If you get to check on my previous blogs, I have written about some serious wickedness of people such as credit grabbing, slandering, being “intregera”, lying or simply being assholes. And what’s remarkable is that there were really people who got caught being guilty about these impieties. I mean do they have to react when I had been very careful not to point fingers in my blog? Some people are really naively transparent. And when the impulse already kicked through, ooops! Got yeah! 

 There is an advantage being underestimated. I mean people would try to do nasty things in subtle way not knowing that I am not dumb to figure that. I’d say that I am less naïve about evil manoeuvres. I wasn’t born yesterday. I felt sorry about this people who keep on doing these nasty antics without them knowing that they already blew their cover. Washing hands is their best move in order not to be totally suspected.

A friend of mine wrote on her FB wall, “You can stab me behind my back all you want; your efforts will be futile. For I walk and talk with my God behind me, in front of me and in all of me!” I get to be at peace with my God as long as I always please my God and every walk I take. As long as I do my best with the gifts God gave me, you can never put a good man down. I know the reason I am here. It is obvious with what has been entrusted to me. People who try to crash what I am designed for will be accountable to the Ultimate Designer. I am on the right side. Or I am trying to be.

I pray that people would learn to uplift each other and not the other way around. True friends whom I treasure the most are those who try to outdo in uplifting one another. Thank God my family still keeps a couple of them and we still in contact with them whenever possible. 

Do you know what it means to be uplifting? I can define it profoundly. But I will just put it simply. If you find yourself having a heavy heart after talking to someone who criticizes and downgrades frequently, that is the opposite.  What a shame when you realize this ironically.

I haven’t used this blog site for a long time because I was too consumed by the worldwide whim with FB. It is always in my first agenda when I flip open my laptop, to visit FB. In fact because it was on the agenda’s first list I already put it in my home page tab in the internet options which is used to be Yahoo. It is Outrageous. It is a good thing I did not go as far as cultivating digital crops, joining a Mafia, or whatever I may have to spend time with. Thank God. I agree that it has some drawbacks. I always had intention to visit as much as many site as possible and to blog in my limited time in the evening but for some reason I always ended stuck with FB and by the time I was done with it, it was time to sleep.  And what am I consuming time with in FB? Checking out some comments what I previously posted and commenting with them. Checking out and commenting with some photos, videos, wall comments, links of others. It sounds like a simple task but because there are too many of them you would not realise that it has consume all of your internet time. And before I knew it, no time for blogging, no time for TradeMe. YouTube may be a lot different because it is the most famous site to link with FB. I am so delighted that FB allowed me to get in touch to grade school buddies and long lost best friends. It creates a gateway to once perceived to be unreachable. FB becomes an initiation for reunions and get-togethers. Maybe this is the reason why it is so addicting. It has full of surprises. And I guess human species are keen for surprises. No wonder why we need to get gifts to be wrapped. What’s the fuzz? You get to unwrap it anyway? Surprises in FB come as delight and as dissatisfaction. Shocks! I was tagged again to another freakin’ photo of me in High School! Whow! When did this horrifying candid shot taken? This goes to show that the frequent visit to FB is not only for the reason that I wanna see more interesting stuff but I get to deal with the high maintenance of quality control. Photos to keep and photos to un-tag. And so that’s how I stick with FB. Would I be willing to kill my FB account and get a real life? Naah. But I will promise myself not to be consumed by it and use the internet in doing equally interesting stuffs like serious blogging. And why should I point the finger at FB for my blogging adequacy? Maybe I just need a cheer to stimulate me to blog.

Being a planner, I always make it a point that everything I do has some kind of assurance that it is well thought of. Although there are cases that I wanna rely on my gut-feel, I have a tendency to make quick assessment on the possibility of several what-ifs. I would say that where there is risk it has to be well thought of rather than gamble. I am lousy gambler. That’s why I cling to more assurance. I guess risk is something perceived. Perception can be coated with cynicism which gears to taking too much unnecessary caution. Sensible scepticism can be good especially when the result of your calculation false down to failure. But not everything has to be well thought of. Sometimes how you feel about it makes the best gauge on what the best move is. But sometimes what you think and what you feel add up to confusion that leads to tension. I guess too much thinking and too much emotion is cynical. Once it is get to point of out of control when your mind and your heart are messing with you, you gotta take it easy. Quiet time is what we should have as a regular routine. Getting our mind and our heart out of this world would give us renewed perspective. They say that silence is power. Quiet time may be a prayer time to others. Others spend quiet time as communing to the higher being, finding your inner voice, or simply chilling out. The idea is to pull yourself back together or to renew our spirit which will bring Faith back to our system. Personally, I would call it prayer time. Prayer is communing with God. Prayer is finding your inner voice in which the big part is how you were created by God. They are all the same. Get a regular doze and we will be fine. No! We’ll be great!

