Weekly Ketchup 52 - The End

This has been a week of endings for me.

One of my favorite hosts on YouTube announced he's leaving SourceFed. I got to watch the final seasons of Legend of Korra and the Newsroom, both of which I just started watching this year. Meanwhile, my mom lost a friend and my cousins lost their belongings to thieves. This is also the last entry on the weekly ketchup.

Party last Sunday with great friends.
Pic c/o Jovan

Now for the breakdown:

The week started with Joe Bereta announcing that the next couple weeks will be his last on SourceFed. I've been following the channel since around 2012. It has been my constant source of entertainment news and of some of the crazy ass news I share on my Facebook. It's gonna be sad to see him go but I wish him well.

As I've mentioned before, I prefer my fantasy in vanilla flavor, so I never really liked the science and technology aspect of Legend of Korra. Unfortunately, it's even more pronounced in the last season, what with all the mechs and all, which kinda makes sense since the enemy here is not just earth-benders but an army of metal-benders. I would've preferred them use metal-bending to power and control their mechs, similar to what the water-benders have done with submarines in The Legend of Aang. I also feel like the stakes weren't as high as they were in the first couple of seasons. I feel like the battle with Vaatu would've been a better series-ender. And that final scene! Where did that come from?! Don't get me wrong: I don't hate it - I just didn't see the build-up to it.

As for the Newsroom, I feel like there's very little in the final season about covering a story (or stories), which kinda bums me out. It's like the personal struggles of the characters were put forward instead, which made the story less compelling for me to watch. I also wasn't a big fan of the sudden marriage proposal from last season and I certainly wasn't a big fan of how they thought to add to that story in their final season. I didn't like that Dev Patel was absent for most of it but I did like that one of the main characters died. It was the ideal context for an ending, I thought. Then again, no matter what I thought of everything else about the show, it's still the dialog that hooks me in. I still wish there were more seasons of the show though!

Meanwhile, one of my mom's oldest and closest friends, someone who I've also had the pleasure of meeting, passed away yesterday after a bout with cancer. My mom helped with her medical finances, so I can just imagine how much her friend's passing must've pained her. I thought: Is this what she's got to look forward to now? Friends dropping by the wayside? Of course, I remembered that "the culling" has already begun in my generation and, as much as it pains us, we have to just accept that it is a part of life - and the best that we can do is simply to live out what time we have with each other the best we can, which should really go without saying, but it does bear reminding.

On Christmas Day, the cousins and their kids and me and my siblings went out of town to this privaate resort in Laguna. It was supposedly a despedida for me, back when everyone thought I was leaving for good, so I didn't have any idea about what they planned to do. I didn't know it was gonna be out of town nor that we were gonna be staying overnight. I kinda felt awkward about the whole thing since I was coming back (this time anyway) and I was having one of those episodes I talked about last week, so I didn't get to enjoy the pool as much as I wanted to. The kids were having the time of their lives, though, which was good enough for me. So all was well - until we were robbed. Two masked men came in through one of the locked doors in the room the women were staying in and took their bags, which had all their phones and money (including the ones I gave as Christmas gifts). My niece, who was awake at the time, managed to scream and alert everyone else, so the robbers had to flee right away, sparing the other rooms, including mine.

I'm really grateful for my niece because if not for her, the robbers would've crept into me and my brother's room and took our stuff, which would've included my spiffy new camera that I'm also bringing on my trip.

The family. The morning after the robbery.

And now about the trip. And this blog.

Originally, I had intended for this entry to be the last entry, as the "goodbye" blog as I embark on a new adventure. It would've been a nice ending to this year and this little project of mine, as well as my life here in the country.

Well, pieces don't always fall where they should and here I am leaving on a trip for which I'm still coming back for. To be fair, I am proud of what I've accomplished this year. I did it. I stuck through with blogging bits and pieces of my life every week. More importantly, I stuck through with my crusade to save money and so here I am. Hooray me!

Christmas Eve with the orphans

There is a part of me that's a little anxious and excited about the prospects of what I might accomplish in the next month, which should be expected, I guess. For the next 30 or so days, I'm just gonna be a wanderer, not so much a tourist. I intend to write and still be productive with my projects while I'm gone and not making money (I'll actually be losing money, come to think of it).

However, I don't think I'll regret not pushing through with the bigger plan, or at least I'll have to keep convincing myself that: a) I've done it once, I can do it again; and b) My friend only gets married once. Actually, scratch that. I meant I'll probably only be a groomsman once in my life and so I have to be there. It sucks that I bought a ticket that couldn't have been rebooked instead but I'll take what I can get. Life is, after all, too short to spend on regrets.

Last night with high school friends
Pic c/o Anya

So I'm gonna go on this flight, which leaves in a few hours, and enjoy myself, broke-ass traveler I would likely be. Thank you all who followed my drama, comedy, and adventures on this blog this past year. I'm sorry I wasted your time every week, but this is the last episode. Goodbye, all! See you when I do!

Behind-the-scenes at the pre-nup shoot I helped marshal earlier today.
I thought it would be a thematic to end the blog with the reason my story here isn't done yet.

Weekly Ketchup 49 - This Week In My Social Life

Wow, I've been busy.

A couple of days ago, I attended another wedding of  another college friend. Nicolai, actually, is someone I had known much earlier, having gone to the same high school our senior year. We were enrolled in the same home study program and would often see each other in campus from time to time, so it was a bit surprising that we'd end up going to the same school, taking the same course, and being assigned the same class in college. Other than that, we have pretty much nothing else in common and there's very little that we can talk about. The one strongest memory I had of her during college was that time I made her cry after I non-chalantly hurled an expletive at her direction during a class recitation.

