Imman

so close. so very very close. :|

geocities (the free web hosting company bought by yahoo more than 8 years ago) has finally closed. they have been sending me notifications for the past two months about it and the deadline was oct 26.

and of course, as expected, i only remembered to do it today - oct 27.

they didn't provide a tool or a way to download everything at once so i had to manually right-click and do "save as..." to my desktop. i was happily chugging along saving each of my more than 200 files. i knew they wouldn't really close down the site on oct 26 and i wasn't really rushing. i mean, how could they? geocities hosted gigabytes of homepages made by people. even before it became a yahoo company, geocities already had a community (actually, i think geocities started to decline in popularity when it was sold to yahoo).

anyway, i was about 15 files away from saving everything when the website just literally stopped working. i forgot that yahoo was foremostly and american company and americans do things on time.

thankfully, the only things i were not able to save were a few pictures of a class field trip during first year college which i ddn't attend in the first place, a second-year high school class picture, and a very outdated resume.

i realized that so many things could have gone wrong today - if i had woken up only 15 minutes later, if i had procrastinated yet again or totally forgotten about the whole thing altogether, if i had gone down and looked for something to eat before sitting down in front of the computer - but i didn't.

when i woke up at 1pm today, i was immediately bored so i opened my desktop, saw the date and said to myself, "hmm... geocities closed yesterday. i wonder if i can still get my files."

if i had not done that, i would have lost the only copies of pictures and stuff that i have written prior to 2002.

sorry this is a boring story. i'm just glad i got to save things i didn't really realize was that important until i almost very nearly lost it :)

7:30pm / Oct 15, 2009

minsan natatawa/namamangha ako sa agwat ng realities ng buhay that i encounter on a daily basis. pag gising ko sa umaga, madaliang ligo at preparasyon para sa trabaho, kasabay ko ang daan daang taong nagmamadali papunta sa makati. mga office girls, executives, naka jeans, naka sando, naka stockings, naka polo barong... mga messenger, mga call center people, mga trabahador sa construction, mga yuppies at mga oldies (sorry, wala akong kasabay na executive kasi nagji jeep lang ako).

tulad na lang ngayong araw - one of the many other insignificant days of working life - day two ng ITIL training namin. para sa mga hindi nakaka-alam kung ano ang ITIL, i'll explain it in the most simplistic, albeit crude way possible - ITIL is a set of guidelines for the IT and services sector on how said IT and services industries can make more money for the businesses/clients that they support. yun lang talaga ang bottom line. kesyo kung anu ano pang terms at concepts ang minudmod nila sa mga pagmumukha namin today hanggang nag nosebleed ako sa information overload - mga service management, capacity management, change advisories, process ganito, function ganyan, eklat eklat - na hindi mo naman magagamit sa langit (or sa impyerno) pag patay ka na - ang driving mechanism lang naman ng lahat ng ito is just one simple thing - making more money.

so eto yung mga bagay na pinagmumuni-munihan (may ganun?!) nung nasa jeep ako pauwi hanggang sa umabot ako sa street kung nasaan ang bahay namin.

pag abot ko sa gate, may dalawang bata who couldn't have been more than 7 years old na nasa labas, knocking softly on our gate. usually pag dinner time, lahat ng tao sa bahay namin ay nasa second floor or nasa third floor dahil either a) nanonood ng tv, b) naglalaro ng computer or c) nag-e-exercise (pero yung tatay ko lang yun, hindi ako). in short, i wouldn't have any idea how long these two kids have been knocking on our gate since apparently walang nakakarinig sa kanila.

meron akong sariling susi so pag bukas ko ng gate namin nilapitan ako ng dalawang bata at sabi nung isa, "kuya, may ipapatapon ba kayo?"

syempre naman, i had utterly no idea what he was talking about. i'm one of those people na if there's something that does not interest or concern me directly, hindi ko na inuusisa or pinapakialaman. sayang sa brain cells eh. so hindi ko talaga maintindihan yung tanong nya. ipapatapon na ano? bagay? basura? tao? (oh yes, baka nga naman mga ahente sila ng isang recruitment agency at pwede kong ipatapon ang sarili ko sa ireland... sushalan! or worse, part pala sila ng isang assassination/guns for hire na gang at kaya nilang magpatapon ng tao sa kung saan mang remote kangkungan - at part talaga yan ng thought process ko while i was trying to decipher what in the world this kid meant).

