to board even if I wasn't priority number one on the chance passengers list.

As usual, I kept snapping pictures even as the plane was preparing to land, and this stern flight attendant told me off, hee hee heee.... I felt like a preschooler being scolded by the teacher for being noisy in class, haha.

After an hour, we finally set foot on Davao ground. Yayyyyy!!!

We were picked up by our friend Crispinne's maternal uncle, Tito Ame. First things first, check in at our hotel. Since we were all traveling on a very tight budget, no Royal Mandaya or Marco Polo for us. Just a simple budget hotel called Sychar Garden Hotel which is located at J.P. Laurel Avenue. The location is convenient, there are 2 malls nearby, McDonalds and UCPB Bank are across the street, Jollibee adjacent to it, and also a quaint coffeeshop adjacent to the left. Plus its also only 15-20 minutes away from the Crocodile Park where we were scheduled to go the next day. The rooms look clean enough, although I wouldn't really use the towel provided. There's free Wifi but I wasn't able to test if it actually works 'cause I didn't have any wifi-ready devices with me. I'm not sure how many floors, I think just 4, so there aren't any elevators. Customer service sucked, but then what would you expect for 900 bucks a night. There were no blankets on the bed and when I asked for one, I discovered that I was going to be charged extra for something that should have already been there in the first place. My pillow smelled as if the pillowcase wasn't dried properly. The room also smelled as if somebody had been smoking in there before we came in. Well at least there's cable TV and hot water. And we were only there to sleep and were out most of the time so that's fine, as long as the toilet flushed and the water heater worked, shouldn't complain much.

After leaving our stuff at the hotel, we headed for the People's Park. It's a small park, you could go around it in about 15 minutes. But I thought it was really nice, and on a cool windy day, I would gladly stay and walk around, but it was awfully hot and we were there at about 1130 a.m., so we didn't stay long.

We had lunch at this eat-all-you-can restaurant called The Iron Horse. No, they don't serve horse and the place isn't made of iron.

The food was good, although some of the fish didn't taste (and smell) fresh. I loved the fresh, raw tuna though. One of my favorites. Davao is famous for its delicious tuna and blue marlin.

The eat-all-you-can meal only cost us 130 pesos, that comes with a fruit shake or bottomless iced tea. Not bad, not bad at all!

After stuffing ourselves with delicious seafood and bottomless iced tea, we settled in our seats to prepare for the drive going to The Philippine Eagle Center (Sanctuary). The drive from the restaurant to the eagle park was about 30 minutes, and what's great after a heavy meal in the afternoon? A nice nap. So that's what we did. Napped after eating. Like little piglets being raised for slaughter LOL.

When I woke up, I was surprised to find that the climate had changed considerably. The wind felt cool on my face, I almost felt as if I was in Tagaytay or even Baguio. Tito Ame explained that this was because we were something something feet above sea level. (Sorry! I couldn't remember how many feet exactly, my memory isn't that good anymore). The entrance fee to the sanctuary was 50 pesos, although it wasn't an entrance fee exactly, they called it a "donation" if I remember correctly.

The place was absolutely beautiful. Everywhere I looked, it was all lush greens, and after coming from endless hours of gazing at my computer, the sight refreshed and relaxed my tired, near-sighted eyes. It was as if I almost wanted to lie on the grass, close my eyes and doze off. It was so peaceful out there. The only things you could hear were the chirping of the birds, and um, us. Obviously, we were a disturbance to the peaceful scenery. LOL. We were very excited to roam around and couldn't help squealing in delight like children about to go on an excursion. There were signs all over the place reminding us to "please observe silence", but I couldn't shut my big mouth and kept blabbering about everything I saw.

The eagles were beautiful and some were even showing off by flapping their wide wings.

There were these cute little twin owls who moved and bobbed their heads simultaneously, they were adorable!

There were also a variety of other birds which I could not name right now due to my unfortunate lack of info retention.

There was this little pineapple plant that bore red fruit, first time I had ever seen anything like it.

We also fed some ginormous fish by the man-made pond. Although I'm not sure if we were actually allowed to feed them, I didn't see any signs saying not to. We really had fun throwing in chunks of Mr. Chips to the fish and watching them fight over the food. I hope it's not bad for fish to eat junk food, like its bad for dogs to eat chocolate or else they would die. Hey, for what it's worth, I did check for dead fish floating on the surface and I didn't see any.

We also spent a huge amount of time gawking at these little monkeys goofing around and being, well, monkeys. I was surprised that there was nary a fence or an enclosure to keep the monkeys in and I wondered why they didn't escape. Tito Ame explained that they couldn't go anywhere since the area of land the monkeys were in was surrounded by water, so they wouldn't be able to cross 'cause they can't swim. Interesting. It was really cool having Tito Ame as our tour guide, he knew everything! It was like having a walking wikipedia around! I was honestly amazed. Next to him, I felt like Jim Carrey in 'dumb and dumber'. I mean he was even able to explain the principle behind the process of red eye reduction! I was left scratching my head, just listening in amazement. After walking around for an hour or two, we were offered to watch a short documentary about eagles. Despite the cool weather, we were surprisingly all sweating as if we've run a marathon, and we weren't even brisk walking, we were just roaming leisurely about. So we decided to watch the documentary for a while, sit down, and cool off.

After that, we left and stopped by at the Shrine of Our Lady of...... oh no, sorry I can't remember... again! This is so frustrating, I think my brain has atrophied into the size of a pea. Anyway, after a few moments at the shrine, we went to the famous Jack's Ridge, lined with fab bars and restaurants where you are expected to get a spectacular view of Davao City. We weren't able to take any good pictures though, it was too dark out and the camera on my phone is way too low tech to capture anything at night. *sigh*.

We didn't have dinner there though, we went to this restaurant, which, surprise surprise, I can't remember the name of. Maybe my friends can help me fill in the blanks later on.

We got back to the hotel real early, maybe 8pm. We went to the coffee shop nearby and went straight to bed. We needed to prepare ourselves for our butt busting activity the next day: White Water Rafting. Luck wasn't really that much of a friend to me on that trip, after 2 weeks of having my monthly "visitor" delayed, what better time for it to come than when I was going to go water rafting, yippity yay! NOT. And no, I didn't for a second think that I might have been pregnant after having been delayed for 2 weeks. I am not the second Mother Mary.

We left the hotel at about 7:00 a.m. We were expected to be at the Crocodile Farm at 8:00 a.m. so that we can be briefed about safety precautions and stuff like that. The briefing started at 9:00 a.m. There were about 6 or 7 groups that day.

We watched a video full of clips showing people water rafting, and lots of the rafts getting capsized. Although I have actually seen this video before (where else but on youtube), I still couldn't help but get a little more nervous.

I've been pretty hesistant about this part of the trip above everything else and I was actually planning not to come along and just stay behind at the park or something. But since I didn't want to get left out and after reassuring myself that it's completely safe and that nobody has ever died doing it, I decided to go ahead with it. Why was I so afraid to go rafting? Weeeellllll, numero uno reason: I can't swim. Number two: I'm afraid of the water 'cause I've nearly drowned thrice in my life. Number three: I was afraid I might have an "episode" (don't ask). Number four: I kept imagining myself getting thrown off the raft, slamming into a huge slab of rock, hemorrhaging and then subsequently, dying. And the extra happy fact that my monthly visitor decided to gate crash didn't really help. Anyway, I still went, just 'cause I didn't want to be left out. And so after the briefing, we got into the jeepney that would take us to the river which was about 30 minutes away from the park.

After a few more reminders and tips on what to do if thrown off the raft or in the event of the raft capsizing with you trapped underneath (not a pretty picture at all!), we donned our gear (helmet and life vest), we got ready to set out for the river. By the way, the tips mainly consisted of 1) Don't Panic and 2) Don't Panic. Ni-ice! Oh, and there was something about keeping your feet straight in the water and never losing grip on your paddle.

So anyway, after praying for our lives, I mean our safety, we got into the rafts and into the river.

Before we could actually meet our maker, I mean some rapids, we had to do an exercise first. Everyone has to throw themselves off the raft and get rescued by a co-rafter. The guide has to make sure that we all know what to do in the event that somebody falls off. I wasn't too excited about hurling myself into the murky river, as I had an uncomfortable "visitor" hanging onto me. Good thing there aren't any sharks in the river or I'm dead meat for sure. My lucky partner in the rescue exercise was of course, Pammy, who also had a "visitor" that day. We sure were lucky lucky on that trip. I was able to haul her easily off the water and into the raft after using my incredible hulk strength with matching sound effects.

When it was my turn to throw myself into the river, things went slightly wrong. First, the safety vest I had on was way too loose so what happened was, the vest went up first before I did, leaving my head still immersed in the water. I was able to gulp a few mouthfuls of dirty river water before I was able to resurface. Yummy... not. Then, to add insult to the injury, the helmet was also too loose, it went down covering my eyes, so I couldn't see an effing thing. I looked like a giant turtle, having the huge helmet hanging over my face like that. The guy who was giving out the vests and the helmets probably took one look at me and thought, hmm, big girl, needs huge vest and helmet. Grrr. So, even as they were trying to hurl me back into the raft, I remained motionless and didn't move a muscle. I actually didn't think I had to move anyway, I didn't know you were also supposed to help yank yourself into the raft, I just thought you had to leave that task to the person hauling you out of the water. When my friends saw that I wasn't moving at all, they probably thought I fainted or something. We weren't able to talk about it until we were on the jeep going back to the park. They told me I had them worried for a second and thought I was having an attack or something. It doesn't sound funny in the telling, but when we're all together and we recall that event, we all end up laughing so hard we're nearly crying. It's one of those things that you just had to see to be able to get what's so funny about it.

So after that whole rescue thing snafu, we were finally able to paddle out into the river and meet our first few rapids. It was 11a.m. by then. The first rapid was okay, we got through it fine. But when we came to the next one, Pammy, my lucky partner, fell off. It happened so fast, one minute she was there, and the next she wasn't. And it was just what they call a Class 2 rapid. Our friendly guide, JR, told us that we were going to come across three types of rapids, Class1, Class2, and Class3 (and also Class 3+). That was just a mild Class2 rapid we came across and somebody already fell off (she was fine by the way, we were able to haul her back into the raft in a minute). But seeing somebody fall off made me more nervous than ever. I mean, I was wearing "faulty" equipment for crying out loud!

right click and open in new tab here to see video of Pammy falling into the river hee hee hee.

Before we ventured into any more rapids, we stopped for 30 minutes at an embankment and had our lunch provided by the park, which consistent of rice (the amount of which was fit for a construction worker), chicken, boiled egg, Zest-O, and a few pieces of hard candy. My friend Doms was barely able to eat her food. That made two nervous paddlers.

After lunch, I braced myself for what's coming next. I just kept praying, Oh dear Lord please please don't let the raft capsize!!! And I kept telling the guide, "Don't let the raft capsize, or I'll probably kill you." I didn't tell him exactly that, but the evil eye I gave him probably sent my message across.

We sailed through the next few rapids without any more brouhahas and I was actually having quite a lot of fun, despite my nervousness. Pammy even told us that it actually felt great to fall off the raft. I still prayed that I won't though. Michelline kept slipping off her perch, but at least she kept falling into the raft and not out of it. At one point, the raft was tipped over to the side so fiercely that she totally lost hold of her paddle and off it went into the open river. JR the guide was able to retrieve it quickly though. There was a time when we got stuck on this huge rock for such a long time, I thought we were going to be stuck there forever. The second time we got stuck on another huge slab of rock, I honestly thought we were going to capsize. The raft was lying stuck at a 90 degree angle and we were positioned so awkwardly inside, one slightly on top of the other, that if we were to capsize and get trapped underneath the raft, we were likely going to be entangled in each others legs and would probably find it difficult to get out from under there. I was actually very very scared at that time. Doms actually shouted out "Dyoskopo!" and all I could do was let out a nervous laugh. The ever capable guide JR, single handedly, was able to get us out of that situation unscathed. Thank God! Although I was very suspicious, 'cause it seemed like JR was deliberately getting us stuck on rocks. Every rock we passed by, we either almost got stuck or got really stuck. Whereas none of the other rafts ever got stuck or even came near a rock. Though on the other hand, why would he do that?? Maybe for extra fun and excitement? Well, it does make for a good story now, but I can't say I totally appreciated it when I was there hopelessly stuck on a rock.

Anyhu, off we went to battle more rapids, as we approached this one called "washing machine" which was I think Class3, we were all quite nervous. I mean hello, washing machine??? What were we to think?? But it was an easy one actually, and even Doms was able to say "That was it???" We had a good laugh over that.

right click and open in new tab here for video of the "washing machine"

When we came to this one called "Kiss the Wall", my lucky partner Pammy fell off, again. I wasn't so worried this time, she seemed like she enjoyed it. :). And we actually did "kiss" the wall, the raft did a 360 degree turn and slammed into the rocky river wall. That was a nasty rapid right there. There was this one rapid I was really quite nervous about, it's called "drop and suck". It's called that 'cause you're going to encounter a 3-foot drop and if your raft isn't going fast enough, you're going to get sucked into that drop just like in a whirl pool. A lot of rafts, according to JR, capsize while crossing this rapid. But then what happened was, the raft ahead of us got stuck in that mini whirl pool, and then we came along, and actually slammed into their raft, and I think the collision with their raft propelled OUR raft forward, providing us a lucky escape from the sucking machine that was the whirl pool. A couple of the people on the raft we slammed into fell into the water, but nobody got hurt.

right click and open in new tab here for video of the "drop and suck"

After 2 (or more) hours, the rafting adventure finally came to an end and I was surprised to wish that it could have gone on longer. Despite my fears and swallowing a lot of dirty river water, I really had a lot of fun out there. The guides were skilled, we had safety equipment, we were taught how to get out of tricky situations, and it was perfectly safe, even for people like me who can't swim to save her life. Would I do it again? For sure! And if I do so, then I'll have learned my lesson and make sure that my helmet and safety vest fit perfectly. We paid around 1,700 pesos per head, that includes the rafting, a shirt, a CD of photos, packed lunch and entrance to the Crocodile Park. It was worth every single cent! :)

We arrived back at the Crocodile Park at around 4pm. We had a lot more time before the park closed so we chose to look around and see the crocs. There were baby crocs, medium sized crocs, and a ginormous one that looked as if it just swallowed a whole person. Actually, it could barely move due to its weight. And its probably real old.


There were a lot of other animals aside from crocs, like pigs, ostriches, a tiger, coloful parrots, monkeys, turtles, snakes, lizards, iguanas, and other animals that I don't know the names of, ROFL.


We went back to the hotel at 6p.m. and took our sweet time showering off the dirty river water that has undoubtably stuck to us like second skin. Crispinne went to Tito Ame's house that night to have dinner with the family, and also with her brother Niko who was staying there. We went out again at around 7p.m. to get dinner at..... dammit! I can't remember! My friends, you're going to have to fill in all these blanks for me.

After dinner, we girls went straight back to the hotel to get our badly needed shut eye. Lawrence and Kiko went to Durian Paradise, which I wasn't so keen on and wouldn't trade my rest for. Maybe if I wasn't about to fall flat on my face due to exhaustion, MAYBE I would have gone with them, or maybe not, haha! Sorry, I really hate the smell of those things. Even as I was lying in bed drifting off to sleep, I still felt as if I was floating in water. You know that sensation when you've been in the pool or in the ocean all day? I felt like I was being rocked back and forth in the bed, as if the buoyancy of the water was still with me. Truth is, I felt drunk!

