midnight in the netherworld

bokal

a childhood friend of mine recently went home from the states. that was two weeks ago. i haven't seen him yet. we were supposed to go out that night along with the rest of my other childhood friends, majority of whom still live in the same old neighborhood we grew up in. unfortunately i already had a previous commitment, that is why i wasn't able to join them. as usual, they partied til the morning light. well, some things never change. my childhood friends are all professionals now and all are still based here, except for that one who recently came home. we seldom see each other as all of us are busy with our respective careers and family lives.

the last time we all got together was five years ago when that same friend first came home after leaving for the states in 1995. it was an unscheduled and emotional trip back home, he had to attend to the wake and burial of his father who had just passed away.

we all go way back. we have been together since we were eight or ten years old. as kids, we spent a lot of summers flying kites on rooftops, joining the annual summer basketball tournament and on warm summer nights, playing hide and seek and patintero under the full moon. in high school, we lit our first cigarettes, shared our first beers and walked home in zigzag fashion, much to the consternation of our mothers. i also remember getting so drunk in this friend's house back in 2nd year high that the older men in the neighborhood had to walk me home. and when i got home, i started throwing up right in our living room and in the presence of both my parents. i was grounded for like a month.

in college, we were still as tight as ever. one night i arrived late from school after a day of exams, projects, meetings and org activities. at around midnight, i was surprised to see this friend knocking on our gate. he and his girlfriend had just broken up and he was crying like a child. now this guy is around 5'8 tall and well built. i never imagined  i'd see him literally weeping. all he wanted was someone to drink with so that he could just let his "sama ng loob" out. and this was 12 midnight. tired as i was, i had to give in to his request. what could i do?

this friend will be leaving this coming aug 10th. they have already scheduled one last get together before he leaves. hopefully, i'd be able to join them. i'm looking forward to it in fact...

bokal

it's been raining on and off for the past week or so. not a problem really if you're just inside the house, problem  is, i'm almost always out of the house. got stranded in the mall the other day due to the heavy downpour. aside from the fact that i never really bring an umbrella, (have never even owned one) it also would have been of no use even if i had one with me that fateful thursday afternoon. to make matters worse, i only had around 150 pesos in my pocket and not a damn atm was in sight. it's a good thing the rain finally stopped and i hurriedly went on my way home. and wonder of wonders, it wasn't even flooded in our street. our street usually turns into an ocean after a downpour and waist-high floods aren't uncommon.

i finally had my pc repaired at the shop yesterday. had the power supply replaced. i also added a memory card. it's working fine now but i'm thinking of replacing the motherboard sometime in the near future. i also have to  purchase another wireless card, add a couple of usb ports and further increase the memory. i've been using rory's laptop for seven months now and for some reason i still haven't gotten the hang of it.

i quickly assembled my pc when i got home and the moment my fingertips felt the touch of the old dell keyboard, it was like magic once again. my typing speed is like 20 words per minute, but yesterday, i felt like i could type 100 words per minute without making mistakes! i usually develop an attachment for things which have been with me for quite some time. i never realized i'd miss my pc this much. oh well....

bokal

went out to see the premiere showing of the mist the other night with melai and tanya. i really wasn't up to it as i figured on just spending the rest of the evening in bed. i gave in though after some convincing. the showing was held at megamall which normally is just a 10 minute drive from where i live without the traffic. that wasn't the case tuesday night however. traffic was terrible it took me more than 30 minutes from our place to reach megamall. when i finally got there, i was relieved to find out that the movie wouldn't start as it was originally scheduled to. this was one instance i could truly appreciate filipino time. while waiting for the movie to start, i decided to head to powerbooks to do some reading. melai texted me to say she and tanya were having a quick snack at kenny rogers'. when they had finished eating, we proceeded inside the cinema and i noticed that it was already 75% filled up. the movie finally started at around 8pm.

the mist is a stephen king film which shares a direct connection to the dark tower series which he also wrote. being a stephen king reader for more than ten years now, i couldn't help noticing a painting of ronald the gunslinger from the dark tower series at the start of the film.

stephen king grew up and i believe presently resides in bangor, maine where the film also takes place. after a violent thunderstorm which knocks out power lines and causes a lot of destruction, david the lead character notices a strange mist on the lake. they think nothing of it at first, but later while they are at the local supermarket, a man with a bloodied nose comes running in from the mist which they notice has already drifted in from the coast. the man keeps yelling about something in the mist and tells them to close all the doors. the shoppers are all trapped inside with a sinking feeling of hopelessness and despair. this scene reminds me of another stephen king film, the storm of the century. i’m not sure if this film was shown on the big screen but i have a pirated copy which i just recently purchased.

all said, the movie is not of the faint heart or stomache should i say. not that it's particularly chilling or downright scary, it's just that there are a lot of gory and violent scenes that non stephen king fans might not be able to appreciate.

got home around 11:35 pm. quickly downed three beers to ensure a good night's sleep. i don't want my sleep being disturbed by blood thirsty creatures with long and scaly tentacles that are full of teeth and claws.

