Michael Scofield had to spend months studying and researching every single thing between a screw he can use as an Allen wrench to D.B. Cooper, had to tattoo about 50 percent of his body with things as vital as structural plans of Fox River Penitentiary to a thanks-for-tattooing-the-obvious "Christ in a Rose" (alluding to Christina Rose, his mom's and boat's names... Does one really need a tattoo to remember a huge boat christened with your mom's name?) Anyhoo... He also mastered folding paper cranes. He did this all to escape from one prison... and eventually end up in another one.

(Post-Spoiler Alert)

My mode of escape is far less taxing, not to mention friendlier (and non-permanent) to the skin. These are all I need...



After catching an inch thick layer of dust on my movie backlog shelf, I finally got to see Pan's Labyrinth. It is, visually, a very beautiful film. It shows the whimsical world of Princess Moanna filled with faeries and magical chalk... but also, doesn't shy away from showing the terrifying world of fascist Spain filled with death, torture and a sliced mouth.


I always enjoy a well made film with not so well known actors. The absence of top-billed celebrities almost always lets the story and the craft stand out. A delight... as opposed to a mental montage of previous astounding roles flashing through one's head while watching a well known actor crash and burn, one suffers through in most well publicized films.


There is much to be said about fantasy literature... and conversely fantasy films. The transient escape they offer, no matter how bizarre to students of cynicism, is priceless.

Legendary authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis wrote escapist literature to the nth degree. Although probably not intentional, it seems they designed alternate realities to the Second World War. The fantasy worlds may have elves, dwarves, centaurs and a magical lamp post... but the terrors of war and death are real and wholly prevalent, but with a inkling that in the end, goodness will prevail.


Both put the fate of the world in the hands of seemingly atypical characters. Atypical in the sense that they are not a ripped Hercules or an Excalibur wielding King Arthur. Hobbits and children are the primary heroes in these tales... an empowering idea that anyone with a courageous heart can be epic worthy. They (as said poignantly by Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire) rely on the kindness of strangers. A faun with a red scarf, an emaciated hobbit with multiple personalites, talking beavers, talking trees... And they are under the guidance of someone "enlightened" in the Dalai Lama sense of the word... a white wizard and a lion with a soothing voice.


They wage war against the most Goliath-esque of enemies with legions of ferocious pawns. Sauron with his Nazgul, orcs and Uruk-hai... Jadis with her wolves, dwarves and minotaurs.

Contemporary works follow a similar trend. J.K. Rowling, especially so in her final books, had less than subtle metaphors about terrorism guised as deatheaters and dementors.


Even the Wachowski brother's Matrix Trilogy, has the elements of unlikely heroes and impossible enemies (not to mention insanely chic eyewear)


Escapism is underrated. Many brush it off as works of whimsy made by wishful authors or brothers on pot. Attempts at belittling reality. To the contrary, I believe these books and films capture the essence of the times they were made more than history books and CNN specials. The characters are ironically made more relateable (yes, even with hobbit feet and wands), the emotions on war more authentic. (yes, even with the dramatic speeches before engaging in battle) It captures the pre-war anxiety, the terrors of war, and the post-war oxymoron of, for lack of a better term, a bitter sweet ending.

(Ok, even I puked a little in my mouth with all this sentimentality)

Tolkien said it best...
"Escapism (has) an element of emancipation in its attempt to figure a different reality"



It's kinda like bad news broken gently during bedtime.












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Labels: blah (3x), boo-freakin-hoo, Bookworms Anonymous, movies

I know how Tantalus felt.


He, Tantalus, was a king in Greek mythology. In an Abraham like twist of fate, he offered his son to the gods. But unlike the biblical patriarch, no angel appeared to stop him... plus, his human sacrifice was premeditated, and that small detail that he served his son in a feast. The gods were apparently appalled by parricide and cannibalism. The boy was resurrected by Fate, the goddess, piecing his chopped body parts together like lego. Tantalus was punished.

He was made to stand for all eternity in a pool of water that reached up to his neck. Whenever he bent down to drink the water, it would recede from his mouth's reach like a sadistic automated low tide. There are also fruit trees above him. Everytime he reached up to grab the fruit, the branches would raise them away from his grasp... like sadistic ents. That was his hell, temptation without satisfaction.

Although I find this method of weight reduction tantalizing (pun 100% intended), satisfaction is something I thrive on.

I am not a fan of Hannibal Lecter-ism and I am anti- of any form of -cide (homicide, genocide, insecticide) Plus I don't ever recall stealing ambrosia from the gods.

Yet, I find myself, more and more so lately, in Tantalus' water soaked shoes. I am swimming in a pool of letter sized papers filled ad nauseam with plans, specifications, details, comments, etc. etc. et cetera. The temptations that are within reach yet unreachable are free time and 8 hours of sleep.

While working on CAD drawings, the other half on my brain is busily doing three things simultaneously; planning ways to acquire the elusive free time, planning ways to spend it, and consoling itself that it will come sooner or later.

The Devil Wears Prada lies bookmarked, 3 quarters of the way, on my bedside table. Andy, when I left her, was flirting with the delectable Christian Colinsworth (who I've visualized as a more put together version of Ben Covington from Felicity) The book lacks the New York like pace of the movie, and the book version of Miranda Priestly comes out a tad too whiny compared to the regal bitch Meryl Streep played to utter perfection. Getting sidetracked here... My point... I left, and can't wait to return to, all the drama of Runway on my bedside table. I want free time!!! Arrrrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!!!

I want free time in a box.
I want free time with a fox.
I want free time in a house.
I want free time with a mouse.
I want free time here or there.
I want free time anywhere.
I want free green eggs and ham.
I want free time, Altenati-I-am.

Something I'm ecstatic to share...
I've blogged about the Tim Tang Test and last Friday I found some free time and spent it riddling. Check this out. Alas, It shows my initials and my last name, but heck it's soooo worth it. hehe

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, i-rate, quarterlife

I've been playing Parachutes and Twentysomething all night. Coldplay has always been my melancholy soundtrack, and Jamie Cullum... my crooner.

My 364 days of unbirthdays are over... they all seem short and useless when THAT day arrives. I always get this mixed feeling on the eve of my birthday (Gawd! just saying typing that out loud makes me cringe) I simultaneously feel like a child on Christmas morning and a schizophrenic awaiting electroshock therapy. I could never pinpoint the cause of this antsy anticipation because I really dread each +1 candle cake. An anticipation for time travel? for oblivious bliss? for my own Aston Martin?