The next day, we checked out and left the hotel at around 9 a.m. Crispinne and I were kinda pissed off 'cause we felt a little ripped off. The two of us shared a room, while Pammy and Doms shared their room. We were both charged the same price for rooms that were entirely different. Their room had a refrigerator and was obviously more spacious than ours. Our room looked exactly like the room Michelline, Lawrence & Kiko were in, and they paid less than we did. When we asked the front desk about this, the first explanation we got was that there was a refrigerator in the room, to which we obviously replied that there's no ref in ours, and they said the ref in our room was being fixed, and I said, why the hell should we pay for something that we didn't even fricking use and was not even physically there? As a matter of fact, judging from the look of the room, there wouldn't have been any space to put a refrigerator in. And then they changed their story to "that room has always been priced like that". Which makes absolutely no fricking sense. And then there was this issue of charging me for a blanket that wasn't even an extra blanket, there was none to begin with! It was just a measly 200 bucks difference, I know that. But it's not really an issue of money. I just hate being lied to. I hate that, I effing hate that so much! In the end I felt sorry for the girl at the front desk and figured she really wasn't in any position to decide anything, she's just the spokesperson. So we just let it go. And left in a huff. Haha! I really wasn't so lucky on that trip, good thing Pammy and I weren't in the same room, who knows what additional misfortune could have befallen us, haha!


Next stop was at the Eden Nature Park. We got there at 10a.m., paid for our tickets (which covered entrance to the park, a light snack, a guided tour, and a ride on the Sky Rider which is a zip line ride). We went on our guided tour all around the park. Guiding the tour was a lovely Davao native, with hair that hung wayyyy below her waist, and her name was Jessa. :).


The tour lasted for about 55 minutes and we got to see the whole park and the land area was quite vast, I can't imagine how they maintain the whole thing. We were informed that most of the trees were imported from other cities and almost everything was man made. There were areas covered with organic plants, flowers, and vegetables. Jessa said that everything on the park is organically grown. Very impressive. Jessa gave us a lot of time to take pictures and she actually took most of our pictures herself. She's probably used to photomaniac tourists like us who want to have their picture taken in front of every single sight they see. I still can't get over how big the entire place was. It would probably have taken us a whole day if we wanted to circle the entire nature park by foot.





There was this flower that I really thought was fake, I had to touch it to believe it.

Jessa was also an expert at taking the ever famous "jump shots".

After the guided tour, we decided to go to the Sky Rider. I was very very nervous about this zip line ride. I am soooo afraid of heights. Actually, being overly paranoid, I'm afraid of practically everything. When we got there though, we were told that they were on lunch break and rides didn't resume until 1:00 p.m. So we decided to play around on this little swing ride called "Indiana Jones". It's basically sort of like a mini zip line. There are 5 lines with ropes hanging down from them and a small metal disc for you to sit on while gripping the rope, and down down you go, just relying on gravity to pull you down to the other end. I honestly didn't think my big butt was going to fit on that thing, but miraculously, I was able to ride it. It was really fun, it's just weird how when you finally land on your feet, it kinda hurts, as if a vein was twisted in your ankle or something.


right click and open in new tab here for video of the 'indiana jones'

After the indiana jones, we had the 'light meal' that was included in the ticket that we paid for. I really can't remember how much it all cost... hmmm, entrance fee, guided tour, light meal, and a ride on the Sky Rider, I think it was about 350 pesos? I'm really not sure. But I am sure that I didn't pay more than 500 bucks. The light meal included spaghetti, bread, a little cake (like a bite's worth) and a drink (your choice of softdrinks or bottled water). I was very very nervous even as we were eating, I mean, just looking at the towers where you would be hanging from made me want to hurl, it must have been 50 feet high or more.


So, we finally finished eating and got on with the program. We got into safety harnesses and helmets and this time, they weren't loose or tight, they fit me just right. They had to! I don't think I would have survived a 50 foot drop from the sky! Of course, being the total scaredy cat that I am, I let everyone go ahead of me but I also didn't want to go last, so I was second to the last. When I was watching the others go, I thought it was really fast and scary, I was honestly nauseous just watching them. However, when it was finally my turn, I found out that it didn't actually go that fast, probably just 30 or 40 km/hr. It was just like riding a car.... um, but with no car. If that makes any sense. And once I forgot how scared I was, I began to appreciate how beautiful the scenery was below me. The entire trip from one tower to another merely took 40 seconds. Yes, I actually counted while I was watching the others. I wanted to know how long the torture would last, but then, it wasn't actually torture, it was fun! And perfectly safe, even a child can go on it. I wanted to have another go at it actually! You need to pay another 150 pesos though if you want another ride. I had so much fun going on that ride that I didn't even get pissed off when the guy in charge of catching you on the other tower told me laughingly: "Mas mabilis talaga noh pag mabigat! Hahaha!" Hmp.


After the Sky Rider, we decided to leave since we've already seen the whole park anyway. We had a late lunch at Luz Kinilaw, a must if you love grilled and fresh seafood.

They say that your whole Davao experience won't be complete unless you've had a taste of the smelly durian, and Lawrence still had a container full of the noxious smelling fruit. I wasn't very excited about it, but hey, we didn't want to be kill joys right? So we all dug in and took our first bite ever of durian. Sorry to all avid durian fans, I didn't like it much, it tasted weird to me. What did my friends think? Hmmm, I guess you could tell by the expressions on their faces haha.

After eating we went shopping for our pasalubongs. I wasn't planning on going crazym, in fact I told myself I won't buy anything, but I ended up buying 6 davao souvenir shirts, 2 'dusters' for my mom, and a crate of pomelos for which Davao is also famous for (which was pretty cheap actually, 400 pesos for 15 pieces, or that's what we thought). They gave us a free taste of the pomelos and they were wonderfully sweet and juicy, so I thought we were getting a great bargain at 400 pesos for 15 pomelos. When I got home though, I discovered that not all of 'em were sweet nor juicy, just a few of them. Ripped off once again.


While we were waiting for our pomelos to be boxed up, 2 men peddling obviously fake Ray-Ban shades came up to us. They kept pestering us to buy even just a pair. At first, they were offering them at 500 pesos each, and as they got more desperate, the price came down to 100 pesos. And they actually swore the shades were the real deal. Ha! We told them we had no more money on us and were on our way home to Manila. They even went as far as getting angry and telling us that, if we had no money, how come we were buying pomelos, or how would we be able to go home if we had no money. They were that persistent and didn't stop bugging us until we finally left. The other guy even tried to slip a pair of shades into one of our shopping bags, so we would finally pay for it. Maybe that's their selling strategy, keep bugging you until you give in and buy a pair, just so they would leave you alone. It was pretty funny actually. The other 'manong' even had the gall to smile and pose as I took a picture of him bugging our friend.

After shopping, we went to a nearby mall to buy a cake. It was for Tito Ame. We were so so grateful to him for showing us around for 3 whole days and also generously letting us ride in his van, driving us wherever we wanted to go and showing us the sights and landmarks of Davao City. We felt that we really really needed to give a token of our appreciation. We wanted to give something better than a cake but we had no time left to look. Since he was driving, we had to make up a story about why we had to go to the mall and buy a cake, we wanted it to be a surprise. :) Our last stop was of course, the airport. We checked in our bags 2 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave.

Now here's the uber cool part. Tito Ame works at the Davao Airport Control Tower and I think he's sort of the boss man over there. Since we still had more than an hour left before the plane arrived, he gave us a full tour of the Control Tower. Not everyone can get in there, sometimes not even the press! And we got the full tour! It was soooooo cool! Since we had full access to information whether our plane has arrived yet, or if it was even coming yet, we could sit pretty while all the other passengers sit at the boring airport waiting for the plane that was obviously going to be late, haha! It was really cool, I couldn't get over it. We got to see the full equipment up at the tower, we got to see how everything works, we were like over excited little kids, touching everything we see and asking millions of questions about this and that and those. Tito Ame was so obliging and patiently answered all of our questions. He obviously takes pride in his work and excels at what he does. Finally, we had to say goodbye to Tito Ame and the peeps at the control tower.

We boarded the plane, which was, by the way, delayed by almost 2 hours, and settled comfortably in our seats. For what it's worth, the male flight attendant was really cute haha! His skin was so fair, I was actually jealous! LOL. We arrived at the NAIA3 at around 11 p.m.

We went to the Park and Fly to get Doms' car and that actually took a little while. We stopped by at a McDonald's on the way home since none of us had dinner and we were all ravenous. They dropped me off at my place at about 1am, to find my mom and dad angrily waiting for me. I forgot to text them to tell them that the flight had been delayed, my phone was dead and I didn't know that they've been calling and texting since 8p.m. I felt quite guilty and knew they must have been worried sick. Well, that was a real damper to all the excitement, lol. My fault once again. So insensitive of me. All in all though, it was a great trip. Despite all the snafus and all the bad luck that went our way, I had a wonderful time, specially since it was time spent with close friends. :)

Christmas Feast

Like it has been for the past couple of years, I've been doing most of the cooking during holiday season. We do need to be a little thrifty during these difficult times and we've been warned that come 2009, we're going to really feel the effects of the worldwide financial crisis. Still, we do need to lift our spirits during the holiday season and one of the sure fire ways to cheer people up is with food. Lots of it. Here's the little feast we had here at home on Christmas eve with a few of our close relatives.

Potato Salad (my tita's specialty!)

Embutido (meat loaf?)

My experimental Lamb chops sizzling in the oven


Lamb chops didn't come out so bad, LOL
There WAS fried chicken, I wasn't able to take pictures, they went away so quickly (even if they were a tad too salty).


My ever present baked penne


My plate filled with the yummies!

For dessert: Super rich and sinful Newyork Cheesecake from Chocolat

Ice cold Buko (coconut) fruit salad

One of my favorite ice cream flavors, Coffee Crumble!

diet? what diet???

Its the holiday season once again, and with the holidays come the massive consumption of all sorts of goodies and yummies. Anybody who is still on a reducing diet during this season should be shot.

no carbs no sugar verdict: FAILED

Why is this NOT a surprise? Hehehe. I know myself and I knew I couldn't do it. I cave in to temptations way too easily. So this outcome is really quite expected. I was doing well up until day7, after that, I was like, "What diet???" I did lose a few pounds, but I'm sure they'll all come bouncing back to me and will probably bring more friends with them. Oh well, I did try! Maybe I'll give it another go, but now right now. I need energy for some "stuff". Me being me, its hard to function normally without carbs. Carbs are yummy and its close to impossible to stay away from the "yummies"!

no carbs, no sugar, no fruit - day 2 and weird lady

DAY 2 DONE! :)) Hooray!!!

This is really difficult, but I'm pretty proud of myself for lasting 2 days hehe. I didn't think I could even last one day! Hehe. I was at the mall earlier and all I saw, left and right, were carbs carbs carbs! The temptation was just too much! I wanted to cover my eyes and make a run for the exit! Anyway, I'm glad I was able to stick to my promise. The problem is, in my desperation to stay away from the carbs and sugary treats, I was lured into unnecessary shopping. I now have a new pair of fluffy slippers, a new pair of sandals, a stack of CD envelopes, some gewgaws and baubles for my face, and a couple of blank DVDs (these, at least, I actually do need).

There was this one weird incident though, while I was shopping, this middle-aged woman approached me and asked me where I bought my slippers and how much I paid for them. At first I thought she wasn't talking to me, because it was so weird, we were in in front of a whole mound of shoes, sandals and slippers and she was asking where I bought the ones I was wearing? They weren't even nice slippers. They're just these old, shoddy, cheap ones that I bought at a department store. Asking me about my slippers was not exactly the weird part, here's the weird part. After I answered her question, she bent down, her face only inches away from my feet, and actually stroked the slippers! In my head, I was like, "um, hello? what are you doing you crazy lady???" And, to add to that, she wasn't contented with just stroking my slippers, after that, she lingered in the store for a couple of minutes, staring at my feet! I was thinking, "Is this some kind of practical joke??? Am I being taped or something?" and then I thought, "Oh shit! What if she's one of those people who could hypnotize you and make you surrender everything you have on you?" But then, neither of my theories was correct. The lady was just plain weird.

no carbs, no sugar, no fruit - day 1

I've committed to something that I'm not sure I can really do all the way, but I really need to do it.

I weigh about a million pounds now and my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have been shooting up at alarming rates. My doctors have been warning me for like forever but I've been practically ignoring them. I guess I felt overconfident, thinking that I'm still young and I'm far from a heart attack. However, recently, a friend of mine told me about a friend of hers who just went through a QUADRUPLE BYPASS... she was in her early thirties! I was really shocked and quite scared after that. So I thought, its time to take action. Hence the decision to start a reducing diet.

My mom got me a lifetime membership at a gym last year, I went 5 times, then never came back, ahehehe. I'm just not a gym type of person, I mean, the second time I was there, I nearly fainted! I also have this other medical condition which contributed to that episode, but then, that's another story. Anyway, back to my gym story, first session, after 30 minutes on the treadmill, the minute I got off, I nearly fell flat on my face as my knees buckled beneath me, good thing I was able to hold onto another machine. And oh my goodness, the day after, I could hardly get up! Every muscle in my body screamed in pain, if hair could feel pain, I would have felt it. I guess that's normal, but still, I don't know, I'm just not a gym person. I did lose about 12 pounds, but once I stopped, I gained every single pound and MORE! Probably double of what I lost! So that's really problematic. I can't start something and stick to it, that's my problem. I need something to really motivate me. Now I have a pretty good reason. I don't want to be one of those people who gets a quadruple bypass even before reaching 30. Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to push myself to hit the gym and get into a routine, although that's highly unlikely, hehe.

For now, I think I'll try to stay on my diet. I've chosen to go on something that resembles the Southbeach diet. It's not as strict as the Zone diet where you really have to count the calories and you need to follow a strict ratio of carbs, protein and fat. You need to eat only 800-1200 calories in a day. 800 calories??? You gotta be kidding me! That's like a single meal for me! Waaaa!!! With the Southbeach diet, there's no specific number of calories per day, its more of avoidance of certain types of food, and you're actually advised to eat until you are satisfied. The Southbeach diet is done in 3 phases. The first phase is the shortest one, wherein you avoid carbs and sugar almost totally for 2 whole weeks. I'm on day 1 and OMG, it's hard!!! I don't know if I can last for another 13 days without eating any carbs or sugar. Even fruits are not allowed. I used to exist almost totally on carbs and now, I've banished them from my diet, albeit temporarily, but still... ahuhuhu. Its enough to make a grown woman cry. But no matter how tempted I may be, I'll really try to tough it out for the next 13 days! I have to!!! Everytime I want to chow down rice or snack on some bread, I just have to think "quadruple bypass", that ought to do the trick.

Wish me luck!!! :))

My Dream Dogs: Part 3

Haven't posted in a while, been busy with "stuff".

Anyway, here's part3 of "my dream dogs".

High on my list is the CHOW CHOW.

Who wouldn't want a Chow Chow??? They look exactly like bears, only cuter, and they won't eat you. They're huge, cuddly, sweet, fur balls. I swear I will have one someday. I will I will I will! (maybe if I say it a million times, it will come true)

As usual, I'm going to post pictures that I got off the internet. Just you wait my dears, one day I'm going to be posting MY OWN pictures of MY OWN dream dogs!

I would like to mention this particular site, so adorable, www.snorable.com. The first 3 pictures are from that site.





10 things about Chow chows:

1) Country of origin: China.

2) In China, the chow chow is called Songshi Quan (Pinyin: sōngshī quǎn 鬆獅犬), which literally means "puffy-lion dog".

3) Usual colors: red, black, blue, cinnamon, and cream.

4) Usual height:

	Male	48–56 cm (19–22 in)
	Female	46–51 cm (18–20 in)

5) Usual weight: 50-75 pounds.