tamang-tama bumaba yung mom ko dahil narinig pala nyang binuksan ko yung gate. dumiretso nako papasok sa loob ng bahay at yung mom ko yung nakipagusap dun sa mga kids.

after a few minutes, nung pumasok na ulit yung mom ko, tinanong ko what the kids wanted. yun pala, nagtatanong sila kung may mga bagay bang pwede nilang itapon - for a small unspecified fee na bahala na yung mom ko yung mag decide kung magkano ang gusto nya ibayad sa mga batang yon.

( Read more... )

My dearest Tallas:

It's a warm night here where I am, and the streets are quiet. Supper has just ended. I am alone, sitting on the roof of the house I live in, looking at the stars, listening to a classical piano piece being played on one of their devices. They call it music. It is wonderful, and brilliant, and a million other things I you would have loved to experience.

A storm has just passed, and it has left a clear sky in it's wake. I wish you were here to look up at the stars with me, to share this music with you, and hold your hand, and dream of distant places, like we used to.

I wish I could have written to tell you what an amazing place this is, so different from home, yet so similar in many ways. I write tonight, however, to tell you how homesick I am. You have no idea how eager I am for the day to come when I can return, to feel your presence around me again, your smell, your touch, your smile. I miss your warmth when I wake in the morning, and the look you give me when I'm about to fall asleep at night. I often look at the sky and wonder if there's one of us out there, and even though I'm fairly sure there isn't, I still hope that it will be you, come from halfway across the galaxy to find and bring me back.

I am very, very far away. They will not have told you where they have sent me, but suffice to say that I am safe, and in the most minimal sense, I am cared for. Do not worry for me, for I am with good people, and I have made some friends here. I know, you are probably chuckling with disbelief, but it's true. Time has passed, and I fear that I may have changed, if for better or worse, that will be up to you to decide when we see each other again. I do hope you will some day forgive me for what I have done.

Tallas, I can't tell you how much every day, I wake up and the memory of your face is the only source of my strength. This was something I thought I was prepared for, but I had realized too late, and I regret my decision to leave you. Every day is the same monotony, the same drudgery of blending in, pretending to be like them, a single grain of sand in an infinite shore when I am neither earth, nor glass. The Council was wrong. We can never be one of them. I can never be one of them.

I am tired, so tired. I do not know how much more data the Council requires. I keep requesting to be relieved, to send someone else in my place to continue my work, but for some reason they have chosen to keep me here.

All I have are these words, and a promise that someday, I will find myself a way to get off this planet, and return home to you. Until then, please keep the gates open for me.

I may be a hundred thousand light years away, but that will not stop me. They have a saying here - home is where the heart is.

I will come home. I promise.

"i can never imagine my life without you."


these were the words that you uttered on the last day. i had long been cast out of your heart, even though you still ruled mine. yet, in this rarest of moments you cried, and i - in my naivete - so desperate to believe that it had meant something, clung to those words - that even in the waning dusk of the most glorious days of my life, it mattered. i mattered.

apparently not.




how quickly you forget. that now the earth where we both stand on should seem to revolve in opposite directions, that now the light of day that blinded my eyes to your flaws is not the same light you forever run away from, that now we should see different stars in the same sky, different constellations, different divinations, and ultimately, different destinies, when once we had dreamed of travelling the path together.

it was always i who have reached out across the vast awkwardness of this precarious pseudo-friendship we had forged. i had done so, because even if i don't love you anymore in the way you were used to, i still love you. fiercely. protectively, even if only in the silence of my thoughts.

and still, when the storm had passed and i found myself existing in the numbing serenity of the aftermath, i had thought that these eight words which had meant more to me than anything else in the litany of saccharine whispers you filled my head with was true.

i could not have been more wrong.




i have grown weary of waiting for you to take the initiative. for you to prove to me that you meant the words that you said. i have said enough farewells. i, the most selfish person i know, have given you my all. this will be the last.

for a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, the world was silent. it was the most improbable, most astounding event that no one ever noticed. it happened in between the beeping of cellphones and the honking of cars in new york. it was created, almost impossibly, in the midst of the falling rain as each drop hit the ground in kyoto. in zurich, it was a pause in the duet between a man, and the married woman he had secretly fallen in love with, and in africa, a moment of perfect tenderness amidst the sighing breath of a lion cub nestled in the paws of her mother. a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, created by pure chance, a moment of respite in the ensuing chaos. a moment, when the world held it's breath, before it forgot.

it was only then that the irony was revealed, when the most significant moment of my life, was the instant of my death.

the trillionth of a trillionth of a second passed, and the world moved on without skipping a beat.

