After so many debates, rallies and a TRO, Gloria still wins. It is said that her vat reform program, e-vat, intends to control the country's budget deficit.
I knew it's inevitable come Nov.1, and so I had a car check-up yesterday, replaced my more than 2-yr-old battery, had my hair trimmed and of course, got my tank full. I plan on commuting as often as I could or else all my salary will end up in paying gas and parking fees alone.
I hope our country will truly benefit from this in the long run and not the "modern-day vampires" or blood-sucking politicians.
Malt Liquor
Did you think their only talent (aside from programming, consulting, and all those work stuff) is drinking buckets and buckets of beer till wee hours in the morning? Think again. These people can wow you by their awesome talents in music! Yes, oh yes! They can also play equally great even after drinking a keg of beer! Imagine?! From Side A to Guns n roses, name it, they play with character.Introducing..the members of the band...Jericho, the drummer / guitarist / comedienne, Jeff who plays the bass, Ryan the guitarist / a.ka. Paolo Santos and Arfel, the vocalist. However, Arfel left early that evening, and so in the pics you will see Aldus, the ever-funny guy, doing the vocals. You will also see Oliver, Jericho's brother, playing the drums. I attempted to create a collage...hmm..I hope this is ok...Juan, thanks so much for the pics!
Great people...they simply rock!
What's your sport?
I'm sick today. I don't know what hit me. I was feeling cold and coughing deeply since last night. I thought playing badminton would push the bad stuff away. But, when I woke up this morning, it was hard to move an inch, felt cold again, felt worse. Anyways, I've been playing badminton again. It's a great feeling getting back to a weekly exercise. It's been a while. I think it's really important that you have a buddy/ies who can join you just to 'force' you to keep up the interest. I really don't have any intentions in going up the ladder, just fun and friendly competition is good. But, who knows, wind may go to a different direction. But I envy those people who is really good at it. Sometimes it makes me think to go beyond and be a little serious about it. I've never been really that serious in any sports. I mean, I joined volleyball leagues, did practices, been on a table tennis training team in college. But all I thought was just to do them for fun and exercise. How about you? How sporty are you?
Visit to Manaog and Everybody's Cafe
I signed up for a mural painting volunteer activity from our company weeks ago but a friend of mine, Jack Sy, invited me to go to Our Lady of Manaog in Pangasinan. (I can't remember if I've been there already with my family. My family and relatives came from the province of Pangasinan. I understand the Ilocano dialect but regretfully, I don’t speak fluently.) I wanted to do both, painting volunteer and go to Manaog, but I have to choose.
The meeting time was 330am Saturday and so I decided not to go home that Friday night anymore and just hang-out, kill time with other friends in Makati. And so to kill time, Michi, Jule and I went to watch a movie in Greenbelt. We were supposed to watch a Spanish film (this month, Makati is featuring Spanish films, only P30 I think), however, after a few minutes of researching and debate, we decided to watch a different film instead, because the Spanish film is about Spain government which we don’t have any knowledge of and don't know if we will have the patience to understand it too. And so we just decided to watch Deuce Bigalow (very different types, from serious to crap, haha!). The movie was entertaining at first but later on, it's beginning to get dragging and becoming very “green” for me. It was hilarious but I got tired of it. Actually, for me, the movie gives quite a bad impression to the people in Amsterdam, especially to those who haven’t gone there yet. But, I'm not going to dwell on that. Watch the movie if you are curious. After the movie, we went to hang-out in a nearby coffee shop and had a nice chit-chat. It was always good catching up with stories and updates with old-time friends. Michi is one of my closest friends in Accenture before. But even if we don’t talk now more often, we know we are still good friends. After that, my drinking buddies are in Gweilo's. Michi wanted to go home already and so Jule and I went to meet our friends in Gweilo’s.
It was time for us to go to our meeting place and Jericho was kind enough to drop us there. 