6) Life span: 9-12 years.

7) Has distinctive blue-black or purple tongue.

8) The Chow Chow is a dignified, faithful, and independent breed, with a serious attitude and a somewhat protective streak, which makes him an effective watchdog. (from: http://www.justdogbreeds.com/chow-chow.html)

9) Sheds heavily.

10) Usual litter: 5 puppies.

Thank heavens I don't drink milk!

I've never been able to drink milk, although I am not lactose intolerant. I mean, I eat ice cream and all so that means my stomach can handle milk. I just don't drink milk, period. For some reason, I can't stand the smell, it makes me gag. Funny thing, I used to work at a milk company and when we had to go into the factory for a tour, I nearly died from trying not to breathe. Every time I had to go anywhere near the production area, I had to hold my breath and practically run. I've always thought that it's a shame that I don't drink milk, but now, after the "melamine scare" broke out, I'm a wee bit thankful.

Oh China what's happening? First the lead-contaminated toys, now the milk. Are you trying to murder everyone? What the hell were these milk companies thinking? To disregard public health and safety simply to increase profits. How much more cold blooded can you get?

For those who are not fully aware (though I doubt there's anyone who doesn't know about this), China is in the hot seat once again for melamine-tainted milk. A number of Chinese infants have already died from kidney stones and kidney problems, allegedly due to ingesting melamine-contaminated milk. Thousands of other infants are currently suffering from kidney problems.

There are several brands of China-made milk out in the Philippine market and some of these have been pulled out for suspected melamine contamination. Consumers are also being advised to refrain from purchasing any China-made milk and milk products even if they have not been pulled out of the shelves. Other countries who have been importing China-made milk have obviously been affected as well.

WHAT IS MELAMINE? WHAT IS IT FOR? WHY IS IT BEING USED IN MILK PRODUCTION?

here's an article on melamine that's simple and easy to understand:
http://sunstar.com.ph/static/pam/2008/10/03/oped/rox.pe.a.e.ssue.html

To make it short, melamine is a CHEMICAL that is usually mixed with FORMALDEHYDE to form melamine resin which is, simply put, PLASTIC. Uses for melamine include, floor tiles, whiteboards, kitchenware, fire retardant fabrics, and commercial filters. AND PEOPLE DRINK MILK THAT HAS MELAMINE IN IT. It's a CHEMICAL! Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Why do milk companies add melamine to milk? TO CHEAT. TO GET MORE PROFITS. TO FOOL and TRICK PEOPLE. To increase the volume of the milk, companies add water, obviously, this would decrease the quality and protein content of the end product. Protein levels are checked by using a laboratory test that measures nitrogen content. This is where melamine comes in. By adding melamine (which is rich in nitrogen), it would appear in the tests that there is a high protein content, when in fact, this is just the nitrogen from the harmful substance melamine. These companies that used melamine did not even think twice about the potential harm this may cause to humans. Just to increase profits. Now, these poor, innocent infants are paying the price of their greed.

The government has been advising the general public to avoid buying China-made milk. Personally, I'm going to avoid consuming ANYTHING that has milk in it. I mean, a lot of countries get raw materials from China, how sure can you be that products not made in China is melamine free? Even if the label of a product says "made in the U.S.A." or some other country, it doesn't exactly say where the raw materials came from. Hello, even Cadbury has voluntarily pulled out certain items from the market. At this point, nothing is safe. How can you be sure that ALL companies around the world would come forward, admit that their raw materials (milk) came from China and could possibly be contaminated, and pull out all their products? You can't. And this is not just for milk alone. This includes hundreds of products that has milk in it. Breads, cookies, pastries, milk-based beverages, chocolates and candies, cheese, ice cream, etc.

On the bright side, (surprisingly, there IS a bright side), this is good for my diet. :)

Wanna do something fun? Let's apply for an SSS I.D.... don't make me laugh!!!!

SSS sucks. I'm sorry, no offense, but this is not an opinion, this is a fact.

For most transactions, we are usually asked to present proper identification. One of the accepted and valid IDs is the SSS I.D. I only have a passport and usually you need to present 2 IDs. I don't have a driver's license because I obviously cannot drive, a strung out drunk could probably drive better than I do. I also did not claim my PRC license, because 1) I was too lazy to get it and 2) the actual profession I got into did not really require me to have a license. So I decided to apply for an SSS I.D. and this is when all hell broke loose.

The hassles I encountered whilst applying for an SSS I.D. :

1) The SSS website = You need info, so naturally you go to the OFFICIAL website, BUT IT DOESN'T BLOODY WORK!!!!

I needed to know where there are SSS branches, their contact numbers, the requirements, etc etc. So I did go to their website, and it said "loading", so I waited. And waited. And waited. Even if I waited till all my hair turned gray, it wouldn't have done any good. The website just doesn't frickin' work. I got more information off a blog than I did from their loser site. I also needed to see my contributions and find out if I am eligible to apply for an I.D. About 2 years ago, this could easily be done (yes, once upon a time their website DID work, but they have a new one now, so there), you only needed to provide your SSS number and your birthdate and you could easily check your contributions. But now you have to register and then you'll have to wait for their "automated system" to send you your username and password through the email address that you provided. In most cases, when you register online for something, like say, friendster, you would get a notification email in about 10 seconds. It has been 2 days since I filled up their registration form, and surprise surprise, NO EMAIL, NO USER NAME, NO PASSWORD.

2) The I.D. application process has actually been stopped since August!!!!!

Albeit temporarily, what really pissed me off is that there was no way I could have known this because, as I've mentioned, their website does not work. You would be able to see the home page, that's it, you can click and click all you want but you'll never be able to get anywhere. But there's nothing on there that notifies the general public about this stoppage in I.D. application. This is important information, it should be posted on their website homepage in huge, red, bold letters! I mean, there I was at 745 in the morning, only to find out that I've wasted my time. The only good thing is that my friend and her sister were with me and they were there to apply for their SSS numbers, and in fairness to that SSS branch (Biñan Laguna), the process did not take long, probably 20 minutes. They were able to get their respective SSS numbers so it wasn't a complete waste of time which was enough to calm my ruffled feathers.

The I.D. application process has been TEMPORARILY stopped = what does "temporary" mean exactly? It could mean anything! Like a few months, a year, a decade! You could still get your picture taken, and when their machine is finally "fixed" you'll already be in the queue of probably a million people. You could get your picture taken, AT THE MAIN BRANCH, which to me, is like the kingdom of far far and away. Oh goodness, what fun... NOT!

Was he really annoying or is it just me?

Yesterday, during an FX ride going home (from the mall), there was this guy behind me who was talking on his mobile phone. He was not exactly talking at maximum volume, but it seemed like it because it was deathly quiet in the van. I bet everyone in the van just can't help but overhear the conversation he was having with whoever it was on the other end of the line, he was really loud! He kept saying the same things over and over and over again, and I was really tempted to turn around and tell him "she probably already got what you said!" Finally, he ended the call and I thought I could ride the rest of the way home in peaceful silence, but oh no, that was definitely not the case. Apparently, he was not contented with broadcasting his phone calls, he just had to sing out loud in the van! He sang and sang and sang and I just wanted to get off the frickin' vehicle! The problem was it was raining heavily and I didn't have an umbrella (and technically, I really couldn't get off the vehicle, we were in the middle of the expressway!). I wished sooooo bad that I had my mp3 player with me. My eyes were rolling so fast, anybody who would have seen me would think I was having a seizure. I was just so irritated! Yes, its a free country and all that, but omg! He was off key, the lyrics were all wrong, he was pronouncing his Fs as Ps and Bs as Vs and vice versa. He wasn't even singing along to anything, he didn't have an mp3 player, the radio wasn't playing, no, he was just like a broken jukebox, he just sang anything that jumped into his head. And here's the most annoying part, thank goodness I was nearly at my stop, he began singing two verses of one particular song... and kept repeating those two same verses over and over!!!! And the lyrics were wrong!!!! Uggghhhh!!!! I just wanted to scream " SHUUUUUUUTTTTT UP!!!!!!!!!" I was so annoyed, I didn't care about getting drenched, I got off the van one stop early.


So tell me, was this guy annoying or am I just too easily annoyed?

My Dream Dogs: Part 2

Saint Bernard dogs are definitely one of my dream dogs, I've wanted one ever since I saw the first Beethoven movie. These dogs are very gentle in contrast to their giant size. The only thing I don't like about them is the amount of gooey slobber they produce. But other than that, Saint Bernards are PERFECT!

Here are some pictures of Saint Bernard dogs and puppies I got off the internet:












10 Saint Bernard Facts:

1) Named after St. Bernard de Menthon of Switzerland. Also known as the Alpine Mastiff.

2) Full grown adults could weigh from 110 to 200 pounds.

3) Their height ranges from 25 to 33 inches tall.

4) Temperament: Despite their intimidating size, they are VERY GENTLE by nature. They are very affectionate and patient, sometimes a little lazy.

5) They drool and slobber. A lot.

6) Life expectancy: 8-10 years.

7) They have 2 types of coat: rough and smooth.

8) Originally used as search and rescue dogs.

9) They have an extraordinary sense of smell that they can find a person buried under several feet of snow.

10) There are 5 Beethoven movies, 3 of which are direct-to-video.

My Dream Dogs: Part 1

A PURE black Alsatian. The biggest one ever with ginormous paws, with the blackest fur possible. If there's anything blacker than black, I want that.

Here are a few pictures of black german shepherds I got on the net, these are the most gorgeous dogs ever.



10 FACTS ABOUT GERMAN SHEPHERDS a.k.a ALSATIANS:

1) The German Shepherd or Deutscher Schäferhund in German (I can't pronounce it, haha) originated from Germany (duh).

2) Rin Tin Tin: The most popular german shepherd.

3) 3rd most popular breed in the U.S.

4) The name German Shepherd was changed to "Alsatian Wolf Dog" after world war 1 due to the prevalence of anti-german sentiments during that time. Then it was changed to Alsatian, because the words "wolf dog" caused some kind of crazy scare with the general public. Then it was changed back to German Shepherd in 1977. Talk about inconsistent.

5) They usually weigh in at 60-100 pounds, depending on the gender.

6) They shed. A lot.

7) Life expectancy: 12 years.

8) Most common colors are red&black and tan&black.

9) They are VERY INTELLIGENT. That's why they make ideal police dogs and rescue dogs.

10) Very loyal and protective of their family and territory.

SMS hoax: radiation wave. Why do these kind of messages spread?

A few minutes ago, I received an SMS from my mom.

"Pls switch OFF all ur handphones TONIGHT. According to Metro TV, and international news, there will be a big radiation wave circulating thru the handphone towers at 11PM TONIGHT which is very dangerous to humans. Please inform your friends NOT to keep their phones with them. Please FORWARD. Better safe than sorry."

Um... okay, that sounds a bit ridiculous. Actually, it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie that bombed at the box office. And what's Metro TV? Never heard of it. For the sake of being absolutely sure, I researched on the internet (don't I always?). I am excessively paranoid by nature and I'm not exactly uber smart to know if what's being described in the SMS is even possible or not, even if to my non-scientist ears, it sounds absolutely ridiculous (calling the Myth Busters crew!!!). Nothing's impossible you know.

Once again, I turned to my all knowing friend, Mr. Google, for answers.

(1) Origin of the SMS?

Based from what I've read, the SMS started circulating in INDONESIA in May 2008, then spread to Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, (and probably even to other countries in Asia) all in the same day! The SMS apparently caused a major brouhaha in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, forcing authorities to send out press releases advising people not to panic and refrain from further spreading false information. I also read that a teenager was arrested in Indonesia for ALLEGEDLY spreading the malicious text message. Wow, talk about the power of communication! Or should I say, MISCOMMUNICATION. And now, 3 months later, the exact same message is circulating once again. No wonder telecom companies are raking in money by the billions! I guess I've been out of circulation last May to have missed this radiation wave commotion.

(2) Does Metro TV exist?

Yes it does. It's in Indonesia. I tried searching their website (http://www.metrotvnews.com/) to find out if they really ever released anything about this radiation wave thing, but it's kinda difficult because everything is written in Bahasa.

(3) Can this radiation wave thing actually happen and kill people?

I don't know and I have yet to find out. We should call the Myth Busters. Telecom companies vehemently deny the possibility though. (good then)

Why do these kind of text messages spread so rapidly like wildfire? In my opinion, ITS BECAUSE OF COMPASSION AND LOVE. Okay, that sounds soooo cheesy, I know, but it's true. Just think about it. I myself have forwarded so many text messages to my loved ones warning them about a possible bombing, a threat of terrorism, an earthquake, some sort of catastrophe, etc. etc. Why do I keep forwarding even if the messages seem absurd or even impossible? BECAUSE I CARE.

Why the hell would I want to scare the shit out of the people I love and care for? No, I don't want to cause them to panic, I don't want them to be scared, I WANT THEM TO BE SAFE.

I've been reading blogs and discussions on the internet, and people keep saying the same things: "stupid people keep forwarding these texts". That's a bit too harsh people.

Not everyone has access to the internet, how can they research and verify the authenticity of the text messages they receive? If I was in a god forsaken area (and by some miracle I am still able to receive and send text messages) and I received some kind of forwarded message warning me of some imminent danger, I would definitely send it on to the people I care for. Even if the SMS sounds horribly stupid, I would still pass it on TO THOSE I CARE FOR. Even if I know they would laugh at me for being so paranoid, I'd still pass on the warning, I'd do anything to protect my loved ones, I mean, won't you?

Messages like this spread like wild fire because people care. Some people may forward them just because they think its funny, but how many people like that are there? Some people may forward them out of malice, but I think that's just a minuscule portion of the whole.

The people who create these type of messages and spread them out of malice will get their karma. But don't ridicule the people who send them on to you. If you don't mean anything to them, they wouldn't waste a buck on you by sending you that message, and more importantly, they wouldn't waste their precious time for people they don't give a rat's ass about.

Don't laugh at the people who send you forwarded messages telling you that:

- "Your mother will die if you don't pass this on."

Yes it may seem incredibly stupid to think that not forwarding an email or an SMS can kill your mother but what really matters is that the person obviously cares so much for his/her mother. In his own "foolish" way, he's showing appreciation for the person who nurtured him in her womb for 9 months.

- "If you pass on this message, all your problems will go away, you will receive a ton of money, you will be healed of all your illnesses." etc. etc.

Before you start to ridicule the person who sent that to you, maybe you can think of that person's situation instead. Maybe it's a call for help, a subconscious act of trying to seek a friend's attention. Maybe he's ill, maybe he has a problem. Or maybe he's thinking of YOU.

- "A terrorist attack will happen" or "There will be a bombing, don't go to this place."

Doesn't it feel wonderful to know that someone cares so much about you that he doesn't want you to end up kidnapped, attacked, dead, or blown to smithereens?

- If you forward the message, AOL (or some organization) will donate 5 cents (or whatever amount) for the hospitalization of a sick child.

Amy Bruce may be a hundred years old by now based from the time that the Amy Bruce email has been circulating. The fact that its been in circulation for so long just means that a lot of people have sent that email in the hopes that, even through such a small way, they would be able to help an ailing child.

Wii Sports

With absolutely nothing to do, I really can't help but play. So this week, my diversion is in the form of the Wii Sports game. I mainly suck at everything I do, so it's not surprising that I'm failing miserably even with such a simple video game. But hey, its something to do, its a diversion, I'll take it.

You have a choice of 5 sports. Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. You could also do some training, just point and click at the dumbel/barbel icon. The triangle icon is to determine your "Wii Fitness Age". Guess what I got? A mind-numbing 65. My dad, who is actually 65 years old, must have gotten something around the 20 something range. Which only proves all the more how much I suck at this.