Loading...

Resource loaded.



TARAESIAN COMMAND INTELLIGENCE - 023A SECTOR

RESOURCE: Taraesian 7 Central Command - Communications Log 709259.345.38A
CROSS-REFERENCE INDEX: Ancient Races, Atlans, Erethrion, Intercepted, Origin, Sanctuary, Spaeralun, Spark
CLEARANCE REQUIRED: A2 - Classified Top Level 2

INVESTIGATING OFFICER: [Insufficient clearance. Please access this resource using A1.5 clearance for further data.]

BACKGROUND:
Message intercepted at Coran IV Comms Outpost (COMID: CORCOM) on date 709259.345 on low frequency band transmission channel. Initially mistaken for background galactic noise. Routed to Comms AutoADAP Filt / reconstructed and analyzed transmission as non-noise and alerted Comms Personnel on site. First personnel on site: [Insufficient clearance. Please access this resource using A1.5 clearance for further data.] Message escalated directly to Central Command 7.


MESSAGE FOLLOWS:

( Read more... )

oh thank god the worgen racials semi suck. except probably for viciousness (hello there +1% to all damage). at least i wont have to regret rolling my other classes under other races.

the goblin racials suck even more. 1% permanent attack/casting speed is the only sweet thing they have. the others are very meh.

Do you want to date my avatar?



( lyrics behind the cut )

news recently came out that sam raimi (director of spiderman 3 and drag me to hell) is going to direct the warcraft movie [wowinsider article here/blizzard official statement here].

after the suckfest that was drag me to hell and the blah-ness that was spiderman, this is really really disappointing news. uggh.

this is even worse than the news that m. night shyamalan will be directing the avatar movie. i, at least, really liked the village and that movie where the plants did something that made people kill themselves. that was kewl.

----

haaay... sad. sad. sad.

i just read an npc conversation that's going to happen in thunderbluff come 3.2. apparently, according to the wow.com article, this has sparked a lot of interest in the lore-loving community.

you can find the link to the article here.

more fascinating for me, though, is the documented distinction between shamans and druids. both of them are attuned to nature and act as some form of guardian but a lot of people do not understand the separate roles (in terms of lore) that they play.

this distinction can be found clearly in the NPC conversation.

shamans are guide and mentors to elemental spirits, while druids are the guardians and preservers of nature.

anyway... just geeking out. back to work now hehe.

i stumbled on this amazing song... *flabbergasted*



( lyrics )

hello all: i got my phone back. no change of numbers.

if you deleted my number before and want to know it again send me a ym message / facebook message / livejournal message / friendster message. thanks! :)

...and not more than a few minutes pass by when i suddenly have the strangest YM conversation ever

( Read more... )

i just lost my phone.

May 10, 2009 - on board flight 5J906 from Caticlan to Manila...

1. "Wag ka mag posing, video yan!" - Andy takes a video of the propeller while Ferdz tackles the task of answering the customer satisfaction form with dead seriousness. Sino ang takot sa mga pores? Lol.





2. Nasan ang Romblon? - More propeller footage while Ferdz discusses Philippine geography with a not-quite-so-convinced Jerome rikitikitik. This goes on for about 15 to 20 minutes more after the video has ended with Romblon sighting still unconfirmed.





3. Bye!




Thanks to Andy exodia13 for uploading this on Youtube! :D

the penitent kneels
on stone, shattered
crumbling under weight
of sins real and forgotten
blood dripping from lips
drip on the cross of wooden
beads intertwined with fingers
of flesh, and dirt; clawing at
the unshakeable earth.
torn, tattered flapping dust
in the mourning wind
a trickle, a drop of salt
traversing barren skin
clearing a path
this herald of tears
this prophet of despair
this, and then, a piercing wail
cuts a swathe through
the silence of insanity
the last plea for salvation
before heaven's gates
have closed, leaving behind
the fallen.

the monument of bones
have been picked clean
by vultures;
yet
this remains - the wooden cross
of faith misplaced,
hidden beneath
the endless sands of regret.

