Happy birthday. We miss you always.

It was recently my birthday and if it’s your birthday, here’s are some songs for you:

HibOO d’Scene : Andrew Bird “The Happy Birthday Song” (Live @ Casino de Paris, Paris – 13.11.2009) from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo.

Let’s mid-20′s like our early-20′s.

My birthday is the 200th day of the year (201st on leap years), which was a week ago.  I’ve noticed that the last 3-5 years have gone by seemingly faster than usual.  (And they have!)

My cousin explains this … phenomena as “relativity.”  Put simply, having more years in relation to the number of hours a day makes the previously-big measures seem shorter.  (I think.)

So, 24-years-old::24 hours a day.  I now have a year in relation to each hour that a day has.  Couple that with EVERYTHING I’ve ever experienced and it makes most things feel like they aren’t “new” anymore.  Solution?  New experiences!  24 down, 476 to go.  :p

Anyway, some things:

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As it would turn out, a way to make post-birthdays just plain sad is hanging out with your own kind.  In this case, two senior citizens ranting about their failing love affairs with younger women.  )

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Nothing perks up a workplace more than a sale, or maybe a coupla pizzas. 

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I ate a horse!  Well, in tapsilog form, thanks to new-office-champ Vlad.  Dongalo in Parañaque — it took me hours to get home!

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Thanks to Drei + Ven, my potential for ultraviolence has increased two-fold.  Thanks for the awesome gift!

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No matter what age you are, YOUWILLNEVERBETOOOLD for ice cream and cake.  And Coke!  NEVER.

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Also, I ran out of things to say.

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No matter how you hide, SOMEONE will know it’s your birthday.  Thanks, beautiful people!

Scenes from last Friday — beer, sangria, A LOT OF COKE, 16 boxes of pizza, kick-your-ass-with-the-desserty-flavor jello shots, other assorted snacks, awesome officemates, a small tv and magicsing.  Embarassing photos (of me) to follow.  :p

Happy birthday, Loes + Tricia! 

[Made with the ever-win BigHugeLabs' Mosaic Maker.]

While everyone’s scrambling in the US because of the elections, it’s Yna’s birthday!  Since I have this new favorite effect in Photoshop, I applied it to an old doodle from MCP class.  (2006, yow!)  I’ll probably retire it after this one. 

Happy Birthday, Yna!

(Doodled on paper, tweaked in Photoshop, now with 59% more crumpling!)

Happy Birthday, Jess!

Last night, beer enthusiasts (plus mga tambay sa kanto) flocked the Ortigas area for the opening of this year’s 120 days of Oktoberfest.

For some reason, by around 8:30, they (the gatekeepers) decided that there were already too many people inside, and they simply stopped letting people in.  Even people who had tickets weren’t allowed in, or if ever they did, they had trouble squeezing in through the sweat-shield-covered crowd.

Several shouts of protest has turned the group mentality from eagerly-in-line to the-people-versus-the-organizers.  They even popped a hole in the giant SMB beer bottle balloon thing.  (As it deflated, it fell on several people’s heads lol)

Then, some godless-fucks from behind shouted, “1, 2, 3, PUUUUUUUSSSSSSHHHHH!”  

Everyone had to push along in order not to get trampled.  Rainwater that had collected on top of the registration tent splashed all over my right arm.  (Stagnant water, yow)  I held on to a bit of railing while knees, elbows and heads hit me all over.

It was at that point that a police van and a firetruck drove in to stop the riot-waiting-to-happen. 

I feared that they might start hosing us down, I mean, isn’t it enough that mosquitoes can now lay eggs on my stagnant-water-soaked sleeve?  

A big burly security man started ordering everyone to back.the.fuck.up, drill-sergeant style — when they didn’t listen, he hopped on over from the street to the line, and then started going ballistic.  With a baton.  Shouting profanities (you know, the one with a mother?) to intimidate the retreating masses.

I walked to a 711, bought several cans of Pale Pilsen and started having my own Oktoberfest opening by the El Pueblo area.  (As everything in proximity was filled to capacity.)

Since Drei and Ven were already inside, and I had little chance of getting in, I decided to wait it out … by the small island near El Pueblo.

By chance, I saw Ryu, a friend of mine, and, as it turned out, his girlfriend July was a promo girl by the Oktobrew tent.  We waited for another friend of ours, Tippi, then we headed for the tent.  

We got to meet the host, and was let in.  (Lucky!)

The tent was airconditioned and very, very spacious — the food area was at the far end, a darts section by the left, the beer station smack dab in the middle and a live projector by the right, so that people could follow what was happening at the main stage.  

Several tables told drinking stories via empty beer bottles.  The special Oktoberfest limited edition brew was being sold at 50-bucks a pop — and also, everytime you get one, you get to play a game of darts, at which Tippi showed off his surprising ability of always hitting the bullseye.  (He won me a shirt.)

Third Eye Blind started playing at around 11(?) — they premiered 2 new songs (here in the Philippines, yow!) from the upcoming fourth album, then finished off with mostly older songs — the ones I remember from highschool.  (They rawk!)

