Leeching off Denny's Diner WiFi here at Sin City, Viva Las Vegas. Drove out yesterday afternoon with Ateneo friends Joey and Nino, to meet up with other friends watching the Hatton Pacquiao fight. Really curious how that'll turn out, since I've never gone to an event before and I think it should be really fun, and possibly epic. No tickets, but we're planning on plunking down 50 bones for a closed circuit viewing in a hotel with other random fans. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a riot!
I took pictures as my sister went through a ceasarian section. I was afraid that all the gore would cause me to faint, and caught myself thinking twice after Fil and I had already donned the scrubs, booties, and face masks before entering the surgery room. What the hell was I getting into? The most surreal part about it, to be honest, was the scent of burning skin (from a cauterizing knife as Fil told me), and the intensity of the moving imagery. Team of doctors, my sister wide awake on the table, holding her husband's hand, silver tools gleaning under the lights, the palpable excitement and tension as baby Laila was slowly pulled out... the garbled voices, the soft cry of a naked soul coming out of her slumber...
Welcome to the world, Laila Olivia :)
Act small, dream big. All the other castles in the sky that aren't your own, are also made of the sand between your toes.
In every day, lies a reason to look for happiness. To make sense of chaos, to accept the world without surrender, to believe without compromise, to let your mind wander...
They said that all good things must come to an end. Not so sure about that one. The real good things in life never end, because you never stop finding them. It's a dusty and uphill battle, but that's what makes it all the more worthwhile.
Following a pretty bad Coachella hangover, I just realized there's a load of gigs around my area that need some attention.
The Whip apparently played a show on Monday and earlier today, I totally missed out. The initially free Depeche Mode street concert on Hollywood-Highland for Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday turned into an invitation only gig and of course I didn't get tix in time.
Lykke Li is playing at Masonic Lodge in Hollywood Forever Cemetery end of May, tickets are onsale this Friday. Phoenix playing at The Wiltern end of June.
Here's Travis when we caught them last week at the Wiltern, summing up how I feel:
If you would like to receive random postcards, please leave a comment with your email address, and the postman will send you random tidbits through the mail. :)
I find that my wheels turn faster in the dead of night. I had the (mis) fortune of realizing this back in my sophomore year of high school, where I learned to appreciate the gifts of productivity that total silence offered. The kind of quiet that the sandman offered was some sort of gateway drug. It was something that you can't bargain for during the day, where distractions were endemic even if you tried your best to avoid them. For me, at least. Instead of fighting a losing battle, I took it in stride to have the sleeping world work for me, and not against me.
And so I found myself grinding away the late hours where I could isolate myself from the rest of the world's clatter. When I wake up in the morning to forcefully assimilate myself in society's morning driven 8-hour rat race ethic, I am rewarded with poofy eyebags, a dazed disposition, and a perennially effed up body clock.
Time is never really linear. At the end of the day, aren't our perceptions of it a tad bit more important than the truth it supposedly belongs to?
Vivid dream last night.
Best friend was starting a new business, with the help of his father-in-law, based on the distribution of medicines and pharmaceuticals. They were going to market 'gourmet' cough syrup, in the various flavors of black truffle, garlic butter, and crab fat.
If you're sick and need to get some meds, might as well go down in style. And then I woke up with extremely itchy eyes and a runny nose. Hmmm.
EDIT: And I just remembered part of the dream that someone stole my identity and racked up serious debt under my name. Ruined my FICO score of 757 down to 400. Should I play the lottery against those numbers?
Goodbye, Los Angeles.
I've decided that the increase in sales tax, the uncertain economic gloom, the declining real estate market and 101 405 intersection traffic are too much to bear. Business is bad.
And so my bags are being packed, along with the dog, to seek greener pastures in the Micronesia archipelago where the grass is green, the skies blue, and the clouds cry an occasional thunderstorm. Kat has also decided to pack up in a few months, and join me as we seek to get out of the California glow and turn Chamorro in Guam.
