Pork Chop Duo sa Dencio's

Last Saturday, I had dinner with some of my airsoft friends at Dencio's in Capitol Hills (? -- basta yung lampas ng Celebrity Sports Place --- great date place, diba Roms?). After getting drenched in the rain and gorging on sisig, crispy pata, and nilagang baka, nag-umpisa ng magkwentuhan. Here are the two best stories at our end of the table.

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FIRST: The UPCAT Kuwento (as narrated by RG)

"Tanda nyo ba nung 'pag nag-UPCAT e titignan nyo sa Palma Hall yung results? Kasama ko dad ko noon nung i-c-check namin yung results ng UPCAT ko. Grabe... sa labas pa lang may mga nakikita kang umiiyak o natahimik... nakakaawa na lalo yung mga galing probinsya pa para i-check lang kung pumasa sila kasi for them it's either State U-or-nothing."

"Well anyway, so punta ako sa Palma Hall para i-check kung pumasa ako. Yung dad ko naiwan sa kotse; naka-hazard lights nga lang siya e. So akyat ako tapos punta sa listahan..."

"R.... R.... Reyes... Reyes... Reyes.... YES!!!" (makes a mime action of scanning the list then pumps fist in the air as if rejoicing)

"So labas ako ng Palma Hall ng nakangiti and feeling proud ang lakad. Feeling ko nga yung mga katabi ko dun na tumitingin sa listahan eh iniisip nila 'Yabang naman nito porke nakapasa'.... Sakay ako sa kotse."

" 'O, pumasa ka?' tanong ng Dad ko sa kin. Sabi ko, 'Hindi.' 'Eh bakit ka nakangiti?' 'Eh kasi naman nakakahiya diba kapag pinakita ko dun na iiyak-iyak dahil di ako pumasa. At least umalis ako dun with pride and dignity intact."

Hahahahaha...

Note: RG, or Jugs, or Regulo Generoso Reyes, is an ID # 93xxxxx from DLSU. He runs his own water business and USED to play airsoft. We eagerly wait for his comeback to the game.

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SECOND: The KULANGOT kwento (as narrated by Miks)

"Alam nyo ba na merong mga tao na nag-d-drive eh feeling nila di sila nakikita ng ibang tao kung ano yung ginagawa nila sa loob ng kotse?

One time kasi nag-d-drive ako... so tingin-tingin ako left and right. Tapos may nakita akong isang mama na..." (makes nose-picking action)

"At hindi lang yun! Tipong yung (makes nose-picking action uli) eh yung parang kaloob-looban ng ilong nya eh gusto nyang maabot (makes deep nose picking action)! Naku eh pag pinilit pa nya lalo tipong utak na nya yung makukuha nya.

[At this point sobrang tawa na kami ng tawa]

And... sandali quiet makinig kayo... and hindi pa dun tapos. Binaba nya yung bintana nya and (makes flicking action with fingers)."

[Tawa uli kami]

"Meron pa siyang isang ginawa... Pagkatapos nun eh (makes action as if nagbubunot ng buhok sa ilong mag-isa using fingers lang). Dude-pare, kukuhaan ko sana ng video pa nga e. Kunwari eh tumatawag ako sa phone ko pero yung camera ng phone eh nakatapat sa kanya..."

Wahahahahahaha....

Note: Miks, or Mikko Yap, is a Makati-based yuppie who was also one of the original members of the mainstream local band Parokya ni Edgar. He specializes in single-shot 'kills' in airsoft.

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Postscripts:
(1) First-time kong maka-friendly fire sa airsoft. Syo and Ver, soriposoriposoripo. =D
(2) One of these days, babawi ako kay Miks. Courtesy of his sniping skills, I've a black-and-blue mark at my inner thigh, very close to my 'future'.
(3) And lastly, apparently it's an all-time record for TMS attendance on the weekend's game. Dami namin!

Stippy Needs to Do...

1. Attend to my Australian visa requirements.
2. Complete the Due Diligence exercise / tasks.
3. Prepare for Front End Development work on a 70M$ project that I'm integrating.
4. Attend LJ's Barney-themed party.
5. Get more sleep.
6. Finish logistics list needed for a badminton tournament on June 3rd.

Pick-up Lines

I cite the following as a direct benefit of going to the gym regularly.

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SMS from Quito last Tuesday night: "Wow dude! You look hot and sexy, men!"

--- I arrived at Harbor Square first than him. Apparently, while I was chatting with a girl at Teriyaki Boy (old acquaintance), he was observing me from a distance. Since it was a humid night, I opted to unbutton the top two buttons of my shirt. Was in business attire that night.

