mushrooms with culture

These are the cultured mushrooms we found on display at Mushroom Burger Tagaytay. I can't resist taking some shots. Anyone can see that these fungi are happy :D

curbside

Tired of all the running and walking she did for the day, she sat on the curb and watched time pass on her gigantic wrist watch.

mobile blogging evades me

Ok... So I was finally able to buy me a new phone from Sony Ericsson with Mobile Blogging features but I can't seem to make it work and it has been a source of frustration for the past couple of days. I have downloaded all sorts of mobile internet settings from Globe (my service provider) and Sony Ericsson but still nothing. :c I'm itching to get it done and finally, rule the universe!

Help!

My 3-year-old E398, which you'll probably recognize as Motorola's first from the ROKR series, broke after several times of me pounding it on the wall out of desperately trying to fix the broken keypad. Talk about going total cave man on it. JK was kind enough to lend me his spare phone (thanks!), that I jokingly declare defective to convince him to sell it to me for a very cheap price, hehe.

Now, I'm looking for a new phone. Aside from value for money, it has to have these three four features:
1) MP3 player
2) Megapixel camera
3) Radio
4) Expandable memory

Any suggestions?

I put the ME in AWESO.

Not meant for use on your next Chemistry exam. Click here for a larger version.

What doesn't kill me

only adds to my Salary deductions. Such is the life of a low-level government employee.

Quarter-Life Crisis

For those who have been wondering where I've gone MIA the past couple of weeks, I have started real work and said goodbye to freelancing. I'm now a nurse at the Philippine General Hospital.

I know, things happened pretty fast for me too. I got the call and next thing I know I was back on the bed side again presumably doing what I have been trained for in college. It's overwhelming and tremendously stressful even without the series of unfortunate coincidences I have ran into. Huge adjustments have to be made in a really short span of time and as the Universal Conspiracy would have it, I have been assigned to Ward 1, the Female Medicine Ward, notorious for heavy patient traffic, acuteness, infectiousness and severity of patient cases.

I'm already on my third week, my second at the Ward. Although the first two weeks have been primarily allotted for the General and Ward Orientations, they could only do so much to truly prepare me for what I consider the biggest change in my life so far. The rest, as they say, is up to me.

For what it's like to be in Ward 1, difficult is an understatement and I refuse to use the word "toxic" and the myriad of connotations and socially accepted uses it is associated with in the health care field (don't even get me started on this as I think it deserves another post). Words fail me. What I cannot express with them, I do with tears. Primarily of exhaustion and frustration. Exhaustion with the physical and intellectual demands of the job and frustration with work relationships. I guess what I'm saying is it sucks to be the newbie at work. Especially in a job where superiority and merit is directly proportional solely to length of time spent in the work place. Being at the bottom of the food chain, you are at the mercy of anyone and everyone, and the worst part about it is you simply don't have a choice but to wait until another newbie comes along.

It's really hard to stay positive, but I haven't entirely lost hope. I know things would be better and that there would be brighter prospects for the future as long as I have my goal in mind, but until that happens, I have to wait and hopefully, Better comes sooner than expected.

I'd Like To Buy the World a Coke

Did you know that at the time Coca-Cola was invented, it actually contained cocaine?

"Until 1905, the soft drink, marketed as a tonic, contained extracts of cocaine as well as the caffeine-rich kola nut." And it was sold in neighborhood soda fountains, more like our modern day 7-11s. Free access to illegal drugs? Hollywood could have had a party. No wait, they actually are having a party. :s

random thoughts

I am still in a state of mild disbelief. It's weird when something you actually hope for becomes real and tangible for a change. And then you start to wonder, if it is what you really wanted in the first place.

not another phelps post

This is how Michael Phelps swam swum.

I was in Stumbling frenzy again when I came across this funny picture. I forgot the link though. :c

new look for my blog

A face lift for my blog that I have been meaning to do for quite some time now. I wanted to go for fresh pastel colors but decided the pink and gray theme should stay just because I'll never get tired of that color palette. :p I removed some unsightly Google ads and replaced them with Stumble and Digg links for added popularity, heh. I also updated links on my sidebar so that they'd actually be useful. If you want your site to be included on the links list just give drop me a message. :D

acts of shameless self-promotion

I have a new site and I'm really excited about it. So please check it out:

http://theidentitygame.blogspot.com

life lessons

sometimes we hurt people without even realizing it.

Italian Nights are here again!

I was expecting a riot for this month's Italian Night. Give or take 8 people. But somewhere along the way, people started ditching us. Leaving me and a couple other friends- Sed, Alyana and the esteemed Vladimir, to enjoy the night. We catched the 7pm screening of the Italian Film showing at the CCP then afterwards, pasta for dinner at the Harbor Square.

