'Tis The Yuletide Season! I Wish You Eternal Blisters from Hell!

December of Seven Deadly Sins

Lust

     Had unsafe sex with multiple people I barely knew. Boo!

Gluttony

     Ate enough food to make me survive a three-year hunger strike. I gained 6 kilos in just three weeks without gym. Mom said to only have a little of everything. A little of everything turned out to be three platefuls. 
      
     Plus the drinking marathon after every X'mas party I attended added to my bloating calorie reserve. Amarretto, Tequila, Vodka, Beer, Gin, Rhum, Diesel, Leaded, Unleaded - I might have drunk every type of alcohol known to man.

Greed

     Did not share that much of my X'mas Bonus and Salary to my family. I finally bought clothes for myself. It was not evil, till I things got out of hand. I started impulsively buying new expensive clothes for every party I went to. One of them got ripped in public (See entry before this).

Sloth

     Slept all day after the party last night. I think I slept all day after every party I went to. Rest, up. Dependability at work, down.

Acedia

     Didn't go to work. I said I was asleep. Duhr! Tsk tsk.

Wrath

     See entry before this.

Envy

      Envied the cute couples who are gonna get laid on X'mas day. Damn, I hate seeing cute couples together. It makes me realize how miserable my life is.

Pride

     Denied that something's terribly wrong with me even after my mother laid the facts on the table. I keep thinking that I am alright when I don't seem to be. I'm slowly crumbling and giving in to the weight of my own emotional baggage. When can I face the truth that I just can't be the person I'm trying to be?

Vainglory

     No wonder I got beaten up.

How to Get Beaten Up

Experts give you tips on how to take care of your health, manage pain, escape danger and tell you practically every possible way to extend your life. I on the other hand for a change will give you one whole fucking walkthrough on how to get beaten up and how to do it well. This is in lieu of my short street fighting stint in Orosa-Nakpil the other night (Finally I proved the world how lame I am).

Tip #1

Go out alone. Never invite a person to enjoy the night with you. They will only ask you to go home when you've had too much Amarrettos. And pull you to safety when you're rumbling with a humongous gorilla thrice your size.

Tip #2

Get very drunk. Defy laws in alcohol consumption. Mixing types of alcohol is highly advisable. Avoid drinking water for this dilutes the alcohol in your bloodstream. Stop only when rubbing you will ignite you to flames.

Plus it will save you time in your cremation. Your heightened alcohol level will make it quicker for you to burn to ashes.

Tip #3

Go bar hopping as this will increase the chances of you finding someone who will take you on. Nice people are creeping everywhere. Make sure you avoid them as they will not help in you in this endeavor.

Tip #4

Wear a shirt that quickly rips. Nothing is cooler than getting you're shirt shredded in public. Show some flesh! Just make sure that you go to the gym before all of this. You wouldn't wanna miss the part where a fellow faggot out of nowhere shouts 'Ay Borta!!!'

Tip #5

Hit on and flirt with somebody taken. Make sure that he has a boyfriend bigger than all of the men in your family combined.

Tip #6

Make sure that you do not have any knowledge of self-defense or martial arts whatsoever. Have the lamest punch in the world and your aim should be like a little school girl's ( Tip #2 will help you a lot on this).

Tip #7

Get punched first. Have no clue on where your fellow street fighter will come from. There's nothing better than a surprise fist breakfast.

After the instant attack, you might lose balance and tip over. Break the fall with your face since your head  (and brain) must be the softest part of your body.

Tip #8

Bouncers in the bar should be nothing but mere scarecrows. They'll only watch. Finally they'd learn some real life action from you.

Tip #9

End it all by walking away and crying like a little baby. If you have a cellphone (must be fully functional and with credits left), call your parents. They would love to wake up in the middle of the night just to learn you've been beaten to a pulp and they can't do anything because they're light years away.

Tip #10

Bring an extra shirt or jacket. You must have at least some fresh clothes to put on after all the hard core action you've just been through. An extra cellphone will also help. You might have lost it or crushed it after you fell face first.

After you've followed all my tips, blog your experience so that everyone in the planet will know how stupid and lame you are.

Snapshots of Sherwin - The Last Album - True Color Revealed

"Don't be a jerk." - my reply.

