Author: quistian

I used to have a friend at my former work place. And I really like her. In fact, everyone likes her. If ever the term “amiability incarnate” ever applied to one person, it’s a safe bet that it’s her. We used to be close, yeah. Certain events kind of conspired that made it a little awkward for us to talk openly, but I thought that’s okay. At least, I thought, I could still call on the friendship whenever the need arises again, or if ever the air gets cleared between myself and one of her friends.

Turns out that’s already impossible. I thought the only reason we haven’t been speaking the last few months is awkwardness. But it isn’t. She’s actually mad at me. Extremely.

Why?

Someone seems to have told her that I have been spreading some very unpleasant things about her to everyone.

What. The. Fuck.

Yes, this situation is so screwed it merits a full and uncensored F word.

Now what kind of depraved, demented, sanity-impaired sorry excuse for a human being would invent such a totally baseless, pointless, bullshitty and out-of-thin-air lie, and then actually tell it to her? How could someone be so Satan-fixated?

That lie completely ruined everything. It’s no different from detonating a nuclear bomb between me and that friend of mine, decimating everything between us.

You know, I’m into boxing. Only been at it for two months so far so I’m not very good yet. Still, my first pair of gloves didn’t last three weeks. My trainer said I pack a powerful punch.

I’d hate to have to use that on the person who told that lie about me.

Okay, just wanna ask you guys to give me a little bit of slack here because it’s not going to be easy to say this. But I have to.

Right now I’m watching the replay of American Idol: Idol Gives Back, a 2-hour special AI show dedicated to charity. It’s wonderful watching the show, and I often remarked that it’s good that American Idol is giving back after the phenomenal success it enjoyed in its last 6 seasons so far. The show itself is star-studded. And okay, people who know me well could tell you that I couldn’t care less if every celebrity in Hollywood participated in the show – if there’s one thing that I’m not, it’s star-struck. But I did love how different personalities with contrasting backgrounds got together for one noble common cause. Like, can you imagine Bono, Jack Black, Josh Groban, Ewan McGregor, Seal, Celine Dion, Homer Simpson (yeah, really), Annie Lennox, Rob Lowe and Madonna in one show? Okay, you probably could, but it still doesn’t happen much.

The program was touching and at times, heart-wrenching, and only someone with a certified heart of granite (like someone I know) wouldn’t be moved by all those stories of children and HIV-positive folks who desperately need our help. Ellen Degenres put it best. “This is ridiculous. We should do something.” And yeah, I agree. I wish there was some way I could do to help.

Hehe, wishing for ways to help poor African HIV-positive kids when I had the chance to do the exact same thing with our local homeless children… and I didn’t.

I’m talking about the Christmas program SVI prepared for orphan kids in place of the company Christmas party. I still remember the argument with Hana because I wanted to hold a Christmas party for the staff, insisting that ‘charity work is good and all, but the Christmas party is supposedly the reward for us employees for toiling hard the entire year. We deserve to have that party, why give it to someone else?’

Why give it to someone else? It’s like asking why give to Gawad Kalinga that 50 pesos you were reserving for a strawberry milkshake.

Now that I think about it, I want to hit myself on the head with a hammer.

Especially when recalling how much fun the SVI volunteers had in participating in the activity. I wanted a party for the employees? Well, making orphaned kids happy – even for only a few hours – rates on the fun meter just as much as any other party. And it’s more worthwhile because we get to help people.

Well, since the charity event won out over a clubhouse party, in the end I did decide to acquiesce and volunteer to help out too, if at least to make myself less of an ass. But it would have meant something if I’d actually made it

Says in Wikipedia:

“Vehicles will often come into conflict with other vehicles because their intended courses of travel intersect, and thus interfere with each other’s routes. The general principle that establishes who has the right to go first is called “right of way”, or “priority”. It establishes who has the right to use the conflicting part of the road and who has to wait until the other driver does so.”

You know what they are, don’t you?  If not (and I do hope you don’t have a driver’s license if this is the case), I’m giving some examples of right-of-way rules:

1) When two cars reach an intersection at the same time, the one on the left yields to the one on the right,

2) In roundabout roads, a.k.a. rotundas, those who are already in the road yield the right of way to those who are just entering it,

3) Intersection again, but this time three vehicles get to it at the same time. The “right-side” rule no longer applies. Instead, the two cars who are facing opposite each other have priority over the third.

 There’s actually a lot more, but this post isn’t a tutorial on basic right-of-way rules. At any rate, no matter what the rules are or how different they are from one country to the next, there’s an instruction common to all countries:

DO NOT INSIST ON YOUR RIGHT OF WAY.

Which makes a lot of sense, really. What if you’re against a drunk driver who couldn’t see you if your plate number is five inches away from his face? Insisting on your right-of-way would almost certainly end in disaster, right?

Sadly, though, as a long-time observer of traffic in Metro Manila, I could say without reservation that the “not insisting on your right-of-way” policy doesn’t apply here. Why? Two reasons:

1) The few who have been schooled on the right-of-way rule usually only remember the “do not insist” part. Of course we would, that’s an instant loophole to get our way of the highway. Since you’re not supposed to insist on your ROW, the other motorist would expect you to do this and therefore try to get one up over you. How many times have I seen this happen: running full throttle into an intersection to get the better of those motorists who looked first before proceeding; turning left on unprotected intersections without regard to oncoming traffic; merging into traffic without regard to motorists who have merged in before you. And when accidents do happen, the one who’d be adjudge at fault is not the one who proceeded without a right-of-way, but rather the one who insisted on his. Maybe in the Philippines, we should be required to insist on our right-of-way, because the opposite is turning out to be ridiculous. Like, “Officer, it’s his fault because he insisted on his right of way!”  How stupid is that?

