Music, Life, and the World

I bought a Creative Zen Nano plus 1 gig with built in mic and fm tuner for 56$. Not bad. An officemate is selling a pirated nano ipod 2 gigs with microphone, fm, and games for the same price, but as pirated devices go, their durability is never certain, so i didn't buy one. And besides, this would be the first device that I actually bought with my own salary so it had to be original and long lasting. People ask why not an Ipod or an MP4. Eh ayoko manghinayang pagnasnatch, commute boy kaya ako. Phone ko nga di ko mapalit palitan, 5 years nang 3350. I will change it when its no longer working but so far it's still faithful to its master. I am attached to my own stuff. Anyway, I haven't been listening to any music lately and I haven't been playing instruments anymore too so I figured a portable player would do well to reconcile me with music. I'll be buying a guitar next week, and will save for a saxophone, if my lungs haven't yet melted with nicotine.

The only two cd's i have ripped to my mp3 are "song for sceptics" and "Horror Movie Soundtracks". Call that balanced. :) Its weird listening to jesuit music while eating at mcdo. The situation reminded me about the annual silent retreat that i had been attending for the past four years, so eventhough hungry, I slowly picked up my fries, slowly chewed them, and slowly drank my soda. I tried eating fast but that seemed to be betraying the music I was listening to. So? I turned off the mp3 player. It's even weirder to listen to horror soundtracks while walking alone on a dark alley. It Feels like some ugly creature is lurking behind the garbage bins waiting for an oppurtunity to grab me and eat me on the spot. Man, i gotta download some other songs.

Music. i think music records lives. And this doesn't only apply to the composer or singer. For example, that song for sceptics track brought me back to the silent, relaxed, holy mood in mirador; the "beautiful girl" makes me remember my childhood nights when the radio station used to play that song; "lonely, mr lonely" on the other hand brings me to afternoon siestas when my deceased grandmother would be listening to her favorite radio drama; "mirror mirror hanging on the wall" to playing a Monster bash game on the pc; etcetera. Hey, i didn't choose those songs, they just played while i did whatever i did. It can be called conditioning in psychology, but i like to call it a recorder of life. naks.

Anyway, what i don't like about portable players though is that the focused hearing seems to weaken all other senses. For example, with the sight, i usually look at everything i pass by--people's faces, reactions, clothes, what they're eating, corners, shops, buildings, sky, (observant eh, pero totoo). But with music blaring on the ears, I just walk straight, look at nothing in particular, and just listen. With the oflactory senses, I smell perfume when people walk past me, i smell the dried sweat on workers clothes at the mrt, I smell foreigners breathing through their mouths, i smell the stink of the sidewalks along EDSA ave, but not when there's music blaring on my ears, I just look straight and listen. With the skin sense, Sa skin, sa jeep, i usually feel the steaming heat of perspiration coming from the arms of seatmates and the soft skin of a lady beside you or the slight brushing of another masculine deficient guy's arm on your waist. mafeeling. Taste... taste is an exemption. i actually taste the food better when listening to something. Even with company, there is a tendency to not notice somebody talking to you or a tendency to make someone repeat what they have already said. So there, that's what i don't like about portable players, listening to the music isolates the listener from the world. I don't bring my player to work anymore, i prefer observing people to staring at nothing and just listening. But as always, that's just me. I'd still be using it though, maybe while reading a book at some coffeeshop, or just to record my voice so i can despise it, or listen to my pathetic attempts in singing.

This would probably be my last entry for the moment, I might be scheduled back to a graveyard shift.

Lakbayan from NoviceBlogger

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out atLakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Dyan's Recipe

Unleaded: 1/2 L a.v., 1L r.h., 100g p.a. juice, pitcher/ice
Diesel: 50 mL g.g., 100 mL sp., 20 mL mat., glass/ice

i just had to note that down before my biochemist-bartender-teammate resigns.

CALMot ver.2

I met an english blockmate during lunch break today. It was weird. I was smoking while waiting for an officemate who was at 7-11, then there was this girl who looked familiar with two others who were heading my way. I stared at her and she stared back. You know the feeling that you think the person knows that you think you know that person and vice versa if that made sense cause it didn't make sense to me and I don't want to edit it because I don't want it to make sense which is precisely the point of the encouter. (Damn, that was long.) Okay so when they were passing infront of me and we were still staring at each other with the sort of look you'll have when you have that feeling i mentioned, i suddenly asked, kilala ba kita? that sounded stupid. Damn it did. It sounded like she were some previous romantic aquaintance who doesn't deserve to be remembered and me sounding like someone who naturally attracts such aquaintances, not that i don't think I am, coz i think i am, haha, but that's not the point here too. What if she really wasn't the person i thought i knew her to be. Eh di she'll be giving me that, who-the-hell-are-you-freak look or angkapalmo look. I remember peter parker in spiderman3 acting weirdly uncool with the ladies he met when he wore that venom infested custume.. But anyway, i think what made me ask her that was that i was certain i knew her, and her same stare reveals that she knows me too. So to support that, i asked, english blockmate? And true to my belief, she was the person i thought her to be, and I the person she thought me to be, a classmate 5 years ago. So ayun nagkausap din. The feeling wasn't a sudden excitement like when i met magic at our lobby coz we weren't very close then but still it was as sudden and yeah weird.

one more thing, when i was a kid, I had this kitten that looked like Puss in boots in Shrek. And she had those cute eyes too. I usually brought that kitten to bed with me but one morning I woke up and found her dead. I must have slept on her. hehehehe. damn... So what'd i do, i threw her out the window so that none of my siblings would know how she died. I never told anyone about this, I hope none in my family knows about this blog. :)

Damn... just when the theme is switching to something else not death related, i introduce another death scene. haha. Sorry kitten, I never grieved for you, but i still do remember you. I still love cats and i haven't accidentally hurt any either. :)



word for the day: asanine

His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again, “What an asinine question!”