I did get to know her a bit more after college, though. I found out that this girl has got spunk and an appetite that can best me. She's also got a strong talent for business and sales that I actually wish I had. And underneath that pretty face is a tough, take-charge personality, someone with street smart and who knows how to navigate her way through life.

I didn't really get to know her now-husband Tristan as well as  I maybe should have, so it still came as a surprise to me that I was even invited at all. I'd like to thank them both for including me on their special day and for bringing the college friends together. It's an amazing experience to end the year with these guys for such a lovely occasion considering we pretty much started it bidding farewell to one of our own.

Fortunately, I made it just in time for the ceremony - unlike last week. I got to shoot some videos, including the bride's walk, which I just finished compiling a few hours ago and is currently uploading.

As for the reception, there are three things that will stand out for me:

First, I got to sing "Don't Stop Believing" with another college friend, Lora, who's actually a professional theater actress in the States. That was an amazing experience!

Second, I got to dance and drink practically non-stop. I woke up the next day without body pains or a hangover. Yeah, I felt like 17 again! It was awesome!

Third, another college friend (name withheld deliberately, though it should be obvious among our common friends), in an inebriated state of mind, told me something that got me thinking. Apparently, I am one of three members of our college group who's got a calming presence and that this friend somehow finds zen and serenity (my words) whenever any of us are around.

I had no idea I can possibly have this effect on anyone. I certainly have never internalized it but I'm glad I can be this to someone else. I mean, I have always striven to give off this air of positivity about me - that much I'm self-aware of - but to be able to affect someone else in such a strong manner? That's news to me and it's a wonderful feeling!

Karen Ang's costume-bowling birthday party last Wednesday.
Guess who I am.
Also: I can still bowl (a bit) apparently.

In other news:

A few days ago, I tried to get a salary loan from SSS through their online portal only to find out the HR of our company, despite being registered, hasn't logged into our employer's account for a while and had forgotten our account details. Hence, all salary loans from the company are coursed the old-fashioned way: Through forms and endless lines at the nearby SSS office. And so my application is stalled.

What bothered me most about the whole exchange was the HR and my fellow employees' attitude about the whole thing and other things that relate to online transactions or technology. I'm living in 2014 and these people are stuck in the 90s. I decided then that it's seriously time for a change. I mean, I was gonna quit anyway when I decided to leave the country but now that I'm coming back, I realized I can't go back to the same company. I can't be dragged down by dead weights who refuse to roll with the rest of the tide. I seriously wanna be around people who are at least more cosmopolitan.

Game night with the Boni peeps last night.
I couldn't stay long, though, cause I had chores to do.

In totally random news:

I've also been feeling a little tired and bloated the entire day. It's been one whole week of eating, thanks to a birthday party, a wedding, and, just last night, a little get-together with some geek friends. And this is just the beginning. I hope this doesn't cause me any problems.

And just a little update about this story, our house help has once again left, which means more work for me to do here in the house, which is why this blog is kinda late. I had to get some chores done in addition to not feeling all that well and editing last my video from last Friday.

Anyway, I'll just leave at that. I'm really sleepy.

Weekly Ketchup 48 - The Day I Cried At A Wedding

No, it's not what you think.

First of all, there are three things you need to understand.

a) Marriage, for me, is a legal contract and a human construct. I'm highly suspect of the religious aspect of the whole exercise and I'm sure people are quite capable of staying committed to each other forever without getting society's expectations involved.

Yes, the lovely sentiments behind weddings is lost on me. But I do enjoy the pomp and pageantry of it all. And there's a certain pathos about seeing my friends happy. I may not be much of a believer (maybe being born a bastard out of wedlock had most to do with); however, seeing my friends light up and happy on the biggest day of their life just does it for me.

Call it empathy. But it's there. It's also the same as being happy for other fandoms, which happens to me a lot.

Me being me, I also enjoy the fact that some people regard me highly enough to invite me to their special day.

My collection of invitations by geek friend Jovan.

b) The second thing I need to share is that, while I don't do it professionally (and I certainly don't deserve to), I shoot videos and photos of my friends' weddings. I've been doing it since I got my first camcorder a few years ago and I'm proud of the work I've done, rank amateur that I am.

Yes, I'm aware that couples hire official videographers and photographers to document their special event, which is why I stay way from their range of vision - so I don't mess up their shots. Yeah, I'm respectful like that.

As late as last year, all of my "wedding coverages" have been shot in standard definition, so I was really looking forward to shooting my college friend Jihan's wedding last Friday in High-Def with my swanky new camera.

c) Speaking of Jihan, she just happens to be one of my oldest friends - one of the first I made friends with back in freshman year, in fact. Over the course of our collegiate life, we both figured into pretty much the same activites, including debating and student politics. Actually, I had intended to leave the student government after being disenchanted with the system on my first year but then she was recruited into my party, without my knowledge, and was made to run for office and eventually won. I figured I can't leave her there and so I stayed to help. Halfway through our sophomore year, when I reasoned that she was gonna be okay, I finally left the student council to focus on debating, which was her thing.

I made it as far as I could with debating (won a few medals) but she made varsity. I went back to student politics and by the time we were seniors, we're the head of our respective organizations. Funny how that worked out.

Graduation with junior members of our political party

Yet, we couldn't be more different people. She goes to gigs. I go to conventions. We read totally different books and listen to totally different music. She found her tribe with the debaters and I've always envied their closeness. I won't lie: I really wanted to belong with that group, but even I have to admit how much of an acquired taste I can be. Yet Jihan remained my friend throughout all of it.

