Random Stuff

tomorrow's monday and i couldn't be happier that it's a holiday. we always always get monday madness in the office courtesy of slave drivers et al.

this is why i'm somewhat making the most out of my weekend. slept in til noon for a well deserved rest. doing laundry right now. planning on doing a bit of cleaning and bedding changes later today.

here's how my bed looked the last time i cleaned:


obvously, that isn't what it looks like anymore. -grin-

i'll post a picture after i clean later. in the mean time, i've setup an order for two shelves to help organize my "bed clutter".


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Space Savers

what i really wanted to be was an architect. sure, i don't really have the talent and/or gift in drawing pretty pictures of stuff, but hey, that didn't stop me from taking UST's entrance exam with architecture as my first choice and interior design as my second. sure, i passed for both even with the required drawing thing, but the career was foiled by my mom who wanted me to pursue my management engineering course at ADMU. i used to think it was for her bragging rights having a daughter studying ADMU's best course, but now, i'm thinking maybe that's just 50% of it. why or how i ended up finishing five years of ECE is an altogether different story.

anyway, i was contemplating yet again how cramped the room i share with my brothers was today and inevitably got that familiar nostalgia of what should've been. i sooo want to design my own house, or at least my own room.

found a few pieces through the web. unfortunately, i didn't remember to take note of the sites where i got them from, i'm real sorry. thus, let it be clearly stated here that all pictures in this post does not belong to me and i don't claim any contribution to them as far as ideas are concerned.

i started checking out some for shared bedrooms and got this:


on some others, i just liked the clean and fresh setup. if i could dream up my own room, it would probably look a bit like these:


of course i gotta love my blues and my greens:

i really prefer checkers over stripes, but i don't think checkered wallpaper would work too good in a small room.



here's one that tickled my fancy just coz there's a mini walk in... i mean, crawl in closet under the bed. ^_^

Childhood Memories Trashed

oh for the love of everything that's sane!!!

i still can't believe i actually looked forward to reading this crap. it effortlessly shattered my childhood memories of walking the halls of my high school engrossed in the series. i'm trying to remind myself yet again of why and how i fell to liking it 15 years ago.

well, this particular piece was a whole lot of sh*t. i stopped reading by the time i got to 50%, and went ahead to read online reviews and spoilers instead. (my spoilers ahead)


if you're not really familiar with the francine pascal twins, and would likely sprout a dozen questions on the history, forget reading the rest coz i'm not in the mood to recap.

anyway, here's the deal. the garbage novel starts with the napakalandi, inggitera, and super selfish twin stealing the good pushover twin's longtime boyfriend. eto namang super idiot and apparently malandi ring boyfriend, pumatol naman. that was how many years ago, which was repeated again after a few years. of course this started a kalimutan-mo-nang-magkadugo-tayo stage with the twins. but, surprise surprise, in the end, the pushover twin forgives the two cheaters and moves on.

as twisted as the author's sense of values and/or humor is, the book further reveals sexual affairs left and right. talo talo na lang lahat. and by lahat, i do mean LAHAT.. the twins' brother is gay, and even though married, is having an affair with the malanding twin's childhood crush. then, all that's good in the world have gone down the drain. the nerd friend turns out to be a schmuck when he earns his moolah, and eventually commits suicide. the best friend, or should i say ex best girl friend, became an arrogant doctor who also had a lover. the best thing that probably happened is that the guy who tried to date-rape the weak twin eventually turned out to be a good guy in love with her and is not her best friend turned boyfriend, but even that is really twisted.

in all this, my conclusion simply is that the author was probably an illegitimate child of none other but the devil himself. nobody else could probably think up a what's-a-worse-word-than-twisted-? story as a 10-year comeback to a teenage series.

