Battalia Blood Bath

I'm lost.  The directions given me were clear, and the taxi that brought me there knew the landmarks I mentioned.  But that was as far as I was able to follow.  I am in front of Magsaysay High School in Cubao, and across from me, on the other side of EDSA, was Nepa-Q Mart.  But I can't find Victoria School.  And the three locals I asked also did not know where I wanted to go.


There was a place called Victoria, one of them said, but it's on a different side of town, quite a ways away from where we were now.


It was still early though, and my instincts tell me that I'm close, so I walked around at bit to gather my thoughts, and decided to get lost for a while.  And thus, my adventure began hours before the play officially started.

A few minutes' walk, and a couple of t-junctions later, I found out what I was looking for -- the abandoned Victoria School -- the site of the promised blood bath I was to partake with that night.

Battalia Royale is a play loosely based on the novel Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, about a class of high school students drugged and abducted, and pitted against each other in a kill-or-be-killed, last-one-standing, battle to the death.  I have always wanted to see the show ever since I heard about their performance at the CCP.  Due to scheduling problems and work *cough*audit*cough* I wasn't able to attend their performances.  As luck would have it, a friend had a friend who happened to have and extra ticket for the show.  Though I had other plans for the night, I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity, given the reviews I've read online.

And what an adventure it was!  It was raw; it was dirty; it was definitely bloody.  It was so much fun!  I was near enough to see much of it unfold and was lucky enough to evade all the gore.  Others weren't as lucky and ended up looking like a survivor of a massacre.

Choosing the abandoned school as location for the play was a novel idea.  it added a palpable dread and an ominous feeling to the whole set.  And with an almost full moon shining, the final sequences were lent more tension no amount of dramatic lighting could ever replicate.

Considering its a play about children killing each other with us, the audience, egging them on, and at times, cheering the inventive and manipulative acts of the killers, saying that I loved the performance might mean admitting my sociopath tendencies.  But I do love the play, and seeing it made me think how long I would, given the circumstances, be able to hold on to my humanity.

Poor social skills aside, will I play the game, or will I wait until pushed to the brink before I unleash my inner animal?  Or will it be too late, and I end up one of the casualties?  Maybe I will never know, and that would be a good thing.

Battalia Royale held its last performance last Sunday, but given the rave reviews it has garnered, I doubt it will be the last we will see of it.

Devil Dogs

I got home late and I am greeted by a heavy air in my room.  Warm and humid at 10pm, it seems rather unusual.  But with the weather being rather unforgiving lately, it may have just been unspent heat collected over the day; my room being shut the whole day, after all.  Almost immediately after I turn on the lights, the reason for that air of unease made itself apparent.

I love my books.  Even with ebooks and audiobooks aplenty and just a download away, I'd still go for the paper variety.  There's still no replacement for the tactile and olfactory stimulus an actual book gives.  That's why I take great pains to care for my babies; I refuse to open them until I cover them in plastic.  And I cover them again in paper whenever I bring them out of the house.  What the dogs did was so horrific, I was hyperventillating when I saw it.

But who among my little devils could have done it?  And it's not as if I can punish them for the act; it wasn't them after all, who opened the door to my room.  They got in because someone opened my door, and let them.


Punishing a pet for an act they've done hours ago isn't also helping.  It merely confuses their notion of rewards and punishments.  It makes them think that the punishment for greeting you home is a scolding.  And though I seldom pet these rascals as of late, I'd still rather they greet me home than they cower in fear at the sight of me.


Besides, how can I conceive of punishing them when they look this adorable?

Accidental Bartenders Compete!

The day started like the usual food trip weekend, with Lostboy and WanderingWonder meeting me for lunch.  Over the course of the meal, the two told me of the food event they were going to.  Wanderlust that I am, I agreed to go with, and probably sample some more food featured at the event.  Using a bloggers’ pass, we got in without a hitch and without paying the walk-in registration fee.  In there we met other blogger friends of Lostboy.

