Endless Line

Dashing

So last Wednesday I went to Bulacan for a whole-day client call and as usual my Vice-freakin-President of a boss served as my driver.

I sat in his car and listened to him retell how when he was a fresh grad the first thing he wanted to buy was a house (which told me that my recent decisions may have been wrong, so very wrong). As he lifted a hand to adjust the aircon temperature, my eyes followed his fingers to the dashboard and then suddenly I found myself scrutinizing his dash.

My boss drives a 2011 Montero so things are fairly pretty, but for some reason - and without really thinking - I thought, my dash looks better than this. And if it isn't obvious, I wasn't thinking about Dana when I told myself that.

I haven't really been very kind to ZSMJ since he got here, mostly because of the fact that I would have preferred to get the cheaper, more-classy-than-sporty 2008 Altis that had been one of the choices for my car purchase. I've had so many complaints (can't see the hood, acceleration too fast, side mirrors don't fold, wipers are distracting, don't like the color, etc.) and not enough nice things to say about him.

I wanted a car that was love at first sight, and ZSMJ was like an arranged marriage because one day I got home and my dad was like "Andito na yung car mo!" so I've been feeling kind of stuck with him.

With my recent thoughts, however... maybe I'm finally falling in love.

Casts, casts, casts!

Because I miss the golden days of DTS with Artstyle, Dread, NS, Smile and God. :(

***

v1lat: What is your fondest Dota memory?

Artstyle: When I was still with DTS, there was this one game where we were down to the last pick and then Dread pointed at each of the enemy heroes and said "Casts, casts, casts, casts, casts!" So I picked Silencer. And then after like ten seconds we realized that every fucking hero in the game casts something.

For Gonzalo

aka What a Birthday Post but I dreamt about my dear PI prof the night before (it was fairly wholesome, just saying) and this hasn't been out of my mind since.

***

She enlists in his class because according to the people who have been there, he hands out uno's like Junior Dos Santos hands out losses and cancels classes like there’s Ondoy every week. The girlish squeals declaring how handsome he is does not escape her ears, but she shrugs it off because she tends to have a different definition of handsome compared to girls her age.

When she finally sees him, she gapes uncertainly. He has none of the preppy boyish charm that propelled Comm 3's Ken Jamandre to a spot at Cosmo's Most Eligible Bachelors, nor the silent ambitiousness that seethed through Math 17's Gabriel Limson, nor the raw power beneath the sinewy muscles that Judo's Carlo Vergara flexed.

His curly hair is swept back in a stuffy ponytail and looks like it’s three rinses away from an illegitimate dreadlock. He wears a lithe shirt, faded pants, lots of hippie bracelets and a big smile.

She thinks it might be fun to learn PI from Kamikaze's frontman.

***

He tells them not to call him Sir, and aptly too because he acts like a 30-year old college student from KAL. He laughs too freely, thinks too deeply, and teaches too casually.

One time he takes the class to Laguna to climb some mountain where Rizal's minions abound. In a jeep on the way, she sees the tattoo in his arm and asks about it. He graciously pulls his sleeve up and shows her. It's Alibata.

“Luisa Paula.” The guy beside her reads as he adjusts his glasses.

He smiles widely. “Ngayon lang may studyanteng nakabasa niyan. At dahil diyan may plus 1 ka sa finals.”

She almost whacks herself in the head. She should have paid attention during any of the at least one million times her seatmate tried to teach her Alibata instead of staring dreamily at Fidel Nemenzo. (Uh, no, not really, every second spent staring at Fidel Nemenzo is worth it.) On second thought, why did he get that tattoo in Alibata? Couldn’t he have gotten it in Russian or something?

“Sino si Luisa Paula?” the guy beside her asks. “Asawa mo?”

He laughs, says he's not married.

“Kapatid?”

“Lola?”

“Nanay?”

“...Tatay?”

He almost chokes.

For some reason she knows the right answer. “Anak.”

