Happy Christmas

I met a man in Nigeria years ago,
an Ibo,
who said he had three hundred relatives
he knew by name.
His wife had just had a baby.
They were going to take it
on foot
to be welcomed and marveled at
by as many of those relatives
as they could find,
even though
there was a war going on.
Wouldn’t you love to have been
such a famous baby?
I wish I could wave a magic wand
this Christmas,
and give every desperately lonesome
and hungry and lost American
man, woman, or child
the love and comfort and support
of an extended family.
Just two people and a babe in the manger,
given a heartless Government,
is no survival scheme.

- Kurt Vonnegut, 2004

Customer Service

Me: May reservation ba kayo?
Genius on the phone (GOTP): Papunta ho saan?
Me: Sa Olongapo.
GOTP: Wala ho.
Me: Sa Zambales?
GOTP: Wala din ho.
Me: Maski yung last trip? Yung 11 ng gabi?
GOTP: Meron po.

(Trips to Zambales, just in case you don't have a Philippine road map on hand, go through Olongapo.)

Cooling-Off

I have absolutely nothing to do tonight.

Or, tomorrow night and every single night for the next two weeks, for that matter. There is absolutely nothing that I have to photocopy, highlight, read and/or, God forbid, memorize. There will be no opportunities for other people to inflict moral damages upon my person, and aside from lining up behind total morons in the ATM, there will be no opportunity for me to wish harm to befall, presumably, a fellow human being.

This is probably how drug-induced altered states of consciousness feel like. I know this will not last, but at least, I will be celebrating the holidays on a high - drug-induced or otherwise.

Rehab

"There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."

- Red, The Shawshank Redemption

More Deep Thoughts

I finally qualified for a Nike Park VIP card. Yay.

* * *

I can't wait for my authentic Ryan Buenafe Ateneo jersey. Hopefully, I'd get my hands on it before Christmas.

* * *

Jover had me hooked on fantasy basketball. As of this writing, my team is tied for 6th in a fifteen-team league.

* * *

I took the long route home last Tuesday: I walked from the office to the train station at Ayala, took the train all the way to North Ave. (after missing 2 text messages, 3 calls and 1 crazy woman pounding the train before the train left Cubao), crossed over to the other side of the platform, took the train back to Guadalupe, and after futilely waiting for an FX ride, took a cab home.

Home, which ordinarily, is 1 jeepney and 1 tricycle ride away from the office.

* * *

For a game show host, Richard Gomez makes a very good pervert. I don't know, is it just me, or does he really just naturally appear as if he's molesting every female contestant on the show?

* * *

Speaking of TV shows, Zita was voted off the island and she's mad. Note to Zita: it's a game. Anyone can be voted off. When the Good Lord said "Blessed are the poor," He doesn't mean that the poor are entitled to win every single TV game show on the planet. But, I know you'll get over it. Hopefully, soon.

#34

Dave Matthews Band plays #34, at the Hollywood Bowl, October 2, 2007.

Sour Grapes

"The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry"

- Robert Burns, To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, With The Plough

Apparently, the CRS is to the College of Law, as speed limits and pants are to Homer Simpson: a suggestion.

Here is what I propose: the college should just do away with the CRS and simply hand out pre-filled Form 5s to students, who can then proceed either to Palma Hall or to the OUR and pay the assessed fees immediately. It will not only save everybody the time and effort needed to craft a class schedule, pre-enlist, fill out a Form 5 which, at the end of the day, are all pointless anyway; it will also save much-needed bandwidth because people no longer need to access CRS. This would also do away with validation, checking and assessment. Imagine how easy registration would be.

They can leave the electives to the students. They just need to make sure that electives with the right number of units, which are not in conflict with any of the predetermined courses (and sections), are actually available for the student to take.

Just a thought.

Cow Dung

Reliving the Moments

"When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band."

- David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust

My wishlist for my first office Kris Kringle contained a solitary item: the Eraserheads' Cutterpillow album (I think I just dated myself). I was fresh off college, it was my first job and I was so cheap (some will say that I still am) that I was willing to wait until a few weeks before Christmas before finally getting my hands on my own copy of the album. That album, incidentally, went platinum the day after they launched it at the UP Sunken Garden.

A few years and a few more albums later (including one - Natin99 - which was brought to the US by a friend when I was there, signed by the members of the band), I now get to enjoy more luxuries in life, like not waiting until Christmas to get the Heads' latest - and most probably, really, last - album. The Reunion Concert is their first live album, containing all 15 songs performed by the band last August 30, before Ely's heart went into "overdrive." The best part about the album, of course, is that I am actually in it (yes, along with 30,000 other people counting down, and chanting "group hug").