It would be years after graduation before I found my tribe with the geeks. And a few more years after that when our circles would intertwine - when Jihan met War who I had previously met among the geeks years before. Funny how that worked out again.

At the Yale Party with Dante

It's an amazing friendship really, even if we don't see each other as often as we do our respective "tribes". The day War brought her to the annual Yale party and introduced her to everybody, I pretty much told her how I felt about the geeks and how it compares to her and the debaters. That was the night I infamously referred to her as "two of my closest friends from college" after she jokingly got offended when I introduced as just "one of my closest friends".

With War, I thought she had struck a good match. Somebody who was just as educated and eloquent (not too mention as good-looking) as she was. And that he runs with the crowd I really hold dearest to me, it's a no-brainer. I'm all for it!

With War on my 30th birthday!
Last year, he told Jihan I looked great for 32!
Yep, I approve this guy!

So you can imagine how important this girl is to me and how I was never gonna miss her wedding for the world. I had to ask her earlier this year before they even announced or finalized their wedding date to make sure that I would still be here for her big day and worked my plans around it (for those keeping count, yeah, this is the first time a good friend's wedding has derailed me). She even asked me for advice months ago about the ballooning number of guests and I had to remind her that it's her and War's day, not anyone else's, so they invite who they want and who they can - unless the parties that insist on adding more names to the guest list are also sponsoring a few extra plates.

You can imagine how much I was looking forward to her wedding. I was gonna dress my best (that doesn't happen very often, mind you). I was gonna bring my new camera and do what I love to do.

My camera's amazing. Love this shot!

Except that I didn't make it to the ceremony on time. I arrived at the last 15 minutes. I was able to catch the kiss but I was so tired that my hands were unsteady, so my footage was a little shaky.

What the fuck happened?

First, I spent way more time playing Dungeon Village, which is admittedly my fault, but damn! If there's another thing you need to know about me, is that I love strategy, simulation, and fantasy RPGs, and that this game is all three and it works on my phone? Well, you can imagine why disaster would strike.

But even then, I had an hour to get to a church that was just 20 to 30 minutes away by cab and that's a conservative estimate! I still had plenty of time to socialize and shoot footage.

Well, if you've been following me on social media, you know what happened. It was just lucky me that apparently last Friday was also one of the dates the MMDA had advised would be hellish on traffic.

So, yeah, there was a moment during the reception at Jihan's wedding when I had to just step outside and let it out. I was so disappointed at myself that I couldn't have done more for "two of my closest friends".

The bride told me I looked great. I'm good!

I still enjoyed everything, to be sure. The food was great, the program was totally chill, and of course, the company of college friends, debaters, and some geek friends (basically, our common circles) made sure I had a great time despite the crappy time I had getting there earlier. I still shot some great footage of the reception though. I just finished editing them and it's currently uploading.

I just really wish I had been there to see her and shoot her walking down the aisle.

Weekly Ketchup 46 - Science and Sensitivities

I got to see Big Hero 6 earlier this week for no other reason than it's a Disney-animated movie featuring Marvel characters, obscure as though they are. I guess I was interested mainly because of brand loyalty more than anything else. I'm not sure that I would've been as keen to see it had it been a Dreamworks production featuring a set of original characters, which it might as well have been given how much the movie veered away from the original material.

The movie touched on all the right bases, meeting all the expectations I had of it but not surpassing them, which is okay. I thought the plot did get predictable but I still enjoyed it. And while I'm not as crazy about this film as much as I was with Book of Life or How To Train Your Dragon, the reason I'm devoting much of this week's blog talking about it is because I love how the film made science cool for kids. Even I wanted to get into science after watching the movie. I don't know if that was the filmmakers' intention but it certainly came off that way to me.

Speaking of science, this past week was a big one for space exploration. Comet-landing! Yay!

Except that, all this time, I thought that landing probes on anything floating in space was such a common occurrence already, which was why I didn't really give the matter much attention when I first learned about it. It wasn't until the YouTube channels I'm subscribed to started talking about it that I fully realized what a big deal this really was.

Yet what really drew my attention to this milestone as I read more about it was that it's not even NASA that accomplished this feat but the European Space Agency! There's this strange part of me that's delighted that another part of the world was able to expand humanity's reach. No, it's really not borne out of some anti-American sentiment. Far from it, really. I just feel like the more agencies out there in the world are as capable as NASA, the more efficiently we can advance our understanding of the universe. I get excited thinking about the competitive and cooperative element of having multiple agencies and nations working towards practically the same goals without the political shadow of the Cold War looming over them. It's an interesting and optimistically hopeful scenario that just makes me happy.

Still on the subject of science, a conversation I had with a friend over Google+ got the wheels in my head turning again this past week.

It's certainly a good idea but how do make this series watchable? How do we attract an audience? Am I capable of producing it? I toyed around with the idea a little bit and thought it might be something worthwhile to pursue. Then I realized I'm comfortable with the idea of producing something like this. I have the right contacts both in science and communications. I know where to secure space and equipment. I have some money saved, though I was saving it for another thing. I can make this happen right now if I wanted to.

Granted, my immediate future is up in the air right now and I already have another project in the works but I am enjoying this sense of confidence and assertiveness about being capable of producing a new project off of a simple online exchange. It more than made up for the helplessness and inadequacy I also felt this past week as I realized that I'm extremely under-qualified for a lot of the open positions on Buzzfeed, which I just learned about a few days ago.