I love those short tapered wax candles. Each supposedly represents a year of your life... irrelevant and burned into nothingness in a few minutes. They represent a year lost... a year where I should've read more books, a year where I would've seen the eerie monoliths of Easter Island, a year where I could've done this, could've done that... Shoulda Woulda Coulda Barracuda...

I love the cake. That beautifully crafted confection that goes straight to your thighs... that chocolate filled temptation with the scrumptilicious frosting and your name in icing you cut up into slices... that sweet, sweet reminder that you don't have the same metabolism "x" years ago.

I love that song. That happy happy four worded song that really drills the message "you ain't getting any younger" right into your right ventricle... that song which everybody knows, everybody claims to own, and everybody apparently commits a copyright infringement crime with whenever they sing it... that step above "for he's a jolly good fellow" that always necessitates your widest, most pseudo-genuine smile after it is sung to you and before you almost die of respiratory arrest from blowing out the candles.

I love the expectation to be "happy" and to feel "special". This is after all a "happy birthday"... just as "theory" always has "conspiracy" tagging along with it, "birthday" is lonesome without "happy". I love the wholehearted attempt to really be happy that often ends with either a migraine or an aneurysm. I love teeth... I love dimples... I love crow's feet... I love smile lines... I love straining the muscles n my face.

I love Brooke Shields and how she bashed Tom Cruise's skewed views on prescription drugs. I love Clint Eastwood and how he committed euthanasia on a Million Dollar Baby. I love Chris Elliot's obsession induced rashes on There's Something About Mary. I love Colin Farrell, just for being Irish. I may not know them personally, but we share a bond in birth.


I love (and I say this without an iota of sarcasm) my family and friends. They make this day bearable, sometimes even... dare I say it... may I not be struck by lightning... happy.


For the love of all things sacred... Don't Sing me that Song... or if you do, sing me a "Sometimes Happy (But Never Required To Be) Birthday To You"...

I'll be normal in June... well... like happy, normal is a relative term.








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Labels: alternati, B-days, boo-freakin-hoo

I have been intentionally leaving my window open for the past days just to practice my backhand. I am currently establishing my own ATP Tour (not Adenosine Triphosphate dummy... it's Alternati Torturing Pests)

I personally believe that THE most useless, not to mention annoying, creature in the entire known universe is the mosquito (and I am saying this with finality AND an awareness of the existence of such creatures as the howling monkey and the idiotic lemmings) Pesky blood sucking creatures. And did you know only the females of the species bite humans? Apparently they need the protein to produce eggs. Damn male mosquitoes aren't getting off scot free... Sure, their mouths are incapable of sucking blood, but their peckers have been propagating the species for 170 million gazillion years.

I am re-evaluating a previous statement I made that the paint roller is the best human invention... I haven't encountered this yet during the time...


This is the Portable Bug Zapper 3000... a.k.a. My Racket. My Dad brought it home a week ago and it has drastically improved my forehand and my footwork. I just imagine every mosquito I whack has Federer's face on it. Juan Carlos Ferrero would make an excellent spokesperson for the product don't cha think? Aside from the Spanish good looks, his court nick name is hilariously appropriate.

The actual name of the product stenciled on it's plastic handle is "Electronic Mosquito Bat", I guess the chinese translators got baseball and tennis a little mixed up. It works like your typical suspended bug zapper, like so...


Basically electrocuting the damn winged Dengue carriers. The actual sound of the death of a mosquito when it touches the charged inner wire mesh of the racket is one of the most delightful sounds I will ever come to know (insert maniacal laugh here)



I truly detest mosquitoes, so much so that I've contemplated owning a bat, or several bats. Not the baseball thingamajig dummy, the actual nocturnal "flying rodent". Cleaning up guano is a small price to pay for a mosquito free household. I've read online that "a single bat can eat 3,000 mosquitoes and other insects in a single evening"... marvelous creatures. Maybe I can build my own subterrenean cave and have West Coast Customs pimp me a chartreuse bat mobile... hmmmm...

Pre-portable bug zapper, instead of lighting katols, I lit incense and/or cigarettes.

I also came across this article which explains (well... touches on, the researcher had some pending patents so all the useful info had been editted out) why some people (i.e. me) attract mosquitoes more than other people. It has something to do with the chemicals in our sweat.

Back in highschool, we had an electronics class. We had to etch circuit boards and weld in resistors... yaddah yaddah... (I made a two-tone door bell that worked... hah!) Anyways, I remember a classmate making this sonic mosquito deterrent. He said the device emitted a below humanly audible sound which female mosquitoes couldn't stand... I tried looking for a write-up of the device online but only came up with this (It is a similar device but works in reverse... a deterrent for humans using a high pitched mosquito sound) My electronics classmate could have made the whole thing up... I think he got an A in the subject.


The average life span of a mosquito is 3 weeks to several months... in my room, it's a little over a nanosecond plus the amount of time I need to reach for my zapper.







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Labels: blah (3x), boo-freakin-hoo, i-rate, sports (yeah right)

What's the second most depressing day (after Christmas) humanity has ever concocted? Your next twenty faux birthday (add decades as necessary) Mine is still months away... but the idea of adding another candle on the cake just makes me wanna spontaneously combust.
I love Valentine's (That just sounds awfully redundant) Sure, there's the obvious cheesiness, the influx of cookie-cutter red hearts and cupids on every possible vertical surface, the unabashed juvenile expressions of unfounded eternal love and the hard-to-escape, sickening scent of phoniness in the air... BUT what other holiday (or semblance of a holiday) lets you overindulge in the greatest, most important and revolutionary human invention of all time? sweet, sweet chocolate. You gotta love the Mayans and Aztecs for cultivating it... I am willing to overlook the fear inducing notion of Apocalypto and the human sacrifices.

It's gonna go straight to my thighs.


Let's pretend I'm Hiro Nakamura (Heroes, NBC... Yey! I've finally caught up with the TV watching audience of the west) I have the uncanny ability of moving through space and time:

(Insert sound of thunder to convey the actual moment of teleportation)




13 Cardio Songs



Tuesday, February 13, 2007

My phoniness/ BS meter will be ringing like crazy tomorrow. I've seen a couple of teens holding long stemmed roses this morning and it seems an outbreak of heart-shaped red cartolinas has hit the metro... Valentine's is upon us. I'm afraid to tune in to the radio for fear I'll hear some cheesy Barry Manilowish song... It took me 6 electro-shock therapy sessions to get these types of songs out of my brain.