Tennis. Up to 4 players can play if you have 4 Wii motes, I just don't know how 4 people can move in front of a single TV without bashing each other with the remotes.

Baseball. I'm not really a fan. I always either don't hit the ball, or when I do hit it, it's a foul ball. It's also freaky how the other players in the field don't have any feet.

Bowling. It feels kinda weird. The other "people" aside from your own character have no feet in this game either. What the...


Golf. I'm definitely no Tiger Woods, that's for sure.

Boxing. Now here's something I like. A chance to beat the crap out of somebody.


Bring it on biatch!!!



Finally! I win at something!!!


Mwahahaha! I'm the king of the world!

Christmas in September (???)

I went to the grocery store today on a whim, just to pick up a couple of bottles of juice (JUICE, not booze!!!) and some little knick knacks and whatever catches my fancy. First thing I noticed were the blaring sounds in the store, loud enough to make my ears ache and my head go thump-thump-thump. And guess what they were playing? Christmas songs. On the first day of September. 4 months before Christmas.

Signs of aging

When you start to feel your legs giving way, it's a definite sign that you're getting older (a lot lot lot older). Lately, I've been getting a lot of hints from nature telling me I'm not as young as I wish I could be. A lot of people would tell me I'm being too melodramatic, and yes, maybe I am, but here's the thing, I'm used to being one the "young ones", and now that I'm not, it really sucks. I feel old. In fact, I feel ancient. When people started calling me "miss" instead of "hey kid", I was really psyched, I felt like a sophisticated young lady. But when people started calling me "ma'am", like a bent old lady walking around with a stick, I was totally pissed! I'm not that frickin' old you know! Well maybe to a preschooler's eyes, I'd be about a hundred, but in reality, I'm actually still quite young. However, I've been getting this weird feeling that I've started to age quite rapidly all of a sudden, like there's been a cataclysmic presence that I never noticed.

Off the top of my head, I could list a couple of things that's been making me feel old, just to name a few:

(1) Yesterday, I played badminton with my friends. Just after one set, I was huffing and puffing as if I've run a marathon. At one point, I could swear I heard one of my bones creaking and groaning in protest. A few years ago, I could go for 2 hours without even feeling tired.

(2) When I got up this morning, (or when I TRIED to get up!), every muscle in my body was screaming in pain. I only played for less than an hour and this is how my body reacts? Pathetic.

(3) I USED to like making people guess my age because they'd always be off by 3 years or more. When I say off, I mean less than my actual age, now, off would be years MORE than my actual age. You can bet I've stopped playing that "guess-my-age" game!

(4) Sales ladies at malls are now offering me anti-aging creams.

(5) When I'm introduced to new people, they ask me how many kids I have. I'm not even married!!!

(6) Everything that's not supposed to be going up is way way above what you expect: blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, etc etc etc!

(7) Instead of toys and gizmos, I've been thinking of pensions, insurance, my last will and testament (as if I have anything worth leaving to anyone haha). In fact, I bought a memorial plan. You never know when you're going to cock up your toes!

(8) There are lots of white streaks on my hair and its not even a fashion statement.

Ah youth, how the young waste it.

Gallbladder alert

I visited my friend at the hospital this afternoon. She just had her gallbladder removed. Yes, you can live normally without your gallbladder, although it would make things a bit more inconvenient and difficult for you. The gallbladder helps in digesting fat, so if you don't have your gallbladder, you better be careful with what you eat. Say goodbye to pork rinds, mayonnaise, french fries, fried chicken, onion rings, pizza, burgers.... gallbladder I need you!!!!!!

What happened to my friend? Why did she have her gallbladder removed? Well, last Sunday, after ingesting a more than normal amount of food, she felt pain in the middle part of her stomach. She said it was tolerable at first, then she drank a bottle of Sprite and the pain sort of disappeared. Later that night, the pain came back and this time, it was so excruciating that she had to ask to be sent to the emergency room. At the emergency room, even after receiving 2 shots of pain killers, the pain was still as intense as ever. The doctor on duty poked and prodded her stomach and apparently, the pain was more intense on the right side, so they suspected that it must be her gallbladder that's ailing her. So, they took an ultrasound, and sure enough, she had multiple stones in her gallbladder. She was scheduled to undergo surgery today (Wednesday), but her WBC count went up at an alarming rate that her surgeon decided to do the surgery earlier. They operated for 5 hours, goodbye gallbladder and out came seven gallstones. I was examining the stones earlier, they were put in a small transparent jar (I guess to take home as a remembrance, ahihi). I stared at the 7 green gallstones for a couple of minutes, they were the size of nutcrackers and when I shook the jar, it sounded like I had a maracas in my hand. They were pretty solid (um hello, they're stones, toinks! what am I thinking!). They must be green because of the bile? Can you just imagine that, 7 stones in your teeny weeny gallbladder, no wonder she was in pain. Thankfully, she's okay now and she'll be discharged this friday.

I can't really promise that I'm gonna lay off the fatty and salty food, I don't think I can exist without eating french fries and all sorts of junk every once in a while, but I guess I can limit the amount. All I have to do is to remember those stones in the jar, that ought to curb my appetite.... a bit. Hihihi.

Comfort Food: Home Made Nachos

Last week, just as I predicted, I ate nachos and tacos everyday, haha. And now, in an attempt to post something new everyday, I'm going to share my super simple Nachos recipe, you can make it in a few minutes, on second thought, maybe not, hehe.


Ingredients:
Nacho chips
Ground beef
Tomato Sauce
Onions
Garlic
Granulated garlic or garlic powder
Mayonnaise
Salsa (refer to previous blog for salsa recipe)
Cabbage
Cheese

Procedures:
1) Saute onions and garlic in a pan, add beef, add tomato sauce, simmer for about 10 minutes. Set aside.
2) Shred cabbage. Set aside.
3) Make garlic mayo: In a small bowl, combine crushed garlic, granulated garlic and mayonnaise. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4) Put nacho chips in a bowl. Top with beef, cabbage, salsa, garlic mayo, and grated cheese.

Easy peasy, japanesey.

New post everyday (or every other day, haha)

From now on, I'm aiming to post a new entry everyday, however, since I know myself quite well, I know that I won't be able to follow through with that, hahaha. Maybe I can manage every other day........ or thrice a week, tee hee hee. This one is not going to count. So I'm going to post something in a while. Let's see how I'm going to fare with this self-inflicted blog challenge. We'll see in a month ;)

klutzy art

I'm not really an artist but I like to sketch, doodle and draw. I basically just copy from books and stuff, or things I see around, but I find it hard to really draw anything from just my imagination, I always come up with monstrous looking things. I was talking to a friend the other day and she posted her doodles on her webpage, so I thought, hmmm, why not. I came across some of my doodles and surprisingly, despite my memory problems, I can remember exactly where I copied the drawings from. Not bad for a practically demented person huh?

These first few ones, I copied from a Japanese fairy-tale book



This one, I copied from a stationary page and I was doodling in class, I hid the stationary inside my notebook, so that it would look like I was taking notes, haha.


These two, I copied from a calendar. I remember that it was summer vacation, way back when I was in high school (gosh, I can't believe I still remember that, and I've been keeping these all this time - I have a little hoarding problem...)


This is from a book of poems my mom gave me



I drew these when I was in college. I copied them from post cards I randomly picked out from an old and dusty bookstore (ha, why do I even remember these things)


Haha, I remember this one, I copied it from an old encyclopedia

I copied this from our Catholic calendar, I think its a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, but I could be wrong, I always DON'T remember the vital things, but I remember the things that actually don't matter, guh-reat!

I copied this from the cover of a romantic-fantasy novel, it was about faeries


This WAS a figurine from our old house, WAS (i broke it)


This WAS a vase from our old house too, I don't know where it is now, I probably broke it too


This WAS the design on one of my mom's plate collections. I'm sure I broke that. I'm a walking hazard.


These last drawings were my attempts to make something I didn't copy from anywhere. Now that I'm looking closely, they look like they've been drawn by a kindergartner, huhu :(

my salsa recipe

I woke up yesterday and had a sudden craving for tacos (no, i'm not pregnant), but there isn't a place here where I could buy one, not near anyway. (My definition of NEAR = within viewing range from our house hehe) I was about to go out to the grocery store to buy stuff when I remembered that I don't exactly know how to make salsa ( a taco is not a taco without salsa!). So I got on the net and searched for recipes. The first few recipes were too complicated and time consuming, there was this particular recipe which required me to grill the tomatoes and peel them, that wouldn't work for me, I'm too lazy. Finally, I found a very simple one which didn't instruct you to even light a match, but there were a lot of ingredients that are not locally available, and even if they are, they're probably expensive, so I just left out some things and still came up with something fit for human consumption (my dog won't eat it though). The recipe is really simple, even a child can make it.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes
White Onions (I can't stand the red ones)
Garlic
Salt
Olive Oil
Lime Juice (calamansi juice)

Procedure:
(1) Remove seeds from tomatoes.
(2) Dice tomatoes, set aside.
(3) Chop onions finely, set aside.
(4) Chop garlic finely, set aside.
(5) In a small bowl, combine lime juice and olive oil
(if there's no olive oil, any cooking oil will do fine),
add a pinch of salt and mix.
(6) Combine all ingredients.
Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. Done. Easy peasy!


Most salsas have chili peppers in them, but I'm not a fan of spicy food so I didn't put any. I just like mild tasting food. Now, I'll probably be eating tacos and nacho chips for a month.

The 2-week headache

I've had this monstrous headache for almost 2 weeks now and it just won't go away no matter what I do, so the other day, I went to my doctor because I was starting to get paranoid. I've already taken mefanamic acid by the handfuls and I'm not so sure that's such a bright idea, although it helps ease the pain a bit. I have a high tolerance for pain (I think...). For the first 3 days, when the headache was at its absolute worst, I resisted the urge to take any kind of medication, even if I felt like my brain was about to burst. After 3 days and the pain was still there, I just couldn't take it anymore, so I gave in and raised a white flag, medications it is. Even with the pills, the pain was still there and it is not exactly the easiest thing to ignore. This is the first time this has happened to me, that's why I decided to go to my doc. Well, the first time, excluding that instance when, due to pure stupidity on my part, I almost drowned (that was in college). Oh boy, I had the most painful headache ever, it lasted for a whole month! Back then, it never crossed my mind to see a doctor or even take a pill for the pain and that was for a month, I wasn't paranoid then. Drat the internet for feeding me all of this info that has turned me into a neurotic mess. Anywayyyy, so I went to my doc the other day and all I got was 15 minutes worth of his time, a prescription and a little handout about headaches. What was I expecting anyway? I guess I was imagining that he would lay his hand on my head and the pain would magically disappear, like some kind of mountain voodoo man. Oh well, what the heck was I thinking, everytime I go to his clinic, that's the routine procedure, he asks some quick questions, I give him some stupid answers, then he gives me a prescription, at least he gave me a handout this time. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against this doc, in fact, I like him, he's nice. I like my doctor even if:
1) He asked me if I was doing drugs (in front of my mom) and then asked me again (twice, still with my mom there) and then he said that it's ok, nobody really admits to doing drugs right away.
2) I caught him smirking the first time I gave him a list of all the things that's been bothering me, including my fingernails. What? He should be happy to have such a diligent, though slightly paranoid, patient like me.
3) I could have bought a new pair of shoes, or a shirt (even two), or about 10 DVDs (um, pirated..) with the money I pay everytime I come for an appointment.
4) He's trying to grow a beard that does not suit him at all. I think he's going for the rugged, I'm-effortlessly-handsome look, the thing is, it's more like the I'm-homeless-and-dirty look.
Despite all that, and some other things I would prefer not to mention, I like my doctor. He's used to me by now. He's used to the way I cringe everytime he prescribes new medications, and how I deliberately ignore some of his questions and change the topic, and also to the way I keep on rambling about the little things that have been niggling at my thoughts. We have an excellent doctor-patient relationship. Anyway, the little handout he gave me can be helpful, I guess. Here it is:
________________________
Headache Triggers:
Dietary Factors:
1) MSG
2) Nuts or nut butters
3) Hotdog, pizza, salami, pepperoni, sausage
4) Chocolates
5) Ripened cheeses (cheddar, stilton, brie, camembert)
6) Sour cream, yogurt
7) Pickled, fermented, marinated food
8) Baked yeast products
9) Onions
10) Citrus fruits
11) Banana
12) Caffeinated beverages
13) Alcoholic beverages
14) Raisins, papayas, avocados

Other Factors:
1) Menstruation, ovulation, pregnancy
2) Pills, hormone replacement (progesterone)
3) Intense or strenuous activity/exercise
4) Sleep - too little or too much
5) Hunger
6) Glare
7) Excessive/repetitive noise
8) Odor
9) Smoke
10) Change in temperature
11) Heat
12) Stress
_______________________

Helpful right? I didn't know bananas and citrus fruits could aggravate headaches, very interesting. I'm not allowed to drink coffee or anything with alcohol in the first place, so thats fine. But pizza, hotdogs, chocolates, cheese? These are like staple food!!! As for the other factors, hmm, pregnancy: I can cross that out, it would be the second coming had that been a factor for me. Hormone replacement: its gonna be years and years before I have to worry about that (I hope!) Strenuous activity: don't ask. Sleep: that makes a lot of sense..... I've had too much. Hunger: right. Glare: I rarely go out into the sunlight, I'm afraid I would burst into flames and turn into ashes. Excessive and repetitive noise: do the neighbor's chickens (or roosters, whatever) count? Odor: I'll be sure not to get close to any foul smelling individuals. Smoke: no. Change in temp: figures. Stress: haha. Seriously though, this list is helpful. I tested some out, I deliberately ate bananas and drank unsweetened pineapple juice, and hey, what do you know, my headache got worse. Another thing that I got from visiting the doctor: a good laugh (though at my own expense). While I was talking to the secretary, this elderly man was squinting at me and looking at me in a really weird way, but I just ignored him, maybe he just didn't like the color of my shirt or something. As I passed by him, he called my attention and said something I could not quite hear at first. So I bent over and said, "I'm sorry sir? What was that?" and he whispered back, his exact words: "Your fly is open".

Wii wanna play! or maybe not.

Last month (or was it 2 months ago? I'm not sure, my memory sucks...), my brother and I went to the mall and bought a new game console, the Nintendo Wii. Naturally, our mom freaked out and told us off, saying that we shouldn't have wasted our money on such an unnecessary (and childish) purchase, which she has said about a million times before and I have a strong feeling she'll be saying this again (oh mummee, you never learn, haha). Anyway, after we bought it, of course we were very excited and like the children that we are, were soon fighting over who got to play. After a week or so, the novelty of the Wii wore off and there it was, almost forgotten. Nothing really beats the real thing. It was fun playing "tennis" at first and surprisingly, it can be exhausting if you really get into it and pretend you're really playing the real thing, but you get sick of it after a while. Not that I actually play tennis for real, I play badminton though (not exactly the same thing but the principle is similar, so there), and nothing beats having a real opponent on the other side of the court, to actually feel the force of the shuttlecock hitting your racket and really running across the court (gosh I miss playing). I tried playing the other games but I got tired of them too easily. It could be more fun if we have 2 Wii motes (or controllers), but we only have 1 and we don't really feel like buying another one cause it's not that cheap, and yes mummee was right, it was an unnecessary purchase, but i guess we never do learn, hehe. (another proof that we don't learn, a month after, my sister bought a nintendo DS Lite, but at least we're still using that). I also bought a dance pad when we bought the Wii. I was quite addicted to Dance Dance Revolution (the PS version) when I was in college, but I was really annoyed to find out that the Wii version isn't that much fun (not for me at least). The songs suck, the moves are too difficult (even at the easy level!), I suck at having to move my hands and feet at the same time, there's no option where I can use just my feet, and the background graphics are too bright and they make me dizzy. I really really don't like it.