Yes, I was looking for new opportunities. No, this is quite different from the writer position I talked about last week, which I haven't even gotten around to attending to because after the Piolo Pascual article, I was immediately given my next assignment: an Anne Curtis article. If I keep this up, I'll be writing about local stars and celebrities for a long while. They maybe vapid pieces (much like this blog) but hey! They're easy money and they're also work that I can be proud of, so let me at 'em!

Speaking of last week, I feel like I more than made up for the lack of documentation of the shenanigans I talked about by bombarding my Facebook and Instagram feed this past week with real time updates of my adventures - from getting my face marked on last Thursday night after a game of Kaiju tower to the bizarre way I got my gift from geek friend Alec yesterday.

Aftermath of Kaiju Tower. I'm going home looking like this.

A photo posted by Niki Yarte (@pinoyavenger) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:15am PST

So I received a gift that I picked up and delivered the payment for myself. Thanks a lot, @dwinchester!

A photo posted by Niki Yarte (@pinoyavenger) on Nov 11, 2014 at 8:25am PST

Yeah, I've had a fun week. I do regret not having had enough time to visit UST yesterday though because one of the programs I launched as president of the Communication Arts Students Association is apparently still ongoing and on its tenth year. That validation about having left a legacy behind just makes me feel like I did well during my time. Ah, memories.

Weekly Ketchup 30 - Comic Con, Geek Life, and the Last Two Years

This week was pretty much about all the nerd news coming out of San Diego Comic Con. It's always an exciting time for the geek community, although there is that element of despair at not being there yourself, which brings me to the first thing I want to address about the past week.

I've always wondered about the average 50 hits that these blog entries receive every week. Like, who the hell is reading them? Don't get me wrong, I love the attention but it makes me wonder if I should be cautious about the things I put in here, which I am as long it doesn't compromise honesty.

Who are you?!

The reason I mention this is because apparently geek friend Jovan had strong hard-to-articulate feelings about something she read a couple of entries ago. She mentioned it to me last week but we only got to talking about it last Friday over drinks with fellow geeks Hec and Alec, who also celebrated his birthday this past week.

I mentioned in the blog how the past couple of years have just been this kind of lull, like a television series that was a couple of seasons too long for its own good. And her question was: What did that make of the people around me? The friends that I keep? And what did my sentiments mean for her when she's okay with the steady flow of things going on in her story?

Me and my friends saw The Avengers

This is how all this personal matter connect to SDCC: Had things worked out the way they were supposed to, I would've been at Comic Con this year. Or at least closer to it (I heard those tickets can be hard to come by). The thing is that I already left in 2011 but I felt like my story here wasn't done yet, so I chose to come back (my auntie and my mom wanted me to stay there). By 2012, after the first Avengers movie, which I really wanted to see with the geek friends, I was already good to go but was holding out on money that, as it turned out, I wasn't gonna get after all. So come 2013, when the opportunity presented itself again, I thought that was it. Like in 2011, I was supposed to bring my grandma home to Canada, but the difference was that I wasn't gonna book a flight back. I had already saved up enough money to start over and I wouldn't have had to pay for the plane ticket so I thought I was all set! I started posting "throwback" photos on Instagram of my last trip to the States as a tease and even declared that "this exiled Targaryen is returning to Westeros". And, yeah, I already signed up to the Comic Con website in preparation for this year's event, which I knew even then would assemble the cast of Age of Ultron (Which isn't to say that I want to leave just so I can attend SDCC. I'm just saying last year would've been the best time for me to have left).

Obviously, things didn't work out the way they were supposed to last year, otherwise I'd have been live-tweeting from Hall H a few hours ago, instead of retweeting and sharing the news from other sources who were on the scene as the cast of Ant-Man and Age of Ultron drummed up support (like they need it) and hype for next year's Marvel Studios slate.

I took this photo in an alternate reality

By the way, I just started watching The Newsroom this past week during periods of no Internet at the office and I gotta say it's effin' brilliant. And me being me, I felt like I was in a virtual newsroom while covering all the major announcements coming from Marvel Studios earlier. I even heard myself saying in my head: "Do we have anyone on the ground at Hall H?

Another segue: I should be pissed. I should nerd-rage. The Ant-Man movie, as announced earlier, reimagines the mythology of the character to almost beyond recognition. Ultron and The Vision wouldn't even be part of their universe. But I'm not even upset because the movie is just a movie. It's just a fraction, though a significant one at that, of the myriad of ways I can appreciate and experience Hank Pym, Scott Lang, Janet Van Dyne, Yellowjacket, and their little world. It would've been great if they stayed true to the material but I'm over it.

One thing I'm not gonna get over if it turns out to be true is the absence of Arianne Martell on Game of Thrones. New cast members of the show were announced this past week and her name still hasn't popped up. I mentioned in a previous blog that her and the Greyjoys were among the new characters I'm looking forward to seeing on the show, but it's beginning to look like they've been cut or maybe just not appearing yet next season. Of course, this is all just speculation.

Surprised that Rose Leslie and Pedro Pascal still made an appearance.

