Shatt's Night Out

After weeks (months, eons) of staying late in the office, slavishly finishing reports and various other errands, I think I deserve a break. A couple of friends invited me last week to a music event, and, typical of me, promptly forgot about it. I received a text message in the afternoon confirming my attendance to said event. Seeing as this might be my only opportunity to get some me-time before the next set of deadlines, I replied in the affirmative.

8 pm and we find ourselves enroute to Libis for Jam 88.3's annual musicfest. It being a Friday, it wasn't quite a surprise to find the hellish amount of traffic that greeted us. We just whiled the time talking about various stuff and listening to the radio for the live coverage of the event we were about to go to.

We are quite the talkers, when given the opportunity; our long and random talks leading us to various discordant topics, like politics, religion, math and sciences, and all the other topics that would make you unpopular on any kind of social event. BartSmithers lamented about the traffic conditions of the metro, and how setting up a not-for-profit transport conglomerate would be the viable solution to our traffic woes. This, unfortunately wouldn't really push through, for the main reason for being in business is wealth accumulation, and not just capital recouperation. I opined that the solution for traffic is for a government owned and controlled corporation to monopolize the transport industry and make profit out of it, and contribute to the national budget along the way. But the government shouldn't really be meddling with the business sector in the first place, pointed BartSmithers, to which I did agree. The conversation then led to GMA7's quarter-end profit reports, and the billions of advertising revenues they made on just the first quarter of this year.

BariMel then told us of a newspaper article she read involving Jessica Soho in scuba gear being mistaken by local fishermen as a beached whale. Apparently, it was common for whales to get beached on that area, and seeing the news reporter in her wetsuited glory, the fishermen allerted the authorities and wildlife organizations. I commented that had she been underwater, she might have been mistaken for a manatee. This then, led to talks about HornyManatee.com and Connan O'Brien, who, after talking on his show about this fictitious website, was told that doing so was illegal, so he, therefore, had to build the website he was talking about so as not to get penalized.

And still, we are in a jam. Traffic is attrocious, as always, even inside Eastwood, and we had to contend ourselves with hearing Kamikazee perform on the radio, while hearing the live performance booming outside the car. We got to the venue as The Camerawalls were performing their last song. Too bad, I like their songs; they have intelligent lyrics. Fortunately, there are still more bands lined up, and we got to enjoy those.

I do not really like Eastwood. The logic of its architectural layout eludes me, and I easily get lost within the area. Looking at the installed vicinity maps do not help either, and I usually end up going around in circles, without getting to my destination. The non-sensical layout presents itself more so with the new mall-slash-hotel they have erected. We actually got lost trying to park in there, and the arrows on the floor directing traffic does not help our efforts. There are parking slots two-deep, which means one car would not be able to leave until the other car leaves. Even now, the rationale of such escapes me.

The first thing that BartSmithers did after we have established a foothold on the event is to buy us beers. Not a good idea, drinking on an empty stomach, considering that the last meal I had was lunch. Still, one cannot deny free beer when it is offered (haha!), and guzzle, I did. I was already tipsy with that one bottle of SanMig Light. After watching four bands perform, BariMel made the brilliant suggestion of eating dinner somewhere near the concert area, so we could still hear the performances while satisfying our gourmand tendencies.

It was good, being out of the office, even for a night. I have almost forgotten that there are people around other than my officemates. I really need to rethink my work-life balance...