the christmas post

howdy. it's a bit late, but merry christmas to all!

christmas was a bit quiet this year, to put it mildly. there was no noche buena. just a mass, a regular dinner, then my sis and her husband and their kids went off to see the in-laws. mom, dad, and i stayed at home and did the usual--i'm in my room, she's in hers, he's in the den, watching TV. that's it. everything was morbidly dull save for the occassional merry xmas messages coming in via cellphone. (speaking of which, my cellphone is new. i think of it as my xmas gift to myself, and also as ace's xmas gift to me, since she persuaded me to buy it ^_^)

then my sis et al came home around 2:30 am. dad woke up because we were making a bunch of noise outside. that's when we decided to open our gifts, leaving only the kids' gifts under the tree. i got two bags. i am quite beside myself with joy.

dad enjoyed his gifts (maybe because he helped pick them out in the first place). i still have no gift for my niece tara and my sis. it's hard to find good gifts for them, they're both very picky. :P but my sis has an idea what she wants, and my niece just has to find a good book or the soundtrack of hannah montana.

anyway, that's about all that happened this xmas at home. the next night we went off to my aunt's but not much happened there either. i did get a shirt from my childhood friend. ^_^ earlier in the day, i got shirts from my mom and dad. (is there a pattern here?)

at any rate, let's see what the new year brings.

Tales of Insania

finally, some light fare!

found a couple of interesting(?) things:


it's not very clear, but this is one of those creative little ads on the mrt, that of an gigantic biogesic pill attached to one of the safety thingies.

...apparently, someone had a major headache, because as you can see, the pill is gone.






this is a relatively new item mini-stop is selling. it's microwavable taho.

...anak ng tipaklong naman. kung ganyan ang hitsura ng model ng product mo, bibilhin mo pa ba?

...siya yung mukhang microwavable e.



****

i rediscovered the artstyle i liked in Tales of Phantasia. i realize it's quite an old game now, for a number of platforms, but the art is NIIIIICE. it sort of makes me want to draw again, but considering the slump i've been in and the fact that i've been drawing everyday for the past ten months, i'm still not in the mood, not yet at least. check out the artwork here.

that's all. see ya next time.

fly in the soup

so, yeah, why is there ALWAYS a fly in the soup?

you know what i mean. it's like that alanis song, "ironic". you get the job of your dreams and it turns out there's a fly in the proverbial soup. not just one, too, i might add. nuts.

not that the work itself sucks. it's more of the politics. i thought that, well, being in an animation company--where everyone is supposed to work together as one solid unit--would somehow save me the annoyances and hassle of having to deal with office politics. i guess being pinoy may have something to do with it. we just always have to one-up everyone else. especially when you're one of the higher-ups. pardon the pun.

i guess when you're in a position of power, it's easy to feel that you deserve whatever you can steal from the rank and file.

hopefully, i'm just misguided, or maybe the rumors are wrong. although even the idealist in me can't ignore the possibility that, yeah, power corrupts. and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

but you do know what happens when there's a fly in the soup. two things: one, the fly drowns. two, the soup gets thrown into the trash.

you may be filthy rich, but hey, face it: you're still filthy. and the only way to get filthy rich is to first get filthy. no thanks. besides, you can't take money with you when you die. but you might still take your filth to the grave.

hay.

as an afterthought, heck, every company's supposed to function like one solid unit. what makes it doubly true for the animation business is everything is connected completely to each other. so...don't act like you're some kinda hotshot big boss when you don't even bother to care about your underlings. we, the rank and file, are your lifeblood.

remember, when you push these people up against a wall, you are fighting people who have absolutely nothing to lose if and when they push back. at least, even if we lose our jobs, we'll be able to find another. because, unlike you idiots who think you know everything about your company, we can actually draw. we have a talent you don't have. and we'll survive. but you...who's going to hire a buncha washed-up old coots who don't know how to do anything?

by the way, how are your kids doing? i wonder how they'd feel if papa suddenly lost his job because he didn't care about the people who actually make his money for him.

think about that.

Death Throes

the human race is going to hell. i know, and the reason i know is because i watched a cat die in front of me today.

it didn't die from old age or from getting run over by some careless (or heartless) driver sent by Beelzebub to destroy the somewhat domesticated relatives of the feline family. it died because someone sent it sailing into the air from one of the parking levels of the unfinished portion of the podium, about forty or fifty feet high. it landed on its back on the gravel of the parking lot next to the podium. there it lay, most probably suffering from massive internal bleeding and a broken spine, and most definitely in horrible pain. it tried to get up but after one pathetic attempt, it slowly toppled over onto its side, writhing, letting out pitiful, agonized meows as though pleading for someone to either help it or end its suffering. after about a minute, it ceased its cries and lay still.

while all this was happening, i stood there as though compelled by some unnamed force to watch. i had seen the falling cat out of the corner of my eye, i heard the sickening crack its body made as it hit unforgiving rocks, and i was stunned. i felt sick, like something had climbed up to my throat and taken up permanent residence there.

