Where do we go from here?

So why do we blog? Why do we post stuff here like it matters? What’s with all this hoopla? Do someone even read this?

When I started this thing, I said it was all for the sake of starting to write again. Apparently things are starting to get really random. Even the date of my postings. To be honest, I am not really sure where this thing will take me but I am doing it anyway. I see no reason not to go on. I am not really worried whether I get hits or not. I don’t fucking care. And it’s not like I am also advertising it. I guess for me, the real reason is still up in the air…

I have always flirted with the idea of having a personal journal. I feel like this works just as same, until I showed it to a friend who said something like; “…great, now your life story is in the public domain.” So I started to limit this to just random banter and opinions. Some people blog about their expertise, their niche, which is cool, but then sometimes it feels a bit pretentious.

For me the internet is a blessing. It is what every person has always wanted. A place where they can have their 15 mins of fame. I remember when I have no access to the internet, I have always tried to find ways to get myself “on air”. I dreamt of getting a message out whether through print, tv or radio. Heck I even had this idea of setting up my own pirate radio back in my home town. I had ideas and opinions that meant a lot to me, until I got my soul crushed when I started working in a corporate setting. I found out that in the real world, your opinions and ideas does not really matter until someone asked for it. And you better be damn sure that you have a really good one. Otherwise you will only look like an idiot. I have learned that there is a fine line between being highly opinionated and being a fool. I still encounter the same people, and I find it funny when I look at them. I feel like interacting with a race horse.

So where do I go from here? I’m not really sure… Which makes a things a bit exciting really. Who knows, for all I know I already have a fan, which is really enough for me. I have yet to put some work on this blog but I cannot find the time to. I do have plans of reaching out some more. I have one idea that I am not gonna spoil here. I am a bit excited and can’t wait for it to be done.

Anyway…

I guess the real reason for me doing this is to have a proper public medium where I can express part of myself. Think of it as one of the channels from a 500 channel satellite TV. You ever have cable at home? Do you realize that there are times when you just click on your remote and see channels that you don’t need and wonder why they are there? Then you find something interesting in one of them and stay tuned to that channel until the program is over? This is just one of those channels. This channel is just here and it will keep on broadcasting. And I couldn’t be any happier with that.

See you all on the next post.
CIAO!

What do you listen to?

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time now…

Music is subjective.

It really is… as much as I hate to admit it.

I listen to a lot of stuff. But I can never get myself (for the life of me) to listen to radio hits. If somebody asks me if I’ve heard of Lady Gaga, I would mockingly say: “What is a Lady Gaga?”

What I hate the most is when you let someone hear music that you love or a song that you wrote to someone and starts comparing it to an artist he knows that you haven’t listened to and rant like he’s the goddamned-music-expert. The best part is when he starts throwing in a mix and match of music genres to prove his point.

Just because you have an extensive library of singles you purchased from iTunes doesn’t mean you are a music expert dolt!

Now, I am no music expert either. But what I am trying to say is that, can’t we just let music be music regardless of the genre? You maybe listening to headbobbin’ beats of Electronic music, but did you ever had the chance to listen to the moving modern poetry of Alternative? The raw, crunching power of riffs from Heavy Metal is really driving, but did you ever found the time to listen to the gentle technicality of Classical music? Hip Hop, may have that in your face attitude, but Pop can also be off the wall.

How extensive is your appreciation of music really? Are you the kind of person who is willing to know what one is listening to and find the beautiful parts in it or are you the kind of person who doesn’t approve of anything unless you approve of it?

Are you the kind of person who claims to be a big fan of an artist and got the chance to give all of that artist’s  releases an ear or are you the kind of person who claims to be a big fan of an artist but cannot answer if you have been asked what other songs you have known from them?

I just don’t get it… fucking posers!

The reason for all this ranting is that because, I believe that The RZA is no different from Mozart and Mozart is no different from John Lennon. They just have a different way of expressing themselves. The thing is, just before the invention of the phonautograph, musicians used sheet music. And during Mozart’s time there were no people like, Britney Spears or John Lennon. The classical musicians were THE Britney Spears and John Lennons of their time.

Classical musicians, as I imagine, may have had the ability to literally see and hear their compositions taking shape when they compose their material. And being a musician at that time may have been really hard, because it really requires a lot of time, patience and practice. And a lot of that they have, Classical music have monstrous and epic compositions. And you will never hear the simple verse-chorus-verse that we are hearing today. You will never hear a whole section repeating. And most of them lasts over 5 minutes!

Then the industrial revolution came, things became easier and now we have devices that can record sound. Move a little fast forward, people have found a way to broadcast recorded sound and also found out that broadcasting is expensive, so songs that needs to be broadcasted have to be short. Now this may have contributed to the death, (again as I imagined), of Classical epics.