The second thirteen of the year... I almost wasn't able to make this post. (I've been so friggin busy!!! It's not even funny any more)



13 Songs With Heart in the Title that I Heart... (aka... If I put "Achy Breaky Heart on this list, I'll pull the trigger myself")

1. Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana, In Utero (1993)
"Throw down your umbilical noose, so I can climb back"
Kurt Cobain is a genius. He wrote Heart Shaped Box in five minutes... inside a closet. The song is said to be about female genitalia (see: Sexual Personae, Paglia), but like all great songs, it speaks on many other levels. Courtney Love (Hole), his wife, courted Cobain with a heart-shaped box. The same heart shaped box is now in Love's possession holding Cobain's suicide letter and a lock of his hair.

2. Piece of my Heart - Janis Joplin, Cheap Thrills (1968)
"Break another little bit of my heart now, darling"
Originally done by Erma Franklin, Aretha's younger sister, it was covered by Big Brother & the Holding Company... one of Janis Joplin's early bands. Joplin sang this song at Woodstuck in 1969. Like many great artists, she died at a young age, 27, OD-ing on heroin.

3. Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler, Faster than the Speed of Night (1983)
"I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark, We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks"
I know this ranks high on the cheesiness level. But I love it. Tyler's surgery induced raspy voice, the Bohemian Rhapsodyish feel of the song, the "turn around bright eyes" back-up vocals... This was tailor made for drunken karaoke. The song was supposedly inspired by Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Max Weinberg of Late Night with Conan O' Brien played drums on this track.

4. Heart of Glass - Blondie, Parallel Lines (1978)
"Once I had a love and it was divine, Soon found out I was losing my mind"
All hail Debbie Harry, the badass blonde chick that defined new wave chic. This song sounds a little different from the normal punk rock Blondie songs like "Call Me" or "One Way or Another", they infused elements of disco, the polar opposite of new wave during that time, to create a fusion that infuriated many of their fans. They call it "the disco song". I love all songs with synthesizers written before 1986.

5. Listen to your Heart - Roxette, Look Sharp! (1988)
"I know there's something in the wake of your smile. I get a notion when I look in your eyes"
Gotta love this Swedish duo especially the androgynous Marie Fredriksson. This ranks as one of my fave break-up (or anti-break-up) songs. I wonder if stethoscope med reps ever thought of using this as a campaign jingle... it's perfect, no?

6. Kickin my Heart Around - The Black Crowes, By Your Side (1999)
"Just come out and say it, spit the words out of your mouth. It needs no explaining, cuz we both felt it go south"
One of my fave American bands of all time mostly because of Chris Robinson's awesome voice. For younger readers who haven't heard of him, he is Kate Hudson's ex-husband and... Gavin deGraw sounds a lot like him. They have a soul-y bluesy sound that just makes you wanna sing along to their music (to the best of your ability) Listen to "Remedy" and "She Talks to Angels". This particular track "Kickin..." has some funky "hu, hu, hu, hu" back-up vocals in the bridge reminiscent of Tina Turner's cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Proud Mary". I can't wait for the release of their supposed 2007 album.

7. Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Station (1976)
"Love only breaks up, to start over again. You'll get the babies, but you won't have your man"
If the intro of this song doesn't give you the urge to jive ala Night Fever, you ain't got a disco bone in your body. I just love songs, like this, that combine perky melodies with depressing lyrics.

8. Just Take My Heart - Mr. Big, Lean Into It (1991)
"It's late at night and neither one of us is sleeping, I can't imagine my life after you're gone"
Between the cheesy lyrics, the catchy chorus and the guitar shredding, this is another awesome break-up song... comes off a little suicidal/ end-of-the-world-ish, but we've all been there. The name worked oh so well on Chris Noth in Sex and the City, but I must say it's one of the worst band names to date... I still have no idea why they named their band as such (I wonder if the reason is phallic)

9. Alone - Heart, Bad Animals (1987)
"Til now, I always got by on my own, I never really cared until I met you"
This is my definition of a power ballad. Ann Wilson can sing the hell out of this song, and she can play the flute too! The general feel of the song is stiff and cold until Ann reaches the first part of the chorus. It's hard to believe a woman with such a powerful voice suffered from a stutter when she was a girl. (Ok, so "heart" doesn't really appear on the song's name... but what's a heart song list without Heart?)

10. Groove is in the Heart - Deee Lite, World Clique (1990)
"My supperdish, my succotash wish (Sing it Baby) I couldn't ask for another"
Whenever I hear this awesome song, I always get the feeling Austin Powers or Andy Warhol will appear out nowhere to dance. It's groovy baby. Three DJs make up the band headed by vocalist and psychedelic fashion extraordinaire, Lady Miss Kier.

11. Foolish Heart - Steve Perry, Street Talk (1984)
"But will my heart play the part of the fool again, before I begin.."
This came off Perry's first album after he left Journey.
Cornball undertones - check
Talking to inanimate objects - check
Perfect post break-up, entering into a new relationship song.

12. Victim of a Foolish Heart - Joss Stone, The Soul Sessions (2003)
"Now she's back to rekindle that old flame, she's got a different angle, baby... but she's playing the same old game" Gawd, this white girl can sing! I instantly fell in love with her music after I heard the joyous Super Duper Love. She is very Bohemian, almost always singing barefoot in performances and she's a vegan too.

13. Heal me, I'm Heartsick - No Vacancy, School of Rock OST (2003)
"Father, free me. Mama, woman, feed me"
No Vacancy is the fictional band of Adam Pascal in the movie. Adam played Roger in Rent: The Movie. He has a stellar voice. School of Rock is a great movie. Directed by one of my fave directors, Richard Linklater... starring two great comedians, Jack Black and Joan Cusack... a loose Sister Act storyline infused with The Ramones and guitar solos... The first known movie where Led Zeppelin allowed one of their songs to be included in a soundtrack (after a petition spearheaded by Black and Linklater)... What's not to like?

If you want mp3s of any of these songs, just e-mail me at:

alternati_sheol[at]yahoo[dot]com

My Valentine's to anyone.

I wonder how can I teleport back to the fourteenth... It's not written in the Hiro Nakamura manual. hmmm...

Labels: area 13, boo-freakin-hoo, holidays, music

1 week ago

I awake to the sound of xylophones. I detest xylophones. The ringing sound it makes when hit by those gavels with orb heads irks me. Plus, the resonating metallic sound stays in the air way longer than you want them to, like visiting distant relatives (aka strangers you have blood relations with). A couple of gradeschool girls living in the apartment below me decided to spend their Saturday practicing the Panagbenga (Baguio Festival celebrating the blooming of flowers) theme. And they decided to do it within an earshot of my window. Fabulous! Nothing like waking up to a perky tune provoking images of chrysanthemums and butterflies! Joy! Glockenspiel! Heilige Scheisse!!!