This was my response to his text saying that he was sleepy and couldn't wait much longer. He was in a Starbucks along Congressional Avenue supposedly studying while waiting for me (the semester hasn't started yet.).

Earlier that evening we decided to meet somewhere in Katipunan. I guess he felt he can just do that - switch meeting places when he felt like it. I proved him wrong.


The stern expression on my face bothered my table mates in Sarah's. I was wreaking with bad vibes while they were having a good time.

<to be continued>

Guitar Luvin'

It's been a while since I had some guitar luvin' and damn, did I miss my precious Red Baron's sweet voice.

That's right. My guitar is named Red Baron. I bet you give names to your precious things too.

Prior to moving to Boni, I spent most of my nights waiting for hours in the bus drowning in the thick EDSA traffic. And when I finally resurface in Diliman, I drop dead asleep on my bed or drop by Sarah's for beer.

Well now, it's different. It just takes me fifteen minutes to get out of the office and back to the boarding house where I'm currently staying. There's no Sarah's nearby so I'm forced to stay at home. There's no Jimmy nor Jade to whom I can share about my day in the office. Just me and my time.

Then I remembered an old friend that used to keep me company for hours back in my lonely dormitory days. An old friend that responded to my touch with beautiful melodies that ranged from the angry to the amorous.
Oh Red Baron, I'm so sorry for leaving you alone in that dark..dirty...small..uhmm.. dirty?...dirteh, dusty bag.

I wiped my baby clean and bought him a new set of strings and picks. And to aid him are a new strap and a new capo.

Have to make up for the lost time.

"Red, remember the first song we played together?"

Snapshots of Sherwin - Album 2

The usual him texted me last night asking me his usual question: "Gcing k p?"

I texted back and pretended that I still lived in the same house - that I could ask him to come over and sleep with me.

"Oo. Bakit?"

"Bored ako. Haha."

That was his signal. I shouldn't have asked the obvious. What should I expect? Our past encounters were as predictable as a prime time telenovela. We text, meet, sleep, then split in the morning.

"Tulog na ba si Jimmy?"

As if it mattered. Jimmy knew what we were doing: our affair and how scary was the pending disaster that his frat discovers his escapades.

It wouldn't hurt for Jimmy to be awake while we did it. I always asked Jimmy to stay in his room during our previous meetups.

However...

The above would have been the case if I was still staying in the same house in Diliman as Jimmy. I moved out a month ago to a place near work. Now I live along Boni Ave. in a small boarding house sharing a room with three other men. It's unlikely I'd ask him over.

As if I could peek into Jimmy's room to verify, I told him, "Oo. Tulog na siya."

...

"Pero may pasok pa ko bukas eh. Kelangan ko na matulog."

Frustrating each other was the hardest part. I indeed wanted to have him in my arms that night.

He didn't reply after.

So a simple chat won't satisfy him that night instead.

I put down my phone, snuggled under the sheets, and shunned every emotion that might have emerged from that thought.

Had to reserve energy for work tomorrow.

Not The Flashy Type

You won't see me wearing the latest trends. In fact I still wear a pair of pants I bought 12 years ago. Their still fine. Faded, a little torn in some areas, but I still like wearing them. It still doesn't expose my privates - it serves the purpose.

It makes me feel good to be in them. It makes me feel sure that when I walk out there and people see me, they would know it's me even if I was covered/hidden from waist up.

"Hi, Dann!", they'd greet me.

I guess I just don't pay much attention to being trendy.

You won't see me in skinny jeans. I fear that they'll rip in half when I accidentally stride or quickly run up the stairs.

You won't see me wearing shades. I think they're very annoying to wear and I have that constant fear that they would break, fragment, and blind me.

I don't dye my hair. My body is enough to tell people I'm a kargador sa pier. Bleaching my hair is a redundancy.

I don't wear v-necks. My chest is fine and well protected where they are inside my shirt. If you want cleavage, look at your obese friend's ass crack.

I don't wear perfume all the time. I forget to spray them on in the morning.

Sometimes, the smell is too strong that It's turned annoying rather than pleasing to people near you.  You become a walking ammonia bottle ready to suffocate unwary strangers. You become an outlaw in elevators and your presence makes your fellow lift riders beg for the doors to open on the next floor.

 LOL.

Maybe I'm just not wired to dress like you, to look like you or smell like you..