They even threw in Nelly lyrics in there — “Must be the money!”

As of 12 AM of September 6, Ryu officially turned 24, so he suggested that we all go dancing, or something of the sort after.

First, we had to make a quick stop to bring Jona (July’s promo girl friend) home, and then we hit up one of their favorite haunts.  We arrived far too late (2:30 AM) to hit up several places — either people were already leaving, drunk, or just plain sad.  So we decided to get a meal instead, Ryu’s treat.

After eating, I hailed a cab and asked to get taken to Junction.  We made a conversation out of the drunken yahoos who were also from Oktoberfest, and traffic, and our favorite beers.  The cab driver asked, “san pa ang punta mo boy? / where are you still headed to?”  I told him, “Antipolo.”  

Without saying a word, he turned off the meter and proceeded driving.  Turns out his taxi’s garage was in Antipolo!  He dropped me off near the house and looked confused when I handed him some money for my earlier fare.  I just told him to add it to his gas money.  

I made a quick stop at 711 to get some snacks, and then headed home to the batcave.

[Parts inspired by Plurk / Last year's Oktoberfest / Photos from Tippi]

There’ve been several lists like this before, so here’s my take on it, being a 23-year-old hermit.  (And yes, this is the birthday post.)

A decade ago, I was still a Freshman, in a new school — fast-forward to the present, my Freshman P.E. t-shirt still fits as pambahay.

Given the chance, here’s a couple of things I’ll be telling my 13-year-old-self, who’s probably clueless about what to do.

1. Nurture your inner geriatric. While everyone at this age is nurturing their inner child, (thanks to the revival of 80′s favorites) you should focus on nurturing your much-wiser inner old-coot.  You could be a child on a day-to-day basis instead.

2. Work on the laugh. Life’s funny.  As Dr. Horrible puts it, “a lot of guys ignore the laugh.”  You may not be a mad (yet) scientist (no, a Computer Science degree does not make you a scientist), it’s no reason not to laugh like no one’s looking.

3. Some people will get you;  some people won’t. You DON’T have ANYTHING to prove to anybody, really.

4. Follow your dreams. Even if your dream is sitting in front of the computer for a few hours as a living.  Plus, some of your best dreams will occur in the classroom.

5. Bluff to the future! Remember: it’s never a lie if you believe it.  Honesty is subjective; as long as people ask the RIGHT questions, whatever truth you can think of WILL BE the absolute truth for you.

6. You will not end up with HER. (Whoever “she” was at that point in time.)  You will not have half-her/half-you babies (yet) — but you will get to meet other (and better) post-modern/old-fashioned girls in the future.  Get over it.

7. Angst isn’t cool after 20. (Scratch that.)  Thanks for getting it out of your system by 17.

8. However “cool” material possessions are, work on the intangible stuff, the nominalizations. (yow)  The kind of things that you can’t put in a backpack or a wheelbarrow.  (P.S. Do your research about these words.)

9. Work on your list-making abilities. It will buy you stuff one day.  (While you’re at it, work on the wordplay, the puns and whatnot.)

10. Eat what you want, when you want. Hopefully, there’re gonna be cures for everything.

11. Any unique emotion you’re feeling, or is about to feel can be expressed by a Beatles, Morrissey, Jeff Buckley, Elliot Smith, Billy Idol or Sting song.

12. Never break the rules you make. Ever.

13. Invent a time machine, so that this list can have any actual bearing in the present.

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Thanks for all the greetings!  This has been the best birthday yet.  (I mean, any birthday where you don’t have to attend a funeral is always better than one where you have to.) 

(Image from here: http://photofile.ru/photo/fishki_net/3568632/77932205.jpg)

The distance from the house to Malolos, Bulacan: 35.77 miles. (And that’s assuming you travel in a straight line; The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.)

So why would I bother with the trip? Because it was Sheila‘s birthday last week, and I don’t get to go to Bulacan everyday, so why not? (To note, her house is too far, in fact, that Google Earth maps haven’t taken a proper detail photo of their area. It’s just a mess of greenery.)
I left the house at 12:24. An fx ride, a wrong train ride, another train ride, an fx ride and two toll booths later, me and a couple of other common friends were in Malolos Crossing. We were just a tryke ride away from the destination.

To sum up the whole ordeal: Sheila, Sheila’s friend’s baby, Angela, food and conversation, drinking more when I realized that I was drunk, a spritz of clam juice, a spritz of Monmon’s perfume, 2nd-degree burn number 3 for the year, waking up at 3 and realizing that I forgot to go home, lost my earring, leaving at 5 am, touchdown in Antipolo by 7:20 and the batcave by 8:15 AM, Sunday.
(Fellow attendees can fill in the blanks.)

It was fun. I went to Bulacan and all I got was this lousy 2nd-degree burn. :p

(photos here.)

Happy birthday, you redhorse-chugging, symmetric-dimple-having, preschool-teaching teacher you.

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On a side note, it’s been a full year since the magic started. Not that the skill has been fully-honed, it’s just that everyday’s a new day for discovery.