Quite depressing and seemingly prophetic, C'eravama Tanto Amati (We all loved each other so much) is an Italian comedy that talks about idealism and how people generally deal with the inevitable disillusionments of life. The story opens with three men who became close during the war as they dealt with imminent death and danger fighting the Nazis. After the war and armed with illusions, they find themselves living their own separate lives. Each taking on a different path, not necessarily according to their ideals. In the end, after some years, an unlikely reunion happens where they make an unexpected discovery.

*Catch the Italian Film Festival every second Tuesday of the month at the CCP. A different film is featured every month. Catch screening times at 4pm and 7pm. Admission is FREE.

Pampers World @ Glorietta

The Pampers World Tour is here in the Philippines and was officially launched at the Glorietta Activity Center last weekend (June 26-27). It's an information campaign which highlights the different stages of a baby's development and the new Pampers Stages diapers fit for every stage. Aiming to give parents a firsthand experience of what the world is like for babies, the Pampers World Tour is fun, educational and absolutely FREE! Plus, endless picture opportunities!

Come see the world in a whole new perspective. Join the Pampers World Tour on the following dates and venues:

August 9 & 10- at the SMX, Mall of Asia
September 13 & 14- at Trinoma Mall

The Revolution will be Fabulous

...and extremely expensive.

Credits: http://www.1988revolution.blogspot.com/

SLHMC

Southern Luzon Hospital and Medical Center, where I'm attending a 3-day training on IV Therapy, is so freaking remote! Absolutely nothing within a kilometer radius on 3 directions. There's a Starbucks however, 500 meters to the north. :o

signs of the times

baby pandas

They're awfully adorable.

I died and gone to panda heaven!

human in brine

Inadequate resources and perhaps, lack of training have compromised rescue operations off the coast of Masbate where M/V Princess of the Stars sank last Saturday due to Typhoon Frank (Fengshen). Three days have passed after the tragedy yet hundreds of passengers are still missing. Some are trapped or left underneath the capsized ship (for lack of resources to bring them to land) for fish to feast on. There are even stories of drowned corpses with body parts eaten by fish being washed ashore. Now, if our little finned friends had a way of canning humans, that would be their perfect revenge.

it's not a robot, you moron

Credits: To the amazing nataliedee

jobhunting 101

Rule #1 It's all about patience...
-------------------------------------patience...
--------------------------------------------------------------------PATIENCE! dammit.

wifi-detector t-shirt

Clearly, the geeks keep outdoing themselves. Swoon over

The Wi-Fi Detector T-Shirt

Thanks to the ingenious monkey robot inventors from ThinkGeek, now we don't even have to be bothered by such unimportant stuff as cracking open our laptops to check for wi-fi connection.

Check out more of the Wi-Fi Detector T-shirt here.

malicious, masquerading Trojan!

From an AVG virus scan report (lol):

ipod talk

Catholic saints are interesting

Take this one for instance. The image of this skewered saint stands before the old Spanish church in Liliw, Laguna along with other statues which supposedly take the form of other Catholic saints and martyrs. These cemented replicas bear the name of the saint below them. But I was stupid enough to exclude the name plates when I took the photo.

Why this particular scene in the entirety of his life was chosen, I have no idea. Maybe it's supposed to show martyrdom of some sort. But isn't it a little too morose? The sky seems to agree.

Megan Fox hailed sexiest woman in the world

"Who's gonna drive her home?"

At 21, the star topped this year's list of FHM Online's 100 Sexiest Women in the World displacing last year's reigning hottie, Jessica Alba, to 3rd. You might recognize Fox from her recent memorable role in the multi-million blockbuster hit Transformers.

Coming in at close second is Jessica Biel (What is it with Jessicas anyway?) ahead of Elisha Cuthbert, fourth and The Other Boleyn Girl star Scarlett Johansson, fifth. It is also interesting to note that Spears, mother of two, barely made it to the list at number 100 after her life and career went downward spiral as a result of a multitude of personal and mental health problems that have afflicted the 26 year old star. Just four years ago, Spears was voted sexiest woman in the world.

Click here, here and here to see the entire list.

Credits: IMDB for the photo, Yahoo News for the story

When lunch becomes art

Obento from Japan are a creative take on packed lunch. Each obento is carefully handcrafted to create a feast that is both appealing to the eyes as it is to the palate. You'll never look at your "baon" the same way. Notice how each seems to have been painstakingly created. According to an internet source, an obento is prepared for about an hour to look like the ones below, that's about all the time I have to prepare for work.

