E2 ang bgo r0aming # q kmusta n ky0 jan?may pdala aq mga package at mga cp. pwd b loadan u muna e2 may im4tante tyo pag usapan.kng pwd twgan u ak0 s # n e2 ngaun.txtbk

This is a variation of the already reported text scam some time ago. Out of boredom, I told my sister to reply back:

Gago. Irereport kaya kita no’. Tingnan natin kung makakapagpadala ka pa ng text na ganito.

And to my surprise, the idiot replied back:

Ptang ina m takbo bilis takbo rep0rt m agad gag0

To which my sister replied:

Wala ka palang load a’.

You would think that no one would be fooled by an obvious scam such as this. Apparently not. On the bright side, it was fun trying to elicit a violent reaction from the scammer. Kapal ng mukha, siya na nga nanloloko.

Click to view the full image.

Reactions to follow. My thesis adviser is being a slave-driver for the past few days, so I am currently on a blogging hiatus.

Guess what the topic of conversation was all about. Relationships and sex.

As time went on, I found myself being confronted by the guys to explain a girl’s logic. They were telling me that the sexual desires of men are stronger than those of the women, so if the girl refuses to have sex with the guy, the natural response would be for the guy to find someone else. But of course, the girl will get angry if she finds out that the guy had an affair with someone else. Now they are clamoring for equality, that if the girl doesn’t want the guy to divert his attention, then she should give in and satisfy the sexual desires of men.

I was not drunk enough to pick a fight argue, but my mind can’t come up with a good response either. All I could do was mutter, “You’re talking to the wrong kind of girl.”

Honestly, I don’t understand the love affair of women with bags, shoes and clothes. It’s lucky if I get to shop for new wardrobe once a year. I don’t know how to use makeup, and I only wear it when I have to attend a formal event. When I have to go to a wedding I have to drag my gay friend to help me shop, and he would always lament and ask me if I am really a girl. I’ve spent hours in front of a computer playing a game, and there was one incident that I asked my friends to leave me in the coffee shop if they really have to go home, because I can’t leave until I finish the boss stage of Diablo II. I only engage in casual talk with strangers if I’m drunk enough to do so.

So if a guy approaches me and asks for advice and think that I could answer all their questions, they would be very disappointed. I’m as confused as guys are in understanding how a normal female mind thinks.

For my amusement, can you tell me why the teacher’s solution is wrong?

First, for the list of books I already own but haven’t started/finished reading:

• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: Found it in a local bookstore. Can’t claim my nerd badge if I haven’t read this book.
• Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan: My brother bought the entire book series. Why not read them?
• 1984 by George Orwell: A book describing an oligarchical, collectivist society. A must-read classic, but sadly I haven’t got the time to finish it. (I own the ebook, its in my iPod Touch all this time.)
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: I watched the LoTR movies, but only got to read the books recently. This is the last of them.

Now for the books I wish I own:

• The Time Quintet, by Madeleine L’Engle: I never knew that it was a series. I have a copy of A Wrinkle in Time somewhere in the house, so I want to complete that as well.
• Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer: I got interested in it since a lot of people were claiming that it is a lot better than the Harry Potter series.
• Black Wind and Trojan Odyssey, by Clive Cussler: These two books are the only ones I don’t own in the Dirk Pitt series. I’m dying to get a hold of them so I can move on.

Hmmm… I’m pretty obsessed with finishing book series nowadays.

EDIT: Additional books!

• Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami: I watched the film, and recently discovered the novel.
• Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett: I asked the bookseller in Tea and Tattered Pages for a book recommendation, and she handed me this book when she noticed the Clive Cussler books I have in my hands.

I remember way back in high school how I feared to walk the length of Agham Road between Quezon Avenue and Pisay. I was afraid of the squatters area right across Pisay. This was probably the reason why my mom convinced her friend to start a school service in Pisay.

Summer right after my first year, I heard the news that someone from the upper batch was killed in a holdup. He was stabbed by an ice pick when he refused to give the money. In reaction to that, the school started handing out insurance policies valid for one year. My mom also bought a separate insurance for me when she heard of the news. It was also during that time that they placed a police outpost right across the gate of the school.