We met 
up in MSE and left around 4am Saturday. The drive just took around more than 3 hours from Makati to Manaog. Arnel, the driver, drove really fast. When we got there, we bought candles (P4/each) for our prayers. I had 10 candles, 10 wishes and prayers. After that, we went to their souvenir shop for religious articles while we wait for the next mass to begin. I bought a prayer book of Our Lady of Manaog and a pink rosary. After the mass, we went to line up to see and touch the back of Our Lady of Manaog. It was said that the image was miraculous.
Before leaving the church, we went outside the street to buy puto and stuff for pasalubong. Pangasinan is known for this food too. I bought 2 packs (P35/each) of puto and cornick. We weren't able to take many pictures, but I searched the internet and found some good pics of Manaog. For our first meal of the day, we went to a restaurant, called Bangsal, in Dagupan city. What does Bangsal means? Tep jokingly answered bangus and almusal but I wasn't sure if it was true. The town is also known for its bangus. Their food was good. We ordered sinigang na bangus, liempo, pinakbet (one of my fave Ilocano dishes), etc.
After 2 hours of drive from Dagupan, we dropped by at Everybody's cafe in Pampanga, Namee's family resto. It was very nice of her family to invite us there. Pam, one of Namee's sisters stayed to entertain us. The food was really, really great. We were just planning to have a merienda but looking at their food display, we decided to try their dishes with rice. It was funny because we tried different dishes made from different kinds of animals. We had fried crickets, tapang kalabaw, calderetang kambing, morcon (pork). O di ba? Ang daming hayop non! :) Our friend Namee is in US right now, pursuing studies in culinary. She's actually a good cook already, remembering our Chicago days, when she will cook different kinds of food with lots of herbs and spices.
We got back to Makati around 830pm. I felt tired already even if I spent most of the time sleeping in the van. Imagine, what we actually really did was eat, sleep, eat and then sleep again.
And you thought the day ends there, but no. I joined Jule go to Ailyn's bday party in a bar at Kalayaan. I really didn't feel partying so I just sat down, drank Sangria, while watching the people party. It was great to see old friends again like Fritzie and Ken.
So there goes my Saturday. More than 24-hours of enjoyable activities.
My 30th birthday
We started celebrating my birthday with my brother and officemates on Saturday, the night before my birthday. But before that, I accompanied first my brother to Greenhills for his cellphone. He tried to get it fixed, and he ended up selling it. At least, he'll get to buy a better one in the future. I also have been contemplating, in ages, on buying a new phone but they don't have yet the one I like (Sony z800i) here in Manila. I was encouraging Rayms to buy W800i because it matches his style but he's not that comfy yet with other phones aside from Nokia.
We went to have dinner in Heaven and Eggs in G4 Makati. I've heard of the new place from an old friend and I decided to give it a try. Rayms is going to treat me that's why I'm excited also. I asked other friends to join us - Jule, Juan and Jeff. The place looked different. It was well-lighted, some of their chairs were like swings (like the one we sitted at) even the waiters and waitresses have small wings on their back (for the concept of being in heaven, I guess). But most of all, the food tastes very good too. Well, they better be because their prices are not that cheap :). Where did we go afterwards to celebrate my birthday? Take just one guess. Haha! Gweilo's, of course. I don't know how many buckets of beers did we empty again. Jobu was making his infamous signs to people again including Chucky, Jericho was kissing all the girls, Cookie and Marce were dancing (yiheee!) and the most hilarious - Chucky and Jericho were lip singing in front of the stage with the spotlight, pretending they were the artists. It was another fun-filled night, enjoyed with these special friends and of course, with my brother. Though, I wonder if this will be the last time that I will celebrate my birthday here in Manila because I'll be going to US soon. I'll surely miss these crazy guys. 
