it's been one hell of a year, but hey, there're more to come

i don't believe this - it's crept up on me. i was planning this entry for a month beforehand, but i thought it was on tuesday or thursday or something.

what am i talking about, you ask?

well, almost exactly one year ago, on this day, this blog came to life. time to celebrate my anniversary (see why i prefer it over a monthsary? oh, it also goes on - just click).

although i've been blogging for three years (counting this one), i've learned to love this blog. although its name was changed early on, it's still counted as the original blog. i've been blogging on a lot of places, from geocities, to midheaven, to lj, and to this, and i still love this one, despite people preferring lj. (it's all a matter of choice and preference, anyway :P)

i've enjoyed the many comments you guys put in the little link down there. i also love my memorable posts, including those with my blunt opinion, my usual freedom-of-speech-in-blogs rants, those which induce the laughter from you, and of course, my wonderful, wonderful april fools' joke (>:D), and etcetera.

it's also amazing that when i look back at my archives, it comes to my mind that i sounded like a dork (or ryan. take your pick :P just kidding) during my previous posts. especially those with the flaming, hateful rants (you know, the ones against the then-principal). well, you gain experience over time. to those who've been following this blog faithfully, you'd have observed that over the months, it became better than before (okay, maybe you didn't notice, but i certainly did, once i went over my archives).

oh, there are two drafts in my whole archive. my skills couldn't write them in such a way that they wouldn't be offensive to the public. (also going over my archive, i'd like to say to jam that duff's one of the newest members of the anorexic-teen-pop-performer category :D)

this post is also my 200th post. 200 posts in one year! just goes to show on how much i love blogging. and i've had this layout for quite a while now; i'm not planning to change it.

anyway, thanks for reading all 12 months of this blog. i hope you'll stick around for the next 12 months, and the 12 months after that, and the ones after that, and so on :D thanks to those who read my blog but don't comment. trust me, it's fine, just keep reading. it isn't like i'm desperately begging you to comment, unlike other people ;)

now, back to our daily lives. we have two tests tomorrow! how i wish i could've gotten cl over with today, but damn gloria. for now.

behold the greatest son of a gun

son of osiris screenshot.



i was just playing a game where there was a sort-of stalemate because the resources of the map were all finished. the unfair advantage was, his last minor god was, you guessed it, hephaestus. so no matter how hard i try and how many pests i send over, he manages to repel me.

i seriously have to learn containment and map control.

the world is ending here at our side of the prime meridian

PGMA and government says: no school on monday.

school says: school on monday.

with our CL finals hanging in the balance, nay, the whole of next week, which side are we supposed to believe and follow? i say we just put in an hour for the test, and after that, it's off we go.

we did have those one-day breaks during the past years, but only because we still had to go to school on friday. if ever the verdict is in the affirmative of the government, we'd have those... again. but what's the use? i like having to take a test on monday better, and not because there's a vacation on friday. i only like it because the faster we could get it over with, i'm for it.

anyway, our whole week hangs by a thread here. as my sister suggested, if there aren't any classes on monday, we'd have to go to school on friday! heaven forbid.

so how fucked up can we really get, again?

EDIT: no school tomorrow. apparently they're going to try and cram CL in wednesday or thursday. thanks to divine for the info ;)

this time, all the bullets are aimed at me

i've been thinking of what words to write in this entry but i realized that i can't have it any way i want to have it.

i'll just say it this way.

i'm gifted, and i'm cursed.

the diaries of a not-so-newbie-anymore AoM player in practice, part 1

for the first time in quite a long time, the phone in my desk rang. i guess it was because i wasn't online and i was restarting the PC. well, amidst all my parents' reminders, someone actually dialed the 3921 number.

anyway.

max soliven is such a good writer. i'm becoming quite addicted to his daily editorial columns. there is the wit and seriousness combined, present in his articles. i guess he had quite a long time to perfect his writing, seeing that he's been in the business for quite a long time.

i think.

if you're in for some AoM goodness, continue reading.

dear diary,

parents are not home yet. i guess i can sneak a game in. maybe just a short 1v1. yeah, maybe i could. so i load the game, fix the hotkeys a bit (i need a key to quick-find the temple - it's been bothering me during my weekend practice games). little do i know that i should've spent more time fixing the hotkeys. moving on.

i set up the random map. 1v1, like i said. thor vs. a big boomer isis. that's jolo, by the way. large acropolis - that's the set-up for thursday. thursday. thor's day. my day, baby.