2) Second reason much simpler. As evidenced by the way drivers behave on the road, an estimated 6 out of 10 drivers do not know what a right-of-way is.  Two out of 10 do not care. And 1.9 out of 10 think they’re always right.

I know someone who rear-ended me while I’m at full stop, and she still thinks it’s my fault.

:rolleyes:

Five-day leave, plus a normal two-day weekend. Then come to work for two days. Then another five-day break (three holidays sandwiching the weekend). This taught me that it’s possible to get too much vacation time, and I realized this when I went out tonight to pick up my wife at her weekly badminton game – getting out in the open could be such a rush after all! There wasn’t anything new, it just happened that during the last loooong weekend I got cooped up in the house and did nothing but flex my abs (by stuffing it with food, hehehe), cuddle with the PS2 and hit the online jungle. So bored I actually planned to crash at Mike’s place with Markku and the HR ladies +1 (what +1? ask Markku, hehehe). Alas, none of them would consent, for various reasons.

So what else did I do during this lengthy break? My three most favorite pasttimes, of course. Think, mull, and contemplate. And here’s what I reasoned:

• Picture an NBA team with the following roster: Dwyane Wade, Kirk Heinrich, Ben Gordon, Ben Wallace, Samuel Dalembert, Andris Biedrins, Damien Wilkins, Mike Miller, Steven Hunter, Shane Battier, Eddie Griffin, Daniel Ewing. What do you think would happen with a team like this?
• People seem to put more credibility to pretty faces, don’t you think? Like, if Jamie King claimed Terry Crews was stalking her and the latter insisted that he doesn’t even come within ten feet of her, who would you believe? (Got this one from LN)
• Okay, combine this item with the one above and slightly sharper minds would conclude that one of the things I did during the break was chug that Wayans riot-fest White Chicks. One of the little but good things that came out of that heap of comedic mess (that made of roffle just the same) was doing away with image stereotypes. I’m talking about Latrell Spencer (played by Crews), a burly hoopster brutha who couldn’t shoot a three-pointer to save his life, singing along with the cutesy teen-pop Vanessa Carlton song A Thousand Miles. Like, we really could learn from this bit of gag: if you like a song, don’t pretend to get all goose-bumpy just because the song is Hello Kitty pink and you’re a boyz-in-da-hood wannabe. Be true to yourself.
• Conversely, I despise Pinoy Big Brother in all its mundanely gimmicky, desperately-grovelling-for-viewership forms. But I think it’s unfair to label me as a conio Am-boy just because. I hate it, period.
• BLACK GULAMAN IS DA BOMB!!!
• I’m proud to say that when my circle gather round for lunch, Hana’s pastry treats or to feed tigers with dressed chicken, we don’t instinctively talk about or make fun of other people. We only talk about and make fun of each other =D (just don’t let anyone sing Lifehouse’s You and Me – that ruins my day completely)
• Metal Gear Solid 2: the video game, at one point speaks of the stereotype role-conflict element that says “Don’t freaking tell me what to do. You’re at home base, I’m the one in the field. You have no bloody idea what it’s like to be in my place.” Trite, but nevertheless true. None of us have a right to tell another person what or what not to do when we don’t have the tiniest inkling of what it’s like being in the same predicament. Two things to avoid: (a) being judgmental, and (b) being self-righteous.
• “If I could do that to someone I love [drive an axe into the person’s skull], imagine what I can do to someone I hate.” — Tarik. From the movie The Jackal. Which about sums it all up. I care about you, yes. But don’t push your luck.
• “Lets not kill the Karma, lets not start a fight. Its not worth the drama for a beautiful liar” — Beyonce (this is the answer)
• American Idol season 6 is fast turning up to be like season 3: one contestant is poised to win in a landslide the way Fantasia Barino did. Melinda Doolittle simply pwns them all, hands down. Personally, though, my favorite is Jordin Sparks. Not only because she’s a very good singer, but also because she’s perhaps the more adorable AI contestant ever. I could only agree wholeheartedly when Paula Abdul described Jordin as a joy magnet. Still, the music person in me says Doolittle – to date – outsings her at every turn. But what the hell, still nine weeks to go. And Ryan Seacrest is also rooting for Jordin, so nyah =)
• When your friend is in love, smile. Don’t roll your eyes. We all fall in love.

You shouldn’t spend hours on the keyboard and then get your hands wet afterwards. Carpal tunnel is the least of your worries. In my case, spasm on my hands caused my fingers to click on a link that I’m not – by any circumstances imaginable – supposed to click on. Shoot, issue na naman ito.

Like last Saturday. Googling something about fighter jets, for some reason a link to what I perceive to be a porn site appeared in the search results. Bad: With the site I wanted just above it, I accidentally clicked on the porn site link. Realizing my mistake, I immediately clicked on the Back button.

Worse: Too late. The comp restarted. And when I booted up again, I realized that spyware has already invaded my system. So I spent the next two hours doing a full system scan. Found nothing. But the spyware warning messages were still appearing. Worst: Whenever I start IE, it crashes and causes a slow down of the entire system.

Question 1: Barring the Ten Commandments, is it okay to murder programmers of spyware?

Question 2: Any tips on how to fix my comp?

Thank you…