run out of words

that can happen, especially if you already said/wrote quite a lot.

since yesterday, i am trying to compose a strongly-worded letter (condemning letter, demanding letter, damning letter, etc), as instructed by my boss to be sent to the estate association who made a horrendous 33% increase in association dues, without any notice whatsoever. with just that, you can already said a mouthful, right?

wrong.

if you are drafting letters of similar nature and/or content to the same person/group for the last three years and you don't get the desired result/s, will you get tired of doing it? i am starting to. and to made it even worse, i have this impression that the top guys of that group were just sitting their fat asses on whatever it is that we're telling/asking them!

they'll set an appointment with us for some explanations, they'll come as the happy-and-we-understand-your-situation type of executives, the meeting will end in a happy note, we'll shake hands and lead them outside like long lost friends. and that's all about it. the part were they live happily ever after will not come. maybe it will never come.

they're like politicians, they'll make promises, they'll say they'll go the distance just for you, but what they'll give us? just that, promises, go the distance yourselves!

hokey, i was, never mind. hehehe.

if what's left of my brain will fail me to make that letter of all letters, maybe what i will do is just to compile ALL the letters/communications we have with them and send all of it to them as an attachment, both as a sarcastic move and as a refresher for their fading memories!

how i wish i can do that!

the weekend that was...

this should have been posted last monday (but we don't have office that day) or yesterday but my connection was like on an extended vacation, so duh! anyway...

last weekend, me and lyn hosted a get together for old friends at my small space in imus. for the record, we are planning for this before the election last year but since we cannot find a date that fits everyone's schedule, it has been moved and moved and moved until i asked them two weeks ago.

although our tropa is not complete, missing were the hubbies of the desperate housewives, i managed to get everyone who's here for a weekend pot luck party. parang what about my place ang drama hehehe. and so we set the date and time and we stayed in the house saturday afternoon and stayed awake until 4 am the next day.

how did we do it? just look.

adobong pusit, buttered shrimps, crabs, bangus belly sinigang were cooked by lyn and her sister, me? i cut the ingredients and cooked the rice. lol

rhea and marlon brought with them Novaliches' Puto pao, elvira chipped in cake from becky's, mabel contributed barbeque from amber's, sherill toss in her sicilian salad and melony and henson add in the yummy leche flan and ube.

manny and badette put in a bottle of tequila each.

i prepared the nachos (i just arranged it, lyn cooked it)

as the night began to roll, magic sing for the first bottle of tequila

after downing the first battle/bottle, Cranium!

ah, this game is crazy! a combination of charade, pictionary, trivial pursuit, spelling (backwards!), word anagram, clay sculpture, singing/humming and many more, with tequila already flowing in our veins, hah! endless laughters. how in the world can you draw blindfolded with a time limit and the other groups are distracting you and your teammates? this game really is for your whole brain.

and after three hours, we finished the game, my team with lyn and sherill won, we also downed the second bottle of tequila, chat more, eat more, watched Cuaron's Y tu mama tambien on dvd, kwentuhan pa, and then by 4 am, everyone's asleep.

four hours later, when everyone's up, we eat again, parang nagkaron ng eat-all-you-can-food festival!

it was a weekend full of fun, a very nice bonding and catching up with old friends. imagine us when we were younger and fancy free, one weekend is not enough!

mauulit ito, sigurado.

New Chairman, etc.

(Someone sent me this email many moons ago)

BILL GATES RECRUITS A NEW CHAIRMAN

Bill Gates organized an enormous session to recruit a new Chairman for Microsoft Europe. 5000 candidates assembled in a large room.

One candidate is MARIO DIMACULANGAN.

Bill Gates: Thank you for coming. Those who do not know JAVA may leave. (2000 people leave the room) MARIO says to himself, 'I do not know JAVA but I have nothing to lose if I stay. I'll give it a try.'

Bill Gates: Candidates who never had experience of managing more than 100 people may leave. (2000 people leave the room.) Mario says to himself, 'I never managed anybody but myself but I have nothing to lose if I stay. What can happen to me?' So he stays.

Bill Gates: Candidates who do not have management diplomas may leave. (500 people leave the room.) Mario says to himself, 'I left school at 15 but what have I got to lose?' So he stays in the room.

Lastly, Bill Gates asked the candidates who do not speak Serbo-Croat to leave. (498 people leave the room.) Mario says to himself, 'I do not speak one word of Serbo-Croat but what do I have to lose?' So he stays and finds himself with one other candidate. Everyone else has gone.

Bill Gates joined them and said 'Apparently you are the only two candidates who speak Serbo-Croat, so I'd now like to hear you have a conversation together in that language.

Calmly, Mario turns to the other candidate and says, "Ano ba yan, dong?"

The other candidate answered "Ewan, pare...."

---------------------------------------------------------------

T: Kung ang tawag sa girl na sobrang mahilig sa sex ay nymphomaniac, ano naman ang tawag sa guy na sobrang mahilig sa sex?

S: Normal.

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Happy weekend everyone, Kanpai!!!!