I never really got why these handheld xylophones are called lyres (ala a Drum and Lyre band in parades) A real lyre is strummed not hit with mallets, it looks likes this:

(Apollo is the god of archers and light. He became the Greek god of the sun when he became more popular than Helios)


4 days ago

I awake to my mom's hollering. My mom doesn't yell... she hollers. She woke me up because the carpenter who would be installing new cabinets in my room arrived (sooner than I anticipated) I had to drag my sorry underslept ass out of bed to explain the work he'd be doing in my room. I can barely read the dimensions on the drawing I made the night before let alone utter an intelligible statement, but I got the idea across (I think)

In Babylonian mythology, Nin-ildu is the carpenter god, and as fate would have it... he carries the pure axe of the sun. He is a servitor to Shamash, the Babylonian sun god.



Yesterday

I awake to car horns. I presume its a tourist. No Baguio resident would honk their horn that loudly at 7 in the morning... for fear of excommunication. The Loakan Road is relatively distant from my window, a smoke chugging Philex Peterbelt wouldn't disturb me from my slumber. But on that particular morning, the incessant honking shook me to waking life. The rowdy passengers made it clear there was no apparent emergency.

This will be quite a long connection to a sun deity. Here it goes. Peregrinus in Latin means foreigner/ tourist. A peregrine falcon is named as such because of it's habit of migration and it is one of the fastest creatures on earth. (Speed and foreignness) The Egyptian sun god Ra is often depicted as having the head of a Falcon.



I wonder what the other sun deities have in store for me.
Sol (Norse sun goddess)
Amaterasu (Japanese sun goddess)
Surya (chief Hindu sun deity)
Huitzilopochtli (Aztec sun god)


Tonight

These attempts at rousing me early only succeeded in making me wake up even later. I just doze off right after I wake up. I am a snoozer.

However, the sun gods seem to be plotting something with the moon gods. Last night we had a scheduled city-wide power outage from 10 pm to 6 am. I didn't wanna lose my eye sight reading Faulkner over candlelight and it was too cold outside to even entertain the idea of a night out in some generator-powered bar. So, the nocturnal deities, coerced me into sleeping early... I was sawing logs before midnight. The whole of Baguio will have the same scheduled power outage again tonight. I guess if they can't wake me up early... they chose plan B, which is to make me sleep early. They can't possibly schedule a black-out every single night... right?

The electricity will be out in 3... 2... 1... *bleep*

The black out didn't happen Satturday night. I guess my offering of first-borns pleased the gods (or BENECO at least) :P

Labels: blah (3x), boo-freakin-hoo, my life as a nocturnal, my-thology, weird coincidences

Ruminations on a one day trip to Divisoria (aka my feet ache so badly I think they're gonna fall off)

1. Spending is such an odd word. Try saying it thrice and it loses meaning.
   
2. Bus conductors have excellent memory and superhuman balance in moving vehicles. I can't, for the life of me, imagine working as a long distance bus driver or conductor... Traveling the same route back and forth for n times a day. I'd be bored out of my mind! Although I must say driving a double decker is extremely enticing. I wonder if I'd be more confident driving a bus than I do a sedan or an SUV.
   
3. Chowking, from multiple taste tests, has the most scrumptious Danggit and the best Tofu.
   
4. "So this is how the world looks like at 6 in the morning... meh"
5. I've been to Divisoria twice before and the whole layout of the place still doesn't make sense to me, even after I looked it up on Wikimapia. Baguio's swerving streets are fairly easy to navigate, and most of Manila is planned with a gridiron pattern. Divisoria's streets however are a concrete and asphalt chop suey. The road signs (when available) aren't clearly visible, although my poor navigation skills would find no real use for them if they were. It isn't much different from Rome if you think about it. Replace the Tiber with the Pasig River, replace the Pantheon with the Tutuban mall, the Trevi fountain with leaking hydrants, gelato with dirty ice cream, "Quanto?"s with "Magkano?"s and you've got Divisoria. (oh, and add the smell of "cockroaches" ala Claire Danes... olfactory prude b*tch)
   
6. Divisoria is so chaotic... I love it to pieces. Aside from the streets (or lack thereof) the place is teeming with people. People walking, people running, people getting conked on the head by the massive sidemirrors of delivery trucks with drivers who have a compulsion to honk every three minutes. Honk and conk. Honk and conk.
   
7. Calamares tastes excellent with adobo if you're really really exhausted.
   
8. Here, 6 pieces is considered wholesale.
   
9. "Wait! this costs thrice in (insert overpricing mall here)!!!
10. Piracy has a class system according to apparent resemblance with the original. It takes a CSI to determine genuine Fendi bags or Hugo perfumes in these parts.
11. Small retractable trolleys cost 300 pesos (6 dollars)... believe me you'll need one (or two) Do you have any idea how much 140 pieces of box board weigh??? Let's just say, I was this close (making an action with my thumb and forefinger) making a collect call to Phil Pfister.
12. Even the most comfortable Chuck Taylors (mine) and Hushpuppies (ate Pam's) fail you if you walk all day. Masseuse!
13. When going to Divisoria for bulk shopping... go in droves. Ate Pam and I were contemplating how we could have possibly done the whole trip without my Dad and her brother. Elbow grease! That and my Dad is a supernatural navigator.
    
14. I have newfound respect for rickshaw drivers pedallers. Two carried all of us and all the boxes and bags and bales we bought to the terminal. There were no other accessible forms of transportation. Ate Pam and I must've looked terribly ridiculous when we see-sawed back and forth trying vainly to add some momentum to the struggling pedicab. We didn't notice because we were laughing our asses off.
    
15. A sore butt from a five to six hour bus ride makes everyone cranky.
16. I am stymied by people who watch Steven Seagal movies. There are people who actually like him? Gawd... degradation of the species. His name conjures images of birds in my mind. Especially those who say "mine, mine, mine" on the Sydney Harbor in Finding Nemo... stoic, and not the fashion forward super model stoicism nor the helpless botox induced stoicism. It's the "I don't have talent and/or thoughts in my brain and/or nerve endings on my face" type of visage. One was shown on the bus back to Baguio, it was the perfect sedative.
    
17. "It's a small world..." It's interesting... I usually ride Victory Liner buses, but on this rare occasion, me and ate Pam rode on a Genesis one because the station is closer to our destination. And it just so happens a highschool buddy of mine was on the same bus going home. He saw me smoking in one of the stop-overs. I forgot to mention that also during the Sagada trip, in the heart of the Sumaging Cave, I met a friend of mine from primary school as well. Is the world shrinking?
    