( . )

i want my own personal jet.

because...

i have fallen in love with flying.

---

1:30am - my room

bangag pa coming home from my yesterday's shift that lasted until 1am this morning when i packed my things. i couldn't find the shit that i wanted so inatake ako ng pagka obsessive compulsive out of the blue. at 2am in the morning, i was going through every single piece of clothing in my wardrobe and throwing out stuff that i wouldn't wear anymore (e.g. clothes from more than 15 years ago na buhay pa at naburol na sa ilalim ng closet) and re-arranging/re-classifying everything. clothes i wouldn't be caught dead wearing in one pile, clothes na pambahay in another, and clothes that were pwede pa in another.

surprisingly (or maybe not), 50% of my clothes went into the first pile, 35% went into the pambahay pile, and the remaining clothes were stacked neatly into my "still wearable" pile.

i now have a surplus of pambahays. like 20+ shirts. omfg.

---

7:30am - naia terminal 3.

wow. nice. to sum the NAIA experience in two of the gayest words ever sputtered: IN FAIRNESS. parang wala ako sa pilipinas kasi ang linis and ang orderly ng mga lines and bayaran and stuff.

today is a day of many firsts, and it was my first time ever in an airport. our flight got delayed by 20 minutes. ang putanginang bigat ng bag ko because i brought my laptop with me.

---

10:10am - boarding

first time in a plane. the first thing that crossed my mind was "it's smaller than a bus..." hehe.

our plane was one of those 40/50-seater planes of cebu pacific that had propellers on their wings. it's not a boeing but it's a pretty decent plane. i exchanged seats with jerome [rikitikitik] so i could have the window seat.




you know how it is when you've waited and anticipated something for your whole life? that was how it was for me as the plane slowly ambled towards the strip where it would take off. i was surprisingly calm, although i was really excited, and a little bit scared. a little bit lang naman. mga 2.45%. hehe.

so how do i describe my first plane experience?

IT WAS F***ING AWESOME. BEYOND AWESOME. parang i want to always be on a plane.

i can't describe how fantastic it feels as the plane accelerates on the runway... and then the moment the plane launches itself from the ground and into the air... yung point where your brain registers that no part of you or anything you're touching is touching the earth... pucha. parang gusto ko maiyak sa tuwa. it was so amazing.

parang there's this rush na "omg! omg! im actually not on earth anymore!" and you can feel the engine of the plane reverberating beneath your feet and just the sheer power and precision involved in making a thing made out of metal soar through the sky. grabe. that was the point that i was just awed at humankind. parang "omg... we are evolved beings after all!" sort of epiphany.

it's just amazing. my mind is short-circuiting and can't come up with better adjectives but it really really was. i loved the hum of the engine planes, the idea that i had no choice but to trust the pilot and human technology with my life since there was nothing i can ever do to save myself from so many miles above the ground. it's just so... freeing. it's nothing but you, and this big hunk of metal in the sky.

we eventually ascended to the point where we were higher than the clouds. they looked like smoke frozen in time as they hung suspended below us. and there were endless fields of them. and even though they were storm clouds, they were so just breath-takingly beautiful. i have always been fascinated by cloud formation and they look nice from the ground, but it's a different thing altogether when you're looking down on them and you can't see the earth anymore and you just see this vast empty space with nothing above or below you but clouds.

to add icing to the cake, our pilot was french (according to jerome). we never saw how he looked like but he had this smexy accent when he spoke over the intercom na nakaka-mush lol.

i slept like 20 minutes into the flight and then parang saglit lang yung lumipas when the stewardess called out that the plane was about to land in caticlan. the landing was a bit rough for my taste. the take-off was really smooth and elegant and graceful, as opposed to the landing which was like forcing a football player into leotards - awkward, painful to watch and downright ugly.

the airport in caticlan is so 3rd world. taking off from naia you feel like "omg, para akong nasa ibang bansa" and then landing in caticlan is like being slapped in the face - "ambishoso ka nasa pilipinas ka pa rin, ulul."