Being a food and beverage expo, I was expecting various foods from all over and me sampling everything I might get my hands on.  It later became evident that the Horeca-partnered event featured not food, but mostly food service equipment.  There were foodstuffs there as well, but mostly the kind that you have to shell out money for.  Still, it was fun sampling the food produced by the various equipment innovations.

Having met up with other bloggers, we were quite a handful, asking booth after booth about their wares, when ChaSy, the friendly lady from our group was approached by the organizer and was asked, whether we were her students, and whether we would please like to join their cocktail mixing contest.  ChaSy, being game and all, succeeded in persuading WanderingWonder and I to join; after all, it would be fun to join a contest, rather than just covering it.

The mechanics are as follows:  we would mix three drinks, a Pre-dinner cocktail, an After-dinner cocktail, and a Shot of the Night, to be served to the three judges, and prepared within fifteen minutes.  The cocktails should also incorporate the spirits provided for by the sponsor.  We get to use Tanduay products on hand, including their Rum and Boracay variants.

The catch, though, is that we have to provide for our own ingredients.  And glasses.  And cocktail shakers. And garnishes.  And we have two hours before the competition starts.

I enjoy watching Top Chef and the other cooking reality shows whenever I get the urge to watch TV.  I especially enjoy those episodes where they are given a theme and have to come up with a dish in a limited time.  Now I know how they feel.  Like Amazing Race contestants, Lostboy, WanderingWander and I circled the booths buying ingredients for our cocktails, and borrowing utensils, where possible.  We were advised that we will be able to borrow glasses and shakers from the other contestants, which was good.

We realized, though, that the other contestants are HRM students who had ample time to prepare, partake, and perfect their drinks and practice their performance, which was bad.  For us.

It was also at this time that we realized that what we signed up for was a cocktail AND FLARING competition.  Immediately, my mind flashed back to the various TGI Friday’s Bar Competitions I’ve attended, and realized that I will never have the hand-eye coordination to fake this.

Still, the competition went on and we were wowed by the presentation and skill of the other contestants as they created and served one drink after the other.  After their drinks were presented, judged, and put away, I proceeded to drink a couple, or six, of their cocktails.  In order to borrow the glasses, of course; I’m not an alcoholic, after all.

Our pair was called and we had to prepare our drinks.  Talk about going through the motions!  Not wanting to make further fools of ourselves, we had to forgo the flaring part.

We did not win, of course.  But with just three pairs of contestants, they had no choice but to award us third place, which I guess is recompense for our troubles, if not our shame.

2nd Place: Datamex

1st Place: Lyceum University

I’ve made some realizations after this harrowing experience: firstly, to read the fine print before signing on to anything.  The next time, it may not just be our dignity that is at stake.

Secondly, though in contrast to the first: Spontaneity is fun!  And sometimes, there are freebies.

Thirdly: I can still be creative enough when pressured, but without ample resources, though fit for the purpose, the results may not be pretty.

Finally, and most importantly:  I can still pass myself off as a college student.  Ha!  Beat that!

Mayday! May Sale!

May is such an exciting month.  Reeling from the rush of the annual report, we have until midmonth to file the first quarter report to the SEC, and until monthend to report the tax.

Hurray for labor!

But aside from reportorial heat, May is also good for a different kind of heat; like the one you feel in your wallet.

The Enterprise Tower holds its Markdown Madness, featuring shoes from Sketchers, Ecko, Zoo York and Merrell.  

So from May 2 - 6, you can expect a lot of corporate types flocking into the Enterprise to part with their paychecks, as I have already.

I actually wanted to buy hiking shoes, but those on sale are still beyond my budget.  Still, a pair of walking shoes for 995 doesn't hurt too much.

Another reason to part with your money is offered by Starbucks.  From 12 noon til 2pm, all their Fraps are available at half-price.

Good deal, huh?  Except for the fact that I like my coffee better when it's hot.  And the long lines!  They're monstrous, I tell you.  Imagine the traffic along EDSA during the rush hour?  That's how it looks like at every Starbucks branch near my place.

I'm Fine

An online contact messaged me one time and asked how I was.