18. Divisoria should be on a tourist's itinerary. It's one of those gems only a few foreign tourists get to see. Don't ask me why it's called "the dividing line"... The answer was probably explained during one of my history classes while I was reading Scott Summers and Jean Grey's third attempt at a wedding... (Silver Surfer will be in the next Fantastic 4 movie! Can't wait! I wonder if Galactus tries to make the world a kebab)

This is Divisoria as the Silver Surfer might have seen it from his board.

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, filipinowledge, travels

Will tagged me with an "I never" meme. It's basically writing ten things you'd never do.

At first I thought the meme was like the "I never" drinking game (someone says a statement starting with "I never..." and whoever hasn't done it drinks a shot of the alcohol of choice... preferably tequilla) I never really got drunk when we played this. I've always believed in trying anything at least once (well everything except dog meat)

Hence, my mental list of things I'd never do border on absurd and/or amoral (killing someone with a dull samurai, coal mining, wearing spandex, getting a Winnie the Pooh tattoo, sticking chopsticks into my eyes, getting a gym membership, swandiving from Taipei 101, etc etc etc)

So instead of enumerating things noone in their right mind would ever do, I'm listing the 10 things I can't do:

1. I can't whistle. I know I'm pathetic. Try being a five year old watching Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs, discovering you can't do a basic human skill when they start singing Whistle While you Work... It's devastating.
2. I can't swim. If living in Baguio has any disadvantage, it's the absence of a beach. Many Baguio residents like me are born anchors. Buoyancy eludes us. But we do try... "Alternati Greenleaf long under tree, In joy thou hast lived. Beware of the Sea! If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore, Thy heart shall rest in the forest no more."
3. I can't play the piano. Something is haywire between my brain hemispheres. The Piano: I can read notes... I can play the piano with my right hand... and my left... combine them together and what do you get? the sound of a cat running across the keys.
   
4. I can't play the guitar. I look like I'm having seizures when I do try to do any chord requiring a bar. Those who can't, collect and admire.
   
5. I can't keep a pet alive for more than a month. Don't worry I never really owned a four legged critter, just a number of aquarium fishes and an imaginary hippo.
   
6. I can't write with my left hand. Ambidexterity has become a frustration since I saw The Wisdom of Crocodiles.
7. I can't keep a written journal. Stacks of journals occupy one of my storage spaces. Each has a maximum of 20 entries... the time intervals between entries occur in a geometric progression to infinity. Thank gawd for blogging!
   
8. I can't drive alone (yet) I'm a big scaredy cat behind the wheel... especially when I'm infront of a semi or a Philex Peter Belt.
9. (Addenda to #8) I can't go from one place to another without consulting a map or asking a gazillion "Where is..."s and "Enshuldigung, Is this the way to..."s. Like 3rdwill, road signs appear to be written in hieroglyphics and directions in cuneiform.
10. I can't shoot a basketball even if the fate of the world depended on it. (Go Mavs!)

Nothing like a list of your incapabilities to boost self esteem! "Soy un Perdedor... I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me..."


The tag ends here. I can't get Beck's song out of my head now...

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, list-o-rama, memes

My post on the Sagada trip has been placed on the back burner. I'm still picking which pictures to post. I went trigger happy and now picking pictures is an ordeal much like Sophie's Choice. And then of course, there's the insanely sluggish uploading speed.

Cut me barber for I haven't trimmed. It's been 3 months since my last haircut.

There is something truly orgasmic about getting a haircut. I believe a visit to the parlor/ barber shop is one of the few remaining modern activities that make you feel genuinely regal but still satisfies three crucial factors:

1. You remain within budgetary bounds. Last I checked I don't own a Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship and I don't own majority of Monaco.
2. It is PC.
3. You are fully aware your "reign" only lasts for a couple of hours max, but at least you come out of the place alive. Try reigning for 9 days and then getting decapitated, at 16 years old. Poor Jane Grey.
   

I've had the flower child look for too long. Gimme a tower and I'll do a flawless Rapunzel, it'll bring tears to your eyes. I've grown attached to the length of my hair, sort of like a security blanket attached to your skull. Having long hair is just way to taxing. It takes you forever to wash and condition it and it takes another infinity to dry it out. Hair products aren't cheap... what ever happened to the good old days of fresh gooey aloe vera? And then there's the ubiquitous strands of hair in the sink drain, on your pillow and the floor.

Yesterday afternoon, it took two cigarettes to stop myself from hyperventilating and to convince myself I WAS having my hair cut. It's hilarious how we attach ourselves to such transient things. Eversince I was old enough to afford a decent haircut, I've almost always gone to the same hairstylist. His name is Eugene. He is a legend in these parts. He's an artist. Eugene's haircuts always agree with my look and he has a "dark brown thumb" because my hair magically becomes better whenever he touches it.

We were chatting away the moment I sat on his cushioned chair. I was so into the conversation, I didn't even notice the first snip, kind of like what doctors do to vaccinate kids... "Look at the shiny coin" Eugene's memory is amazing. He remembers names and jobs and events like an almanac. I was confronted with this fact when he remembered what my Thesis was in college. Some of my close friends wouldn't know what it was even if their life depended on it (it was an Art Gallery and Cafe, just in case Armageddon depended on it my friends... tee hee) Eugene cuts hair at Gemini's Hair Salon.

I know this entry is long enough, but I just have to mention that the girl who shampooed my hair looked like Pumpkin. Not A pumpkin... but THE pumpkin from Memoirs of a Geisha, or at least how I thought she would look like when I read the book. She even had the powdered face, the pink cheeks and the perfectly positioned mole. I swore if she was wearing a kimono, I would've sworn I was lying in a genuine Okiya as she lathered my hair.

My head feels ALOT lighter. I guess climbing my tower would require the construction of a lift or at least the traditional ladder... the former more preferred.

Look at me talking about my measly haircut when there are real things happening in the world.

Labels: blah (3x), boo-freakin-hoo

It's official. The season has shifted from mild, a-scarf-will-do, thick comforter cold season TO hell freezing over (see: excruciating)

Excruciating (adj.)

1. You require three layers of clothing to prevent your blood from congealing.
2. You require another hour to rise from bed... your nervous system is on holiday.
3. You see smoke from your mouth and you're not holding a Marlboro Light.
4. Despite the meteorological impossibility, you swear you saw snow.
5. You forget where you parked your dogsled.
6. You entertain the idea of hugging... even with complete strangers.
7. Even you're hair is numb, and is perpetually towel dried despite the aid of hairblowers, you're new bestfriend.
8. You're basic necessities are air, water, food and a radiator.
9. The idea of ice cream is blaspemous.
10. You contemplate selling your soul for a one-way ticket to the Caribbean or a pizza furnace, whichever you could afford.
11. You're only vocabulary outdoors include "f"s and "s"s and "brrr"
12. You wanna maim anything resembling Frosty the Snowman.
13. You prefer boiled Coca-cola.
    