*clears throat* uh.. yeah.

so i wait a short while for the map to load. ah, there we go. i see the familiar ulfsark, ox cart and dwarves thor gives us. i send the three to the nearest gold mine, and the ulfsark to build a temple. once that temple is done, i train a hersir, and that ulfsark goes to build a dock. while this is going on i'm training a troop of gatherers and an ox cart to send them hunting. once the dock is finished, i'm out of wood. crap. meanwhile the hersir that just trained is out fetching all the relics. :D

so i press v to quick-queue 5 villagers and set the rally point to the nearest forest. an ox cart can come later, i reason. once enough wood is gathered i quickly build that ox cart. as for the hersir and the ulfsark, i send them to wall out my base and its choke points. i have enough wood for a fishing ship so i build two, one after the other. soon i have enough food to go up.

hello, classical age.

once i have a longhouse i train four TA and four RC because i don't know what my opponent has for now. a quick assault shows that he's chock-full of axemen and a little spearmen here and there. while the assault is going on i'm actually training more TA, and i use them to build another longhouse. once they're done i research medium cavalry and infantry (researching cavalry tech was a mistake. i should've saved it for later) and train more TA. (i've got enough gold to spend, sadly.)

soon, i find that the resource balance has changed; before, i had a lot of gold and not a lot of food. now, it's the complete opposite. i'm struggling for gold because i can't go up. so i build a mixed team of gatherers and dwarves and send them to an outlying gold mine outside my base.

anyway, while that's going on (you need to allocate your attention between economy and war) i decide to harass my opponent by sending my 11 TA (i have nothing to do, i'm saving up to go to heroic) to his base. so i start harassing his axeman army by way of sending my TA to his base and quickly retreating behind the safety of my walls. i use the 11 TA to build a tower right behind the walls. once the opponent's army stops short, they retreat. on to the healing spring, then!

watching this, i save the game because i know it's not gonna be so short. stay tuned.

the madness has been and gone

IT IS FINISHED!!!

ASPhysics is now online, baby.

(Long story to come tomorrow.)

;)

turmoil

it's the first and hopefully the last time i ever have to talk about the issue.

news travels fast around school, so you may already know that i lost my phone, or rather, i didn't get it back when the phones were being distributed. my parents blame kuya mac for the loss.

time to sidetrack, because i'm going to tell you a little story. you may or may not know that my mother, when finding something out of place in school, likes to make a ruckus. not just any ruckus, but depending on the severity of the matter, you might even be lucky to catch a big ruckus. you can go look for mr. fabian and ask him, he can tell you a lot. (earlier this year he just got the latest wave from my mother. studyante niya si phim eh.)

it's actually the only trait of my mother that i hate. it's impossible to change it. why? i know she's only looking out for me.

anyway, so my phone was lost, and the school was to blame (i say that without any bias). perfect time for my mother to make a ruckus.

so michael tells me that the upper offices are already discussing about what to do about the issue. i sincerely hope that nothing bad happens to kuya mac, and of course the other teachers (sir brian, ms. caldo and ms. ayen - hey, they weren't the main people in charge) as well.

it's amazing, though, because you would think i'd be raving mad at him/them. no, i'm just disappointed. i didn't grow up to be as ruthless as my parents.

anyway, my mother has just finished writing a letter. somewhere between the lines i was able to catch something about "the other retreatants". i don't know what she wants to do with the other retreatants, but she has to know that i can vouch/stand up for any of them; i can easily argue for any of them because i know they wouldn't get my phone, and why would they? i can defend them because we were all together sun up 'til sun down. (loyalty; such a weakness of mine.)

i refuse to open my mouth further than the answers they expect from me whenever we talk about this issue. it isn't the right time yet. i also refuse to stand in the way of the arguments as of now; it also isn't the right time to rewind the clock back to grade 7 again.

hindi ba nga si Lord na ang bahala? :-P

i'm pretty fine without a good phone. as for now...