There are some games that I do like though, one is called "Trauma Center". You get to play doctor, or more specifically, surgeon. You use the Wii mote to "operate" on patients and its really cool, unfortunately, my 'patients' die all the time. Thank heavens I didn't attempt to go to med school, I would have sucked big time. I also like "House of the Dead", you don't do anything except shoot and kill zombies who are all going to try and eat you, tee hee hee. If they get to chomp you more than three times, you're dead. It would be more fun if we had a zapper, but I don't intend to buy one (or at least I don't right now, hehe). Now here's the funny part, my Dad retired last year and understandably, he's been bored to tears since then. In an attempt to amuse himself and kill time, he tried playing the Wii, specifically the tennis game. After that day of trying it out, he's been playing everyday. At first, he was bugging me every single time to turn on the console for him, and set it up and ready it up so that it would go straight to the tennis part, and so I got annoyed and taught him how to do it himself and now he's hooked! My gosh, he's better at it than me! Now he's playing golf, bowling, boxing and baseball. If we were to play one-on-one, he would most likely beat me to a pulp. My 65-year-old dad can beat me at video games as easy as one two three. Oh my gosh, I'm pathetic. Once again, I'm ending a blog entry describing myself with a most endearing term: L-O-S-E-R.

edited on august 28, 2008, additional note: 2 weeks after I wrote this blog, we bought another wii-mote. and yes, our mom yelled once more. ahihi.

Baby baby baby..... back ribs!

Since we were all doing absolutely nothing this afternoon, my mummee brought me, my brother and my tita to The Boutique Bed and Breakfast at Tagaytay City for a quick meal. She wanted us to try their specialty: baby back ribs. From here (laguna) it takes about 45 minutes (including the normal flow of traffic) to get there, so no problem, fine with me, wasn't doing anything anyway, and who could say no to a free meal, hehe. So anyway, their restaurant is called Hawaiian Bar-b-que. If you're just driving through Tagaytay, the place is quite easy to miss, you'd have to know that it's there. My mom knew it was there, and yet we missed the place by about a kilometer, we had to turn back. The facade is pretty, but again, you'd have to know its there, it's not that noticeable.

The restaurant itself is cozy, semi-open. You can choose to dine inside the resto or out in the open area by the patio. It was a bit overcast today and it already rained before we got there so we opted to dine inside. The place has a nice ambiance (hey, its in Tagaytay, how could it not have a nice ambiance) but I was not crazy about the giant mosquitoes greedily waiting to suck my blood (which I obviously have a lot of!). The place is an open area, so the flying blood-suckers are quite understandable, but still, its a bit of a turn off. The place has a spectacular view of the lush green mountains which was really calming to look at and I really needed that view 'cause my temper has been flaring over the past few days, so that was a welcome reprieve.

The weather in Tagaytay is cool pretty much all the time so airconditioning isn't really necessary. I actually needed to wear my jacket to be comfortable, to think that here at home I can't help but drink gallons of water like a frickin' fish because of the extreme heat. Its only 45 minutes away from here, but what a huge difference in temperature! Anyway, upon entering the premises, you'll be greeted by a view of a crystal chandelier hanging by the main lobby, where there are sofas with backing probably 5 feet high. Then you go straight to the restaurant, which is pretty small, probably just big enough for 25 to 30 people maximun, but that doesn't include the patio area, which is probably okay for about 20 people.

My mom was really impressed with their baby back ribs the first time they ate there and I would have to agree, it was absolutely mouth-watering delicious! The meat was so tender that it was falling straight off the bone. Perfectly cooked the way I like 'em. Juices and flavors all bursting in your mouth, yummmmmm!!! My mom ordered crab salad and spinach salad. I wanted onion rings (one of my ultimate comfort foods!) and baked potatoes but my mom said I absolutely don't need the extra calories and I shouldn't even be eating if not to just sample the ribs. Hmmp.

The service was okay (I guess), we didn't have to wait for the food to arrive after we ordered, it took maybe 10 to 15 minutes, which is good. The staff were semi-friendly, hehe. One order of the baby back ribs costs about 700Php, good for 3 to5 people (according to the waiter). There were four of us and one order was enough, so that's just about right. As for the price, is 700 bucks reasonable? For me it is. As for the rest of the items on the menu, they're a bit pricey if you compare the price versus the serving size, but still okay I guess. I didn't pay anyway, haha. I wasn't able to check out the rooms but I saw an album with pictures of all the rooms in it and they looked really nice. As for the price range, um, let's say I'd prefer to stay at a simple inn if I absolutely have to stay the night in Tagaytay. Anyway................ luckily my mom had cash on her when we went there, cause they weren't accepting credit cards (just for today, offline or something like that), or else, we'd all be washing dirty dishes, hahaha. After the meal, we went to Rowena's Cafe for coffee and dessert. Rowena's in Tagaytay is famous for their super yummy tarts, I adore their apple tarts! I didn't have anything as my stomach was still heavy with meat and I don't drink coffee, so I just sat there and took in the ambience of the place. It was nice and cozy too just like the resto, but of course, not as pricey. At 0700 p.m. we were ready to go and the next thing I know we have arrived at home and here I am blogging about it, hehe.

Rowena's Cafe

Care to bring home pasalubong?

July 18 2008 - now in the past. No earthquake.

It is now officially July 21, I am still alive and in one piece. I did not even feel a teeny weeny bit of a shake the whole day of July 18. Oh well.. so much for predictions. What am I talking about? See previous blogs for reference, hehe.

A handful of dirt could actually help!

Last week, I was roaming around the mall looking for a gift for my goddaughter, it was her 7th birthday last Sunday. One gift was all I needed to buy but because I'm such an impulsive buyer (shame on me!), I went home carrying 3 bags full of stuff I don't need, excluding the gift for my goddaughter. One of the things I bought was this miniature rock and sand Zen garden that I saw at a gift shop. It was sitting there all by itself looking so lonely that I just had to buy it. It only cost 140php, and it also came with little candles. Little did I know that stressful times were looming ahead and that I would actually be able to put my little purchase to use. I didn't know that pushing little rocks and pebbles with a stick could be so relaxing, well of course, not until now.

Jucelino Nobrega da Luz: FRAUD (what do YOU think?)

Okay, I know I just said I am not going to look up this guy on the net anymore, sorry, couldn't help it!!!

I just stumbled upon this blog, you have to see this.

Read the comments after the blog, they make perfect sense and of course they're funny (I find everything funny, sorry, hehe).

By the way, has anybody noticed that he looks a lot like Albert Brooks? I took me 2 whole hours to finally pinpoint who I thought he looked like, hehe. He also looks like Dylan Walsh (the guy on Nip Tuck).

Japanese TV Audiences Scammed by Brazilian “Psychic” Jucelino Nobrega da Luz

December 21st, 2007 by James

Last night, NTV aired a two hour special in which Brazilian “psychic” Jucelino Nobrega da Luz was worshiped as a man who can see the future without fail. Audiences were told that Jucelino accurately predicted just about every major disaster of the last 15 years well before they occurred [9/11, challenger explosion, Tokyo Subway gas attacks, London terror bombings, etc], and copies of “notarized” warning letters with the predictions on them were produced. Host Mina Monta and the panel of Japanese celebrity guests offered no criticism of Jucelino’s claims: they spent the whole show acting amazed by his powers.

I watched about 75% of the show, but there was nothing about how Jucelino’s notary marks have been known to show signs of fraud, nor did they mention the many times he has made public predictions and been wrong. They also didn’t mention his ridiculous lawsuit demanding $25 million in reward money from the US government because he claimed to have predicted the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein.

I understand that sometimes networks like to make entertaining shows about psychics, and it’s not good entertainment to expose them as the frauds they are. However, I was pretty damn disgusted when they revealed Jucelino’s claim of predicting Lindsay Hawker’s murder and proceeded to spend a good 20 minutes on this clown’s bullshit theories about the case.

Here’s a video clip re-enacting the dream Jucelino had about the Hawker murder [NTV received no response from the Japanese embassy in Brazil regarding Jucelino's claim to have sent them a warning letter about the murder a few months before it happened]:

Jucelino offered some predictions about Tatsuya Ichihashi, who remains at large:

• He is still alive.
• He is working at a factory somewhere.
• He is living in an apartment building, possibly one with a green roof.
• He plans to flee Japan at the end of December 2007.

After sending that information to the police, an NTV took Jucelino on a trip to find Ichihashi:

They go to numerous factories and apartment buildings, and Jucelino kept saying that things looked similar to his dreams. Eventually they narrowed Ichihashi’s probably location down to a complex of green-roofed apartment buildings, informing the police their findings. If Jucelino’s predictions are true, the cops will have to act before the end of the month, or Ichihashi will have already fled the country.

source: http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=3454

Mr. Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose: Fraud, Fiction or For Real? (FYI: his name is spelled like this >>> Jucelino Nobrega da Luz)

I haven't had time to research about this guy 'cause I've been really busy with "stuff". Anyway, I'm searching on the net right now and it's a bit difficult to get some comprehensive answers to my query. Aha, here's one. This one is from yahoo answers, check this out. Well, the spelling of his name was wrong in all of the emails, instead of Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose it should be spelled as Jucelino Nobrega da Luz.

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

His name is actually Jucelino Nobrega da Luz... here's his website http://www.jucelinodaluz.com.br/ but it's in spanish or portugese...

Then there's this other website http://www.martin-wagner.org/prophecies.... sayin that his prediction that Indonesia will have an earthquake on Dec 23 2007 did not come true... and there have been other predictions that did not come true..

And another on this website http://fuzzyface.spaces.live.com/blog/cn...
..."His trick is to write letters about things that happened in the past, then forge a postmark on the envelope to make is appear as if he had written the letter before the event took place. He has been exposed for this fraud in the past. "


Hmmmm... there are some conflicting views out there.. but I say that we should still make the best out of life everyday...

• 2 weeks ago

Source(s):

http://www.jucelinodaluz.com.br/
http://www.martin-wagner.org/prophecies....
http://fuzzyface.spaces.live.com/blog/cn...

NOTE: this was classified under "MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE", which tells us what? Hahahaha....

I clicked on the first link, jucelinodaluz.com.br, and the first thing that caught my eye is this part:

Contact:
You can write to, JNL and ask to be a membership and / or ask for some spiritual adivise:
Professor Jucelino Nobrega da Luz
Caixa Postal 54 – Águas de Lindóia – SP
Cep. 13940-000 - Brasil

What the... it looks like some kind of 1-800 thing that will cost you thousands of bucks once you get hooked. Its just unfortunate that I can't understand anything else in the website cause it's all written in a foreign language, and I don't plan to waste time translating any part of it in babelfish. The home page is filled with ads (or seems like it, I'm not sure, because just as I've mentioned, it's all in Portuguese or something). The ads are enough to make me very suspicious. If there's something or anything here that would require you to shell out any amount of cash, I would definitely say this is just a big phoney hoax. The more I'm seeing, the more I'm thinking how sketchy this person is. Aw, crap, you scared the sh*t out of me you @#%^*%#*!!!! You're a professor???? Shame shame shame if all of this is made up crap. Here are some images from his website. Up to you if you want to check out the site. Word of advice: don't.





Click here to register????? very very suspicious...


anunciantes, produtos, negocios, veja aqui means advertisement, products, businesses, see here. dude, why do you have PRODUCTS???
(awww, I was forced to do some translation on babelfish! darn!)

he looks like a respectable dude huh? >>>>>>>
i just hope that he means well
(even if it turns out that the stuff he's been saying are in fact, fictitious and totally made up)

I visited this blog and here's what it says about "PROFESSOR" da Luz:

JUCELINO NOBREGA da LUZ

This guy is a bullshit artist from Aguas de Linoia, near Sao Paolo. To help you judge the accuracy of his predictions, he predicted that China would begin to experience economic grown in 2008. So he doesn’t even read the newspaper! He also said that China would be hit with devastating floods in February of 2008.

He failed to predict the cyclone in Burma or the earthquake in China.

His trick is to write letters about things that happened in the past, then forge a postmark on the envelope to make is appear as if he had written the letter before the event took place. He has been exposed for this fraud in the past.

source: http://fuzzyface.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!94E609F82A595B8F!1702.entry

This blogger is one angry person! Hehehe.

I don't want to research anymore, this is clearly a waste of time. Why was I even scared in the first place? (voice inside my head: that's because you're unbelievably paranoid!) If it's my time to die, then it's my time. That's it. Everyone dies. Nobody is immortal, if you know someone who is, I would like to meet him/her please. Maybe he has the sorcerer's stone from Harry Potter. If I was scheduled to stick a spoon in the wall right at this moment, I would.

Am I going to go out on July 18 then? Um, no. Hahahahhahahhahaha!!!

JUDGMENT DAY? Creepy prophecies from Mr. Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose

I am usually very skeptical when it comes to forwarded emails. Well, they're usually untrue and were probably written with malicious intent, and we, the unknowing readers, are caught in the confusion and become victims, being lured into forwarding the damn things to everyone we know, and if we don't, we'll die a tragic death within the next 24 hours (what kind of suckers does that make us then?). Now, when I get any forwarded e-mail that looks like it has gone around the world (forwarded and forwarded incessantly until it actually came back to its original sender!), I just usually skim through the email and it goes straight to the trash folder. However, this particular e-mail caught my attention. Why? Well, you can just read it for yourself. But just to give you an idea, the email tells us of a man, Mr. Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose, who is being described as some sort of modern day Nostradamus. Most of his predictions are of the doomsday type category, and if you get scared easily, well, I don't know how that bodes for you. Although there are some pretty positive predictions there too, like a cure for AIDS and Dengue will be discovered this year. Goody, I was planning to get bitten by a mosquito since I've already been bitten by a cat and I've scratched that off my list of "animals and things I can get bitten by this year".

Now, the bad part, he predicted that an earthquake will devastate China on September 13. Well, an earthquake already DID hit China and it was totally disastrous. The date he predicted is slightly off, or is it??? What if the May 2008 earthquake in China is just some sort of a warning, and the September 13 prediction is also about to come true? Today is the 8th of July, he predicted that on the 18th of July, a massive earthquake (8.1 on the Richter) will hit the Philippines (where I am now!), and thousands of people will die. Yesterday, I was sitting here at my desk, quietly minding my own business, when suddenly, the room starts to sway and at first I thought it was just me (I get dizzy all the time). It lasted just for a teeny weeny minute, but still, it was a legitimate earthquake, today it was on the news. What kind of a sick coincidence is that? 10 days before the date of the predicted mega earthquake, a mini earthquake occurs. This morning, another mini earthquake shook us, although I didn't exactly feel it, my brother just told me, and I don't think he was just playing around. Why are these series of mild earthquakes giving me the creeps right now? Hello, go figure.

I'm not saying I believe this Juseleeno person a hundred percent, I'm not even sure if he actually exists! (just like how I'm not sure if there really are Leprechauns or if Santa is real). I'm going to have to do a lot of research and browsing to determine the authenticity of this email and of its contents. There are tons and tons of grammatical boo boos in the email, but that doesn't make it less authentic..... right? English is not his primary language for crying out loud! And I don't think he wrote this himself, somebody else wrote it and I think there's even some kind of commentary at the end. It's just soooo unfortunate that I get so easily creeped out once I start to believe in something (I don't call myself Kreepie for no reason!). Although I haven't done much research on this Juseleeno guy yet, that email I read about him and his predictions were enough to scare the hell out of me, and you can be sure you're not going to see me anywhere outside of our house on the 18th of July! You can't make me!!!! But if you pledge to give me a trillion gazillion dollars, I might consider it...