Or maybe I'm just poor. o_O

A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO HANDLING PHP FATAL ERRORS

Hey, I'm also a web developer and I encountered a problem while developing a php application - PHP can't handle fatal errors! It just exits after encountering one. Tsk tsk tsk.

Well everybody says that you can't catch php fatal errors.
I have a solution. It utilizes the grep command (for linux and unix users) to check lines that say "PHP".
Though it's does not follow best programming pratices, it still does the job.

First task is to create a separate php script that contains the lines of code you want to catch.

For example:

<?php

non_existent_function_foo_bar();

?>

as test.php

Now write another script to run the first script using exec or the ` ` delimiters.

<?php

$a = exec("php test.php | grep php");

echo $a;

echo "\nMy my it recovered! Excellent solution, dann!";

?>

See what happens:

Well this does not handle variables that you want to pass on to the next script. However, that's trivial. You can pass it as a commandline argument. If you want it more difficult, write to an xml file, or a plain text all the variable values you want to pass then just read them from the next script.

Now you can use this principle to generate an Exception when such errors are encountered or to recover from a fatal error!

Sometimes the most practical solution may not be the most beautiful solution.

Haha!

Snapshots of Sherwin - Album 1

 <DRAFT:DRAFT:DRAFT:WAG MAARTE>

 

I lost count of the bottles of beer I had. It was past 2 am and a few hours more I should be at work. There were only three of us left in Sarah's : I, Carlo, and Keith. We could hear each other clearly, a feat that can't be achieved a few hours earlier when the place was crawling with students, teachers, and other regulars. However, I barely remembered what we talked about that night.


My cell vibrated. A text message.

"Gcing k p?"

It was Sherwin. I was thinking of ignoring his text. After all, we never actually texted anything sensible to each other. Our usual conversation would be me asking him to come over for beer or him asking me if we can go out for alcohol. We both knew that would mean us going to bed together for the night. However I found myself walking out of Sarah's to reload my cell so that I could text back.

It was drizzling outside and stupid me left behind the umbrella.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FIRST ENCOUNTER

I met Sherwin through some acquaintances, Don and Alfred. We were drinking then with some high school friends of Don. I was kind of feeling out of place since they were all walk down high school memory lane. They are all from Davao while I am from Batangas.

Hours passed that night and I was drifting away from the conversations. I was seconds from leaving out of boredom when an unexpected visitor arrived - Sherwin. I stopped and glued myself back to my seat the second I saw his face.

He was cute - Yeah, maybe because of the yellow light from the lamp near us. Everybody looks cute under yellow light. He was buffed - or maybe it was just the illusion caused by well formed fat under his tight shirt.I was being to critical of his looks but nonetheless I ogled at him, hoping it will ease the pain of waiting.


A few more bottles were emptied and staring at him wasn't enough for me. I got curious and asked his friends if he was straight. I wondered if it could be worth hitting on him. At least I would have had something more to do that night.

They said he was straight. I replied, "Not until verified."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The drops shortly turned to a barrage of cold pellets targeted at me. I held my phone close to my chest hoping it will not get wet as I walked unprotected through the torrential downpour. The voices of my Sarah's friends were drowned by the rain as I faded away in a curtain of water. 
 

A Brook na Ligwak in the City

"There used to be a rice field there," Tiya Maria, our landlady, said as she pointed to an area away, parallel to their old wooden  house.

I looked in the direction where she pointed but the area was being blocked by a three-storey building.

"Yeah, I've heard. My Dad used to say that back in the 80's they used to shoot a lot of movies here - especially scenes that are supposedly 'in the province'. He used to live somewhere nearby when he was still studying in UP Diliman."

Lie number one: Dad didn't board in Krus na Ligas in the 80's. Lie number two: Neither was he enrolled in UP Diliman. He was an economics major in UP Manila before he flunked his subjects, lost his sholarship grant, then joined PMA. He had a few subjects in Diliman though (I wonder how light the traffic was then).

Lying to an old woman wasn't the point. At that moment, I just wanted Tiya Maria to continue talking about the old Krus na Ligas. I was curious of how it was before the buildings like the one in front of their house crammed along the narrow streets of Bruk Na Ligwak (As I and other members from UP Babaylan call it).


"It was a lot different from before."