PP

no, this is not regarding Paypal or PayperPost, i am not (yet) into those. what i am referring to is Post Processing, digital post processing, that is. yeah, it's about photography and i needed more than guts, kapalmuks to be exact, to post something about it.

warning though, i am no expert so forgive me, i am just experimenting.

my months in flickr, particularly in pinoy kodakero, exposed me to some techniques being used by seasoned photographers from all over, how to compose a shot, seeing things from different angles, and yes, including some stuffs on how to improve your picture.

one of them is High Dynamic Range or HDR (wiki defined it very well).

some people might be turned off by this because it may appear to be a manipulation of the image taken, but for me, as long as no part was added or removed, and only the exposures were changed, i'll give it a try. besides, i am a poor point and shoot user and might need some of these to stretch the limit of my camera.

using Picasa 2, here's my first try on faking HDR (image borrowed from Joseph)

that's the original image (long exposure), and after making two copies of it with different exposures (over and under exposures), i collate them into one picture, adjust the contrast, balance the light and more shadow, warmify it a little, put a little glow and voila! naaliw naman ako!

i think i still need more practice but for a first time effort, not bad at all. the downside of it? nakakaaliw syang gawin!

Holidaysssss!

2008 is merely two weeks old, and most of the fiesta/holiday loving filipinos returned from our vacations with a waistline an inch wider and the weighing scale showing what we've eaten, or should i say, over-indulged ourselves with, here are more reasons to be merry and bright, but please, minus the fat!

Republic Act No. 9492 or the Act Rationalizing the Celebration of National Holidays in the Philippines was signed January 2007, and the result? LONG WEEKENDS!!!!!

and 2008 means looong weekend holidays!

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Tuesday, January 1 New Year's day

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Monday, February 25 Edsa Revolution Anniversary (hmm, GMA loves to piss off the Aquinos these days so maybe, it maybe the first casualty, sigh)

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Monday, April 7 Araw ng Kagitingan (in lieu of April 9)

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Monday, June 16 Independence Day (in lieu of June 12), or maybe the 9th

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Monday, August 25 Ninoy Aquino Day (in lieu of August 21 and concurrent with National Heroes Day)

October ___ - Eid'l Fitr (to be confirmed by the Office the Muslim Affairs)

November 1, All Saints Day. patay! (pun not intended) it falls on a Saturday!

LONG WEEKEND!!!! Monday, December 1 Bonifacio Day (in lieu of November 30)

and drum please, the grandmomma of all long weekends...

a 12-day extravaganza of a long, long, long, long weekend!!!

Wednesday, December 24 - Official Last Minute shopping holiday

Thursday, December 25, Christmas Day (declared by GOD)

Friday, December 26 - uhm, do you really think pinoys will go to work on this day?

Saturday, December 27 - it's a Saturday!

Sunday, December 28 - Sunday is also a rest day!

Monday, December 29 - Rizal Day (in lieu of December 30)

Tuesday, December 30 - see Friday, December 26 for reference

Wednesday, December 31 - Last day of the year holiday (declared by GMA, she is not God btw)

Thursday, January 1, 2009 - still a holiday...

Friday, January 2, 2009 - see Friday, December 26 for reference

Saturday, January 3, 2009 - saturday!

Sunday, January 4, 2009 - sunday!

ONLY IN THE PHILIPPINES!!!!!

Note: The above information was received by yours truly via email, and the Government of the Philippines is yet to release a proclamation for the above, so don't buy that ticket yet or confirm that hotel reservation, otherwise...

and i must also remind myself of my targets for 2008.

hay, magtipid.

but wait, i can still do backpacking! travel tsinelas-style!!! wu-hoo.

excited? :)

Targets

new year's resolutions...not!

neither a meme (but if you want to do the same, you're tagged hehe).

it has been seven days after the dawn of the new year, and this kind of stuff is already late for some new year hubbaloos but what the heck? it's only seven days and not seven months, anyway...

these are some of the things that i need to have/to do/must have/must do (they're like the things i must force myself to do/to have/must do/must have):

1. Driver's license - i know, i know, kinda weird for a man (and at my age!) not to have one but it's the truth, i don't have it because i still don't know how to drive a car, period. :) another confession, i am "driving" a scooter in the province without a license but only around the neighborhood (yeah right, like driving around the area will not make me a law breaker...)

2. Passport - the shock factor here is on a lesser degree compared with the first one. my mindset before was why would i get one if i don't need one? tingininginiiing! reality check: what if i need one??? and asap??? what if i was asked by the National Geographic or the Discovery channel to be a travel bum and be paid for it and the only requirement is a passport? waaaa. i'll definitely get mine this year. :)

3. Photography class - i need one, and i have to do it the old-fashioned way, with a film SLR. sad to say, i cannot make a dSLR camera a priority, at least for this year, as there are more important things than a dSLR camera, but who knows, baka maisingit hehe.

4. More blog posts - i'll just do it. and also, i need to put a little sense to what i am posting hehe.

I think the above will do for now, i still have a lot in my mind but those need to be placed in the backburner as most of them involve money and 2008 is not the year to splurge on stuffs of lesser importance/relevance to/for the future.

*winks winks*

any target/s for this year?