Now, to address Jovan's questions (and I don't know how to say this without alienating my other friends from other circles who might be reading this blog), my geek friends are the only reasons I would ever consider staying (I mentioned as much in that article I wrote about Manila) and they're the reason why I stayed as long as I have (more than lack of funding). Yeah, leaving has been on my mind for a while already - even longer than these past couple of years actually. As early as 2008, on one of those "getting-to-know-you" memes that went around Multiply, I said that had I left when I should have a long time ago, I never would've had the pleasure of their company and while nothing has changed that would make leaving them any easier now, I feel like our relationship has grown to the level that I can check in every now and then or come back and it'd be like I never left at all. Hey, it worked out well for Hec, Alec, and, to some extent, Dek, even if she hasn't come back yet. And with many of them getting married, having children, moving to new houses, and just moving on to the next stage of their lives, I feel like it's time to pursue the next chapter of my story. Like I said in a previous blog, I already know what I'm leaving behind and I'm grateful but it's time for me to unravel the unknown ahead.

As for what it means that she's content with the way things are in her life, well, considering the mess she often has to deal with, I think a little security and stability for long periods might be good for her. And since we've also established some time ago that we're not compatible travel partners (she prefers to stay in and relax; I prefer to go out and stress myself trying to take everything in at once), maybe we also differ with how we approach contentment. While she relishes in it, preferring to stay in for as long as she can, I am itching to get out and see everything else as soon as I'm settled. Of course, I can't speak for her. Again, these are all speculations.

It's so beautiful I want to cry!

Anyway, hopefully, next year I would be reporting/tweeting live from San Diego, but I want to reaffirm a vow I once made on social media that the first time I attend SDCC would be as a panelist, volunteer, or booth... babe. What? A guy can dream!

Weekly Ketchup 23 - Age of Farewells

My week started out rather sadly. I found out, through the power of social media, that another person I knew from college passed away. Red wasn't my classmate - he was an upper classman, in fact - but we belonged to the same organization: The Students' Democratic Party.  As such, we both figured into some common experiences, including organizing events and running election campaigns (we take politics and governance very seriously in our little college). We weren't particularly close (then again, I wasn't close with a lot of people in college) but in recent years, his was one of the presences I still felt among members of our organization. Again, thanks in no small part to social media, Facebook in particular.

Freshman year with the SDP peeps. Red is the guy in front of me.

Red didn't post anything much. I don't even know what he's been up to lately, if he ever got to law school, or what his job was. But every now and then, he would reply to one of my posts and we'd engage in a virtual conversation. In that way, he was still present to me, even if I hadn't seen him in forever, than many of our partymates. So to find out that he was just suddenly gone really took me by surprise. I didn't expect to be so affected but I was - possibly even more than I was with my classmate Kate who had been absent - actually and virtually - for years.

I visited Red's wake last Tuesday of my own initiative because I had neither the time nor the patience to coordinate and synchronize schedules with someone else, though a part of me hoped to see our partymates there as it would be a good time to catch up. As it turned out, they visited the night before and so I spent the entire hour that I was there by my lonesome. I did get to meet his sister though, which made for one of the most embarrassing and awkward moments of my life. Upon introducing myself, she told me that Red did talk about me, to which I said "Really? What did he say?" I didn't even realize until much later that I didn't get her name or gave my condolences. I'm just really awkward at funerals!

Anyway, Red was just 30 years old when he passed, and so was Kate. That fact reminded me of my own misgivings about turning 30 a few years ago and my latest ramblings about aging. I realized then that there are already so many people I knew in my youth who will never even get the chance to grow old, to say sorry to people that they feel they have wronged, to make up for lost time, to build or rebuild new friendships, to discover new experiences, to dream new dreams and see each one come true - all opportunities that are still available to me and, hopefully, I don't take them for granted.

I remember that when I was in grade school, I wondered what it must be like for my grandmother who I was sure then had already lost so many of her elementary classmates. Flash forward to the Fandom Cafe days and, although I don't recall the exact nature and context of the conversation, I remember that Sandor once said that the age of 30 is when you'd start counting who among your friends have passed  on. Well, here I am - 32 and already four people short of the total number of people I encountered and shared meaningful experiences with in college (aside from Red and Kate, I lost a batchmate and another partymate in the past couple of years). That's not even counting the people I met after college graduation. I arrived on the geek scene pretty late but I was still fortunate enough to meet Ricky and Vic. In recent months, a couple of people I met briefly who were really close to my friends have also passed on. The biggest tragedy, of course, is that they still had their lives ahead of them, that they went before their time. At least, we'd like to think so - but we don't have control of these things, do we?

This is why I hold that birthdays are really important. I used to feel insecure about turning a year older but then, sometime in my mid-20s, I came to the realization that celebrating birthdays really isn't about me but rather it's for the people around me who are are just glad that I'm still around - that I lasted one more year. Sometimes I do forget that but I hope to do better at remembering.

(On a related note: This is why I don't understand why some people opt to hide their birthdays on Facebook. On one hand, I can also make the effort to remember my friends' birthdays without getting reminded by social media. More thoughtful that way.)

Speaking of birthdays, I made it a point to celebrate my good friend Mika's 26th at Agave last Wednesday - despite my aversion to going to BGC on a weeknight. The MRT was down but Jovan, Alec, and I still got there thanks to some last minute rescue from Jon and the BatJon (as Deniece christened his new ride, much to his chagrin). Meanwhile, the traffic was so bad that Mika herself was late to her own party, but the waiting did give me time to catch up with fellow fantasy bookworm Sabby who I also haven't seen in ages!

The next day, I met up with some college friends for dinner at Caffe Dolce. One of our own, Fiona, is leaving with her daughter to be with her husband in China (they left yesterday actually). Sadly, only Pat, Dayang, and myself were available but it's okay - we had fun anyway. We had some really lively conversations about bed times (glad to know I'm not the only one in bed by 10pm), things to do in China (underground cable TV, anyone?), and even got to play some iPad games - mainly because Fiona's daughter was forcing us to. Anyway, I wish her well and best of luck in her new life.