I was planning to go to Music One before going to work earlier today, but let's just say that I got lucky. The press release said that the album was going to be released on November 3 - today. That is why I was pleasantly surprised to find Odyssey selling the album as early as last Saturday. The saleslady told me, matter-of-factly, that they were releasing it early ahead of everybody else. I don't know if that's alright, but, who am I to complain? I spent the entire weekend reliving the best concert I have been to in recent years. It never gets old.

Best Movie Lines Ever

Jeff Portnoy: Hey, Alpa, if you come over here and untie me, I will literally suck your dick, right now.

Alpa Chino: Man, what did I tell you? I love tha pussy!

Jeff Portnoy: I'll cradle the balls, stroke the shaft, work the pipes, and swallow the gravy.

- Tropic Thunder

Bliss

"Enjoy what's left of your semestral break."

Including today, we have 11 days of reprieve before we all go back to Shawshank. I have already started reading Playing for Pizza last night - a book which I bought way back in June, in premature anticipation of this break. Later, Weng and I will try to catch Tropic Thunder at Glorietta (Power Plant and GB3 are now showing High School Musical 3 - no, I will not pay any money only to see that). It's been a quite a while since we've been inside a movie house - I think the last movie we saw was The Clone Wars.

(I also hoped to be more productive at work for the next two weeks. I think you have a pretty good idea on how that is going so far. Harhar.)

I also need to get a copy of SI's NBA Preview Issue, which should be out in Manila next week. Which means that I have to finish registration early in the morning sometime next week so that I can immediately visit the friendly neighborhood Bufini store. Speaking of registration, here's hoping that the people who actually run the college stop scrutinizing peoples' Form 5s too much, get the fuck out of the way, and just let people determine and drive their own fates. Really, I am confused as to why the fuck they even care.

Nego is coming up, and so is PrIL (which, incidentally rhymes with "kill"). We're also getting Admin and Tax 2, and if the gods smile down upon us, IPL without any conflicts in schedule, whatsoever. If things go as smoothly as we hope, there should be a better than even chance that we can watch more movies in the coming months.

Song of the Moment

Hinihingal ka lang
May oras pang natitira
Kahit parang ang layo pa
Habol

Kung harangan ka man
Sumalakay man mga bantay
Lahat kami Maghihintay
Habol, habol!

Refrain:
Dehado kung dehado
Para sa'n pang mga galos mo
Kung titiklop ka lang
Titiklop ka lang
Matalo kung matalo
Huwag ka sanang magkakamaling
Sumuko na lang
Woah

Maagawan ka man
Lalung huwag kang papipiga
Kumpiyansa lang bawat bangga
Woah

Kumaripas ka na
Humanda ka na sa paglipad
Pakpak nati'y ilalantad
Woah

Repeat Refrain

Chorus:
Ang puso
Iaalay
Sa laban
Kapalit ay tagumpay

Ang puso
Iaalay
Sa laban
Kapalit ay tagumpay

Repeat Refrain

Ang puso
Ialay
Sa laban
Kapalit ay tagumpay

Chorus:
Ang puso
Iaalay
Sa laban, sa laban, sa laban, sa laban mo

Intrumental

Coda:
Ang puso
Iaalay
Sa laban
Kapalit ay tagumpay
(Repeat thrice)

- Puso, Sponge Cola

One To Go

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

We are finally done with Medjur, Puboff, Evidence and Locgov. Of course, when I say "done," I mean we have done everything on our part that is humanly possible (including taking leaves without pay from work, for instance) if only never to see the same faces (or the same cases) ever again. (Not to mention, that we also want to get out of Shawshank on time.)

Medjur is really done - "as sure as night follows day." There is no chance in hell anyone would flunk that course. Puboff and Locgov, assuming that the final grades will be computed in the manner the professors said they would last June, should be mathematically impossible to flunk given the previous numbers. (But, of course, stranger things have happened.) That leaves Evidence, which answers to the exam questions I still could not figure out, even after the exam (which was also the case last sem with Civpro, so please God, I am not exactly praying for a miracle, I just want the same results).