Here's the email, its totally up to you if you want to read this. But hey, if you read this and get crazy scared afterwards, don't blame me! You can't say I didn't warn you... (noo ni noo noo, noo ni noo noo... and the theme from the Twilight Zone starts playing in the background...)

Before you read this though, I'm going to have to admit, to my utter shame and embarrassment, that I still haven't read this thing entirely, I just read the first part, because I'm ridiculously selfish, and it said something about the Philippines and I thought I could be a potential victim, ha.

On a more serious note, even if the contents of this email are not authentic or if this guy is a fake (if he even actually does exist), his predictions of doom may still come to pass. I don't want to sound preachy as I'm not exactly a perfect example of the model citizen, but hello, just watching the news makes me want to cry. The wrath of our dear mother earth is upon us. Flash floods left and right, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, land slides.... And what about all the violence and sickness? Massacres, assasinations, epidemics, deaths by the thousands... they're all happening as I'm typing... This guy's predictions may, sooner or later, pounce on us and catch us off guard. So we might as well start making some changes for the better, right?

_____________________________

Forwarded Email:


2007
Tornado attacked Brazil , thousands people dead.
2007 or July of 2008 Japan will get earthquake and get 30 meters tsunami.
Japan will get earthquake and typhoon in October, He predicted that the huge typhoon will happen on 26^th October in the warning Letter
USA will get the terror attack on 17^th December.

2008
Will find the medicine for AIDS and Dengue
18^th July, Philippine will get 8.1 earthquake, thousands people will die
The Empire State Building New York will get terror attack in September.
13^th of September, China will get 9.1 earthquake in Nanning and Hainan, at the same time will get 30 meters Tsunami, millions people will die, the tsunami may go to Japan Directly.

2009
25^th January. 8.9 earthquake will attacked Japan , Hundred thousands people will die.
November, Japan will get earthquake again. Thousands people will die.
Brazilian government can not pay the insurance because of the finance problems. Will get the riot.
24^th August, Istanbul Turkey will get 8.9 earthquake. The road will be parted.
16^th December, Sumatra Indonesia will get 7.8 earthquake. Thousands people will die.

2010
The temperature will reach 58 degrees in many countries of Africa , at the same time will lack of water.
15^th June, the New York stock market will be
The temperature in Africa will reach 58 degrees, it is unbelievable number, but in May 2007, people who travel around Africa said the temperature in Greece and Turkey are already 39-40 degrees, Iraq and Arabia is about 45-46 degrees, it is possible to happen in the summer but not in may, we can imagine that in the summer of 2010, the world will become warmer and Africa will get the high temperature.

2011
Will found the treatment for Cancer. But another new cancer will occur.
A serious disease will occur, it will be called ALS , People will die after 4 hours get ALS
Bird flu H5N1 will infect to human, 7300000 people will die till 2013.

2012
The area of glebe will be extended regarding the aridity and become desert, from 2015 till 2020, the trees will disappear in Amazon.
From 6^th Dec. the sky will start the black cloud time, it is called weather cloudy.
Human start die because of the infectious disease??s overspread.

2013
Find the treatment for cancel except the brain cancel.
Bahamas of West Indies, from 1^st Nov. till 25^th the Volcano will break out and bring the earthquake too, after that will be 150 meters huge tsunami, about 80 meters tsunami will go to Caribbean, About 15 kilometer to 20 kilometer to USA , Brazil and other countries. The sea will go down 6 meters before the tsunami and the birds will move away too.
Mr.Juseleeno predicted that when the cats and dogs know the disaster is coming, they want to get away from the venue, they will have strange behaviors 24 hours before the disaster, so we can use that for the standard of judgement.

2014
The small planet will be closer to the earth and may knock together, the exist of this small planet will influent the issue of human live.

2015
In November, the average temperature will reach 59 degrees, many people will die, the world confusion will be bigger.

2016
In the middle of April , huge typhoon will attach some cities of China , about one thousand people will die.
The US president Bush will be in the hospital suddenly, has serious sickness.

2018
About the issue of small planet will be closer to the earth, the leaders of each country will gather together to discuss the countermeasure, Mr. Juseleeno already predicted in 2000, and informed the NASA of USA about the exist of the small planet. On 31^st June,2002, NASA confirmed and called this small planet 2002 ZNT 7?v?C

2019
May find out the science power solution, if the small planet knock together, 1/3 population of the world will die. Mr. Juseleeno predicted that the percentage for the small planet knock the earth will be 60% .
In June , the east sea of Japan will get the Tsunami, bigger then the Indonesia tsunami.


2025
Astronomer will find new planet, it may knock the earth again, the possibility will be 80%.

2026
In July, San Francisco will get huge earthquake, it is called ?? the big one??, San Andreas Fault will be destroyed, California will disappear, a lot of crater will start again, the tsunami will be more than 150 meters.

2043
The world population reduced, about 80% people dead in the disaster.


Will 2008 Beijing Olympic Game be held smoothly?

As above said, in 2008, China will get 9.1 earthquake and more than millions people will die, according to Mr. Juseleeno??s prediction that the earth quake will be 13^th September,2008, and Olympic will hold on 8^th August-24^th, In this schedule, the earthquake will happen after Olympic, but before the big earthquake, there will be a lot of small earthquake, it will make the country and people upset.

There will be a lot of small earthquake before the big one, although Juseleeno didn??t predict the exact date, but if we presume the small earthquake will happen one or two month before and it may be the period of Olympic, if so it may make the host and athletes give up. When the writer read this prophesy from Juseleeno, he suddenly remember the space time traveler John Titoer ??s last word ?? 2004 Athens Olympic Game will be last one??

But, if the earthquake is in the south of China , Nanning and Hai Nan, and there are no Olympic games, the Beijing Olympic Game will close successfully. But the problem is that China government is only care about the reputation and successfully of the Olympic game, ignore the small earthquakes, and no preparation before the big one. China may control the report, closed all the news . If so there will be a big disaster as the prophesy said. In Mr. Juseleeno ??s warning letter said ?? if there is no preparation to protect the citizens, will get huge loss??
Mr. Juseleeno also predicted that glacier period is coming.

He also has the right prophesy for the weather, one of them is, in 2003, Europe got high temperature, 29^th October, 2001, the warning letter said ?? the nature world will beat back to the world, the temperature of France, Germany and Portugal will become higher, more than ten thousand people will die, this disaster will happen between 2003 and 2004?? . the truth is, the temperature in the summer of 2003 had reached the highest one which they??ve never had in Europe, about 35.000 people dead, especially France and Germany , about 14,000 people dead in France and 7000 people dead in Germany .


From Mr.Juseleeno??s prophesy, the earth temperature will get higher every year, till 2012, the temperature in Africa will reach 58 degrees and the same time will have serious water problem, after the temperature will be even higher, till 2015, the average temperature of earth will reach 59 degrees, a lot of people will die, the human will get frighten all over the world. If this is the truth, the countries will against each other because of the aridity and not enough food, Mr. Jeseleeno also predicted that there will be some new wars because of the aridity, but he didn??t have clear prophesy, but he felt it won??t be the normal war.

Anyway, the temperature is getting higher is not like the aerography said ( the speed is very slow), actually very quick. However the warmness seems not always incessancy, after the high temperature, a big part of ice of Greenland and South Pole will be dissolved and go to the sea, the circulation of the sea will be lower and become colder, it means a new glacier time. In Juseleeno??s prophesy seems also said after 2027, there will be a new glacier.

Details of the prophesy as below:
The volcano of America yellow park will break out, the smoke and magma will go 1,600 kilometer far, Kansas , Nebraska , Montana will all get damaged. The break out of the volcano is not only in Yellow park, but also some other place in the world. these smoke will blot out the sun, the circulation of see will stagnate and active the cold phenomena.

Eir and kol got Nobel award As we all know, the formal president Gore dedicate on study of earth temperature, his famous book ?? An Inconvenient Truth?? was made to a movie and also get the Oscar award. Actually 19 years ago, Mr. Juseleeno already predicted about this, the phophesy had been published on Moon Magazine in June, in the end of may, before the publish, the editor told the writer about this, I really got surprised for a while..
According the letter which Juseleeno sent to Gore, this prophesy letter already inform Gore that from 1993 to 2001 he won??t be the vice president anymore, he will dedicate on protect the world environment activities, and he will write a book ??An Inconvenient Truth?? to become famous, the English letter Juseleeno wrote to Gore also told the books name and he will get the 2007 Nobel award, we will know this autumn, Let??s looking forward for the prophesy for Mr. Gorel. We can??t deny Mr. Juseleeno ??s prophesy.

There are not much time for Human, from December 2007, the Black Cloud will extend all over the world, as Mr. Juseleeno predicted that if the human still keep the actuality, human will have terrible life from 2008 till 2012 , the black cloud will full of the sky before the disaster. If we want the disaster, and war stay away from us, the deadline for human is the end of 2007. Mr. Juseleeno expected the world consciousness will change in the end of 2007.

The situation is very serious now, if we still want to depend on other??s power, Mr. Juseleeno ??s prophesy ?? the black future?? will happen. We must understand the serious situation, individual to individual, group to group, country to county, hold you own responsibility, take action, because the deadline will come soon.

Inability and tiny ability is totally different, inability is no matter whatever we do, it won??t help. But tiny ability mean more people contribute and the power will become strong. We have do start from ourselves, one people??s power is small but if we put everyone??s power together, It will be strong to change the future disaster.

stupid? definitely not!

07 June 2008 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

somebody once told me.. (of course, due to my limited capacity for retention of certain details, i could not remember exactly who told me this)... somebody once told me that the cat has got to be one of the stupidest animals in the animal kingdom. well, now that i have had the opportunity to mingle with a cat (now cats, plural, the thing just gave birth!), i would have to disagree with that cats-are-stupid theory. this cat that has forced itself into my life is definitely not stupid, it is so cunning to a certain degree that i wish i could have that ability too (i am seeing some raised eyebrows now...). after it bit me, i waited for 2 weeks and watching it became some sort of an obsession, i had to look for signs of impending rabies. i mean, if it showed any manifestation of rabies, that would certainly be an uh-oh moment for me. but thankfully, after 2 weeks, it was alive and well, and it even had the strength to bring out 3 kitties into the world. (i didn't see the kitties though, i just knew she gave birth because her tummy was reduced to half its previous size) after the 2 weeks observation period, i sort of started ignoring the cat. this just shows how embarrassingly selfish i could be. since i was about 90 percent sure that i will not get rabies, i lost interest in the cat. when it would show up by the door pitifully meowing for food, i would just walk past it as if i did not hear anything. the cat must have sensed my indifference then because she took action. to my surprise and amusement, after a few days, at the very same spot by the door, i heard loud meows, but it was a different cat. she sent her husband. now, isn't that smart? she could not catch my attention anymore so she sent somebody else to do the begging for her. although i did laugh and look at the cat-boy, i still did not give it any food. 2 more visits from cat-boy and i still did not budge. cat-girl came back and did her old routine of making a fine racket by the door for a week or so, still, i didn't do anything. after that, the cat-girl took on a different battle plan. she dragged all of her 3 frustratingly adorable kitties to our place and set them by the door where i was sure to see them. how could i ignore those 3 impossibly cute kitties? i'm not really crazy about cats, but those kittens are just adorable!!! they're so small, so cute, with their little paws and cute little eyes, cute little noses, cute noises and cute tumbling about and rolling over each other. there's a white one with orange spots, there's another one which had more orange than white, and the last one is black and white with little orange spots.... soooooo cute!!!!


if the mummy cat could understand me, i would have told her "that's not playing fair you biatch, no accessories allowed!!!" so finally, i gave in. the mummy cat is breast feeding and she needs to eat to be able to feed her kitties, so yes, i finally fed the beastly thing. geesh, how lame is that? i lost the who-is-more-stubborn-and-persistent contest to a small cat. argh. one word: l-o-s-e-r.

07 June 2008 | Permalink |

i really never learn! tsk tsk tsk

17 May 2008 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

what happened this morning is concrete evidence that i really really never learn. some background info: last february (of this year), a stray cat suddenly started showing up in our garden. at first, it just appeared every once in a while, then we started to feed it scraps of food and naturally, it decided to take permanent residence there. the thing was in heaven, free lodging, free food, someone to clean up its poo (not me!) and free access to all the rats and mice she can get her hands (or rather paws) on. so in addition to my two furry babies, we unknowingly acquired a resident feline. now, i'm not particularly a cat person, but i love animals in general, so everytime our new friend meows piteously by the kitchen window, i would go and give it some grub. our friend, whom i call meow-meow, does not seem to show any aversion to petting. in fact, it would usually rub itself against my leg and purr as if she likes it. so being the animal lover that i am, i would oblige meow-meow and pet it. one day, after feeding it, i was petting it, suddenly, from out of nowhere, a furry black little thing (which i later recognize as my pet choc-choc, sneaky little dog!) growls and pounces on me (apparently, the target was actually meow-meow) and out of instinct (i'm assuming), meow-meow's claws shot out, wolverine style (first time i have ever witnessed a cat do that), and she accidentally scratched me, and then fled. i yelped, more in surprise than in pain and little choc-choc stared at me with the guiltiest look a dog could ever muster. i didn't have the heart to get angry, i mean, just to look at those guilty doggie eyes, how could i? after the unpleasant surprise of getting scratched, i looked at the damages. not so bad. small scratches with droplets of blood, yummy. and then it dawned on me that since the cat was a stray, it was of course, not vaccinated and could be rabid. that's when i went uh-oh. well, i asked a couple of people what they thought. should i get shots? should i see a doctor? most of the people i asked thought i should get shots, just to be sure. but good advice fell on deaf ears (or blind eyes, since i just texted them, hehe) and i did not seek any medical assistance. which brings us to the present day. as you can see i am alive and well, so apparently, the scratches were harmless. but me, being yer same old stupid friend who never learns, continued petting little meow-meow, who is now very very pregnant ( i sure hope that choc-choc is not the father! um, hello? national geographic???) and remains unvaccinated and potentially rabid. this morning, i was just sitting down on the floor, petting her, i don't know what happened, if i petted too hard, or a fly bit her, or britney spears passed by, but it just suddenly clamped its chompers on my hand and bit me quite hard.