We’ve watched few Filipino Movies during the weekends. Ded na si Lolo was a winner for me since the rendering of the Filipino ways was made perfect in this movie. I was glued on the video because I began to realise that I already lack Filipino ingredients in a foreign land which become missed longings like Jollibee, SM malls, Tilapia, Divisoria and MRT. Mr Topacio being a veteran PETA affiliate has perfected his craft in writing and directing through this movie. The film succeeded in translating Filipino values, hang-ups, unique funeral practices like gambling, family relationships, humors, culture and irrational superstitions through the well written story. A big part of the success of the movie was the excellent cast like Gina Alajar, Roderick Paulate, Elizabeth Oropesa, Manilyn Reynes, Dick Israel and Perla Bautista who may not be bankable superstars but have earned their rights as respected and refined actors and actresses. The cast made it so realistic. I believe that this was one of the bets for the international competition. I wonder how it will be paired when most of the nuances there I guess were outright Pinoy that might get a hard time being translated in the same way internationally? Pinoy watchers would definitely get to laugh out loud and to be moved with this movie.   I may compare this to the English movie Death in the Funeral (I think there is already the American Version) but Ded Na Si Lolo is more moving in all aspects. Thanks to Ben and MJ for letting us watch the movie.

There is no such thing as being bored. Is there? I don’t believe that being bored is something that would be the cause of anything but yourself. It’s all the matter of choice really. I surely don’t think that it is an option to do drum-rolling with your finger while you are getting bored to death. It is in the dictionary true but getting around the word is such shallow move. The mind capable of imagining makes no room for dullness. There are moments that you are getting tired and you’re body ain’t capable of moving or your brain got totally drained and have nothing left to do but being immobile. Sometimes just staying still and be quiet and have your whole aura rest is the most productive thing to do. And I guess this is not boredom but chance for renewal. Ones outlook has something to say in this matter.

“Life is never boring, but some people choose to be bored.” – Wayne Dyer

You are stuck watching a movie when everybody else is enjoying it while you are not. You found it boring and leaving is not an option because you think it will offend everyone in there. So you are sunk in your chair making yourself suffer with the thought of what-in-the-world-am-I-doing-here notion.

You are commissioned to housesit and you are all alone. And then you feel sad with the thought that you are alone. You become depressed and your mind is clouded from answers to what-else-is-there-to-do. And then you succumbed to being bored.

You are stuck with a lousy date and conversations just don’t flow and all you think really is how to get out of there quickly. 

“There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, ever.” –Viggo Mortensen

Mind is capable of lots of things that you can be amused about. It’s a matter of utilising imagination. It’s a matter of looking at the lighter side of the spectrum. It’s a matter of being positive. A lousy movie may not be lousy at all if you consider any chance that you may find something benefitting with it. Maybe by looking at a different angle, movie watching is not really what you are trying to achieve here but to spend quality time with friends. Watching Barney with my child is never boring. Although I don’t fancy much a purple dinosaur, I still have a blast with my kid. Being alone in the house may be an opportunity for you to do the things that you can only do when you are alone. Pull out all the boxes of acrylics and start painting again. Exercise. Finish the book you have been neglected for a long time. How about getting deeper to the guy you are dating and see if there are more layers beneath. He may have the software that will solve the problem to a particular programme you are working on. He maybe a good singer whom you long for as an addition to a chorale you are forming. It’s a matter of giving chances. Give it a chance. Give it a darn chance. A second look or third look is worth it to brighten the day.

I remember a story of two soldiers at war. One had a worldly lifestyle and the other lived a moral life. The worldly guy said,” Herb, you seem to be happy. But if I had to live the way you do, I’d just as soon be dead.” He was implying that a life that is so moral had to be boring.  Being boring and being happy do not sound right at the same time. Do they? There must be something behind the glow on their faces. Why don’t you just give it a chance? Give it a darn chance.

Site inspection in Far North was an exhausting activity that was paid off by an offer by one of the manager’s friend inviting us for fishing. We brought out overnight stuff to the manager’s friend’s home and he served as a host for us for the whole leisure activity. Two of the managers were with me and we were all guests for the whole affair. We were advised to bring jackets for it would be cold in the fishing site.   I had no idea how I would be going about fishing since I had no experience whatsoever in catching any sea creature. I did not have any fishing gears or whatever. I was wondering why they did not have any fishing gear as well. All we brought was what seemed to be a huge utility box, empty fishing bins and iced beers and rums in a bin. I did not bother to ask where we were heading. All I did is to let them take me to wherever and to save myself from any humiliation due to signs of ignorance. It was 6 pm and still there was no sign of getting dark soon. We stopped in the middle of a humongous beach and it seemed that both of its ends were never ending. Once in a while there were 4wds and motorcycles whooshing past us. The beach is huge that it was a perfect ground for drag racing. Where are we? I did not dare to ask. I waited to catch the answer during the conversation. And before I knew it, the answer was spilled in middle of the tête-à-tête. We were in the famous 90 Mile Beach. Whadyaknow! From the huge utility box, the host and his assistant took out what it seemed to be a red torpedo. As I was checking out the gadget, I found out that it is indeed a red torpedo. This was the gadget that would be catching fish for us. It was a battery operated gadget from which a long string is attached. The host programmed the torpedo to swim for about 15 minutes. And when everything was installed the host let the torpedo loose in the sea to swim. While the torpedo was swimming, the host hooked baits in string in about three meter intervals. The host hooked about 40 baits in the string. After the baits were all hooked, we exchanged schmoosing with one another while holding bottles and glasses of our favourite beer and rum. After an hour, we pulled back the string and lo and behold…..almost every bait has a snapper. Whadyaknow! This is exciting, I told myself. All of us were wide-eyed when we got to see snappers from one hook to the next. Awesome! All of us helped in unhooking the snappers and placed them in the fish bin. We had another go of the torpedo and watched the sun set before our eyes. We caught another bin full of snappers for a second time. What a way to fish!