Hello, Lovine.com

The easiest path to success is to love what you do. Not because you are using it as a means to get somewhere, but because you genuinely love it for what it is. And once you start pushing yourself further along those hard pressed lines, the easier it will be the next time you try to go through the same path. The difference is made when you choose to keep fighting, when the rest of the world has given up on it (or even, on you). So keep those wide eyes open, keep your fires aflame. All the time you've spent, will always be yours.

Happy times, are directly proportional to happy pants. Summer days are meant to be shared. Photo by Kat :)

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?

My self-portraits today:

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!

Life is an illusion that you choose to accept. Think about it. :)