i looked around and saw other people watching. i saw two men laughing at the dying cat. something had just died, and they were laughing.

no matter how you turn it around in your heads, there is no way you can find a good, sound reason for someone to deliberately, intentionally, and perhaps even gleefully throw a cat several stories from the ground. and i cannot fathom how anybody else could think it was amusing.

what kind of people live in this world that practice this sort of malice? what kind of people stand by and giggle while others play the devil?

how did it turn out this way? this wasn't what we were taught. this isn't what we should know.

but still, we do it. people do evil things, and they don't give a shit about it. they even find it funny.

that's how i know we're all headed straight for hell. because the devil walks among us, and when he smiles, we smile back. when he cracks a joke, we crack up laughing. and when he whispers, we bend toward him and we listen. ultimately, we obey.

we're damned. we're in our death throes, the same way that poor animal was, and we don't even know it. we're on the verge of turning the key in the gates of hell, and from the looks of things, someone down there is going to throw us a party. we've brought the chow, after all.

and if people reading this think i'm making such a big deal about a stupid old cat, think again. whoever said it was just about the cat?

it's about us.

it's about our viciousness, our capacity for cruelty and sadism.

(maybe i shouldn't be so appalled. after all, we've done countless atrocities to each other over time. the atom bomb. the biochemical weapons. the general apathy. the unjustifiable notion of our own greatness.)

and even as i feel consumed by some imagined flame of righteous anger, i know i'm not free from the devil in me. because, after i watched the cat die, after i listened to its hurt cries, i looked up at where i supposed the wretch behind the atrocity was lurking, and i was so sorely tempted to sell my soul if in return something horrible and terrifying and torturous would happen to him. i could feel a part of me in its last death throes, and all i did was walk away.




(author's note: this really did happen today. i suppose i could have put it in a less dramatic manner, but i want people to take notice. we really are a horrible species, aren't we? and i really did hope that something horrible would happen to that guy who threw the cat. i hoped that he'd get thrown off himself, and that i would be there when it happened, and God help me, i know i would just laugh at him.)

hell starts anew next week

latest from pag-asa...

going to have a new quota to reach next week. from 12 sheets a day to 15. having a hard time reaching 12 as it is, but hey, gotta cope. no biggie, tho i think i'm going to have to start leaving the office a bit later than usual.

had a rather disheartening experience with my mother. yesterday i learned that i really shouldn't believe everything she says, nevermind the old saying "mother knows best." (there's a fine print beneath that line that says "depending on exactly how much she does know." ) to make a long story short, let's just say she still treats me like a highschool brat, and it's not doing anything for my self-esteem (ego, to the more realistic and sarcastic sods out there). i've done about everything i could to show her that i'm not a kid anymore, but it's simply not working.

so.

i wash my conscience off the matter. this doesn't mean i'm about to kill her, have her kidnapped, or run away to japan and leave her behind. it just means that i have to put my money where my mouth is, meaning i have to stop talking about it and start acting. i have to deal with her without any real emotion or feeling any guilt, because if i keep this up much longer, it will REALLY stunt my growth.

on to lighter matters...

GUSTO KONG GUMIMIK!!! basta yung medyo malapit sa office, ha. may mall naman dun e. and it's eastwood. lots of things happen in eastwood on fridays. i would love to watch a movie SOON. lalu na Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. yeah, yeah, call me corny, but i want to see that movie. it's good for a lot of laughs and hopefully some great adventures. seeing how boring and grounded our lives can be, it's good to go back in time and imagine how life would have been as the "rockstar" of that era. eternal dreamers, give me a call!

anyways, that's about it for now. going to hand over my pc to my sister and my niece. see ya.

i HATE bangungots.

the title says it all.

i had a weird dream last night. i dreamt i was in some building, out in the hallway. there were sleeping mats everywhere, and my friends ace and mike were there. we were obviously getting ready for some sleepover of epic proportions, considering it was a) in a building, b) there were more than three mats.

in the dream, mike had brought along a cool new video game. it seemed made for the pc because it had installments, but it could be played on playstation. the game was of the horror genre, it was about monsters all over the world. there was the american installment, which had vampires, werewolves, etc., and there was the philippine installment, which had all sorts of aswang. mike said that it scared him to death when he played it, never mind that you were playing the role of monster. (you could even customize your monsters...how the heck did a dream get that much detail?)

anyway, i didn't want to play the game coz i'm a chicken, so i opted to hide under the blanket. i don't know exactly when, but i think one of my friends called me, so i tried to throw off the blankets. of course, as bad dreams go, i couldn't. i kept pulling and pulling at the blanket just to try and get out from under them, but i simply could not.

well, i've had that experience before, and some people have told me that it was a case of bangungot. normally a bangungot is state where you find your mind is awake but your body is asleep. practically dead to the world. in my case, i get my bangungots under the covers, literally. i've dreamt of being stuck under the blankets and being unable to immediately throw them off, and the feeling is terrifying. you want to get out because you know that something awful will happen to you if you don't, but you simply can't.