Despite these efforts, every now and then we would hear reports of schoolmates who were robbed while walking from school to Quezon Avenue. It’s as if the robbers across the streets know the day when we receive our stipends. It used to be a running joke (most probably true) that they are watching out for the armored van who comes to school to deliver the money. And to be honest, the police outpost across the street is not manned all the time. I remember when I was in fourth year, my dormer friend told us that a robber sneaked in to the girls residence room one weekend. She was bragging how she stood up to the robber, while we were all shaking our heads because of her recklessness.

Through the daily walks along Agham Road, I learned early on the value of prudence. Don’t act like you are a rich kid, so you don’t become a target for those robbers across the street. Be alert, not absent-minded. If my father had his way, I would have a pepper spray tucked inside my bag.

That fear never really faded away even when I grew up. I wished for the day when the illegal settlers across Pisay would be relocated somewhere else to make that area a safer place for everyone.

But as we all know, things are not that simple.

To be continued…

I’ve used the Globe roaming service just in case there is an emergency at home. I never really used it, since I can contact my family via Skype. My friends never needed to send me text messages, for I can contact them via Plurk or Facebook. And when I really need to call home and I am not online, I use the phone I have in Paris because I don’t know how I’m going to spend all the credit I put in it.

Imagine my surprise when my Globe prepaid credit dropped from P253 (Sept 13, 6:53 am Philippine time) to P 13.50 (Sept 13, 11:45 am Philippine time).

I received a call from +639173647360  at around 1 in the morning Paris time. (Yes I am going to post that number because whoever s/he was made me lose P240 worth of credit.) As far as I remember, I was dropping the call whenever I hear the phone ring. Then I started receiving text messages, “lorna tuba ko ba joy ni ooi.” The next thing I know I was receiving error messages from Globe:  ”An attempt of incomming call was unsuccesful due to insuficient balance on your account.” (REALLY Globe, you should spell-check your system messages.) I was too sleepy to figure out what it meant.

So it’s finally morning here and my senses are awake, and I checked my prepaid balance. It dropped to P 13.50 as of 11:45 am Philippine time. WHAT. THE. HELL.

I checked the logs. I deliberately dropped the call 8 times, the latest was at 7:18 am Philippine time. Then I received 2 text messages, timestamp 7:20 am and 7:23 am (Philippine time). And the kicker: I answered the call at 7:24 am Philippine time, which makes it 1:24 am Paris time. No wonder I received 4 error messages from Globe saying that my balance was insufficient. *facepalm*

I can’t complain to Globe customer service now, because I answered the fucking call even though I didn’t know who it was. So whoever you are +639173647360, you just made me lose P 240 in prepaid credit. I don’t care who you are really trying to contact at that hour, I hate you. I’ll forgive you if you return the P 240 I inadvertently used on you.

(Incidentally, I now know the identity of Pres. Aquino’s speechwriter, haha…)

However, a closer look at the contents of his SONA made me realize that beyond his pet idea of public-private partnerships, it lacks content. Sure, he described in detail what he plans to do with corrupt officials. (He should, his entire campaign is based on that promise…) But corruption is not the only problem in the country. And his silence on these other issues is a bit disturbing. This is the main reason that I hesitated to pick him as my presidential candidate. If he will concentrate all of his policies on the crackdown of corrupt government officials, he might not have time to deal with the other concerns. We might end up worse than what happened in the previous administration.

I have other concerns regarding the public-private partnerships, but that deserves a separate blog entry. Let it brew for a while, and wait until I review my economics.

But before I tell you the fate of my toys, let me give you a little background. My earliest memories were from the year before I went to school. I was 4 years old then and my brother was just 2 years old. We lived next to our “tita” (actually she was the sister of my grandmother) and next to the landlord who had a teenage kid and a pet dog. We also had an old lady as a neighbor, but once in a while her relatives (and their kids) would come to live with her for a few months or so. There was also a stray cat that my mom adopted. When I was six years old, my younger brother was born. My mom’s adopted cat also gave birth, so I had my own pet that I took care of since she was born. So for most of my childhood, I played with my two brothers, the neighbor’s dog, and my pet cat.

Now for my version of the Toy Story.

Like any normal girl, I used to own a doll. Actually there were 2, one is just your regular doll who can close her eyes when you let her lie down, and the other was a Barbie doll. But since I played with my brothers, my cat and the neighbor’s dog, that didn’t really go well. I was easily irritated with the tangles in her hair, so there was one point in time when I gave my dolls a really short haircut. (I also gave my bangs a trim at that time, my mom was horrified with the results.) I also got impatient when I couldn’t put their clothes back on, they always get ruined from my rough handling. The time came when the clothes were so mutilated that I just had to dispose of it, and they were left naked for the rest of their toy lives. (Could this be the reason why I couldn’t style my hair properly and I have poor sense of fashion? Hmmm…) We used to light mosquito coils when I was a kid, and I learned early on what happens when you heat plastic doll parts.