Without missing a beat, I replied:  "aside from frustrations over mounting work and the need to revisit 2009 and 2010 computations and the nagging thought that the 1st Qtr reporting is looming and I haven't even touched 2011 figures, I'm fine. :-)"

Yeah, I guess you can call me passive-aggressive.  And a bit naive, for after I left the Great Place, I thought I any job I take would be comparatively boring.  It was that toxic.

But what do you know... I'm in another toxic job once again, and I'm loving it.  Honestly, I love it still.  I just hope the toxicity tapers off in the coming weeks, because I no longer have the well of patience I once had.  And I don't want a repeat of the work-induced hiatus of prior years.



       Hello Alphalist… Again!

Due to time constraints and the author’s lack of available gray matter, this blog has been temporarily postponed.


Tune in again after the author has finished with the Alphalist.


And the PNL.

And the PNL Analysis.

And the Cost Analysis.

And the Monthly Financial Statements.

And the Audit.

And the Letters of Authority from the BIR, for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006.


… so hopefully, around August, I think…



published in friendster blog March 19th, 2008

The Alphalist Series

I started blogging while I was still a slave at the Great Place, with each of my entries advertised as notifications in friendster.  The alphalist series was one of the last few entries I made exclusively for that site.  After the brouhaha one officemate experienced, I searched for other venues to vent out my thoughts.

The alphalist, by the way, is the shortened term for Employees' Alphabetical Listing.  A summary schedule prepared by HR and Payroll annually for submission to the BIR, and consequently, the bane of us accountants during that audit year.  One month before its filing, and well in the middle of that audit season, Payroll gave up its attempts at recon and gave us the work.

We loved it, of course. 

  Goodbye Alphalist, hello PNL, for now…

It’s amazing how much load one can carry without complaining. But sometimes, even the workhorse need to be unloaded if you want it to function effectively.


Lately, it seems that too much work have been piled up to us that it is starting to get irksome, at the very least. The work itself is not a problem, though, but rather the manner on how the "work" came to be passed on to us. I mean, here we are, up to our elbows with our workload, and lo and behold!– more work, courtesy of another department. It just boils my entrails to be knee-deep in thought, trying to analyze a year’s muck just so I can come up with the accurate reports I need.


But why am I posting this here, on this blog containing my full name and the company I work for, fully aware that some listed friends are officemates? Because (1) I can, and (2) I am resting on the fact that my verbosity put people off enough NOT to read whatever trash I write. Basically, I’m hiding behind my words and my thoughts. Even though this way of writing is all but normal to me, most people I know tend to shy away from it, cursing its length and its polysyllabic entries. Thus, I feel that somehow, this venting is safe from the prying eyes of officemates.


But now, I wander. I am here to vent after all, and not to explain myself nor expound on my vocabulary.


I love working. I love the sense of fulfillment I get after finishing off a report, or after unraveling some profound reportorial quagmire. What I don’t like is the monotony of it; of doing the same things day in and day out, slaving away on your computer screen, waiting for your computer to process what you are thinking fast enough before it slips our mind. I love the analysis portion of it, but I am starting to loathe the boring manual side to it. And thank the heavens my store is large enough to merit an assistant to "train" and to do the work I have started to detest.


But just when I have started to unload myself with the non-analytical aspects of work, here comes more work, more slavish pursuits, to eat up my time away from my analysis.


Complaining is fun. This is a mantra from one of my favorite essayists that I’ve adopted for my own. But I daresay there are limits to the "fun-ness" of complaining. Complaining about work with officemates is okay, and is healthy, but once you complain to friends about your work, then I think you now have a problem. Your friends, not being in the same office as yourself, does not know the full extent of what you do, and therefore is not privy to your suffering; fictional or otherwise. It is therefore useless to complain to them for they do not understand the extent of your burdens. They should thus be exempted from random bickering regarding your job. Besides, they can only give you one logical piece of advise — if you don’t like your job, resign.