Then fast forward again, to the modern era. People are now so busy moving and working not to mention lazy,  that nobody neither has the time nor patience to practice. Nobody ever has a chance to sit down and write on sheet music. (except for a few I suppose). All everyone does is just pick up a guitar, learn a few chords, (the fewer the better) and start jangling and screaming in front of a mic.

The recorded material goes through marketing, marketing decides how to sell this. And voila, Britney Spears!

The worst part is this era we are facing right now I suppose… Everyone has become a musician without getting the chance to actually experience the joy of playing an instrument. And some of them become famous at that too! A lot of things has become programmable. Technology is not really a bad thing, but it has it’s downside.

Now let’s get back to the point that I am trying to make. All musical artists are the same regardless of what genre they are in. Some are gifted, some are determined, and others, by some weird twist of fate, are fortunate. Music does not really require you to see how good looking the artists is… it requires you to have a listening ear to really appreciate it. And listening, combined with understanding, will give you the best experience.

I think I have said enough. I’ll end this one here…

See you all on the next post.
CIAO!

I’m back! (and like it matters…)

Hi Folks,

I know it’s been quite a while. I have been very busy these past few months and has not felt like posting anything.
And there were also times when I would sit down in front of the computer, start writing and just completely go, “FUCK IT!” I still don’t have a lot to say really, but things are going well I guess…

I was moving stuff from my old studio apartment to a 2 bedroom apartment I found right behind our building. Most of the stuff we have from the old apartment are now in the new one and we have already slept a couple of days. It was fun moving stuff around. The only beef I had was that none of our stuff were organized and placed neatly in boxes. So I had to run around and look for empty and used ones to be able to move all the clutter, I have to go back and forth. There were times that I felt like people have been watching and admiring me go through all the trouble. Hehehe!

The new apartment is really nice. It’s still in Sharjah, but I believe it’s better than living in Dubai. Dubai, as I see it, is for young, professional singles.  And the rents in Dubai are ridiculously high. It has gone cheaper, but, still too high for me. I am, after all, sending a percentage of my salary back home. (…ah, the woes of  being an Overseas Worker from the Philippines). I now have a 2nd room, where I have set up my computer and most of my stuff. I can now have some time for myself. I will now get the chance to possibly do crazy art shit and hopefully, do some writing and continue writing songs. One of the best part is, my sister is also living on the flat on top of me. We are officially neighbors now. Her 5 amazing kids can now visit me whenever they want to.

I might post pics here soon. Once I find the time, and once I get in the right mood.

I’ll have to end this here for now.

See you on the next post.
CIAO!

Meanwhile…

Shoot… I think I may have overdid it this time…

It has always been my dream to have a wide collection of action figures, but I never thought that I would go back to GI Joes. I have been hunting around here and I’ll be bringing back 16 figures in total. Plus around 7 back at home. I don’t know. I cannot help myself. It’s like an addiction… Now it’s a mixed feeling of joy and guilt.

I used to have a huge collection of these when I was younger. Around 30 I guess… not too sure, and I also have a friend who also had his own collection. We used to play a lot back then. Ah, the good old days. We would run around and look for ideal landscapes to build bases for these little guys. We used to dig out bunkers at our back yard. We nailed cans on trees to make an outpost. Heck, not even my mom’s furniture was safe. We were nuts…

I remember one time we got into trouble because we built a dam over a stream that supplies water to a small village nearby. We were clueless that time. When we first saw the stream we were excited and started building the dam. We played the whole day. The next day, we were surprised that somebody removed it, because we were pretty certain that we were the only ones who knew the location. So without hesitation we started playing and started building that dam again. After a few hours a guy approached us and started shouting at us. We were both startled. He even went as far as lifting one of the huge rocks that we used over his head and tossed it near my friend’s foot. We were both scared. We asked the guy what was the matter, then he explained to us. We never went back to that place again.

It feels good to have a new collection. I was actually ignoring these things when they first came out. One day I got really bored and went to a Toys R Us near my place. I bought a Rise of Cobra Series Reactive impact armor Duke and Paris pursuit Storm Shadow. When I was holding Duke, I was amazed at how beautiful the sculpt is. Once I started clipping the accessories, it killed me. That’s when I knew that I need to have a new collection. The 2 became 3, then 7,  then I went totally crazy and bought the pimped up Hummer and a Cobra Motorcycle. Too bad they don’t sell too many of these anymore in Dubai. I think I am only missing the Cover Girl Figure and that Arctic Trooper figure. There are still a few vehicles. But I think I can just ignore them I guess.

I feel guilty having too many of these. I don’t know… I hope it’s okay and I hope I get over it.

Back home…

I’m currently on vacation here at home. It was my son’s graduation. And I wanted to be a part of a key moment in his life…

I know this blog has been too slow to pick up. Thing is, I’m feeling really lazy when I think about it. Right now, I actually don’t think it was a good idea to set this up. Either I am hitting the lowest or most boring point in my life or my soul is dead… Sadly my wife feels the same.