like seriously. we almost ran out of runway before the plane veered off to one side and came to a halt.

buti na lang panalo yung resort kung san kami binook ni andy. they had people waiting for us that took care of my sobrang bigat na bagahe during the short bus ride to the shore leaving caticlan, and then the ferry across to boracay island, and finally to the resort. walang ka-effort-effort. galing :)

---

12:30pm-ish - resort room with jerome

so guess what the first thing jerome and i did upon entering our room...

like the dorks that we are (ay si jerome lang pala! lol), we took out our laptops and checked the wifi connection. again, ang galing. the wifi signal is weak but the connection is pretty stable. jerome was able to do a little bit of wow, and i spent half an hour chatting with people on YM. parang zomg technology moment!

---

2pm - boracay beach at last

andy finally managed to drag us out of our room to explore the beach.

to be honest, the only thing i looked forward to during this trip was the first airplane ride of my life. i always thought boracay is just one of those over-hyped places na people just keep talking about for the sheer yabang factor na "been there, done that" level, or "i'm so reeech para lang ako nangangapitbahay when i go to bora" level - which is annoying.

coming down from our rooms and finally stepping into the beach, it took a few seconds for me to register that something was wrong.

you see, all my life, experience have taught me that sand clings to your slippers, and your feet, and anything it could possibly cling to. and it's icky. and color brown-ish to black.

stepping into the beach, parang napahinto ako ng sandali at naisip ko "hold on... wait... parang may mali sa beach na to."

for some reason, the sand didn't feel like any sand in any of the beaches i've been to before... and then i noticed how aburdly white the sand was. parang semento.

ang unang bulalas namin pareho ni jerome (it's his first time in bora too) was "bakit ganun? parang fake yung sand." parang mashadong malinis at maputi.

and that was nothing compared to when we actually got to the shore where the waves were rolling in gently from the sea. i was like "omg... totoo ba to? parang in-adobe photoshop lang yung beach" because the water was so clear and the beach was so beautiful (although ang daming tao which is eww).

so this documents my first encounter with the famous white sand beaches of boracay. kala ko joke joke lang dati when people say how nice boracay is. it's not nice - it's absurdly beautiful. and the sand is flabbergasting. parang hanggang ngayon di pa rin ako makapaniwala how white and how fine the sand is.

---

8pm - d'mall

so there's this area here in boracay which i think is called "d'mall" but it's not actually a mall. not even close. it's a long winding strip of tiangges and stalls and restaurants that eventually connects into another strip of restaurants that line the beachfront.

it rained a little bit and we had dinner which was decent at this place that looked like a fastfood place but the food was actually more than okay. since i had packed just the bare essentials, i was itching to buy clothes that i could sleep in or use at the beach.

for a thousand bucks, i was able to buy 4 white shirts (and of course they all had boracay printed on them) which are so nice and snug and comfortable and makes me look smexy (i think) and 3 really nice board shorts - something which i can never do in manila on that amount.

and i just have to say this - it's ironic but the shirts are the perfect size for me! i can NEVER ever find a perfectly sized shirt in manila... kahit sang sulok pa ako ng manila magpunta. nakakainis nga eh puro boracay-print lang lahat ng shirts that they sell (although there was one shirt that had a coke vs pepsi print on it - i had to buy it! hehe).

and yes, zomg. EYE CANDY. pucha. may nakasabay pa kami ni andy habang bumibili kami ng bottled water parang na-stroke ng onti yung utak ko at totally heart-stopping moment because sa harap namin may isang sobrang cute na guy. haha. and the foreigners here... omg. so fuckin haaaawttt!!! aaargh.

anyway, that's that for my first day in boracay. i'm going to play atlantica online (awesome free to play mmorpg with a twist - battles are turn based like in final fantasy and i might blog about it some other time because it deserves its own post altogether) for a few minutes then pag inantok na i'm heading to bed.

( ... )

meet ron, the ex of the ex:

Ron: wow
Ron: may charice toolbar na pala
Ron: lol
Imman: anong charice toolbar?
Imman: di ko gets
Ron: charice pempenco na toolbar
Ron: lol
Ron: to keep you updated with all her events
Ron: wow
Ron: now my life can be complete
Ron: with just simple clicks
Imman: that. is. so. sad.