Parental Guidance Is Advised

Hellyeah hates the Man

Fuck the haters! I'm digging Hellyeah these days, particularly their Stampede album, for this song. No explanation needed. Just follow the lyrics as you trip along the video, and raise that beer mug if you agree with them. Favorite lines: "Another day in the trenches, for these sons of bitches, well it don't seem right/ To keep me poor, while I keep 'em rich, but I got my eye on the prize." Yeah.

 

Holy brainfuckers!

Nothing like the right kind of brainfuckers to mitigate the impact on my psyche of being required to work at home on a Maundy Thursday while the rest of the country frolic on beaches or climb mountains or jump from one bad-ass drinking binge to another to celebrate and enjoy the longest fucking weekend of the year.

Getting sick is not metal

Saw my pulmonologist the other day. She said my right lung is recovering pretty well based on the x-ray result. I was hoping she would give me the clearance to go back to work, but she didn't. Instead she advised me to take another month off. I e-mailed my bosses about it, and they said OK, fine, don't worry about it. Wow. If only I could grab a drink to celebrate. Seems like I'll be back in the office just in time to attend the Christmas party.

Enchanted Kingdom with friends is metal

   

 

Getting scorched by the sun in the morning and then soaked by the rain in the afternoon is not the ideal way of enjoying Enchanted Kingdom, but we had fun nevertheless — more because of the company than the actual rides, methinks. And also because everything was free courtesy of our employer. My wife Charmaine and I thank Boojie Basilio, Carmela Lapeña, and Nikka Corsino for making Independence Day 2010 a wonderful experience.

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Top photo courtesy of Nikka Corsino. 

Freaky photo

I like how grainy this photo is. Replace the glasses and beer bottles with a candelabra, put a somber look on our faces, and this will look as if taken in the 1940's inside a creaky old house somewhere in the boondocks where the nearest neighbor is about a mile away, and things go bump in the night. I can almost hear the crickets chirping outside.

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Photo courtesy of Aie Balagtas See

 

 

Noynoy, Binay & my dirty finger

Ladies and gentlemen, the new president and vice-president of the Republic of Springfield a.k.a. the Philippines:

I voted for neither Noynoy nor Binay last May 10, and I had my reasons. But a lot of people disagreed with me and that's OK. But please don't give me that crap about majority of the people voted for them. No, majority of Filipinos didn't vote for them. Their votes were just scattered in eight or nine other candidates. Do a little math and you'll know what I mean. Not even Erap can claim he had the majority of votes in 1998. That's the downside of functioning under a multi-party system: Any moron who has money and strong political group can run for president and vice-president, and the fickle-minded just can't handle multiple choices. Good luck, Philippines, in the next six years.

*******

So on Monday, May 10, I woke up early to participate in a historical event: the first nationwide automated elections. Like the others I had to fall in line for hours (two and a half to be exact) for something that only took me around five minutes to accomplish.

Saw some friends and acquaintances while in line, some past and present neighbors. I noticed how some of yesterday's giggly girls became today's ravishing coeds, and how yesterday's ravishing coeds became today's, um, fat moms! Saw the old folks who hated my guts when I was young, and wondered what they think of me now. Saw some neighborhood misfits too. They didn't change much except they have more tattoos now. It was an experience looking at them sweat it out with the rest of us in that stuffy Lores Elementary School classroom. It was nice listening to them justify their choices. Back then I thought all they cared about was their girlfriends and their beer. Now they're talking about politics and they're making sense. Surprise, surprise . . .

This is exactly why I love my May 10 experience.

Anyway after voting I went straight to work where I had a grueling 12-hour shift. Indeed, May 10 election day was one of the longest days in my life. The next day was equally hectic. Can't wait for this whole shitstorm to be over so I can sit down and relax and watch Malacanang's new occupants.

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Homer Simpson/Apu photo courtesy of some dude on Twitter.

Voting with a cup of vitriol

Just a little note here before I close this heck of a busy day.

I don't need to wait for the election results; I know that I'll be living the next six years of life under a president I didn't vote for. To quote my erstwhile editor Inday Espina-Varona, this is "not defeatism. Just acknowledging reality; no use playing blind."

There's much to say about tomorrow's elections, about the candidates and their platforms, and the propensity of many Filipinos to pick popularity over qualifications in choosing their president, but I'm tired. All I want to do is go home, sleep, and prepare for tomorrow's elections, which have all the makings of a major shitstorm.

For those who will vote for Noynoy, I hope you are right and I am wrong.

Like a convicted child molester on parole

A quickie before I logged out for the night . . .

I am typing this at home, in the living room where I'll sleep later, and I am nursing what could be a case of sore eyes.

Which is the reason why I can't sleep beside my wife and daughter tonight, and why I was sent home from the office earlier, and why people here at home are suddenly nervous around me. In Twitter I wrote: "So this is how it feels like to be a leper in the olden days, or a convicted child molester on parole." I may have played with words there, but I wasn't exaggerating.

I'm not really sure if I can come back to work tomorrow. The company physician, Dr. Joanne Paola Arcilla, who is as pretty as her name, said I shouldn't if the symptoms are still there. If not then I should visit her clinic again and we'll take it from there. After all, she said this could be just a case of "dry eyes," whatever the hell that is.

Isolation. A pair of fucked-up eyes and suddenly I am a danger to society. My John Dillinger dreams coming true.