He nods.

***

She does not remember much about their last day of classes. Maybe because he ended their course four weeks before everyone else did. All she knew was that PI 100 went down as the only class that she never cut that semester even though he basically told them “Have at it” during the first day of class. There are about four other classes in her whole stay in UP that she had perfect attendance in, but PI is the only class that she willingly never cut.

She does remember bits of his speech. Something about oneself and about one’s nation and one’s ideologies. Something about and Ibarra and Simeon, both of whom she doesn’t really favor because she’s a Basilio kind of girl. (She goes to the library later that afternoon because he dared them to know what happened after El Fili; Rizal wrote a draft for the novel Makamisa, starring Basilio, but he never finished it.)

The ending part – she especially remembers the ending part. He said something about fires, embers, and sparks. Did they know that spark is ‘pingkian’ in Tagalog? It’s also the pen name of some important person who wrote some important piece of something during some important time. You guys should name your kids ‘pingkian’, he encouraged them.

Two year’s later she’s staring in front of her laptop and there’s a field for ‘pen name’ that’s begging to be filled. She should have never given up Jin. She pauses to consider what the replacement could be.

She goes as far as typing the letter G and then hits backspace four times.

Oh well, pink is a colour and she is dreaming.

But reality's been kind of a bitch lately.

And she hates the fact that the one time he actually had his arm around her shoulder he was drunk like shit and she was rolling her eyes pretending it doesn't matter anyway but reality's been kind of a bitch lately and -

If you had to go to Mordor

My father has been doing this his whole life, but this is the first time I’m tagging along for the ride. And I must say, buying a car is draining.

When I didn’t have my money yet, I had a solid idea of what I wanted. But now that I have the go signal to actually buy a car, so many things pop up that I realize also need consideration. Because I’ve just been working for one year I don’t have that much money yet, so like 70% of the funding is from my dad. Knowing that I’m on a loan from him, do I splurge or be practical?

There’s also the issue of opportunity costs. Because I’ve decided to go for pre-owned cars, I can’t really choose the specs that I want - it’s more like I have to find a car that has the specs I want and that I can afford to buy, and it’s a trillion times easier to say than to do! There’s two cars that are really good deals, but I’m hesitating to take them because they’re both silver and let’s put it this way, if I had an Altis or a Civic it wouldn’t be silver. Do I settle for a car which is a great deal but which color I’m not digging, or do I go on with my search and try to find a car that I like 100%?  Because my dad just stared at me like I was crazy when I told him what if I just drop 20K on having the whole thing repainted Taffeta White.

Finally, I keep thinking how would I know which car is ‘the one’ for me, which would be with me through thick and thin much like how Dana has been with my family. I told my friends before that I would know it when I find it because I’m gonna have that slow-mo moment with my heart thumping wildly and that love at first sight look in my eyes like what happened when I met Solis (haha!) but damn I have looked at over 100 cars since January and that has not happened.

Or maybe I’m over thinking all of this like I always do when I’m excited.

Right now the only thing I’m sure about is that even when I get my new ride, I will still love Dana the most. :)

***

Sherdog thread that made my day today.

“If you had to go to Mordor, who would you take with you?”
“Some have said Drysdale is a good choice. I think he's too big and easy to spot. You'd have to be small and quick. I say Ryan Hall. He could go inverted and hide behind small bushes and rocks. He would also eat a lot less of the Lembes bread. Drysdale would probably hog it all.”
“Fedor... he would armbar the gates after pounding out some trolls. And then Aoki once I'm in there to show Sauron the birdie. Randleman would probably have to suplex the tower to bring it down though.”
“Just Koscheck.  I hate the guy, but he seems to enjoy eye poking. And since Sauron is just an eye...”
“Easily Wanderlei, Mirko CroCop and Aleks Emalianenko.”
“Dude, Aleks works for Sauron, have you even seen that guy? Pure evil.”