Been here for a week now. Another week to go and I’m back to Dubai. Back to work. What I’m doing here now is nothing short of interesting. The past few days is not that much exciting really, Just prepared for my son’s big day. Went to Alabang and Greenhills and went toy hunting (Yes I love toys…), and picked up a friend, who has been living in the states for the past two years, from the Airport. I cannot wait to go home because I’ll be bringing back a lot of cool stuff with me (did I say3 3/4 inch Captain America and Deadpool yet?)

Right now… nothing is really happening and I don’t know how to make things interesting for me…

So far so good… I guess…

Finally got the chance to install another 1 Terrabyte in my machine. These USB portables just don’t cut it. They have the tendency to breakdown anytime. A few days back the first hard drive (the USB one…) started acting up and was not being recognized by Windows. It was so erratic. It would disconnect and reconnect. I normally just do a restart and that would fix it. But yeah the other day, it was so bad, I got really alarmed, I thought, I was going to lose around 700gb worth of data. It’s not that they’re really worth something, but it’s just that it feels like I’m going to lose a portion of my life if this happens. I know… that was cheesy.

Anyway… it was a bit tough to set this thing up. The UAE is not as accessible as the Philippines. It’s tough to get around the place if you don’t have a car. Taxi is expensive and buses are not frequent. If you know anybody who has a car, they can probably give you a lift, but it would be at the expense their time and stress. Another thing is it is a bit creepy to ride taxis here. I don’t know. I just feel like that. They drive like crazy here.

I got the hard drive from the ONLY computer center in Dubai. And when I say ONLY, I do mean ONLY. As great as the place might be for computer parts, it’s still sad to know that it’s the ONLY place where you get everything you ever need when it comes to computers. It’s not that I’ve been all over DXB to look for them, but 5 out of 5 of the people you will ask here for computer parts will probably refer you to that place. Heck even the small shops in Satwa will refer you to that place if they don’t have it in their shops.

My friend Edgar was kind enough to go to the trouble of taking me there. But we had to rush it because he needed to go home early. Of all the things to forget I have to forget, I forgot the guy to give me SATA cables. So the hard drive had to sit for a day without doing anything. To top it all off, these HP desktops only has 2 SATA power connections. It has expansion bays but you really cannot connect anything on the IDE slot because it’s being blocked by the PCIE video card. Means you have to go all SATA or get one of those IDE to SATA adapters and disable one drive. Which is what I did. Had to disable my Lightscribe.

Anyway, the point in all this is that it’s hard to go parts scavenging here. I went to a place named EMax yesterday to look for SATA cables, and guess what? Big, huge store, with no such thing. Luckily it was available in a mall near where I’m living at. But I’m still a bit hang-up that I have to disable the Lightscribe.

I want to say more, really, but It suddenly felt like there’s no point in saying the rest. So anyway, I guess I’ll end this post here for now. Have to go back to work on this back up thing.

See you on the next post.
CIAO.

Meanwhile…

Great…

Just 6 hours after setting this up. I have to change the theme. Well, the previous one was hurting my eye, and this one is a little close to the blog design that I’ve been fooling around with for some time. But this one is doing a much better job at burning my eyes (the orange is so overwhelming!) What’s worse than that is I cannot find the previous one because the themes are either shown randomly or I just didn’t explore well enough to find it. It sucks when you don’t know too much about the backend of these things… I didn’t know you had to pay to be able to customize and stuff… DOH!?!

Anyway… I wonder if I would get subscribers, followers and stalkers??? hmmm…

See you on the next post…
CIAO

Uhmmm… yeah… Hello World.

Hi all,

And welcome to my blog.  I’m not gonna talk about how much of a genius I am… I’m really not. And if you’re looking for a know-it-all-social media guru, you’re also in the wrong place. Neither am I gonna give you any photoshop tutorials. Just Google it and you’ll find millions out there. We will not be even talking about politics here.

I just want my own personal space where I can go about talking about stuff that I like. This site will be updated with info like, what was the latest music album I listened to. What was latest comic book I read. What was the latest game I played, etc… small things that really matter.

And just to set everyone’s expectations, I will not be posting half-inspired weekly articles. I will be updating but only when inspired to do so…

It was hard enough to figure out what I want to put in here in the first place. (Just like what my friend Diego said… I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself.) I feel like there’s nothing out there that has not been done before. So I figure, I’ll just go old school and talk about stuff that I’m interested in. Of course, there will be an occasional post of what I did recently, but, it’s not gonna be the highlight of this site. This is just done in the spirit of commentary. Getting tired of reading articles from pretentious-know-it-alls. Nothing against them, but it seems that the web is getting too crowded with geniuses… hehehe!

Anyway… I hope you guys will find it interesting and I hope I can make things interesting for you.
I think I will stop things here for now. (need to get back to work!)

I’ll see you all on the next post.
CIAO