I don't have a nice photo from last Thursday so here's one from 30th birthday.

Sidenote: Another highlight of that evening for me was finally figuring out where the Del Monte/Banawe area is in the grand scheme of things (seriously, I have the hardest time picturing where that area lies)! Yay me!

This is getting a little too long for a reflection and recap post. I wish you all a great week ahead. I just hope that I don't have to say goodbye to any more people for the rest of the year.

Weekly Ketchup 17 - Declining Invitations

I have this thing where I decline invitations to travel to places I've already visited, watch movies I've already seen, read books I've already finished, you get the drill.

I kid you not. I declined an invitation for a Boracay trip a couple or so years ago because I've already been there with pretty much the same people. Except for The Avengers and the first Captain America movie, I have never seen any of the MCU films more than once. I tried to re-read the Wheel of Time series in preparation for the final book and gave up. I could say that I feel sentimental about the initial experience but nah - I just always feel like I could be doing something else or something new with my time and money, rather than repeat a previous experience.

The reason I bring this up is because immediately after La Union, Urim wants to organize a trip to Baguio, which I already told him I'm not particularly inclined to visit since I've been there twice in my lifetime. I said I'd rather go to Sagada!

Similarly I've been declining invitations for quiz nights and game nights, though they are staple activities for me and my friends, these past few months in favor of gaming by myself or working on creative endeavors, personal projects, etc.

Just this weekend, I thought I would be working on a client's website but I didn't receive the necessary files, so I pretty much had a free weekend. The thing is I've been invited to a Pinoy 501st Legion trooping and a gaming day with an acquaintance from Plurk, both of which I declined because I thought I would be working. I didn't bother to revise my plans because I realized I would be pretty busy with the same set of friends next weekend. I elected to stay home instead and advance in one of the games I sampled last weekend:

Dust: An Elysian Tail
It's the first game that I tried from that batch and I fell in love with it instantly!
It's gorgeous and I love that I can just mash buttons together and voila! Lights, colors, action, blaze, dazzle!
Win! It's amazing!

As much as I want to be that guy who is always free and present at practically every event, I realized that I also have to be selective with my time, else I won't have much for other experiences. Of course, I will always be present for the big ones, birthdays for example.

Just this past week, Alec organized a surprise birthday party for Jon and it was epic - the organizing part, that is. We pretty much had a clear idea of how we were gonna pull it off. We had venue, time, motive, etc.

And then Jon invited us all to dinner at his place.

The past couple of days prior to the surprise were pretty stressful for Alec and Paul, who scrambled to keep things together even as Jon changed his plans. It all worked out in the end though. We got to surprise Jon at his place and at Boho. And a good time was had by all.

Look how happy he is!

See, I want to be present for times like these, and not just in the physical sense. I don't ever want to be that person whose body is at a gathering but whose mind is elsewhere, which happens a lot to me. I'd agree to a meet-up, only to silently count the hours and see if there's enough time for what I really wanted to do when I got back home. And that's not cool.

Case in point: I was just at Rocky and Tobie's earlier to pick up Rocky's tablet, which he graciously lent me so I can read the Invincible issues he got on sale from Comixology. Yes, old school physical lending still works on digital issues. Boo, DRM! Anyway, the guys offered to run a game of Cosmic Encounter with me and a couple of their friends. I was waiting for the sun to go down anyway (it was scorching), so I stayed and played. And sucked.

But I declined a second game because I still wanted to blog, which is just as important to me, plus I didn't want to miss the train home. If I stayed, I'd be tap-tap-tapping on my phone, with no focus on the game or what I'm writing, which would've been a bigger waste of time. Funny enough: Rocky had the same dilemma with his blog as we were setting up Cosmic Encounter.

Bottom line: If I'm going to balance making time for friends and catching up on experiences, both of which I covered on the same blog earlier this year, then I am going to have to decline some invitations, especially repetitive ones. And I feel like I'm in that stage of my relationship with friends where I can be honest about these things, which is great!

FYI: Invincible is one of those new universes that I've been meaning to explore now that I'm no longer following The Avengers. And it's likely that in the next few weeks, the reason I would decline any invitation is because I would rather read.

Weekly Ketchup 14 - Questions and Answers

Kids, in the summer of 2014, all the quiz nights that my friends and I regularly attend all happened on the same week. Naturally, I took it upon myself to go to all of them - just because!

Cumberbenders, Relik Quiz Night, Tuesday

I even went to the Relik Quiz Night last Tuesday despite the public transport situation briefly hinted at here and the lazy situation expounded on here.

Hat Madders, Amici Quiz Night, Thursday
(photo from Lynn's FB)

So did we win any of them? No, we won ALL OF THEM!

You can say it was legen - wait for it - dary!

Team Sausagefest, GeekFight at Boho, Friday
A bunch of guys won in a women-themed night. LOL
(From GeekFight's page)

Coincidentally, it was also the same week that the series finale of How I Met Your Mother aired - a show that I only started following on the third season. I caught an episode on cable and liked it enough to follow the rest and even borrowed my brother's DVD of the first season (or was it the other way around?). Damn, I can't remember but I do know I missed the second season.

Anyway, moving on (because I don't wanna be the guy who "lives in his stories") to the finale. Obviously, Ted finally meets the mother of his children in this episode in one of the cheesiest scenes ever and it was great! I loved it so much I had to get the song that was playing in the background.