The next day, my birthday, my mom woke me up and she said I have something. Vince gave me a teaddy bear and a rose. I was surprised because I thought he will not give me a gift again since he gave me a bunch of flowers last Friday already. It was so sweet of him.And on that day, Rayms ordered for a bucket of KFC (one of my fave food chains haha!) and our family ate here at our house. In the afternoon, we have a block rosary. Our neighbors went here to pray and so we ordered for pancit palabok, pancit bihon, empanada, and puto. It was right-timing. They say life begins at 40, but I say, life begins at 30. Thanks for Vince, Raymond and all my friends who made my birthday a memorable one.
My Pre-birthday celebration
I had so much fun yesterday. Imagine, my office mates and friends spent time giving me a surprise for my birthday.
I came in late today. I was delighted to see a box of flowers from Vince when I got to my desk. He said in the flower card that faith, hope and his constant thinking of me are what keeps him giong each and every day. He's sooo sweet!!!
When me and some of my officemates went down to the smoking area, to my amazement, everybody else was there waiting and looking at me! The guys gave me white roses one by one while they are singing happy birthday, and the girls were giving me balloons. They gave me a blackforest cake with 3 candles on it. They also gave me this sort of huge bday card with everybody's messages. It was soo sweet. I knew Lhen was cooking up something. There's something missing though - I didn't bring my camera! Oh well...
Lunch time, we ate at Dusit Thani, my fave Thai restaurant in Manila. I was with my office mates, Jeff, Henry, Jericho, Juan, Kaytee, Michelle and KC. I ordered my fave soup - Tom Yum Kung and my fave dish - Beef basil. And after that, I bought gallons of ice cream to share it with the rest of my friends at work. We ate it during merienda with the blackforest cake that Juan and Jeff gave me.
Night came, and so thus the party. I was a bit sad at first because of the endless downpour of rain when we were sitted outside the bar and so we just transferred inside. Cookie, Pads, Lianne, Gob and the others came and the rest was history. I was so happy to see my friends are enjoying. I ordered blowjob shots for everyone. We were singing with OPM songs being played at the bar, dancing, laughing. It was hilarious. It was soo fun! They said "Astig ang birthday party mo, Leng," but, it was really them who made it Astig!
Old friends at Good Earth
One of my girlfriends, Anna H, came back to town from Florida 2 weeks ago. We wanted to hang out again with her since it was already her last gimmick night in Manila. Who knows when we'll be seeing her again. Sometimes it fascinates me why old friends just come together again during reunions. Or why most of the times, one only contacts an old friend when she or a common friend remembers it's their friend's birthday. I guess what's even more fascinating is when you all get together, even if you don't talk to each other everyday, you still feel the closeness, that special bond of friendship. I've tested this with my long-time friend Jule, who was 'in a medication' that night. I couldn't imagine myself hanging out with my friends drinking, and I'm not. Just the presence meant so much. Anna is going back to her new home on Sunday with her husband Johnny. I'm glad that she took this opportunity to finally introduce in person the man of her dreams to her families and friends. Being close with Anna for years made me excited to finally meet the person who changed her interesting life. And after spending gimmick nights with the couple, I was rest assured that she finally met her Mr. Right. It started to rain at Rockwell and people began going inside the small shaded area of the bar. It quite surprised me and my friend PJ that the place was swarmed with people now. Everyone seemed to have discovered and enjoyed the place because of the cheap prices of the drinks and food, not to mention its location.
Speaking of discoveries, I've discovered this drink called Jam Jar. 
Good earth's special concoction has vodka, tanduay rhum, pepsi, others I can't remember and a cherry. I got curious that I encouraged Dee, Nikko's girlfriend to try it. I was hesitant at first because I had several San Mig Light beers already. But due to my unconcealable interest, Nikko finally ordered one for me. Well, I didn't get disappointed. It was sweet but you still can taste the alcohol. Just right. And so, after several buckets of beers, everyone called it a night except me and Jule (and I think Johnny too haha!). We continued sharing stories at the couples' apartment, chugging San Miguel Grande. To Anna H and my long-time friends, Cheers!