anyway, this dream was weird, because i was having a bangungot WITHIN the dream. i've never had that before. in the dream, i was able to pull the blankets off after a prolonged struggle, only to find that i was still in the damned dream, and ace and mike were STILL playing the damned game!

at that point, i think i knew i was dreaming, so yeah, i woke up.

i had an eerie feeling when i did. i looked around at my room and swore that it was different somehow. not like i woke up in Oz or anything, but there was a slightly different feel in the air. i'm a superstitious, paranoid individual, so i thought that there might be something outside, or something on the roof. i tried to shrug it off and go back to sleep, but the moment i'd start to drift off i'd start dreaming again, immediately, stuff i couldn't control though i wanted to.

well, nothing happened after that. i fell asleep again and the next time i woke up all i had to do was relieve my bladder. still, that was a really weird night, and i hope it doesn't happen again. for all that i want my life to be eventful, i'd really rather steer clear of the supernatural events, thank you very much.

and by the way...ace had that strange feeling last night, too, when she woke up in the wee hours of the morning after having...you guessed it...a weird dream.

i HOPE this does not become a trend. -_______-0

the thunderstorms cometh!

summer's over, and yes, the freak storms with megalightning and thunder have come. the days are have become humid and stifling, while the sky grows pregnant with the impending threat of heavy rain. (how dramatic). in short...hello rainy season!

this gives me an excuse to buy sandals. all you need when your bare feet get soaked in rainwater is a good dose of alcohol/alcogel and kleenex. :P easier to deal with that than with soggy socks and waterlogged sneakers.

speaking of storms, some of my friends are facing some really rough ones right now. they're trying to hang in there, but it seems that their will and their hearts are close to breaking. it hurts me that they're going through all this, and there's not much i can do to help.

but listen up. there's a reason we all get put to the test. though it seems that we're powerless in the face of a storm, we still have a choice. we can either allow ourselves to drown in the rain, in the flood, OR we can forge on. in spite of how dark and how frightening it might seem. remember, it won't rain forever.

i once had an experience i'll never forget. my dad and the driver picked me up from de la salle university during a storm. after several hours, we still weren't home because the traffic was horrendous. finally, somewhere near the old airport on mia road heading towards sucat, paranaque, things came to a standstill. cars heading in the opposite direction had desperately gone into the other lane, while cars from our lane had decided to do the same thing. result: absolute and complete STOP.

so dad and i decided to walk home. leaving the driver behind to take care of the car, we stopped over at a gas station that had a convenience store. it was late in the evening, it was dark, there was floodwater everywhere, and it was still raining. it was a long, long way from home. i live in BF Homes, and those who live in that area know just how far the airport is from BF on foot.

so there i am thinking how damned unlucky i was. i was with my 60+ year old father who had had bypass surgery some years ago, and we would have to walk such a great distance just to get home. i didn't know if he was up to it, and i was worried about him.

then i turn around and see this pregnant woman standing next to me. we strike up a conversation, and dad and i find out she lived even further away. and she would have to walk home, same as us. that's insane, for a pregnant woman, but she was calm and cheerful about it.

somehow that gave me the boost i needed. so dad and i walked. we walked through rain, water, treacherous footing, and more water. in spite of aching feet and impaired visibility. and yeah, we did get home. it was about 1 or 2 in the morning, but we got home. we walked all the way. we were dead tired, but we were home. and it felt so good to be home.

i understand that emotional storms are different from physical ones. emotional battles are different from physical ones. but that doesn't make either one easier. and they're similar on one level at least: no matter what, we have to keep going. because if we stop and give up, then we'll never get home. we can never truly rest. and we'll never know if there really is a rainbow after the rain. that's the reason we see the storms through.

if you don't twist and squeeze and scrub your clothes, they won't get clean, now will they? (spoken by a CSB professor, to his class, of which i was in attendance)

don't give up just because you've hit a bump in the road, even if it does damage your car. and don't think that life's treating you unfairly whenever it deals you a bad hand. if you get too complacent because your life's too damn easy, then you turn selfish and self-centered.

a priest once said that hate isn't the opposite of love, and i think i believe that, because the opposite of love is selfishness. you can hate something out of love for another, but when you are unable to love at all because you're too busy with yourself, then that's selfishness. if you give up and throw away your battle, it's like throwing away your love. love for yourself and all those people who care about you. you owe it to them to keep on fighting, too, not just yourself. giving up would be a selfish thing to do. and you don't need a dosage of self-pity. you think you're the only one suffering? look around at the homeless, the weak, the sick, the kids who try to beg or sell sampaguita flowers on the street because they have no other way to live. i've said that my life was shit before, yeah. But compared to this glaring reality, saying that my life is shit is damned selfish. i'm actually rather lucky. and so are you.

so let the thunderstorms come. "Do your worst, for I will do mine."