when they said that you should never bite the hand that feeds you, obviously, meow-meow did not get the memo. the funny thing was, the cat looked just as surprised as i was after she bit me. she just looked at me as if she was trying to say sorry and then she slowly left. i felt a little bit of panic as i was examining the bite, it was not very deep, about a quarter of an inch long, but it was bleeding. i washed it with soap and water until i thought my very skin was going to come off, and then poured a year's supply of alcohol on it. now that i think back on it, i was pretty calm. i even took a long bath before i went out to get my shots, really exciting..... NOT! i went to RITM in alabang. i was expecting a lot of people, but there weren't that many. most of the people were there for dog bites. this one patient, almost still a baby, maybe a year and a half or two years old, practically got mauled by their neighbor's dog. apparently, the toddler was playing outside and strayed to their neighbor's yard, and out came the beastly dog, bit the baby right on the tummy. the baby ran, and fell, as most toddlers do, and the dog attacked her and bit her head! bad bad doggie!!! after that, i heard one story after the other, all about how they all came to be at the bite center. this one guy, he was just feeding his dog, and one of its fangs accidentally snagged on his index finger, ouch. but hey, it wasn't the dog's fault at all. this other guy, you know those guys in black going around in malls with large dogs, he was one of them. i'm not sure what happened, but the bite on his hand looked pretty bad. the guy looked quite pissed off and kept saying that he was going to slaughter the dog when he gets the chance, funny thing was, when injection time came, he was pretty scared. for crying out loud, he was a big guy with a gun. oh well, some guys can be sissies sometimes, no offense. i was there at 11am, got out by 3pm. not too bad by government standards. there was this window where you had to fill out a form, there was not a single pen in sight and on the window was a sign that said "we sell ballpens, 5.00 pesos each". pretty sneaky huh? i actually snickered when i read the sign. typical. luckily, i opted to be a girl scout for today and fished out my own pen, thus saving me my 5 precious bucks. i didn't expect to receive first class service, so it was no surprise that i had to ask dozens of times for directions, and get wrong ones half the time. the doctors were pretty nice, very young from what i observed. after a couple of standard questions, off i went to pay for the vaccines and stuff, and i was very surprised by the amount that i had to pay for. i didn't have that much money on me, i had to go out to the mall and get more cash, i wasn't expecting to be coughing up that much. serves me right, i was so stupid, shouldn't have been petting a stray cat, argh. then the dreaded injection time came, i thought "this is going to be good, ugghhh." i was asked to sit down on a plastic chair and to wait while the nurse was preparing the syringes. i looked on and i couldn't believe my eyes, she was getting 6 nasty needles!!! i have a high tolerance for pain, but 6 shots??? i tried to console myself by thinking, "nah, those couldn't be all for me." they were. shoot. miss nurse injected one in my left arm, two on my right. 3 down, 4 to go, hmm not so bad, not really painful. then she goes "okay drop your pants." i wouldn't have had a problem with that statement if we were in a private room, which we definitely were not. there was another male patient being interviewed right behind me and i was in full view of the door, which was wide open, not to mention the long queue of patients right outside. i looked wildly around for a private space, and there was none. the nurse looked quite impatient and repeated the drop-your-pants line. she was so intimidating that i mumbled "OK" but in my mind i was going "what?!? you want me to show my fat ass in front of all these people????" luckily, i only needed to drop my pants just an inch, she just wanted to inject the upper part of my butt and it wasn't even painful. okay just 2 more injections. no biggie. her next statement: "now drop your pants right down to your knees." panic must have been written all over my face because the nurse finally asked if i wanted to go to another room. thank you!!! showing a part of my butt is one thing, but walking around in public with my underwear and all my cellulite in full view? no way jose! the injection on my thigh was surprisingly painful but nothing that i couldn't bear. the last injection, and it was the nastiest looking of them all, was to be injected right beside the bite. just as i expected, it was quite painful. my hand instantly swelled to the size of a tomato because of the amount of liquid that went through the needle. i was made to wait for 30 minutes more, just to make sure i didn't have any adverse reactions from the vaccine, and i was finally free to go, hopefully rabies free. now i just have to observe both meow-meow and myself for 2 weeks. if i start growing whiskers and chase mice, it would obviously be time to go to the ER.

17 May 2008 | Permalink |

10 things (continued..)

31 January 2008 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

10 things

when i'm overly anxious (nervous, worried, troubled...etc etc etc), i tend to:

1) bite my fingernails.
not a pretty habit but hey what can i do, it has stuck with me like a leech that has not been fed for a year.

2) whistle. loudly.
yep, people do turn around expecting to see a guy making the whistling sounds.

3) talk to myself in an alien language..
kidding! i just talk to myself, period. LOL. i talk to myself all the time, the difference is that when i'm anxious, i talk at the speed of light.

4) tap my toes.
i also do this when i get impatient so you can't really tell if i'm worried or just losing it, hahaha.

5) get fidgety.
i am normally unable to sit still or stand in a stationary position for longer than 5 minutes, when i'm nervous, that time period is cut by about seven thousand percent.

6) zone out and go off into another world.
it would be a feat to get any sense out of me when my anxiety is going through the roof. word of advice from yours truly: don't attempt it. ;)

7) get temporary amnesia.
my mind goes blank and i forget everything.

8) go deaf.
in addition to the memory loss, it gets difficult for me to hear anything, much less, absorb anything.

9) say something incredibly stupid.
i guess i say stupid stuff all the time, but when anxiety level goes up, the stupidity rate increases with it.

10) eat, eat, and then eat some more.
well, this is actually my instant remedy to just about anything. when i'm angry, i eat. when i'm sad, i eat. when i'm frustrated, i eat. when i'm happy, guess what, i eat! as a result of consuming unbelievable quantities of grub for the past 25 years, i am now probably qualified to enter a sumo wrestling competition. illegal loggers have also made me a target: they mistook my thighs for enormous tree trunks.

31 January 2008 | Permalink |

10 things i hate about you..

29 January 2008 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

10 THINGS

(in memory of heath ledger)

health ledger? dead? no wayyyyyyyyy......
didn't believe it until i saw it with my own eyes on CNN.
i wasn't particularly a fan, it's just surprising. he was only 28.
just like the way i was surprised when i was told that rico yan died suddenly.
what a waste, such a promising career. so young.
oh well, that's life on the fast lane..
they say it was drugs that did him in, but hey, we'll never really know. we weren't there. i haven't seen a lot of his films, but since i looooovvveeeee watching sappy, cheesy, corny chick flicks (the sappier, the better!!), i most definitely did see "10 things i hate about you".not a fan of julia stiles either, but i like her.

now, i'm randomly making lists of 10 stuff, not necessarily my TOP 10 things, just the first 10 things that popped into my head.

the first installment of my 10 things..

10 things i want to learn.

I want to learn how to:

1) drive... again.
yes i did take driving lessons once upon a time and i was able to drive from here straight to cavite at 80km/hr ('twas a breezy tuesday, hardly any traffic...) and i was able to drive short distances (on the condition that there must be minimal to no traffic at all) but never by myself.

2) swim.
i never took swimming lessons as a kid. my brother and sister had swimming lessons, i don't know why i didn't. as a result of my aquatic ignorance, i nearly drowned on three separate occasions, all of which were also because of pure stupidity on my part.

3) make pottery.
i saw this special on the 'living asia' channel the other day and they were making these amazing clay pots. plus, who on earth did NOT see the movie "ghost", hehehe.

4) type. properly. without looking down at the keyboard.
of course i know how to type, how else would i be able to use my computer right? but believe it or not, i only use the fingers i point with (what do you call those? index fingers? whatever..), and occasionally i am able to use my left middle finger for obscure letters such as Q, W, X, and Z. and of course, my thumbs for the space bar. i am super envious of those people who can type at lightning speed using ALL fingers, and never do they glance at the keyboard.

5) make a kite, launch it, and fly it by myself.
i am not talking about the teeny weeny kites made of old newspapers and little sticks. i am talking about the gigantic ones that make those scary whirring sounds as they zoom about in the air. if i knew how to, i'd probably make one in the shape of harry potter riding on his broomstick, kewllllllll....

6) bake.
i cook all the time but i never really learned how to bake. i once attempted to make cookies, but they nearly broke my teeth. david could have used them as rocks for his slingshot to kill goliath.

7) make paper mache.
you're asking, what? didn't you do that when you were in grade school? unfortunately, no, i didn't. my childhood was not complete because i was never able to make a paper mache horse.

8) climb trees like a monkey.
yes, i did climb trees as a child, but i almost always fell off. stupid. i want to be able to climb trees as tarzan would so that if i suddenly find myself alone in the jungle and a bear comes after me to eat me, i would be able to save myself.

9) carve a chicken.
whenever i am asked to chop a whole chicken, i always end up with a plateful of tortured poultry.

10) knit.
so that when i grow old, alone, a spinster, i would have something to kill my time with. pathetic...

29 January 2008 | Permalink |

bizaare dream...

17 October 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

i had this really weird dream last night, well actually ALL of my dreams are weird, but this particular one is a little more memorable than the others because it involved my dogs and guns, hmmm... anyway, in my dream, i was in our old house, and then some strangers with guns were trying to steal my dogs. when i saw them carrying my dogs away, i ran after them and i actually had my own gun! i've never even used a gun before, much less try to shoot someone. when we were kids, i was always toying around with my dad's shotgun and mini pistol, but of course they were never loaded and i didn't really learn how to use them. in this dream, i was practically a sniper! i didn't even hesitate to shoot, and i was aiming to kill. i'm not even a violent person! i took shot after shot and every bullet hit home. blood was spurting everywhere, and i just kept shooting the strangers until i had no more bullets left. i usually dream 3 to 4 dreams, the other dreams i had were not that unusual. in the other one, i was horseback riding. i am actually afraid of horses and have never ridden one ever since that incident in baguio. i was in 2nd grade and the horse i was riding suddenly reared back and stood on its hind legs. i almost fell off its back. i didn't fall but i was terrified. never attempted to ride a horse ever since then, no horse could probably take my weight anyway, hahaha. in the other dream i had last night, i was trudging through a rice field flying an enormous triangular kite. what the heck? LOL. but the dogs and the shooting people part of the dream was just bizaare. why would anyone steal my dogs? i love them to pieces and all, but i have to admit that they are the most ill behaved canines ever. i wasn't able to house train them properly. you can call them "demolition doggies" hahaha. nobody would take my dogs, even if i paid them, hehe. one is a hyperactive scraggly mini daschund, and the other is a mixed breed of a japanese spitz and something else, i don't know what, probably a rat, LOL. one time, my mom was so mad when she discovered deep scratches on the rear end of her car, she immediately blamed the dogs. of course, i defended my babies and told my mom it was not them, probably some stray cat that decided to use her car as a scratching post. well, it was actually the dogs who did it, but i'll never admit that to my mom! hehe. anyway, weird dream...

17 October 2007 | Permalink |

better off not knowing...

16 October 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

there are times when you know way too much, enough to scare yourself and think crazy thoughts, but not enough to make you realize how irrational your fears are. one of my college professors always told us "confucius said: the more you know, the more you know that you know nothing." this line always stuck with me. and it's true. the more knowledge you gain, the more you realize that there's so much more you actually don't know yet and you can spend the rest of your life sponging up information and still not even come close to knowing everything, not even a tiny percent of everything. knowing everything is an absolute impossibility, at least for us mere humans. every minute, or every nano second that passes by, something happens, it could be as big as a great break through or as little as the most mundane thing you could ever imagine, but still, there's always something, and that's another thing added to the eternity of things that you don't know. personally, i think there are things that we could be better off not knowing. heck, there are tons of stuff I AM SURE i would be better off not knowing, what those are, well, i'll just keep those to myself, you'll be better off not knowing those... :)

16 October 2007 | Permalink |

"days" of the living dead

10 October 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

i've been feeling so groggy and drowsy all the time for the past few months that I'm like the living dead, walking listlessly around like a drunken zombie. maybe it's because of the extra sedentary lifestyle, or more likely because of the drugs! bingo! LOL! i swear, if i even had a little sip of any liquor, i would probably pass out in the blink of an eye, wham! i also have this habit of spacing out every once in a while, but now, this habit (which I have to admit is probably annoying for other people unfortunate enough to have engaged a conversation with me) has become so normal for me that it seems like i am spacing out 90 percent of the time, mentally alert and coherent for the remaining 10 percent, rather than the other way around. it is not a secret that i have a horribly short attention span, but it's become worse, much much worse. i used to find it really irritating to have to repeat something i just said loud and clear to someone who is just a foot away from me, and now i'm making people repeat everything to me all the time! i'm always going, "ha? ay sorry, ano ulet yun?" people must be saying, "is she deaf or just plain retarded?" LOL! even around the house, i just walk aimlessly around, and i keep bumping into things that i know have been in the exact same position they have been in for years, and later i wonder why i have so many bruises, duh. i am usually so deeply immersed in this little world of my own that i actually forget what's happening around me. this is apparently the result of being isolated for such a long period of time. unfortunately, my semi-isolation time is nowhere near its end. so for the meantime, please excuse me, i have to look around cause think i left my presence of mind lying around in a box somewhere. i'm going this way, wait, that way, no, this way.... arrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh............

10 October 2007 | Permalink |

motivation: where can i get one? two or three would be nice...

05 October 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

i've been doing something that i am not totally a hundred percent into, although i do know for a fact that it is for my own good and that if i follow through with this "thing" conscientiously i will be more than thankful or even ecstatic, i still can't get myself to really get into it. i have to kick myself each day and tell myself, "just get up and do it you lazy ass!" it took a really long time to get me started on this "thing", i kept procrastinating, saying my reasons not to do it (most of which were true, some slightly true, and some totally NOT true), negotiating, bargaining, even literally whining and whimpering like the spoiled brat that i actually am, anything not to start on it. i had my reasons. still do. but well, i'm on it now, might as well make it worth my while. but oh gosh, the excruciating pain! i am not even doing things properly, and if i were to rate the effort i am unwillingly giving, on a scale of one to ten (ten being the highest), i'd probably give myself an honest 5. most of the time i feel like the greatest wimp that ever walked the surface of the planet. i am feeling guilty, i really wish i could give it my all, or even more, but right now, i just cant. if people had any idea at all, if they could just experience one tiny percent of the struggles i have to go through on a day to day basis, they would understand. i used to be such an optimist, but the past 2 years have just been so confusing and frustrating on so many levels that i can't even put my feelings into words, i just keep sputtering all this nonsense. i used to be driven, i was enthusiastic about practically everything, where did all of that go, poof, gone, just like that. so if anybody knows where "motivation" and "drive" are on sale, please let me know, cause i'd sure love to get some.

05 October 2007 | Permalink |

insomnia . . . again!

25 May 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

i've been having some trouble falling asleep the last couple of days and i don't know why exactly. i know i want to sleep and i feel tired, but my mind just won't let me go into a peaceful slumber. i would toss and turn for about an hour and then i would finally give up and do something else like read a book, write, or sketch, and i would finally feel really exhausted at around 4 or 5 a.m. which is the only time i would be able to go to bed and sleep. the other day, i tried a different strategy. since i couldn't sleep at night, i decided not to sleep at all and rough it up until the next night, so that i would be completely exhausted, and in turn, i should be able to fall asleep instantly when i went to bed at around 8. i just had a little afternoon nap for about 2 hours. but no, didn't work. still got to sleep at 4 am. darn. right now, i'm looking at my dog in envy. how could he just flop into my bed, curl into a little ball and fall right to sleep? i'm shuffling around, making noises and doing stuff, but the little thing doesn't even move a bit. i accidentally banged into my cabinet a while ago and he did sit up for a while to see where the sound came from, when he saw that it was only me, he immediately laid down on the bed, managed to wiggle himself into my blanket (it's kinda cold cause it's raining and it is 1:30 a.m.) before curling up into a little ball once again and slept. it's actually adorable how his little paws would sometimes move and twitch while he's sleeping, he's probably dreaming of some bitch, hahaha! and this time i can actually say bitch without feeling guilty because it's correct! tee hee hee! i'm really envious of my dog, he looks so comfy, bundled up and sleeping without a care in the world, oblivious to everything that's going on around him. i used to have the ability to sleep virtually everywhere. in public transport (i even could sleep in the MRT standing up, leaning against a pole), while in class (everyone does this!.... right?), in waiting rooms, in cinemas (i once slept through almost an entire movie because i was so tired), and believe it or not, even while showering. you know those times very early in the morning, when you desperately just want to stay in bed and not go to work but just can't, so you haul yourself and drag your sorry ass to the bathroom and force yourself to shower. well, i could actually fall asleep standing up while rinsing my hair under jets of hot water, of course that's half asleep. but still. this is very annoying actually. why is it that when you really really need to stay awake cause you're doing something important, like finishing up some reports that need to be handed in the following day, you just can't. i remember when i was in college, i would furiously cram and study for an exam a few hours away, it would be 3 in the morning and my exam would be at 7am, but i just could not keep my eyes open. but now when there is absolutely nothing to be done, when i have no pressing matters that need to be accomplished asap, i am wide awake! i desperately want to sleep early (early - not early in the morning but early at night!) and wake up early. i hate this vampire sleeping pattern. i can't drink milk because i can't stand it, the mere smell of milk makes me want to puke. i do not want to take sleeping pills, and even if i wanted to i can't, they're prescription drugs and probably habit forming, so i don't want that. i've tried taking a nice warm shower before jumping into bed (i read somewhere that taking a warm shower before bed is supposed to make sleep easier). i've tried reading a book, but what happens usually is that i get so immersed in what i'm reading that my mind just becomes more alert and i end up trying to finish the book, so that's not working either. but maybe this is just a phase that i'll get over with, hopefully soon!