Baguio, my city (wanna see the deed?) is set atop a plateau. I've lived here for most of my life and it still amazes me that people during the American occupation literally paved the way to this relatively remote place. The attraction was/is the cool weather due to the elevation. I've never actually seen any but they* say that it was so cold here in Baguio then, that icicles hung on pine trees like tinsel. It's not a big thing compared to people who live farther from the equator... but living in the tropics... people come to see these things.

*They - everyone heard "them" say it but noone seems to know who "they" are.

Global warming has started buying tracts of real estate here, and although the only place you see icicles in are freezers whose regular defrostings have been forgotten, it is STILL very cold here... and the tardy typhoons aren't helping either.

I'm not complaining...

If you'll excuse me, my marshmallows are starting to burn, I've decided to turn all the wooden furniture in my room into kindling. This is gonna be the best bonfire ever! the only problem is where I'm gonna sleep. Meh...



Art Cred:
Melting Snowman



Oh happy day!
Dreamy Tyler and James won the Amazing Race. Ooh la la... It doesn't feel as cold anymore.


Welcoming my new tenant: Blonde Chick Bloggin', Sorry but the heater is kaput. You are however free to burn any flammable thing in the room. Link at the right sidebar... Tell her I sent you.

Labels: baguio, BE tenant, boo-freakin-hoo, holidays, list-o-rama

I personally go for the two step method, stepping on a balloon with my left foot then popping the now bulbous part of the balloon with my right. Sir Rodel went for the car key method poking at a rate of 1 balloon per second. Ma'am Marie and Tine went for age-old method of sitting on baloons. So why were we popping balloons? Let me trackback...


A BFitcsh called LiWanda
Day 0: Friday Afternoon.
Our call time for all venue preparations for the 15th National Conference of Architects (NCA) was 3 pm. We were welcomed by an ongoing supermarket convention. Thanks to the event coordinator of the CAP Convention Center, Linda, we waited on the boxes we brought until 5. "Linda" apparently gave a two hour extension without informing us, her name became synonimous with a female canine through the extent of the event. So there we were, bored to death with "This Side Up" letterings nearly tattoed on our asses. It was fortunate though that we caught a waning supermarket convention eager to dispose their promos. We had coffee, cheap wine, M&M Kissables, bisected shampoos, and bars of laundry soap. All appeared edible.


Ms. "One-line"
Day 0: Friday Night.
My tasks were relatively easy compared to say erecting scaffolding or coordinating with the caterer. I had the valuable job of organizing conference kits. Whoopee! Nothing is more fulfilling than stuffing a Boysen bag with souvenirs. (Insert forced smile here) The only "danger" involved in this job is papercuts. A number of student auxiliary were assisting me (I miss my capricious college days) We were actually having fun doing this, we had about four hubs of openers, stuffers, closers, and packers. Our efficiency was superb! When we were down to our last 3 boxes, some snot-nosed student auxiliary from "Manila" entered the room we were in and with a sneer said: "Ay sayang mas mabilis sana kung one line" (Too bad, it would have been faster if you did it in one line) then left. It was a hit and run! The daft ingrate became the subject of our insults and unflattering impersonations. Fueled by our loathing for this mutant, we finished the job in no time. Nothing like a wannabe with a linear way of thinking (that looks like that 3-eyed fish in The Simpsons) to increase work output by 100%.


Exercising the other 15 muscles
Day 1: Saturday
Lately, the only time I see the sun rise is when I've stayed up all night. I was nauseous when I arose from the double deck in our inn at 5 frickin 30 in the morning. "I am sleepwalking", I kept muttering to myself. It took a warm bath, a cup of cold pineapple juice and a couple of Marlboros to jumpstart my higher brain functions. That whole morning was a daze. I was stationed in the "war room", a rectangular arsenal of nuclear office supplies and a risograph with a mind of its own. This was the Secretariat base.

Here is the dialogue I used and made my assistants use (it became our stress mantra):
Good morning (change with time of day) sir/ ma'am!!! (smile)
Can I please see your I.D.??
Thanks!!!! (smile wider)
Can I please have your conference kit stub??
Thanks!!! (you can smile wider than that!)
Here's your kit!!!
Have a wonderful day at the conference!!! and may all your wishes come true!!!!!

I dunno what's worse, having lunch at 3 pm or forcing a smile the whole day. It took me so long to get my Ally Mcbeal pout down to a tee, and now I was smiling like a chipper fastfood employee. "Here's your conference kit! Would you like to supersize it?!" Whoever said "it takes 37 muscles to frown and only 22 muscles to smile" was a sloth. Aren't we supposed to work out as much as we can? (Oooohh... look at me endorsing working-out) Exercising another 15 muscles is my work-out.
At the end of the day, I must gave gained 5 pounds with all that smiling and my face was aching.


Wake up and Smell the SNAFU
Day 2: Sunday Morning. (Not the No Doubt nor Velvet Underground nor Maroon5 song)
I slept like a baby the previous night, but my face was still swollen. We still woke early early, but we moved a tad more lackadaisical. Most of the tasks we needed to do have been done on Day 1. We hovered over our breakfast longer. We arrived at the venue sometime around 8 and we were greeted by a frantic deputy chairman. Apparently whoever locked the war room the night before was nowhere to be found. Gentlemen, draw your cellphones! 3... 2... 1... Go! It took about thirty minutes of calling and texting to find out who had the key, and another thirty for him to get to the venue. Thankfully, "Eleven" knew how to open doors with a credit card (He didn't tell me how he acquired that skill either). The War Room was opened at 0845 hours. The person with the key arrived T + 30 minutes after.


Lucky M3!
Day 2: Sunday Afternoon
I have no luck with raffles. I can not recall a single instance where I've won a prize based solely on luck. But when it comes to picking the shortest stick... I'm a shoo-in. However, a raffle solely dedicated to the OrCom (Organizing Committee) (Thanks Arch. Roldan) was atypical. Knowing my luck in these things, Tine and I went away from the venue to buy stuff for an event later in the evening. On the taxi ride home, my phone kept ringing... numerous SMS saying I won something in the raffle. I was skeptical until Arch. Jovit handed me a white MP3 Player. Yey! This will free up space on my Palm! and... Tine won a TV!
In order for me to win a raffle: lessen the number or participants vis-a-vis increasing the statistical probability of winning AND go as far away from the venue as physically possible.