Maybe because I was transfixed by that single scene that everything else that happened in the episode didn't matter as much to me. A lot of the disappointment seemed to stem from unmet expectations about where each of the characters ultimately wound up. Me, I just wanted to see how Ted and the mom finally meet, which is probably why I was so zen about the whole thing. Thankfully, that scene came out really well.

Did I like it? Well, I didn't hate it. It's a good enough closure for me, so I'll just leave it at that.

One of my favorite scenes from the finale

Funny enough, this finale - as well as some announcements about hosts leaving one of my favorite YouTube channels - got me thinking about some recent events in my life. It occurred to me, as I was leaving the office some time this week, an hour or so after a rather awkward conversation with the boss and a client, that I've already accomplished many things in the last four years, both personally and professionally.

I feel like I've already worked out a lot of my issues, some of which I detailed in previous blog entries. Though there are still some bugs to work on here and there, I feel like I finally have it together (more or less).

I also feel like I've crossed off so many things on my to-do list that I keep making up random silly goals just to give myself something to look forward to. Of course, I could also just be over-thinking it.

And so I feel like there's only one last thing for me to do: Pack up and leave.

When my friends asked last Friday why I only booked a one-way trip, I replied "because that was always the plan". It was, supposedly right after college graduation nine years ago (around the same time that HIMYM premiered) - but then money mattered, and so here I am.

I just feel like that's the natural progression of my story. BUT, much like what many fans argued about the HIMYM series finale, so much growth has happened in nine years that sticking to the original plan just doesn't make sense.

Obviously I've already built up quite a life here, and leaving means I'll have to start over. And, if my 2011 trip is any indication, there's almost nothing on the other side that I can't get access to here. There's also no certainty that there'll be more opportunities for one of my skill set.

Just then I realized I wouldn't be leaving to get away neither would I be moving towards something in particular.

You see, kids, I already knew what I would be leaving behind. It's safe, sure, and convenient.
In other words: comfortable.

But what I have to look forward to? It's everything but. It's unknown, scary, risky.
It's gonna be adventure.

Weekly Ketchup 07 - A Friend's Death, Priesthood, and Spirituality

There's a 3-day Sale at SM Santa Mesa that concludes today plus an ongoing major sale at Fully Booked SM Mall of Asia - and I didn't go to either one. Hey, look at me following through. Yay me!

It was Valentine's week as well and since I've been largely celibate on that front, add my previously mentioned vow of poverty, and voila! I'm an instant candidate for priesthood.

Except for one itsy-bitsy tiny detail.

But first: Let me ramble about "timing".

I found out a few hours after I posted the previous blog, titled "the Big C's", that I lost a college friend to cancer. Obviously that was a coincidence. That it was the same weekend I was supposed to finally go and find her - but didn't - shook and rattled every fiber of my being.

I did consider, more than once, that she might've passed on already and that was the reason we haven't heard from her after all these years. You see, she was someone who just fell out of the radar after college, someone whose absence is a constant presence by itself during get-togethers. Not that she was anti-social. Far from it. She was just anti-social media.

Last Saturday, as I was thinking about how I was going to introduce myself to whoever answered the door at her old address, I entertained that question again: What if they tell me that she had long gone? I would learn later on that she passed away just the previous day.

It's a miracle we even found out. By some divine design, she had a friend who knew one of our college friends and recognized her from the slideshow memorial. It's a strange series of coincidences that somehow put us on the path to reuniting with our long-absent friend.

From Germie's FB

Obviously, losing a college friend is a big development in my life. If I'm being honest but selfish, I resent that it was so much easier to mobilize the same group of people to her funeral than it was to my 30th birthday party a couple of years ago. I understand that one had more weight than the other, but honestly I would rather that I had cause to miss out on one's funeral than I had reasons to celebrate one's special day - be it a smashing wedding or a simple birthday. After all, as we progress in life, we will have to say goodbye to the people we've spent our formative years with. That's a given. But if my last memory of my friends is that one time we got so drunk and did stupid things together, I would feel much better even if I missed out on sitting across their coffins. In a way, this just ties up perfectly with a previous blog I wrote about making time for friends.

Now, let me just tie all of this up.

The reason I can't be a priest is because I have yet to make my mind about God. I'd rather not dismiss the idea completely but I've been leaning towards the side of agnosticism since 9/11. That is, I believe that there is a higher power - but he/she/it isn't the same one that the Catholics and Christians preach about. However, I am adamant about disassociating with organized religion altogether. While I wouldn't consider myself an atheist, I probably shouldn't represent myself as an agnostic either since there are likely aspects of that movement that I don't also agree with.

I'm not that much of a forward-thinker. I live for the moment. Which is also how I found myself in my current financial bind. So the idea that we were put on this earth just to prepare ourselves for the afterlife sounds ridiculous to me. In addition, I cannot bring myself to believe in a powerful being that possesses such human qualities as jealousy and self-entitlement. I can go on but I think that's another blog.

So what's my deal with the "higher power"?

Again, it all goes back to timing. I logged into my Facebook account only to rave about a chapter in Sailing to Sarantium that detailed a meeting between the main character, who's a believer in that world's version of the Judeo-Christian ideal of God, and a pagan deity. The scene just begged the question of "how can you not believe what you've already experienced?" It was in that same Facebook session that I found out about my friend. The next day, her sister shared that prior to taking her final breath, my friend sat up and proclaimed that she had already seen God and that she was ready to go. I have no reason to believe that either of them are lying. There is something or someone out there.