25 May 2007 | Permalink |

the never ending interview...

06 March 2007 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

interviews. i'm bad at interviews. i hate interviews. no, let me re-word that, i ABHOR, DETEST, LOATHE, (probably every word for 'hate' in the thesaurus you could find)interviews. the mere thought of having a formal interview makes me want to puke. many people have mentioned the fact that i've gone through so many interviews in my whole life, i must be a pro by now. but noooooooooo, that's where they are hugely mistaken. i always get jittery before the "big day". on the day itself, i get really panicky, practically verging on hysteria. i almost can't eat. me???? not eat???? i eat everything! i'm always on the seafood diet, "i see food, i eat it". but i said ALMOST, so i can still actually eat, but a few minutes before my interview, my lunch would start protesting and would want to get out and get some fresh air. (eeeewwwwwwwww, hehehhee). then i start to have difficulty breathing and have trouble speaking out coherent sentences, like i'm having a conniption or something. when i actually get into the room, my heart starts beating triple time (i get so weak in the knees, i can hardly breathe, i lose all control, then something takes over me.... ok, ok, it's a song, but it fits!!), i swear the interviewer must probably hear my heart throbbing from across the room. the first question comes, then disaster strikes. aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! i start blabbering complete nonsense, and when the interview is done, i come out of the door in a daze, wanting to bash my head violently on a cement wall, i always ask myself, after EVERY interview, "shhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiittttttttttt, how could i have been so stupid, the questions were so easy!!! a preschooler would have done better than i have! damn! a rock would have done better! at least it would have simply shut up and not have spewn out complete nonsense and humiliated itself!" and i further torment myself by recalling the entire interview in my mind, every single horrible bit of it, and i would usually shake my head in disgust, telling myself, "what a stupid ass you were! you should have overcome your nerves by now, you've already gone through this a gazillion times!!!" and so the cycle goes, every time i have an interview, the same thing happens, nerves, nerves, nerves, just couldn't shake it off! why why why, i dunno, i dunno, i dunno. i probably will carry this with me forever. it's still a mystery to me how in the world i get hired after my disastrous interviews. i'm already in, like, my 7th or 8th job, honestly, i've lost count, and i've only been working for roughly 4 years, that's baaaaaaaadddddd. i'm not job hopping, as i've mentioned in previous blogs, but i just can't help it, "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" (ok, it's another song, and yet again, it fits! my life IS a song! but i can't really sing, ok, i'm not making sense again, anyway, whatever..) so what made me suddenly write about interviews and my fear of them? because yesterday, i had another one. and this time, it wasn't just any interview, it was a panel interview. i've never had a panel interview before, so this is like in another league! if the normal interviews can be compared to riding a caterpillar ride in some fair, this was like riding a gigantic roller coaster with a million loops and 80 foot plunges. and it was an important interview for me, i really wanted to make a good impression, but then, my nerves got to me, and guess what, yeah, disaster struck. i couldn't work normally the whole morning, i definitely felt like throwing up after lunch, my legs were like jelly and i thought my knees were going to give out and buckle. i don't know if my smile looked genuine or if i looked like some retarded nitwit, because honestly, i felt more like bawling than smiling. i was just soooooooo nervous! i thought i really had everything in control during lunch break, i thought i would be able to get a grip on myself. i mentally pictured myself doing the interview and answering confidently, but when the questions you get are just the ones that you never expected, you could really get thrown off and i guess i just lost it, i knew i was babbling. i always speak too fast when i'm nervous, and i did just that. it wasn't really that bad, but i can't say it was good, far from it. maybe just a whisper away from being considered passable. it was really nerve wrecking, i felt like i was auditioning for american idol, like there was simon, paula and randy, hahaha. (now, i totally respect those who had the guts to audition for american idol, i used to laugh at some of them, but now i really do know what nerves can do, it can really destroy you!) if simon cowell had been there, he would probably have said, GHASTLY, HORRENDOUS, HORRIBLE! the panel interview was even worse because i didn't get any feedback, i couldn't gauge their reactions, i couldn't read their facial expressions, i just had no idea if they were happy or flabbergasted by my answers. i'm still slightly recoiling in horror when i try to recall what my answers were, i just think they weren't good enough, i could have done better,aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!! it's so frustrating to know that you could have done better if only..... but, what's done is done, there's nothing i can do about it now but wait for the results. it's just a relief that the interview is over, at least i'm done with that. i'm just quite in the dark right now as to how i did. i really can't tell, their facial expressions were so unreadable. gosh, they were good at keeping their faces straight. if i had been in that panel interviewing ME, i would have laughed, hehehehehe. haaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, well, there's no point in getting frustrated now, it's not like i have a time machine, i can't turn back time and revise my stupid answers.

06 March 2007 | Permalink |

cant sleep at night? join the club!

28 August 2006 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

I have been living like a zombie for nearly a month now. My insignificant existence has reached an all time low and the slumbering pessimist in me has once again come to life. My routine for the past month has been like this: I wake up at 5:00 p.m. (Yes, P.M. That is not a typo), blink irritably at the sudden burst of sunlight, get up and go to the loo, splash my face with gallons of cold water hoping that this would get me out of my lethargic state, sit in front of the computer until I feel hungry, eat, get back to staring at the computer, at around 3:00 a.m. I take an hour long warm bath, get back to fiddling with the computer and wait for the sun to rise and for my brain to shut down, which usually commences at around 7:00 a.m. and at 5:00 p.m. I get to repeat the whole useless routine all over again. Such a waste of time, I know. However, I can’t seem to help it. I don’t even watch TV anymore. I think I tried to watch some TV last week, but I ended up aimlessly switching from channel to channel. 98 channels and there’s absolutely nothing to watch! Pathetic. Our cable provider doesn’t have the Wowow channel anymore where I used to catch almost new movies (it’s really incredible how they’re able to air movies which just came out in cinemas like a month before, its probably illegal though) and no, I do not watch the adult content Japanese films they used to air in the wee hours of the morning. Whatever happened to quality entertainment? How were we able to live back in the days when cable TV was just a dream, to think that now that we do have cable, we are still complaining (it probably doesn’t help that most of the channels are in languages we do not understand, like RAI, and are therefore useless, but I sometimes watch Arirang, at least there are English subtitles). Anyway, the point is, I’ve sort of lost interest in the mind numbing phenomenon which we earthlings call Television. My computer has become my new best friend. The world wide web can provide all the crap you’ll ever need. Out of sheer desperation, I sometimes attempt to go to chat rooms; however, I now find them severely distasteful, the place is just crawling with perverts and whack jobs. When I was in high school, I really had fun chatting with different sorts of people, but the talk back then made sense. Where are these people now? They probably found better stuff to do than waste their time on the net. All that’s left now are people bursting with an excess supply of hormones. Bleh. There were times that, just for kicks, I would pretend to be a guy and introduce myself with names like Lance or Hank and these girls really bought it! Sometimes, I would pretend I'm gay and pm guys, who apparently turn out to be a bunch of homophobes. It was really hilarious at first, but the humor of it all eventually wore off and I got tired of it. Plus, I realized that it's not really a nice thing to do (well duh, am i stupid or what). Thankfully, some of my friends go online sometimes and I get to have decent conversations. However, since they live normal lives, they are usually asleep at the time when I am most actively wide awake. So, I sometimes break my pathetic routine and read a nice book or watch a movie I can fall asleep in front of. In a few days, I have to go back to the real world, meaning, like a normal person, I have to get up in the morning and go to work. My major problem now is how I’m going to reprogram my body clock and sleeping patterns. I desperately have to try to sleep at night if I don’t want to be narcoleptic in the daytime when I’m at work. It’s not exactly an impossible feat. I’ve done it before and I can do it again, but it’s not going to be easy…

28 August 2006 | Permalink |

physical pain is actually a great distraction from the more figurative kind of pain

06 August 2006 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

So, how was my day yesterday? It was fantastic-o! Absolutely super! I just had my foot cut open and it was just great … not! Haha. Really funny stuff. It was so painful I just had to laugh my ass off in order for me not to wail like a baby with a bad case of hives. I usually have a high tolerance for pain, but because I had apparently underestimated the pain that would be coming, I felt it more than I should. I’ve had the same thing done 4 years ago, it was done so swiftly that I was being stitched up faster than I could say ouch, and I actually found myself saying, “That’s it?” I laid down on the operating table for three hours looking like an idiot, waiting for the doctor to come. He did the surgery for like 5 minutes (of course I’m just exaggerating, it was more like 15…). I was pretty nervous the first time, though I think I did quite well putting up an I-don’t-really-care-its-just-minor-surgery look on my face. Like I said, the surgery was pretty fast the first time and I hardly felt any pain, so the second time around, I felt really calm, but things never go quite as we expect them to. Yesterday, I didn’t have to wait too long, but this time, I was alone, my brother was out in the mall somewhere and would be waiting for me after the surgery. Still, even though I was there by myself, I felt pretty reassured since I’ve experienced this before and it wasn’t quite so bad. I lay on the operating table feeling even a bit jolly, but the moment they stuck that absurdly long needle into my foot, all jolliness was forgotten and for a moment there, I probably also forgot how to breathe. Ok, so the surgeon did warn me that it would hurt and I said that’s fine, but I didn’t actually prepare myself mentally because I was expecting nothing more than an ant bite kind of pain, it was more like a rabid-dog-bite kind. In my mind, I was going like, “Ouch ouch! Get that fricking thing out of my foot!!” It took longer than expected for the anesthesia to kick in, but it did after a while, thank heaven for that! When the surgeon said, “knife,” I kind of felt like I was on the set of ER, except that I didn’t see George Clooney or Noah Wyle anywhere. After a few minutes, I began to relax, “This would be over in a jiffy. They did it pretty fast the last time so I’m sure they will this time.” I became so relaxed that I was actually getting sleepy, but then I heard some whispering and my then lethargic brain came back to life, “Why are they whispering? Is something wrong? Like, have they cut off my entire foot by accident or something???” Of course they didn’t cut my foot off, stupid me, I would have felt it if they did because the anesthesia only covered a portion of my foot. But when you keep hearing the doctor saying “shit” while he’s cutting you up, you can’t help but get paranoid right? I mean, why does a surgeon have to say “shit” while doing a simple excision, that cannot be good. By this time, I was starting to wonder why this was taking so long, they should have stitched me up by now and I should be walking out and heading home, but I could still feel the blade sawing away. Then I felt a bit of pain at the swish of the blade and in my mind I was starting to panic, “Holy shit! The anesthesia is wearing off!!!” I don’t mind being cut up and all, but it could scare the shit out of you to think that the anesthesia would suddenly wear off while they’re still in the process of cutting you up. Still, I didn’t say anything. “Ok, maybe that was just my imagination, don’t panic, don’t panic.” Then the surgeon made another motion with the knife (or whatever it was that he was using) and I was certain that I did feel that. Still, I just stupidly lay there and said nothing. I just breathed in deeply and let the air noisily out my nose. The doctor must have heard me because he asked if I was feeling any pain, and I wasn’t so stupid this time, and I replied, “Um, I kind of feel a bit of pain. Am I supposed to feel that?” I figured that, no, I wasn’t supposed to feel anything because the doctor told his assistant to get me another shot of anesthesia. Another injection… ahhhhhh numbness. So, the doctor proceeded and I nervously waited. Another 20 minutes or so passed by and finally, I was being stitched up. When he was done, he showed me the specimen that he took out. I felt like a mother who just gave birth, only this was one pretty ugly baby. The operation ended with no more hitches and it still isn’t clear to me why the doctor kept saying “shit”, maybe it’s just some sort of habit of his or something. So then I got up and gingerly put my injured foot on the ground. I tested taking a step and was relieved to feel nothing…. yet. I was told that the anesthesia would wear off in a few moments, great. I hastily paid the medical bills and went home with the assistance of my brother. I hurriedly went to my room, (well, as fast as I could with an injured foot) sat on the bed, and examined the bandages. A spot of blood the size of a regular coin was seeping out. I didn’t mind it for a while and just lay down the bed and read a book. An hour or so later, I sat up and looked at my bandaged foot again, and the bandage was now fully drenched in blood, oh goody! I didn’t want to change it then but had no choice. I peeled off the plaster and slowly removed the gauze. What I saw was the cut grinning at me like it was saying, “Hi!” It was gaping and profusely bleeding. Gross, I know. So I sent a message to my doctor asking him if it the bleeding was normal and he just told me to put elastic bandages around it and so I did. The cut is still bleeding up to now and I have to change the dressings every so often, but the pain killers are working like magic and I’m not feeling too much pain right now. But with the temporary loss of the use of one foot, I’m having a real hard time moving about. I nearly fell flat on my face trying to get to the bathroom. Even the most mundane things such as peeing have become a task. I don’t remember having these difficulties the first time I got the operation, but then that was 4 years ago. I made a feeble attempt to go down the stairs. I got down just fine, I just used my butt to haul me down, getting back upstairs proved to be more of a problem. I had to push myself up using my arms and my upper body strength isn’t much to be proud of. By the time I reached the top landing, I was exhausted and out of breath. How could I have known that something as simple as going up a flight of stairs can be a challenge? I now amble about hopping on my good foot, with the injured one lifted up 45 degrees into the air. I must look really ridiculous, like I’m in some distorted sack race (sans the sack of course). Good thing no one can really see me now. This just makes me realize all the more that we should really take good care of ourselves. The loss of even one small part of the body can be detrimental. If one part of the whole isn’t functioning, then the rest of the whole will cease to function normally as well.

06 August 2006 | Permalink |

worried? you shouldn't be...

03 August 2006 (taken from my old friendster blogs)

how would you react if you went in for a routine check-up with your doctor and he tells you: "Hmmm... this is actually quite uncommon, the truth is, i've never seen a case like this before in my entire medical practice..." won't you freak out? i didn't... on the outside. i actually looked calm and cool, like i didn't hear anything significant, but internally, i was telling my self, " what the....... waaaaaaaaaa..." i must have spaced out for a while (again ... as i usually do when i'm deep in thought) because there were some bits of info i didn't get; however, i think i got the important bits, especially the part where the doctor said he doesn't think it's serious (or is that the only bit i actually wanted to hear). so i went out of his clinic looking and FEELING calm. now that i think about it, i shouldn't have worried in the first place. we shouldn't kill ourselves worrying about stuff that haven't even occured yet, if you worry now and it doesn't happen, then you worried for nothing and you just gave yourself an uneccessary scare. if the thing that you were worried about DOES happen, then it turns out that you worried twice. worry about stuff when they're there. i dont mean to say we shouldn't prepare or plan in advance for unexpected things; but worrying is different from preparing. wow i used the word "worry" a lot of times, i must be worried... hahahaha.....

03 August 2006 | Permalink |