For him who fell while carrying the Cross

Because I don’t want to be as subtle as a sledge hammer, seeing as this subject and others related to it are likely to be topics of my next posts.

***

I wonder what kind of day it was when you were told the news.

Was it warm and sun-splashed, typical of Southern California, or were the skies oddly gray? Did you slump in stunned silence, did you clutch your head in disbelief or did you punch something unbreakable until it shattered (because that’s what happened to your heart)? I wonder how close you came to running after Weston with a blowtorch or something equally foolish.

I wonder if they saw you, and I wonder if they had any idea that the world had come crashing down.

***

I wonder how you felt every time they looked at you.

Did you want to scream, did you want to kick something (or someone, maybe yourself), or did you resign yourself to your doomed fate and just tried to think about what best to do next? Did you think about keeping them all, fuck everything and everyone else, or did you at once accept that the best thing for them is to find new homes so they could go on living the happy lives they deserve?

I wonder if they perceived the sadness in your eyes, if they went to you to try to cheer you up. And as you felt the love they tried to give you, I wonder how many times you asked yourself how the hell you got there.

***

I wonder if you felt like dying every time you gave one of them away.

Did you whisper promises that everything will be alright, that you’ll come visit often, that someday you’ll all be together again? Did you tell the new owners to take care of them, to call you if anything happens? Were you able to walk away without looking back, fearing that if you did you’ll change your mind and not let go?

And when it was the time for the prince you crowned (the one who made you king) to go, I wonder if you were able to say goodbye without tears in your eyes. Moreover, precisely how many times on the trip from Alabama you cried when you remembered that when you get back to California, he’s not going to be there with you anymore.

***

I wonder how you feel now, every time you go home to a yard that used to be filled with so much happy memories and now has too few.

I wonder if you regret it. I wonder if you wish you hadn’t been desperate or selfish. Maybe you’d still have most of your friends, both those who walk on two feet and those who walk on four. I wonder if you make calls all the time; how is he, how is she, how is the litter, I would give up anything to have even the last pick but you know I can’t have it registered under my name.

And when she - the queen, the one you kept because she is bound to you as she is bound to each and every one of them, the one you can’t let go, will never let go – comes to you for love, I wonder if you are able to give her a small smile.

Your argument is INVALID

So a few weeks back I was telling Kuya Rex about how sick I am of Jessica Sanchez fans who keep on discrediting Phillip (He just won cuz he’s cute, he’s a WGWG, he’s sick, blah blah) and say that majority of AI runners-up become more successful than winners anyway.

I asked Kuya Rex if he thought that the last statement was true but he couldn’t give me a definitive answer because some winners are more successful than runners-up (Kelly Clarkson vs Justin Guarini), some runners-up are more successful than winners (Crystal Bowersox vs Lee Dewyze) and for others its just too close to call (David Cook vs David Archuleta).

So for my love of Phillip’s drawly, growly, oh-so-hawt Rob Thomas-like voice, I have taken the liberty of compiling the discographies of the winners and runners up of all the past 10 AI seasons to see who did better in terms of record sales.

And guess what.

I’m not saying that based on past seasons record sales, Phillip is going to be more successful than Jessica or vice versa. All I’m saying is that it’s not entirely true that based on AI history, winners ultimately get the short end of the stick and the runners-up emerge as the real winners.

For Season 11, only time will tell if Jessica is going to be more successful than Phillip. If this happens, I will be happy for Jessica because it will be her legitimate accomplishment. Unlike some people, including a bald talkshow host who is supposed to be one of the bastions of fairness and equality in this country, I don’t have to discredit Jessica just so I can praise Phillip.

And frankly, my appreciation of Phillip’s music doesn’t hinge on Jessica’s success anyway. For all I care, Jessica can sing her way to a platinum certification and more Grammy’s than Adele will ever have, and I will still enjoy Phillip’s music.

For this post and this post alone though, one thing I have to say to bitter Jessica fans is