bokal

i finally got to renew my long expired driver's license two weeks ago, and it only took a total of two hours. it would have taken less time than that, had it not been for the fact that i arrived an hour before noon. and if i were to rate the whole process i'd say that those people at the lto branch in farmer's cubao are pretty efficient.

i got to watch i am legend the other night with a friend. based on a novel, this movie is a remake of a 1954 film entitled the last man on earth, and another film done in 1971 entitled the omega man. the action scenes though quite few are pretty good, although the ending wasn't what a lot of us expected it to be.

the holidays are finally over but a lot of us are still in vacation mode. i for one am wishing that the christmas season isn't over yet. it's not that i miss the festivities or the countless presents. it's just that i was able to get a lot of things done during the yuletide break and aside from that, i was also able to get a lot of much needed rest. and i am most productive when i get a lot of rest. believe you me....

bokal

had beer after work with ernie, parks, peds and hasel. we went to this roadhouse styled pub at the back of makati med. the place was almost packed when we got there. we immediately ordered beer, sisig, calamares and mushrooms. the food wasn't that great. wasn't even good. the beer wasn't that chilled. wasn't  even cold. but we had a great time bashing rey who wasn't around of course. the washroom was the revelation of the night however. inside it was a washbasin half filled with puke. yummy!

didn't get drunk but i got so sleepy that i forgot i had to meet lai later. and when i woke up, there were like 10 messages from her and about 20 missed calls. qucikly took a cab to shang after taking a bath. it didn't turn out so well. she was so mad at me that she hurriedly left after i handed to her an invoice she was supposed to get from me earlier.

went home, turned on the tv and had a beer. life is so good...

bokal

i wasn't able to go to work yesterday due to a bum stomache. i was practically down the whole day that i ended up in the hospital near midnight. i had to stay there for at least 2 hours as i had to wait for the result of all the tests they performed on me. and just my luck, i had to deal with a female doctor who aside from waging an obviously losing battle against obesity, was also so comfortably slumped in her desk that it seemed to me she was passing out judgement as if deciding on whether to vote for erap or eddie gil. add to that the annoying presence of a geeky colleague of hers who was trying hard at making a pass at her during working ours. bangis ni pogi! from the emergency room at the far end of the corridor, they made me walk all the way to the laboratory at the third floor where i submitted my stool specimen and where some blood was extracted from me for tests. not that there wasn't an elevator, but in similar situations in the past, i was even wheeled to and from the laboratory. imagine a scene from a horror movie where the main character finds himself all alone in a long and dimly lit hospital corridor. i felt i was in such a scene that when i started tapping on the glass window of the lab, who would emerge from within but a female med tech who was obviously pissed at being disturbed from her midnight snack of chocolates, remnants of which, hang from the corners of her lips and between her teeth. while extracting blood, i had the feeling she inserted the needle deeper and longer than what was necessary. i have never really liked needles, but i have never complained about the pain. this was one instance however where i had to admit that the pain was unbearable. afterwards, i started the long and lonely journey back to the emergency room, boarding the elevator which you are well aware is commonly built in such a way that it could fit a corpse. after what seemed an eternity, i finally found myself back in the emergency room in the presence of mrs jabba the hut. since i was told by the med tech on duty that they would relay the result of the tests after an hour, mrs jabba the hut informed me that i had to proceed to the waiting room where they also had beds, because the er was full for the night. i decided to wait along the corridor as i couldn't help noticing the resemblance of the waiting room to the hospital morgue. after more than an hour, mrs jth made me go back to the lab for the resulsts. the sarcasm in the tone of voice of another med tech was barely masked when she asked me if i wasn't informed that they were the ones who would relay the results to the er. and this time she didn't bother to disguise it while thanking me. at past 1:00 a.m. i was finally discharged with a prescription and a certificate. i was so starved that i had to order a chicken meal at the fastfood at the corner of kalentong and shaw.

after some thought, i just charged to experience the ordeal i went through. i know how it feels being in the graveyard shift. i spent some three years in the  6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. shift in the plant where i used to work and it could be that those people were already tired after a hard day's work and their shift wasn't even over yet.

moral: next time i feel like mallingering, i will never cite diarrhea as an alibi....

bokal

it's been a while since i last posted an entry. been very busy with work that i've hardly had anytime to do anything else. not to mention that the connection in my mom's house really sucks. nothing much has happened anyway. spent the last 3 days here in marikina and it's been one magic night after another. 

sometimes, you have to take time out from your daily routine to smell the flowers, or so they say. that's what i'm doing i guess, taking time out from being burned out at work.

i'm really hell bent on working overseas, canada in particular. i just don't know where and how to start. i've had this offer from a former co-worker who is now a quality assurance supervisor in a food manufacturing firm in canada. of course what she used to get here pales in comparison with what she is receiving now. she has been convincing me to try it out there as there are a lot of openings for the position i used to occupy when we were still working together. i certainly would want to try my luck out there but i'm just not sure if i'm up to it. a little prodding and pushing might do the trick however. especially now that things seem hopeless, given the present political situation back here.

but i'll do the thinking and the worrying later. because in the meantime, i'm just gonna sit back, enjoy my vacation and go back to smelling the flowers.