Credits: http://www.e-obento.com

day old

yay! Another live comic. :D I wanted to do a 4-panel horizontal one but it will wreak havoc on the alignments. So I guess this 2x2 will do. Click on the image for a larger version.

Credits: augie for the photos of himself, some image adjustments by moi

intense BINGO!

(click the image for a larger kickass version)

flora

Lush greenery... Flowers in full bloom...Gotta love Baguio for the foliage. I handpicked some of the best photos from the bunch and made minimal adjustments for brightness, contrast and saturation. (Photos taken mid-February)

Credits: violet flower from http://maeness.multiply.com; the rest taken by moi using joakim's sony cybershot cam

DOND at Timezone

hit the jackpot, baby!

I never win at anything thanks to my superbly consistent luck (or lack of it). So basically, winning the jackpot entails me shutting up and letting my friends pick the briefcases. A hundred tickets? Not bad. Though we learned afterwards, that they only award 50% of the actual number of tickets won. So there.

coffee prince

Big Bro and I had Coffee Prince marathon Saturday night at an aunt's place. Although I liked the TV version more (despite the hideous dubs, it had awesome Tagalog script which captured my perfectly Filipino taste for cheesiness in soaps) I wasn't able to religiously stick to watching it because of the horrible time slot.

Thanks to piracy, the DVD had repulsive english subs. I was able to finish the series but I also incurred a terrible headache, which now I think is not so fair after all.

The series was OK. But if you're gonna watch it, don't get the pirated copy. It will only be a waste of 80 precious pesos. Instead, watch it on mysoju.com (great subs, korean dubs so you get to hear the real voices of actors and the best thing is it's absolutely FREE).

Fasting food

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday and the sup made us go to work. Real unholy. I was starting to wonder whether she has something against Catholics, when I noticed her display of a crucifix behind her desk. Then I thought, she really just hates us.

And since it was a holiday, everyone else was on vacation. Aside from a couple of maintenance people and security guards doing rounds at the campus, no one else was there but the 6 of us. In fact, no one else was anywhere. Manila had virtually been a ghost town. On the one hand, it was a relief, on the other, it was starting to get creepy. Flashback to I Am Legend.

Another problem during holidays is everything is closed save for a few greedy corporations, leaving me no option but to eat at Jollibee (even McDonalds had to close for the holidays). I ordered a burger steak meal, 2 shanghai rolls and a hot fudge sundae. Way to go fasting! The thing is, the taste of the patty just wouldn't go down my throat. I was burping burger patty hours after actually having eaten it.

Evil burger steak for lunch and Ice Craze Special for merienda

For snacks, I had the macapuno de leche ice craze special. It was nothing short of what I expected it to be and it was super filling. At that point, I've had too much Jollibee for the day. I felt so satiated plus I could still taste the burger from lunch that I wanted to barf er, purge. Bulimia? Maybe God's telling me to fast. In any case, I am off Jollibee, at least for a couple of months. :p

Star City

I originally wanted to go skating at the shiny rink over at MOA but O and J weren't really up for it. We were too tired to go booze fest that night and clubbing wasn't really an option (for me). Then we had the most brilliant idea. "Why don't we go to Star City?"

We have been meaning to go to Enchanted Kingdom with friends for a long time and every time we plan on doing it, something always comes up and we end up postponing the whole thing. But since we were all bored and we had to put our paychecks to good use, without hesitation, we were off to Star City and dragged quite a few people along the way too.

Thanks to O's SM advantage card we got a 20% discount on each ticket we purchased. That's a good 60 pesos off the original price of the ride-all-you-can ticket. So, instead of paying the full price (300 pesos), we only paid 240 pesos, even costing less than the 3-cheers ticket which was worth 250. Oh how i love discounts! The timing was superb too. There weren't so many people so we didn't have to wait in line for the rides. Sweet.

O got her kick out of the horror houses while we got ours from watching her. It was totally fun watching your reaction O! The horror houses were cleverly named too. Where else in the world could you find horror attractions named Kilabot ng Mummy, Haunted House and Gabi ng Lagim? Only in the Philippines.

(from left to right) Haunted House, Kilabot ng Mummy and Gabi ng Lagim

And we also tried the Starflyer, the inverted roller coaster they are boasting about which was a rather new addition to the park. If I had two words to describe it, it would be-- Oh yeah!

The Starflyer: At this point, I thought I'd die. Awethome.

Credits: photos from http://www.OurAwesomePlanet.com taken by Anton Diaz

Panagbenga 2008

If you want to experience Baguio, Panagbenga wouldn't be the best time.

I was there a few weeks ago, along with some friends. At least in my case, I wanted a change of scenery. Hundreds of people, two-hour traffic jams and overpriced merchandise isn't exactly what I had in mind.