I've also had many instances where the universe conspired to deliver me things that I've been needing or wanting. For one thing, fate had intervened to let us visit our friend one last time. Either that or we were extremely lucky. But I also believe in making my own luck: That fate can only take me so far. I've had many opportunities open up to me because of random spur-of-the-moment decisions I made in the past - an obvious side effect of living in the present. Timing.

While I know not whether my friend will be frolicking among the stars forever or waiting for her chance at reincarnation as the Eastern religions believe, I do know that either will depend on how she lived her life. While I don't particularly worry about my soul, I want to be worthy of either reward, if either turns out to be true. At the very least, I can try to be a positive force in this world and do right by other people. Not to self-glorify but to illustrate my point, I try to be the kind of guy who would give away food left over from a picnic with friends to a couple of homeless people and their kittens.

If neither pans out and there's really nothing at the end of this tunnel, I'll be okay with it knowing that I had made an impact in other people's lives and, even for just one day, made the world a little bit better for them. Another blatant fallout from living for the moment. Also reinforces my previous point about making time for friends.

Anyway, just so I don't leave in a heavy tone, here's a couple of awesomeness from this past week: the Lego Movie and Michael Christian Martinez!

Weekly Ketchup 03 - Making Time and Catching Up

I've been walking home since work resumed for the year.

I find the exercise to be very calming. It allows me to collect my thoughts, gather ideas, and draw some general realizations. Just a couple of results from this week's "spirit walk":

FRIENDS AND ASSERTIVENESS

Earlier this week, I got to thinking about people, mainly my friends and why I seem to enjoy the company of some more than others (I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way about the circles of people they hang with). Anyway, what I realize is that I generally enjoy the company of people who are more assertive. How many times have I tried to schedule get-togethers with friends only to run into a blockade of "I can't" responses because of so and so reasons. Most of the time, I didn't even call for the gathering. Someone else did but somehow I got appointed to initiate and organize the damn thing, which I wouldn't normally mind, except that defeated responses are so annoying and discouraging. And just like that, plans fall and friends are never seen again.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the friends I hang out with the most are always available. It just means that these people are assertive enough to offer solutions instead of problems and answers instead of questions. Speaking of questions, perhaps the most reviled one I keep hearing is "Who else is going?" Then there are those who wait until everyone else has confirmed before confirming themselves. There is something wrong when your participation is dependent on other people's attendance. Frankly, I find it insulting. For me, it's a simple matter that someone cared enough to invite me and unless I actually had something else planned, I should be able to go - regardless of whether our common friends would be there as well.

And that is precisely how I got myself jumping from one gathering to the next over the course of 24 hours. The thing is that I liking making myself available to friends, especially those I don't get to see very often - even for just a short appearance. It's a simple effort to maintain relationships that could go a long way.

Maybe "assertiveness" just means that: taking the time and making the effort.

The first episode of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's kinda sorta variety show is on YouTube.

MISSING OUT AND CATCHING UP

The other thing that got me thinking this week is that I seem to be perpetually playing catch up with the rest of the world, or at least my peers. It started when I shared that I had only recently learned of "A Dog of Flanders" and its anime adaptation, which everyone apparently had lingering memories and strong feelings about. Of course, that was just the latest in a string of references that I was oblivious about. And it's not just about pop culture, sometimes even snippets of general culture, eg language, that is common for everybody is alien to me. But let's stick to the pop cultural aspects for the sake of brevity.

I've long figured out the why's and the how's in this phenomena of my life - so I'm not gonna get into that. What got me scratching my head this week is: If I'm constantly playing catch up, how or when am I gonna get ahead or at least synced with everybody else? Then it hit me: Why should it matter that I catch up with what everybody else had known or enjoyed? I mean, the hours that I didn't spend watching or reading about the worlds and the stories that everybody else enjoyed, I spent discovering other worlds and even crafting my own. The characters and stories I imagined when I was a kid are still with me to this day.

I also realized that in some respects, I was ahead of everybody else. I was into A Song of Ice and Fire and The Avengers way before either had become prime commodities, and now I'm not as interested. I also look at the things I tried to catch up on and I just don't like them as well as their fandoms thought I would. Firefly and Battlestar Galactica both have really ardent fans among my closest friends and I tried watching them but I'm just not as fascinated. I tried Harry Potter and couldn't move past the fourth book. I'm reading Neil Gaiman now and I'm bored to tears (granted it's only been one book so far). For these very reasons, I am always suspect when people tell me "You're gonna love it."

Riley Rewind - It's a short time travel film. All five parts are on YouTube.

I remember this quote from Glee that went something like "the first step to growing up is to quit apologizing for the mistakes of your youth".

So maybe I should stop feeling sorry for missing out and stop catching up for the sake of catching up. Maybe I should just continue to enjoy the things I do even if nobody else does. Obviously, I'm not a populist kind of person anyway.

Although as a creator and not just a consumer, I do need to know what has come before and what has already been done, maybe even uncover what I've been missing. Though I feel like getting into something for academic purposes muddles the experience. I have yet to get into Doctor Who or Hayao Miyazaki's work but to do so because either everyone else are into them or to understand why that is is just the wrong way to go about it. I have to be genuinely interested and I may get there eventually, give it a year or ten. It's worked so far with my GOG.com games, most of which were titles I was interested in a long time ago but didn't have the means or access to at the time. I suppose it's still catching up - but at least I'm catching up with myself, not with everyone else.

DNews is a channel that present entertaining science news daily.

PS: I did mention that I want this blog to be a depository of my ramblings, discoveries, and recommendations, hence the filler YouTube videos, all of which I chanced upon this week and really liked!