Was that Scary Pretty or Pretty Scary?
Day 2: Sunday Evening
The closing ceremonies was brief and straightforward. Speeches. The OrCom were called one by one and occupied the stage. Clapping for Orcom. Speech. Clapping for speaker. Someone stood up and made a speech about how hard the Orcom worked and that they deserved "something"... He left us hanging and kept elaborating on "something" we deserved... A car ala Oprah?? N93's?? A trip to Barbados?? We were all waiting for him to get to his point, the point being that "something"... and that "something" turned out to be... a... because we deserved it... that "something" is... you wanna know what it is?... it... is... a... Standing Ovation! My initial feeling was disappointment and my intial thought was clapping doesn't pay the bills...
As it turns out, the older members of our chapter told me that that never happened in the history of the NCA before. It was bigger than I gave it credit for... but hey, I would've loved sipping pina coladas with my feet in the Caribbean Ocean more.
The Fellowship Night soon followed. It is a euphemism for Get-drunk-and-do-the- Chicken-dance night. I was busy transforming Tine into a "white lady" (a local mythical hovering female ghost with long hair wearing a white ensemble) Our chapter was entering her in the "Pretty Lady in White" contest. There was no appropriate dressing room, so we claimed the Ladies' comfort room. When we were nearly done, Ma'am Mylen, Ma'am Marie, Ma'am Joy, and Star joined us in that small comfort room to do a test run. Tine was holding a lit candle to her face, we flicked the switch... We all screamed, including Tine (the white lady), Star ran outside as the 5 of us left chuckled all the way to the backstage.
We didn't win... The criteria clearly said "no blood or faux blood", the other contestants of course had ketchup smeared all over them, brilliant! And, the thing that irked me the most was that the contestants had to be Scary Pretty... ala Cate Blanchett as Galadriel or Morticia. Again, the other contestants must've heard "Pretty Scary" instead of "Scary Pretty", cause most of them were pretty dang scary, but not in a good, halloween appropriate way. What's worse than contestants who interpret criteria as the total opposite? Judges who think the same way! Bah!


Fin
Day 2: Sunday Monday Morning
What really signalled the end of the conference for me was singing REM's The One I Love at the top of my lungs. My whole UAP chapter, young and old(er), were singing.
And so that was how we found ourselves popping red and white balloons (see picture) at 3 o'clock in the morning.


Thanks to UAP National!
Thanks to all the Student Auxiliary (sans Ms. One-Line)!!!
and, Congratulations UAP Summer Capital the youngest chapter to ever host the NCA!!!

Labels: baguio, boo-freakin-hoo, i-rate

Last Friday was International Sayote Day on my beloved plateau, a local holiday! My friends and I went on a sight-seeing roadtrip of Baguio using the tourist route. We planned the whole "in-the-shoes- of-a-non-Baguio-resident" trip last week. We didn't go as far as wearing the turista bonnets... the black (usually) ones with "BAGUIO" crocheted into the design or the ones with a wee sunflower smack dab in the middle of the forehead region.


Doo Bidoo and Scooby Doo

What better way to enjoy Baguio than in an un-airconditioned, freshly pimped, butter-colored Comby?! This is John's ride and we were its rowdy passengers.



You can't help but feel elated when you see a Volkswagen van. Images of psychedelic rainbows, flowers and a peace sign of the hippie lifestyle come to mind (also, remember Fillmore from Cars?) Doo Bidoo! I'm also reminded of the mystery van of Shaggy, Scooby and company. Scooby Dooby Doo! Just good and fun mental images...


House of Flying Sidemirrors

The first destination that day was Asin Hotsprings. (Ok, technically this isn't part of Baguio... but it should be!) This is my second trip only to Asin, the first happened last May. How lame is that? Huwag maging turista sa sariling bayan (Don't become a tourist in your own country)

Asin is about 30 minutes away from Baguio. It is the nearest natural body of water (methinks) to the city. I think it's a general fact that Baguio residents get all agitated around the ocean. Being marine water deprived, on beach outings we're usually the first ones running toward the waves. Asin has hot springs but... I yet have to see one, all I ever see are pools.

Halfway to Asin, our public market kind of noiseness was disrupted by screams and a crash. I didn't have a good vantage point of the speeding jeep on our left but I did have front row tickets to the flying sidemirror of a van to our right. Imagine a two way road being occupied side by side by a maniacal jeep, a yellow Comby and a van with a parking violation... A couple of sidemmirrors were bound to fly.

What happened: The road to Asin sloped down most of the time. We were the ones on the downward path. A van to our right and out of nowhere a jeep speeding toward us. We were the first to cover part of the van, but the apparently blind jeepney driver didn't agree with us. He kept speeding toward us emitting CO gases to our already thin Ozone layer. John had no choice but to veer right (hitting the van's sidemirror) to prevent a semi-head-on collision.

What we did: We stopped for a second to collect our senses and drove away fast like fugitives. First of all, it was the effing jeep's fault. Second, the van was parked on the curb of a highway... and third, We were high on adrenaline.

What we agreed happened: Everything happened as it was, except for the flying sidemirror which we didn't see because of sheer trauma.


Asin (no) Hot Springs and the Pesky Lifeguard with the Picnic Umbrella

Palm Grove Resort did give us a great deal of solace. It wasn't what I expected, I wanted to see actual hot springs, but we're met by pristine chlorinated pools. But after the sidemirror incident, that didn't really matter.


Apparently, our eventful day wasn't over. We (well, just 2 of us) had to deal with a pesky lifeguard. After lunch and several accounts of the flying sidemirror, we were dipping our toes into the pool. It was raining, One of my favorite things... swimming when it's raining. I was only in the pool for five minutes when a lifeguard with a huge rainbow umbrella called my attention. He was asking me to change my top, which was made of cotton. The last time we were in Asin, although in a different resort, you were allowed to wear a cotton top as long as its white. As it turns out, they had stricter rules here.

Sure, I saw the signs that said that but I wanted to swim but didn't bring a nylon (or such) shirt. I gained weight and spandex didn't really flatter my figure. Hence, I was excommunicated from the pools. I sat by the poolside for a short time watching my friends play "Diving for the 25 centavo coin". When it started to get really cold, I had to retreat to our semi-enclosed hut with Dona. Anna met the same fate, but she was more persistent. She did do an outfit change and even tried to ignore-evade the lifeguard... but all in vain. We were both excommunicated.

Bring a nylon (or such) swimwear if you plan to go there, not doing so will make you smoke, drink softdrinks and eat junk food like crazy... not good for your body.