The flowers were lovely though.

You would have to weave through this crowd to get to the floats.


The Nescafe float.


Floral butterfly

Yellow cab float: I think the Vespa is really clever.


The GMA kapuso float: my personal favorite.

always hit save

Except for the fact that I have lost a day's worth of work by moronically failing to hit save last Friday, I think I had a pretty good week at the office.

For one thing and quite a major one given my tainted track record, I haven't been involved in office mischief or at least haven't been caught doing any. I am extra cautious now and slightly paranoid that I've mastered the art of, dare i say, deception and stealth.

O and I have also started a daily devotion-- office exercise. We have resolved to once and for all put an end to unwanted bulges which have accumulated as a result of living our otherwise sedentary lives. The extra endorphins are quite useful too.

And yeah, I had a record-breaking earlybird streak. Four straight days (Monday was an exception merely because nobody gets early anywhere on mondays.)! It was actually starting to freak me out. It wouldn't have mattered had no one noticed but of all people, the Boss did. It was the perfect pat-in-the-back, ego-boost moment and I would have loved to put on my best in-your-stupid-face! look, but as I was early, no one else was there to witness my moment of glory. And as they say, it could have easily been just my imagination.

sharbat julia

" We have found her sister."

Tom of Finland

NOTE: PREVIOUS CONTENT DELETED.

What I love most about the new office is its extensive library collection. This morning O was going through a pile of books to be added to the shelves. She took out F.Valentine Hooven III's Tom of Finland His Life and Times from the pile and we started browsing through it. It read:

" Gay men had little reason to be happy in 1957. Homosexuality was a crime in every country on earth, frequently punishable by death. The phrase "secet homosexual" was redundant and the term "in the closet" was meaningless as yet since virtually all homosexuals were in the closet, except for those imprisoned, institutionalized or dead."

"In the East Bloc, homosexuality was handled with simplicity to be expected of a centrally directed society. The party line, as stated in Pravda with sweeping finality, was "There are no homosexuals in the Soviet Union." Period, Anyone who thought he might be homosexual was sent to Siberia to think it over for the rest of his life."

"The only reputable voices to disagree came from the psychiatric community. Psychiatrists claimed that the homosexual was neither a criminal nor a sinner. They said he was sick, and they treated those who fell into their hands with shock therapy and, for specially stubborn cases, prefrontal lobotomies."

school wars

I was stalling work the other day and decided to browse over books in the office library when I have come across a note clipped on a folder dated 8 years ago written on a Malacañang memo. I was thoroughly amused. It wrote:

* Billy is Mr. William M. Esposo, Special Consultant to former President Corazon C. Aquino

Baguio City

Along with 11 other friends, I would be heading to the mountains this weekend for vacation, cold(er) weather and a change of scenery which I totally deserve after all the stress we are made to deal with here at the new office.

As proof of my stressful life, you may have noticed that I haven't been updating my site for a while. My social life is almost non-existent and life events have been almost purely work-home-work-home. That's basically how boring and uneventful things are going right now. More things happen inside a stationary coin bank and we all know virtually nothing happens there.

Come to think, things have been blah these past few days. I think it's the weather. I know some people who have also been feeling crappy lately. It's colder now than it was last December. You don't see the sun as often and for some reason, it's extremely windy. What is happening to the world?

All I can think about is our Baguio trip.

win-o

Druggie dominates 50th Grammy.

In her cross-continental win, Amy Winehouse wowed an equally shocked audience at the recent Grammy's by bagging 5 awards including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for Rehab, Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album for Back to Black. Having been denied a US visa and a work permit, the singer performed live via satellite from London, where she sang "Rehab" and "You Know I'm No Good" both tracks from the Back to Black album.

Recent rumors are, well at least before the awards night, that Wino has been ordered by her recording company to undergo treatment for her drug problems or else she would be denied privileges to record in their studios. Who's saying no, no, no now?

Want to know who else went home with the golden phonograph? Click here, here and here.

this has nothing to do with anything.lol.

" I have absolutely no future in drawing."

ww3

So, I went to the salon last weekend to have some things done to my awfully unruly hair (up there :P) and spent a thousand hard-earned pesos in the process. I got cellophane, hot oil and a trim and thought it was worth it, at least, until after a day, when finally her crowning unruliness decided to wage world war against me.

This is frustrating.

anti-social

I am in the running for worst employee of the decade.

1. I come to work late almost everyday.

2. I indulge in longer lunch breaks.

3. I got caught watching a concert during "office hours".

4. I take power naps at work;

5. and I despise the boss.

But I get the work done. It's just that, I don't have anal tendencies to strictly follow rules.