And then, there's Tax. I got myself a 119-page reviewer from some law school along Mendiola which I will use in trying to prepare for it. (In comparison, their reviewer for Evidence had 57 pages, Puboff and Locgov both less than 10, and yet all these subjects are worth 3 units. Go figure.) As was the case in the six previous semesters, it is most difficult to get yourself to prepare for the last exam. At this point, people are really drooling in anticipation of the semestral break. You truly, honestly just want to get it over and done with. (Note to friends: it is a good idea to take the Civpro or Evidence finals last - you want to take the other exams with hope still in your hearts.)

Wish us luck.

So Close

So, after watching My Cousin Vinny just before the Great Ateneo Bonfire, cutting LocGov and missing Toyapi's spoken word performance, staying awake through Tax, watching two of the most depressing, suicide-inducing films I have ever seen in my life - one after the other, and surviving GR in Puboff, there is but one class left, and I somehow cannot get my lazy ass to prepare for it.

How "Sweep" It Is

I'm back.

The win last Thursday was the sweetest win against DLRT that I have ever seen live, and I am saying this not only because it was the first and only Ateneo championship that I have been blessed enough to see with my own eyes. That win made it a clean season sweep for the Eagles - regular season and the finals. That, boys and girls, should effectively expunge all that shit about "2>3." Not only is "4>0" better, it is also mathematically correct. Leave it to the PEPsters to screw not only everything we learned about spelling, but arithmetic, as well. That win marked the first time, either team won four times against the other. It won for the Eagles its fourth UAAP seniors basketball title, the third at the expense of - you guessed it - DLRT. When it matters? It couldn't matter more than in the UAAP finals, you dorks, where we have already beaten your sorry asses three out of four times (four out of six, if you include the NC years). Now, I can forget all the bad things that happened during the 2006 season and get rid of those Jojo Duncil nightmares for good.

The Game 2 win was made doubly sweeter by the fact that I did not have to look for a TV set to get updates on Game 3 last Sunday, which incidentally, was the day my sister finally got married. I don't think she would have forgiven me if I started cheering lustily during the offertory.

With the season over, I can now get back to less serious stuff - like Evidence and Tax. And, of course, there's work. I still have to pay the bills.

But, before all that, I have to go to the bonfire tonight.

I am Nonoy

So, who's your daddy, now?

---
Photo courtesy of Aaron Vicencio.

Manna from Heaven

Class

Ignominy

Yesterday's game is a testament to why I prefer boring blowouts over heart-stopping, gut-wrenching ordeals. They make for enjoying, relaxing afternoons with your friends. No suspense. No surprises. The better team should win, and win easy. After watching two hard-fought games against UE during the elimination rounds, with the second going into overtime, and only after Chris Tiu and Ryan Buenafe made four consecutive triples, we were expecting another close game. Afterwards, nobody was complaining that we were all wrong.

The game started shortly after DLRT won by five points against FEU. Their crowd was understandably, well, happy. They were, in fact, so happy that they started chanting "Go UE!" even before the red-clad people in the audience could find seats. Some of them, probably hoping for, if not expecting, an upset, stayed to enjoy the second game. I am not so sure if they enjoyed what they saw as much as we did.

How bad was the game for UE? At one point early in the fourth quarter, Ateneo has already scored twice as many points as UE did. They were able to whittle it down to a more "respectable" 20-point margin after the final buzzer by scoring 22 points in the garbage time that is the fourth quarter. UE team captain Marcy Arellano, playing what turned out to be his last game in the UAAP, scored a grand total of 0 points, going 0-6 from the field (including one horrible airball) and 0-2 from the line. The Ateneo crowd started celebrating as early as the third quarter, when chants of "We want La Salle!" wafted through the coliseum. After the Eagles came back from an early 11-5 hole to erect what turned out to be an insurmountable 17-11 lead at the end of the first, little did we know that the Warriors have already given us their best shot. While UE couldn't buy an easy basket from anywhere, Jai Rayes was making jumper after jumper, and Eric Salamat was making ridiculously difficult shots off the break. In the end, only a handful of UE supporters remained to sing their Alma Mater hymn with their players. One would be hard-pressed not to feel bad for the UE players, after seeing their crowd disappear long before the final buzzer, who look so alone after yet another playoff disaster.

The Eagles are in the finals for the 7th time since joining the UAAP in 1978. They have won the title three times, twice against its old, hated foe. Everything thus far has been to true to form. The two best teams during the season will face-off for the basketball title, and an entire year's worth of bragging rights. Two more games. One big fight.

Go Ateneo.


---
Photo courtesy of PizzaGuy.

Blueberries and Cream

"Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?"

- Homer Simpson