I also remembered having this mechanical toy slide, with penguins going up the stairs and down through the slide as long as the battery lasts. Something like this, but with more paths:

This toy needed two size D batteries to run. But since batteries are expensive, I figured out a way to make them run manually. I was amazed that the little penguins could just go on and on and not fly off course. But this also didn’t last long because I accidentally broke the slides (either by stepping on them or they got broken while I was disassembling it). I kept the staircase part even though it was already broken, for the battery compartment can be used as a house for one of the penguins. And since the penguins don’t have a slide to roll on to, they just have to be satisfied with rolling on the floor.

I guess the toy that could count as my “Woody” was my stuffed red dog. (Technically he belonged to my brother, but he was too young to play with it when it was given to him.) We named him “Taba-taba” because he was so fat, and he was as tall as me when I was 5 or 6. We used to take turns riding behind his back and explore the entire house: inside, outside, up and down the stairs, you name it. And since he’s been to every corner of the house, my mom has to undo some stitches and remove the stuffing before washing it. I remember sitting by my mom’s side, patiently waiting for her to sew Taba-taba back together, and running off to another adventure with him as soon as she finished sewing.

As the years went on, he lost his eyes, his nose and his two ears. But I didn’t care, he still looked like a dog to me. It was the only toy that I passed along to my two brothers when I grew tired of playing with it. He also got thinner as the years went on, to the point that my mom didn’t sew him back together again and just used the stuffing to fill our pillows. (I can’t remember what happened to the skin, it was probably converted as a “counting” bag.)

I might have had other toys after them, but I can no longer remember them. I graduated to jigsaw puzzles and books, and passed the rest of my toys to my brothers. They used to own balls, toy soldiers, toy cars, magnetic fishing set, and a Lego set. However he wasn’t too keen on storing them, so most of them ended up in the trash whenever my mom would sweep the floor. I also remembered owning a jungle set and a farm set, but I used some of the plastic animals for a diorama when I was in grade school. They might still be alive somewhere in one of the science laboratories of STC.

When my sisters were born, our parents were not too keen on buying them expensive toys, seeing how my brothers and I treated our toys when we were young. They just had those toys that came with the McDo Happy Meals and Jollibee Kiddie Meals (we almost completed the Tarzan set back then) and small stuffed toys given to them by their classmates. My mom also bought them building blocks (not the Lego ones, but a cheaper brand). My youngest sister once asked for a Zoid. It was expensive, but we contributed just to keep her happy. (All right, I admit I had ulterior motives because I always wanted to try building one of those…) We even helped her build it, and it was annoyingly complicated even if we were following the blueprints. But it didn’t last a week, the tail would always fall off whenever we attempted to make it move on its own. So my sister played with it manually, and it eventually suffered the same fate as my brother’s Lego set.

Eventually we moved out of the house when I was in second year college, and we just left all the broken toys behind. Since then, the only toys we bought were the stuffed ones (after all, they might get squished but not broken). My mom kept them in a plastic bag though, so that they won’t gather dust. I think they are still stored in a box somewhere up to this day.

Fast forward to the present. I am amazed that Andy’s toys in Toy Story 3 are still in good condition even if he’s already going to college. I now wish I could say sorry to all of the toys I mutilated when I was a kid. I wish I had the chance to say goodbye. *sniff*

If I was the one funding the project, this definitely makes sense. Because there is money to spare, that implies that the people involved in the project overestimated their budget. I own the money, so I have the right to reallocate it as I please. So from my point of view, this is logical.

My supervisor thinks otherwise. He says that this is a stupid policy, why not let the people involved in the project keep the money so that they can save it and use it next year? I started to protest, but he mentioned a word that made me realize that we are looking at it from entirely different perspectives. It is an obligation, he said.

I shrugged and merely said that I am looking at it from the capitalist point of view. His point of view is clearly socialist in nature.

I could dwell on the right balance between these two ideologies that will make this world a better place to live in, but one idea dominated my thoughts at that moment: Damn, I wish I had that amount of money to spend.