Krus na Ligas is a sleeping city, literally. It's a sea of boarding houses and dormitories with an economy built around the meager budget of students, transient laborers, etc. (Rich kids stay in Loyola Heights or UP Vill, duh!).

Nothing fascinates me more than the redundancy of establishments in Bruk. Along the main street where the tricycle route passes one can find an internet cafe, a laundry shop, a carinderia or two, a pharmacy, a sari-sari store and another sari-sari store abundant of school supplies. And they appear again after every thirty steps or so.





<oops! off to PELANGUI. to be continued!>

It's so much brighter outside

When there is no monster lurking outside to cause you fright
                 Because they don't come out in broad daylight
When there are no shadows that enormous dark clouds cast
                 For there isn't a single bad weather forecast
When there's not one thief to steal the worth of your toils
                Since they've all left to eat others' spoils
Then there's no reason left for me to dwell
In the darkness of my impenetrable shell
Because in my gloom, I must not reside
When it's so much brighter outside

The Ugly Person That I am

Indio

While drinking beer around 8am:

"Ano bang dinadrama mo? Sabi mo nga, lagpas isang daan na napechay mo."

Mark lectured. 

I stopped and thought deeply. Was I really ugly when I've got laid that much at this age? Sex is cheap. I can get it anytime and I'm sure that those instances had little to do with my looks but otherwise were largely due to the outpouring libido from me and my partner's body. Laman tiyan din ako.

Mark went on.

"You see, you're not that bad looking. Look at the chocolate beauty you are."

Easy for him to say. He's mestizo looking, so does his boyfriend. He speaks as if we dark skinned Filipinos are really seen as beautiful. I bet when asked to make a choice between a moreno or a maputing hunk, he'd surely pick the fair skinned one.

"Matangos naman ilong mo..."

Fuck off.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Magsasaka

While my friend and I were in her car:
 

"Ang cute nya talaga. Parang kahit malayo alam mong mabango siya..."

This trip, I knew where she was heading. 

"Ang linis-linis nya tignan.."

Here's the best part. I could not help but cut her and drive her to the point.

I muttered, "Kasi...?"

"Amputi nya kaya."

So ako madumi? Eh kung ihulog kita sa bangin?

NEXT!!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kargador

"Dann, keri ka din man, borta ka naman"

Knowing JC for 6 years, I'm sure he wouldn't stop there. I know his formula:

1. Acknowledge your pain
2. Say something comforting
3. Insert an insult somewhere
4. Roll on the floor and laugh

"Kaya lang, di pang model. Pang kargador sa pier. Hahaha"

Sabi na nga ba

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Negrito

This one I cracked myself.

"Chinito naman ako ah..."

"Chinese Negrito!"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hahaha. I hope this scares you away from my blog, hustler!

A Desire to Escape - Chapter 1 - Hungover

Chapter 1 - Hungover

I woke up with a heavy hangover and raked over the sheets for my phone. I felt on my face the thick warm sunlight that crept through the curtains. It was 30 minutes past eight. The hum of motorcycles and the clamor of chismosas outside said that the rest of the world were unraveling the day while I was still lying dead flat in my bed. 

I struggled to get up. I felt like a piece of rag dangling from a clothesline, only smelling like a pack of Marlboro's and a case of Red Horse. Then I staggered to the bathroom carrying a towel that I didn't know when I last changed. 

While I took a dump, I pictured the shit I'll go through for the rest of the day. 

One of them is the email notifying the department that I will be coming to work late. "[OOO] Late - <my name here>", it would say. If my job and output won't be enough for my bosses to notice me, I bet this email would. 

Next is the look on my teammates faces once they see me approach my workstation. I'd walk in with blood-shot eyes and an outfit that looked like something I pulled out of the wardrobe of a hobo. In my head I can imagine them praise me on how I manage to look like roadkill all the time.

Another is my boss's homily on my chronic lates versus my being probee. The sermon would drag on for the next few weeks but hopefully she'll just get tired and let me be. I may be always late coming to work but I always get the job done. I won't be terminated (but being regularized is totally a different question), I think.

My phone set off another alarm. I was being reminded again that I was late. I slipped in to my hobo clothes, put a chunk of wax on my hair, gave it a quick fix then grabbed my keys to the house. Off to work - the roadkill boy.