Feel free to send us postcards, and we're sure to do the same. :)
Dear Microsoft,
Your software SUCKS. It is terribly inconvenient to disable VPN connections by default through your dumb stupid crap "OneCare" package that overrides any and all other system settings that should normally be configured in your control panel. This is simple design, I don't need to have switches and levers all over the place. Instead, you are totally obfuscating and constricting the usability of the entire operating system with no regard at all to your users who have shit to take care of, and don't have the entire day to weasel their way through your dumb pre-loaded crap that no one wanted in the first place.
Totally arrogant, totally unnecessary, and totally stupid.
I just pray the future comes here faster, because Linux (and Google) will kick your software into obsolescence, right where garbage belongs.
No Regards,
Paul Lovine
Heading back to SoCal in a few hours. Haven't packed.
Had lunch with my ninong earlier. Always something new to learn speaking with old souls that have been around longer than you.
Life comes, times go...
My best man speech is going to bomb later, I can tell. Johnny will keep me company up on the mic, and 22 years of friendship shall try to speak to its own testaments.
I love writing sentimental crap as evidenced by the ramblings on this blog, but it's a different animal when you'll need to dish it out to an audience, most of whom you don't know. Well, no one remembers anything the next day anyway, unless I do something really retarded. Which Johnny and I just might. Mwahaha!
Two days in Manila, and having lots of fun so far. Mostly from animated conversations over a good cold brew of San Miguel. It's a lot better now that my friends have started to branch out and pursue the paths they've chosen to live. It becomes cathartic to both realize and understand the reasons behind their beliefs, the tenets of their faith, the growth of our collective wisdom. And good conversation comes from differing opinions stemming from the same collective input and generalized experience of growing up in a conservative Church influenced third world.
I really enjoy listening to what makes people tick. What it would be like on your 'island'. I can't imagine not caring about issues of gay marriage, abortion, legalization of psychoactive substances that are incidentally less dangerous than alcohol, decriminalization of prostitution, torture, tax and spending, healthcare and education. Especially since a quarter of your paycheck (mine, at least) goes back to the state and the services it provides.
I don't want to have no opinion. It's easy to gloss over issues when you have no vested interest or are not directly affected by them. But without understanding what's happening around you, there's no way to understand anything at all.
I need to know the world, in order to understand myself. I need to know myself, in order to understand the world.
I left the house with the Vespa this morning, and the gas warning light came on. Based from experience, I can squeeze roughly 30 miles from the onset of the yellow warning light. I usually like getting gas from a specific station by the corner of my house, since putting gas into a 2 gallon tank is a finicky matter - depending on the build of the fuel dispenser, some pumps tend to shutoff the gas too late, resulting in spillage outside of the tank. No bueno! So for the reasons just described, I opt to get gas by my house when I come back home because of its consistency in shutting off at the right moment.
Fast forward to after lunch, when I'm powering down on the 5 superhighway southbound, half a mile from my exit, when the power starts to cut out. Then the power goes out completely. I pull over to the shoulder, and try to start the engine again. Engine turns, but does not start completely. I do this a few more times, hoping that I can squeeze in a little more just enough to reach the freeway exit because standing right next to trucks and SUVs driven by coked up soccer moms pulling at least 70mph is by no means entertaining. AAA says it'll take 30 minutes for a service call, so I say screw it, and walk the bike 1/2 mile down to the gas station.
So I start noticing that the idiot lights on the console have dimmed, probably indicative of a dying battery. Lo and behold, with a full gas tank, I depress the brake and push the ignition - dead silence. Great, battery is dead.
Vespa and I during happier days.
Phone call to Vespa Sherman Oaks, and I get some instructions from Drew how to do the kick start mechanism. Basically tells me that it's really a worst case scenario option. Well, the situation is that I have a flight to catch in a few hours for Manila, which doesn't give me the luxury of having several hours to charge up the battery. Sounds like worst case for me. So I try the kick start a few times, and figure there's nothing to lose (except if I bust the transmission case which I heard has happened before). Push a little bit on the lever, and kick down to the floor. I can feel the engine turn over the first time, and the second. Push a bit, and kick.
Third try, is the charm. :) I love the Vespa. I really do.