But I don’t hate my job, and I don’t want to resign… or at least not yet. Having been dangled a promotion, and then for it to be surreptitiously forgotten is reason enough to lose morale (and maybe to find it somewhere else) but I feel that there are more things here to be explored. And somehow, there seems to be a silver lining for me. I now have two offers; one a change of work; the other a change of approach, but in conjunction to the same work. One rather serious and possibly executable; the other rather flippant, and maybe more talk than deed. I don’t want to talk about it yet in fear of either (or both) fizzling, but the idea of being able to do a different work rather tickles my fancy. I fervently hope that it does push through…




published in friendster blog February 1st, 2008

To Do Lists

 

This is what occupies most of my waking moments for the past few months.  We've yet to finalize everything, but I am hopeful we'll make it through.  It isn't like we're still in square one after all; we've pushed through a long long way, and for that I am proud of our accomplishments.  

But one more season like this and I'll probably loose my mind.  And I almost have, for a spell.  I've gone through anxiety attacks the likes of which I have not suffered before, and all because of my work.  

When it comes to that, I make lists.  Somehow, the act of committing into paper the number of tasks you need to accomplish eases the panic in my mind.  It doesn't matter that I wouldn't be able to even hope to finish everything written, it doesn't even matter how many reams of paper is used to list down all the tasks at hand.  What matters is that all the tasks are written; concrete; defined.  

It's infinitely easier tackling an opponent you can see and define; rather than the monster your mind whispers you should kill.

End of An Era

Finally, after years of struggle, Friendster finally hangs its towel.


It was one of the pioneers of social networking and took the country by storm.  Suddenly, not only were people cam-whoring to death, they were posting pictures everywhere.

I got into the bandwagon because a friend urged me to it.  And like the multitude before me, and indeed after me, I was hooked; not only on the prospect of committing my life online, but on the perverse joys of peeking on other people's lives.  Suddenly stalking became the vogue.


Then, one day, they introduced the blogging feature, and I was intrigued.  Now they did not pioneer the blog phenomenon, but then the prospect of writing my thoughts did appeal to me.  And the idea of it's being secure, with only my contacts being privy to my thoughts gave me the needed push to give it a try.


Unfortunately, Friendster got so popular that everyone I worked with at the time already had an account and everyone had added me as a friend.  Suddenly my thoughts weren't so private anymore.  So when I got wind of this little-known site called Facebook, I latched on to it willingly to avoid the rush and crush of unwanted eyes looking onto my pictures and my activities outside of the office.  Around the same time, I heard of Blogspot and Multiply, and the idea of blogging anonymously then appealed to me, hiding my thoughts on plain sight, so to speak.


And when an officemate was called in by HR due to a blog she posted on her Friendster account, I knew I was correct in moving my thoughts to a different venue.  Although I still opine that I wasn't called in as well because of my penchant for writing in English, which most officemates had an aversion to.


And now, Friendster is closing, announcing to its (former) users to get their data off the site or forever loose it.


Finally, an ultimatum to once and for all migrate all my posts here.

DOJ: Man-hunt out for group responsible for placing assets under Gen Ligot's name

30 MARCH 2011.  Manila, Philippines.  Former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Comptroller, Jacinto Ligot, said in a statement issued yesterday that he and his wife is requesting the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) to form a special task force to identify the person or persons responsible for placing spurious assets under the ex-General's name.  "I do not remember having houses in the US, nor bank account in the millions.  Obviously, this is the work of persons unknown, and with the help of the NBI, their nefarious activities will come to an end," Ligot said.

The embattled General, along with other former AFP officials, have been subject of Senate inquiry on corruption in the AFP following the accusations said by whistle-blower Colonel Goerge Rabusa, who was a former military budget officer.  During the hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, Senate President Pro-Tempore Jinggoy Estrada presented various properties in California which were purportedly under the name of the General's wife, Mrs Erlinda Ligot.  The general denied knowledge of the assets in question.

The Department of Justice, said in a statement presented to the press, that they will comply with the general's request and has already formed a task force to track down the group responsible for placing assets under the names of the general and his wife.  "We must, in all haste, find out the identities of these persons and bring them to justice.  They have already done much damage to the general, and it has got to stop," the statement said.