I think my best friend might be gay. Nyahahaha...

At my 'medical exam' for my driver's license renewal: "Ay naku utoy... ang cute mo! Medyo nerdy ka pero cute yung pagka-nerd mo. I-date mo nga yung anak ko."

--- I dunno if I'd take that as a compliment or an insult, or both.

At Boracay, after wall-climbing in the afternoon heat: "Wow you finished it! Would you mind showing me how tonight? Ayoko ngayon, mainit pa e... By the way, I'm ... "

--- Ahihihihi... what happens in Bora stays in Bora. :D

Yesterday afternoon, at Starbucks SLT, by a female barrista: "Anything else sir Stephen? Oh, I like your shirt. Looks nice on you."

--- And my imaginary reply to that was: "Thanks. I hope you're not asking me to take it off." Dream on, Stip!

Okay, that's it for my stress-release today.

Doing My Share of Our Generation

I spent last Saturday with my 3rd attendance to our company-sponsored Gawad Kalinga-Build. There's a 1-hectare GK site just 5 minutes away from the refinery. My first participation involved a lot of soil compacting (great workout for the arms and shoulders, hehe). My second visit had me down on my knees laying brick tiles for the GK village's small park (best done by obsessive-compulsive people). Last weekend, I did some more tile-laying for the front pathways of the houses and painted a roof.

Yep, I scrambled up a makeshift ladder to one of the duplex unit's roof. The roof was nothing more than 1 layer of GI sheet (yero) nailed to steel trusses of the roof frame. It's a bit unsafe; I had to maneuver my task such that I'm always stepping on a truss. Add to that the heat of the sun and voila... one roof painted red and one burnt Stip. =)

Despite the sweat, the thirst and the sunburn, as soon as I got down from the roof and saw the result of my work, I had this light and warm feeling inside of me. I hope that the family who'll get to stay in the house that I painted will find my work satisfactory.

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BOO-BOO.

Setting: Starbucks Fort, 1130 pm. Myself, MJ, Richard, Tin, Buddy, Duane

Marijo: So kamusta na sa Tabangao?
Myself: Okay lang. Just a few happenings. Two of the newbies are 'sila' na.
Marijo: Eh si Jackie, kamusta?
Myself: Hmmm... si Jackie... galit pa rin yata sa mga lalake yun.
Marijo: Bakit naman?
Myself: Parang ikaw, galit sa mga lalake.
(Richard tumaas yung kilay)
Marijo: Bakit?
Myself: Same story as you. Nagkagusto sa isang lalake, nahulog ang kalooban, di naman sinalo ng lalake.
(Tin lalong nanlaki yung mata)
Myself: [...holy shit, nandito nga pala si duane!...]

Ayaaaaa.... big oopsie for me. Peace, MJ!
... Ikaw kasi e, tanong ng tanong. =D I had 4 shots of coffee that night na, and it may have affected my thought-processing.

P A K !

My most used words in the last 4 days:

* PAKINGSYET! -- upon seeing the damage of Typhoon Caloy to our housing compound here in Batangas. Decades-old trees got uprooted (pakingsyet!) and galvanized roofing flew (howlipakingsyet!) here and there. I had to defer (again) my trip to Manila because I sort of got stranded here in Batangas. [I'll post some pics soon].

* Ay PAKSTER! -- frustration over tasks delegated to me today which are labelled as "URGENT-ASAP-IMPORTANT!" (Stip, need these by Wednesday...) and I found out that the request has been at some of the managers' inboxes since two weeks ago. pakster talaga.

* PAKSYET! -- helplessness in needing to attend to several matters at once due to the fact that we are currently overloaded at the workplace; first expression upon realizing that our plant's power generator (Gas Turbines) tripped on Sunday afternoon while I'm covering for someone else's duty/

Damn... i mean ... pakingsyet!

Personalized Faith

Here's a question: If I strip down my religion into a customiz-built personalized belief system, does that make me less faithful?

The National Geographic documentary "THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS" has stirred quite a controversy, especially with the recent observance of the Christian Holy Week. It detailed the discovery, verification and interpretation of ancient papyrus texts that allegedly contain a gospel according to the infamous disciple.

Although the documentary left me with more questions than answers, it did impress upon me a lot of learnings on the development of the religion I claim to practice. Like a lot of persons and things in my life, Christianity, or more specifically, Catholicism, and I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love the part of it which makes me a better person, and I hate the part of it that is tainted with human fallibility, weakness and corruption. This part of the development of Christianity is what brings about the controversy on the Gospels in the first place. The documentary tells of the need to edit out a huge number of "gospels" available to early Christians in order to preserve the religion by selecting the more popular gospels with a coherent message. One of these is the Gospel of Judas.