1.foolish, unintelligent, or silly; stupid:
2. of or like an ass: asinine obstinacy; asinine features.

(Shrekshrekshrek)2

I have watched Shrek 3 twice already. I don't normally watch movies twice unless there's new company or unless I have a DVD copy. with this one, it's the former. I thought I wouldn't find the jokes funny anymore but I still laughed at some scenes. For me, good jokes are those that make you smile or smirk when you expect yourself not to. Mabenta pa rin ang pinocchio-charming scene. spoiler below

Prince Charming: You! You can't lie! Where is Shrek?
Pinocchio: Well, uh, I don't know where he's not.
Prince Charming: You don't know where Shrek is?
Pinocchio: On the contrary,
Prince Charming: So you do know where he is!
Pinocchio: I'm possibly more or less not definitely rejecting the idea that I undeniably
Prince Charming: Stop it!
Pinocchio: Do or do not know where he shouldn't probably be. If that indeed wasn't where he isn't!

although reading it isn't as funny as hearing Pinocchio say it. :)

Wikipedia lists several cultural references to shrek 3. The following are for me the more interesting ones as, again, i am made to research more about them. spoilers again.

After smashing the second wall, the dazed Queen can be heard humming "A Spoonful of Sugar". Julie Andrews, who plays the queen, sang the same song in Mary Poppins.

The animal call that Snow White uses against the Talking Trees is actually the war cry from Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, but the beginning is actually a spoof of With a Smile and Song from the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Disney movie.

When Snow White rips the sleeve of her dress, she has a tattoo that says Dopey on it that is referring to the seven dwarfs in the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Disney movie

Before Shrek and Artie have a heart to heart, Merlin plays the opening music to "That's What Friends Are For".

After Gingy's life flashes before his eyes, he sings "On the Good Ship Lollipop".
When Charming is in his dressing room, you can see the phantom of the opera's mask and costume.

At King Harold's funeral the theme song for the James Bond movie Live and Let Die is sung - John Cleese (who voiced Harold) played the second Q in the James Bond film series.

In the scene where Shrek is on the ship dreaming about being a dad, the stroller that rolls into his room is from the movie "Rosemary's Baby".

Down went the Lemon

I accidentally swallowed the lemuhn flavored candy i was chewing... (uhhh whatever you do with a friggin candy). I can still feel it on my throat.. kakainis. I mean, I swallow my ascorbic acid without water and I really don't mind feeling medicine on my throat but a candy! Last time i accidentally swallowed one was in grade school... I swallowed a lot of things when i was a kid ranging from duhat to santol seeds (accidentally). But man how could a candy slip so easily down my throat. I coughed it out, but it was too late. nawala na ang tipaklong. grrr... But it's already there. So what else to do than to accept it and burp my lemony breath. haha. Burp... shmell the lemuhn.. :)

word for the day: hurumentado/nanggagalaiti

rachel: something something... mga nanggalaiti na customers... somesomething something hurumentado.

hurumentado: amok/nagwawala
nanggagalaiti: galit na galit

they are common words daw but hey I don't hear that everyday.

On Death & Of Pleasure

I just finished reading the manga series that i mentioned on the previous log.. Ang galing, another good story, that "carried" me all through the end. Some parts were predictable but all in all, the story was great. twas about some highschool stud who picked up a notebook of some death god who purposely dropped it because he was bored and wanted to see how a human would use it. Anybody whose name is written on the notebook dies of a heart attack unless otherwise specified on the note. This smart stud used it to "purify the world of evil men" by writing down names of criminals or evil doers and thus known as "kira" (for killer). The police and a world renowned detective were after him, and so the story goess... At first i thought the theme was corny, but I wasn't really after the theme knowing how most japanese manga usually talk about humanity and values and goody goody people at the end. So I gave it a try.

I love the feeling that good stories give. There's always the excitement, the heat, that makes you wanna rush and keep on asking, "comeon, what happened next" especially near the ending. And just wanting to know what happened next or just to verify if your guesses will happen, you tend to skip lines and just scan through the whole paragraphs without actually reading them. Only when you've known what had happened , do you go back the lines that were skipped to get a better view of how it happened. I know some who read the end of the book first and then start reading from the beginning. My approach is similar but i don't do that, that would be a major spoil, although... sometimes I do skip pages when i couldn't take the suspense anymore.

I like stories, I don't really care about the literature stuff like themes or constructions or whatever, I'm not a good writer as is evident but i love reading.

The excitement brought about by stories are very different from the sort of feeling i mentioned on the CALMOT entry. The latter was just a very sudden reaction. One time you are just calmly thinking what brand of cigarette to smoke, and then out of the blue you meet some friend you haven't seen, then you get excited and you tend to rush with the questions and the plans of things to do. Its frustrating how the calmness so abruptly transition to excitement. Yeah just like skipping through whole pages in a book just to know the ending. With stories however, just like the diagrams they had us memorize in highschool, the excitement is built up slowly and consistently. The excitement isn't sudden, it's built up towards a peak, and then it'll fling you down and you slowly float down to reach the ground. That is the point where i stop reading for a while and just relish that feeling of reaching ground, the satisfaction of knowing what had happened. ONce that sinks in, im ready to scale another peak. Did that just sound like orgasm. Haha. Daaymn. .