The trip back to Baguio was so fun. I felt like I was in the convertible of Thelma and Louise. We had to pass by the "crime scene" because that was the only route we knew. Paranoia was the general feeling. We'd make up conspiracy theories about all the people in Asin being in cahoots whenever people stared at our ride (Who wouldn't stare at a butter-yellow Comby?!)

Dona: Hala! Dito na yun! (This is where it happened!)
Tine and Ely: Hindi pa! Ala pa yung white na bridge! (No! I didn't see the long white bridge yet!)
Me and Joyce: Tapos na! Nalagpasan na natin! (We passed it already!)
John, intently driving... ignoring us
(More conspiracy stories)
Dona: Halaaaaaa!!!!

(Repeat all 20x)


Pusit, Turon and Sweet Corn

Mines View. The last time I was here, I was in high school acting as a disoriented tour guide for my cousins from Bulacan and Manila. The view changed... the mines aren't as they were, the mountains not as green, no more boys catching coins with baskets on long poles.

It however, still had the yummiest street food ever! Upon entry you feel hungry instantly because of the smell. We had our fill of grilled dried pusit, turon, and sweet corn. What is turon?

Being fed up with the usual camera angle tourists do when they go to Mines View (I know you have one...) I laid my camera down on the gazebo like structure and took our photo as an ant might see it. Our nostrils looked twice as big... but it is unique.


This Used to be My Playground

We still had a lot of places to visit in our itinerary but the night was upon us. We opted to spend the last amount of daylight in Camp John Hay. We had intended to have dinner at the commissary but the Mines View feast was still in our digestive system. Growing up near CJH, I had a lot of memories here. We found ourselves amidst swings and see-saws.

Scout Hill was especially close to my heart. As a kid, I nearly spent every Saturday here... It HAD nearly everything: a jungle gym, swings, see-saws, a skating rink, mini-golf, tennis, volleyball, an arcade, an ice cream parlor, mouth-watering large sized hamburgers, and wide open spaces. That was during the American occupation of CJH.

Filipino politics sure has a way of turning good things to shite. Under Filipino hands, the once free for all CJH, hub of recreation, nature walks and such has become a shitty exclusive club. Now, The tennis court is an unsightly bump car facility, the mini-golf course is brown and tetanus friendly, the volleyball court has been demolsihed to make way for the erection of multi-million dollar duplexes, the skating rink has been demolished to make way for the erection of multi-million dollar duplexes, the baseball field has been removed to make way for the erection of multi-million dollar duplexes.

Commerce over recreation. Money over nature. Pesos over everything else.

This is what's happening with most of Baguio now. Depressing... the prize of urban development. I'd like to say we should act now and save what we have left, that place, that building, this playground... but I know I only half mean it. To say it is one thing, to actually do it is another. So I just whine like everyone else... whine until its too late.



I do love my city... very much. I just don't know how to stop it from self-destructing.

Labels: baguio, boo-freakin-hoo, holidays, travels

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I lost all my previous comments LOL. I didn't know Haloscan would do that. anywho.

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo

There are some truths we know. There are some truths we wish we knew. There are some truths we wish we didn't. There are some truths we wish we could've known earlier. There are some truths we wish we could've known later. There are some truths we fear knowing. There are some truths we wish to forget.

Ignorance... they say is bliss. Some also say that what you won't know won't hurt you. But others will contradict by saying that you can never hide the truth. The bliss of ignorance has an expiration date. So would you rather know now or later?

Truth... they say sets us free. But they also say that truth can make you mad. Some truths can leave us lost and confused, forever bound by the shackles of doubt and despair. If you were to die in a week, would you want to know so you can anxiously prepare for it or would you rather not know and enjoy your remaining week without fear?

They say you cannot change the truth but the truth can change you. Truth and consequence. There is no "or". Every truth comes with consequences. Every unknown truth comes with consequences too. The truth hurts. Not knowing the truth also hurts.

Knowing the consequences, to know the truth or not to know the truth... That is the question.

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, quarterlife

Labels: baguio, boo-freakin-hoo, flashback music please, kids-r-i

...always get me down. What is it about rain that makes you lethargic and incapable of disengaging yourself from the warmth of your bed? What is it about rain that makes you wanna watch sappy romantic comedies? What is it about rain that makes you grab the stool you sneaked out from Otto Hahn, and then stand on it so you can reach up to the recesses of your uppermost closet shelf to retrieve your shoebox of mementos of failed relationships that are too difficult to dispose of... and then flip through them while you go through a range of emotions via your winamp player, starting with a nostalgic selection of: "Yellow" (Coldplay), "Wish You Were Here" (Pink Floyd), "Nobody Does It Better" (Carly Simon), "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Rollin' Stones), "The Scientist" (Coldplay), "I Miss You" (Incubus), "I" (6cyclemind), "Walking After You" (Foo Fighters), "Come To My Window" (Melissa Etheridge), "Brick" (Ben Folds Five), "Just Another" (Pete Yorn), "Come Around" (Rhett Miller).

To a more "senti", tears-forming-in-the-eyes- and-flapping-your-hands- to-fan-it-dry playlist of: "A Song For You" (Donny Hathaway), "Home" (Michale Buble), "You Don't Know Me" (Jann Arden), "Goodbye My Lover" (James Blunt), "Everything" (Lifehouse), "I Can't Make You Love Me" (Bonnie Raitt), "Tattoed On My Mind" (D'Sound), "Feels Like Home" (Chantal Kreviazuk), "New York State Of Mind" (Billy Joel), "Blower's Daughter" (Damien Rice), "Pwede Ba" (Soapdish), "More Than Anyone" (Gavin Degraw).

And then a playlist loaded with contained anger, repressed sorrow and resentment: "Oo" (Updharmadown), "Never Really Love You Anyway" (The Corrs), "Waiting In Vain" (Annie Lennox), "Cool Off" (Session Road), "Don't Speak" (No Doubt), "Walang Kadala Dala" (Sandwich), "Tumatakbo" (Mojofly), "Kung Ayaw Mo Huwag Mo" (Rivermaya), "You Oughta Know" (Alanis Morissette), "Tensionado" (Soapdish), "Colorblind" (Counting Crows), "Fools Like Me" (Lisa Loeb), "Scar" (Missy Higgins), "Bleed For Me" (Seether feat. Amy Lee), "My Favorite Game" (The Cardigans), "Criminal" (Fiona Apple), and capping it off with "Glory Box" (Portishead).

Rain rain go away...Little Chester does not want to open this shoebox again.

Labels: boo-freakin-hoo, music