It has to be understood that around and after Christ's death, the communication of his message was done through word of mouth, and in secret, due to Roman persecution. In the transfer of the stories, parables, messages, it is inevitable that details will be added, deleted, embellished and downplayed. Even after the documentation of Jesus' life on paper, reproductions were made by hand, which left a large room for error and editing.

The transference of Jesus's life, works and message through unreliable and unverifiable means would necessarily result into different interpretations of different peoples with different agendas. As are the dangers of interpreting any literary work or the life of one person, there is the danger of fundamentalism on one hand and recklessly individualistic interpretation on the other when it comes to reading the Bible or the Gospels. When you factor in the realization that there is no one true account, that there is no one reliable author, it may diminish your reliance, or at most your faith, in the Scriptures.

This is one reason why many people, especially of my age, may view the Bible as little more than an awesome piece of literature. I admit I subscribe to this view, in an attempt to strip down my faith to the bare bones. I just pick out the stories that I like, the concepts that I agree with, the tenets I believe in. We have been told it's not the way to take the Bible or religion, but that's what we've been reduced to.

Just as how the Bible is a living document weaved by countless faces, Christianity and Catholicism has been built and is built on the acts and decisions of a lot of men, not all of whom are beyond reproach and had the interests of the faithful in mind. Thus we have outdated traditions and world views that are not responsive to the spiritual needs of the people (like birth control!). It does not surprise me that the percentage of Catholics in the world had declined considerably in the last decade. The percentage that do claim to be Catholic do what I do, and follow what they think is right, while ignoring what is inconvenient, irrational, or otherwise what just doesn't feel right. Like the final message of the documentary, one can always choose what he wants to believe.

However, as with the Bible, one cannot just pick out the good parts and the bad parts of one's religion, and choose to follow what he wishes. The first stumbling block would be determining standards by which parts are adjudged as "good" or "bad". But more importantly, religion isn't that way. One can't be part Catholic, or one can't say I just like the Bible's ending. It has to be taken as a whole, interpreted as a whole, contextualized as a whole. This describes an almost academic approach, but that's the only way of understanding and appreciating it.

This is where faith comes in. The Bible will tell you things you don't accept; the Church will dictate things you don't agree with. They always have and always will. You just have to have faith that it's right. Does stripping down my religion into a custom-built personalized belief system make me any less faithful? Yes and no.

If the question is whether I am faithful to the Catholic Church and its leaders and what they teach, then it's a no on a technicality. Some leaders and teachings I like, some I don't, like the whole birth control thing, or the whole divorce thing, or the stem-cell research / cloning thing. That's not full-on faith, so maybe I don't have faith in the Church. If the question is whether I have faith in Christ as I have come to know Him, and experience Him and understand Him, then the answer is yes.

This piece may mark me as not religious, but hey I believe I'm at least spiritual.

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I wonder what grade will I get in my RELIGIO course for this post if I submitted it as a reaction paper 10 years ago? :D

To my readers, bear with my serious side. That's only occasional for me. :D

Morning Call

Time: 0615H today.
Where: my pad

(my mobile phone ringing) ** Krriiinnggg!!!! ***

Myself: (sleepily) hello...?
Caller: STIIIFFFYYY!!!
Myself: ... who's this?
Caller: Guess who, man!
Myself: ... I'm still sleepy. Kits, is that you? What's the emergency?
Quito: Wala lang, dude. Just thought of calling you.
Myself: Okay dude. Let me get back to sleep.
Quito: Ano ka ba, man? Get up! Get your ass off your bed!
Myself: Quito... I'm really sleepy.
Quito: Make some coffee.
Myself: Okay, I'm going back to sleep. I'm hanging up, Kits. Talk to you later.

(Myself hangs up the phone)


in less than a minute...

*** KKKKRRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG! ***

Myself: (mumbling) paksyet...
Myself: Hello?
Quito: STIIFFFFY!!!!
Myself: Quito? Weren't we through this earlier?
Quito: SO you've made your coffee na?
Myself: (getting off the bed) Fine, fine, fine. You're going to tell me something. Let me put you on speaker mode so I can listen to you while I make my coffee.
Quito: Great, man.
Myself: Okay. Go ahead. Kwento?
Quito: So how are you man?
Myself: You woke me up for that!?
Quito: So how are you nga?
Myself: The usual... work, work, work. Went to Bora by myself two weeks ago. My parents are good, my social life is fine, no girlfriends at the moment, lots of friends, been going to the gym, John is in the US, Tom I haven't a clue... Hey, greet your mom and Marge a happy mother's day for me.
Quito: Got laid?
Myself: Who?
Quito: You.
Myself: When?
QUito: That's what I'm asking.
Myself: Hell no!
Quito: No what? "No" you didn't get laid or "No" you're not telling me?
Myself: No I didn't get laid. I'm a good boy so far.
Quito: Since January?
Myself: Since January. Why are you so interested?
Quito: You're my best friend! So I just want you to be happy.
Myself: Thanks for the flattery, but getting me laid is not the best way to make me happy.
Quito: How's your coffee?
Myself: Fine. Where are you?
Quito: Doesn't matter. So not even at the gym?
Myself: Hahaha. Keep your fantasies to yourself.
Quito: Wanna go out with my friend?
Myself: No.
Quito: Why not?
Myself: Knowing you, it's because you want me to get laid. Next topic.
Quito: I'm offering my pool.
Myself: Hahaha.. tempting, but I'm not biting. She pretty?
Quito: Seriously, she's your type. I can sense it.
Myself: Doesn't matter. I'm not doing it.
Quito: Hahahaha. You're really a good guy, Stiff.
Myself: Thank you.
Quito: Aren't you making porma to someone?
Myself: Err... that's a complicated thing for me right now.
Quito: Okay, tell me.
Myself: Not now, some other time.
Quito: Promise you'll tell me? Maybe I can help, for a change.
Myself: Err... okay.
...
..
.
Quito: So how come we became best friends?
Myself: Dunno. Opposites attract? You, the jock and me, the geek?
Quito: Not anymore. You're more athletic than me, so I heard.
Myself: From whom?
Quito: Doesn't matter. Here's our set-up. We only meet what, once or twice a year? Yet, we remain close and sometimes even closer than back in college.
Myself: Agree.
Quito: That's all you can say?
Myself: That's how best friends are, I think.
Quito: You know, for a geeky person you could have taken the time to expound further.
Myself: It's early morning!!! We'll discuss this at a later time. I got to get ready for work.
Quito: Next week?
Myself: Nope, can't. The weekend after?
Quito: Call. My place.
Myself: Fine. Barbecue?
Quito: Good. Drinks on me.
Myself: Okay. Time?
Quito: 4 pm. Pool. Swimming gear.
Myself: No problem. Maqui will be there?
Quito: Yeah.
Myself: Cool. I can finally hand his birthday and christmas gifts.
Quito: See? We haven't met in a long time!
Myself: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been meaning to, but there's just a lot in my head lately. Gotta go, kits. Thanks for the morning call.
Quito: Wait wait wait. One more thing!
Myself: What?
Quito: LJ (his second son) is having his baptism on May 28th. Lunch at Saisaki in ATC ha.
Myself: Okay. I'll schedule it.
QUito: And ninong ka ha. Just 3 sets of godparents for LJ, same as Maqui. Village chapel.
Myself: Okay. Bye Kits!
Quito: Wait wait wait. One more thing!
Myself: (impatient)... ano pa?
Quito: Marge is 3 months pregnant. Okay, bye!!

*hangs up the phone*

Random behaviors like that truly make my life interesting.

Weekend Tidbits

1. Aaaarggss... Janice got a white XTRAIL. Shucks, I so wanted that for myself, but she got her hands on one first. Inggit-inggit-inggit. Oh well, have to wait for a new kursanada. Yun nga lang, our reasons for wanting an XTRAIL are different: I want one because I can go on farther road trips aboard one (with all my weekend-slash-lakwtsa-gear) while her reason for wanting one is because of the mini-ref/cooler inside. Tsk. Another difference between males and females...

2. My folks came over to visit me at my pad in Batangas. My mom and dad, eldest and youngest siblings, 5 cousins, 3 sets of titos and titas, and one yaya. We had a good time barbequeing pork and fish while exchanging stories and senior-citizen-type jokes. At night we played badminton and went night swimming. This morning after breakfast, my tres marias titas went around the compound picking siniguelas, duhat and indian mangoes.

3. Last night after settling my folks at the swimming pool, Emer and Maimai texted me to join them for coffee at the nearby Starbucks. We talked about the bosses, their mannerisms, their lookalikes, the mr. popular mister "GO", and whatelse. After "adjourning" at around 130am, Mai had the inkling to have one-or-two beers so we crashed House 3 (Emer's quarters). More stories and more laughter.

4. Tonight, I plan to watch MI-3 finally. It's a long-distance date hahaha. Much as I would like to go see it together with U, 600+ km of land and sea is a hard thing to bridge at the moment. Man, mahirap ipasa yung popcorn if that's the case!

It's a hot weekend! I wanna go to the beach! Wala bang mag-aaya?