Summer Family Getaway (day 2)

i finally get around to doing day 2. oh, laziness, why are we friends?
anyway, here it is.. we started out with the underground river. it's this river through a cave slash mini-mountain and it goes out to sea so the water's brackish.
you go through the cave in a boat with a guide. the boat's equipped with lamps similar if not exactly like car headlights. it's peacefully dark and damp inside except for the occasional bat calls and water drips. the cave features exceptional stalactites and some other rock formations molded by years of water movement, and like what we experienced during the firefly watching, it's one of those experiences you take home in your memories coz our rookie cams aren't really worthy of capturing the sights.
being an underground cave, drips are frequent and really, they can't be avoided. the thing with the drips though, most are mountain water, but every once in a while, bat poop. the way to distinguish the difference in the dark according to our kuya bangkero is the temperature. if it's cool and wet, then it's water. if it's warm and has solids, it's the other thing. and as my luck would have it, on the way out the cave, something landed on my left shoulder right on my life vest. turns out, you won't need to test the temperature to differentiate. it stank like a week old diaper filled with senior citizen pee! but hey, experience is experience. ^_^
the underwater river's actually a candidate to be one of the new 7 wonders of nature. in my little way, through my 1 and a half readers, i'm encouraging voting for this wonder. (link here)

we then travel a few miles out to do some cave trekking. the objective simply is to go up via the hollow side of a mountain that passes off as a small cave and upon reaching the top, zipline back down to civilization. so here we are all geared up in our safety helmets and gloves.


we assumed the equipment was for the zipfly already. well we found out how wrong we were when we had to twist and turn our bodies to fit into nooks and crannies leading to more crevices we had to pass through to get to the top hot and sweaty only to be confronted by another different set of safety stuff. we change and had our turns zipping down, enjoying the view on the way.


dinner at a local resto and that was it: our day 2. :)

Summer Family Getaway (day 1)

just got back from a family trip to puerto princesa, palawan. left manila at 8am sunday morning, 1st of may and headed for a 4-day adventure. ^_^ just a little heads up though... i'm expecting my narrating skills on this particular post to suck. i'm real tired right now, please bear with the lazy monologue. i'll start with day 1 and continue with the rest some other time.

although family bonding every once in a while is really nice, i can't help but wish tan and tif were with us. after all, they're part of our family already. :D

for our first day, we had a basic city tour going by pasalubong stations (yes, we did this on the first day, haha), crocodile farm, the mitra residence, baker's hill, and binuatan creations. after that we had firefly watching. somewhere among those, we also passed by a church i can't remember, and would have totally forgotten if we hadn't taken a picture.

pasalubongs comprised of cashews, the typical souvenir shirts, rain makers, and pearls.

i'm somehow sawa of the croc farm already since we've been to lots. nothing special really, except that palawan's facility is more of a reserve, where they treat and rescue almost-smuggled crocs, than a zoo.


the mitra residence was nice. the view was similar to tagaytay, but definitely without the cool atmosphere.


after that, we went to baker's hill for their famous hopia. we did not get to buy hopias since they were all out of their best sellers, but we did get to buy bread and some pastries. yes, we took pictures. the owner's residence was really elegant, except for the thousands of people visiting everyday.

the binuatan creations featured weaving local grasses and making them into bags, placemats, and more. there was one bag i liked but didn't get coz i realized 1. i still have a lot of almost-new bags and 2. i probably won't get to use it often. hooray for EQ.. or just plain ol' common sense.


we then went on home (and by home i meant the apartment we were staying in) and took showers and had naps to get ready for that night's firefly watching.

that night was a far cry from the city tour we just had. while the tour was a so-so thing, the firefly watching left me speechless. wait, i'm getting ahead of myself... after freshening up at the apartment, we had a quiet dinner at asturias hotel. the food was ok, but not really omg-great. we then traveled 15 minutes to the iwahig river where we will be sightseeing that night.

ok, let me do this justice.

1. the sky was all clear and i've never seen that much stars up there ever-ever-ever in my whole life! if i had basic knowledge of astronomy, i'd bet i could do a roll call on the zodiac and they'd all be there, including constellations and falling stars! (my brother saw one, btw)
2. i've never seen that much fireflies before. sure there were some at the ateneo grounds the time i was doing my thesis, but that was one or two at a time. those at palawan could literally light up a giant christmas tree! it took my breath away.
3. if those weren't enough, looking down at the water, our boatman's paddle was glistening! it lit up and glowed as though it was a magic wand. the river had glowing plankton!

the sights left me with mixed emotions of wonder, amazement, and a lot more. since capturing this on cam was virtually impossible with our low-tech noob cams, i was left wishing i could bottle up that moment and remember it forever. sigh.


to be continued...