09173992747. ;-)

'ika nga, "getting your game on"

for the past two days of the weekend i have done nothing but play tekken and games of AoM (of course, in preparation for Dan's Revenge two weeks from now), but of course i did not forsake my studies and did a little part of the damned ASPhysics project. (i also installed AoK on my mother's old PC. unusually, a 2-on-2 is fast, and that's saying something because that PC is a pentium 2. nakakapanibago ang AoK when you're so used to AoM.)

then i still have the center of gravity project to do.

but hey, you don't have to listen to my worries! i'm just out of a topic to blog about. all those thoughts i had in the past week have been lost to Thor and King. all too well, i say.

the first term's ending. so far, school has been good.

when people see that you play the sax, all they want to hear from you is careless whisper

things i learned from the LSYC retreat:

- i'm not afraid to fall for God
- i would really love to be a faci
- BVG rules all
- sexy na pala ako (yey!)
- magkamukha kami ni alain, front and back
- i can figure out secrets through logic and reasoning
- i want calculator abs
- friends, through and through
- i can live without a phone (and i still am; i'm not blaming anyone here)
- "kili-kili sa buhok"
- "tavik tahoo't tahoo-hah!"
- "ang cute niyong dalawa"
- "ang jolog mo!"
- laughter rules
- i want to be the person to wake up the retreatants on the next retreat

BVG, next retreat, niel will order a pizza for us. :D

anyway, the op went well. my jazz was heard in junior-b. we weren't chosen, though, but sam hired me. i wonder if it's possible for them to arrange something for me for a gig in two days. let's see.

kick it to the curb and baby don't stop running

here's a little something i wrote (out of boredom and irritation, i guess) to address the filipino population. i intended to write it in my sister and i's barok dialect, but once i kept writing, i noticed that "hey, this looks better in plain english."

there is one problem the filipino population will face at least once in their lifetime. it is the problem of speaking straight English and writing correct English continuously. English is known as the global language, and it is paramount to almost every economy's success. the problem is that most filipinos are slightly to badly illiterate at the English language. because of this, the average filipino is ridiculed because of his ability or lack thereof to speak fluent English. what are the common mistakes of the filipino in his or her grammar?

first, foremost, and most notorious is the diction. of all the things, most filipinos don't know how to say some, if not most, of the words in the language correctly. "lab" becomes "lub", "live" becomes "leave" (i should know, it confused me earlier today), "intrams" becomes "intrums", "audi" becomes "owdie", et cetera. of course there is no surefire way to quickly fix this dilemma, but then again, it will always take practice. (if you witness me doing this, it's because i'm mocking barokness.)

the second most notorious is the subject-verb agreement. most filipinos construct sentences with verbs that laughably, do not agree with the tense of the subject. this is a very common mistake, and it happens all, if not most, of the time. no one bothers to fix it because they deem it acceptable as long as the message gets across.

the next notorious mistake would be the use of the apostrophe. there are very distinct differences between possessive pronouns, plural forms of words, and the short-cutting purpose of the apostrophe. there is a very big difference between "its" and "it's". words like "jesus" (i.e. nouns that have an 's' as their last letter) are not plural; therefore it should be "jesus's" and not "jesus'". (care to debate?) "dont" and "don't" is acceptable to some extent, however, because there is no alternate form aside from "do not" (the exception of the apostrophe can be classified as a typographical error).

the fourth notorious error would be the misuse of words that sound alike (homonyms, if i remember correctly). examples in question would be the use of "they're"/"their", and "you're"/"your". many people (actually including myself, but i usually double-check my sentences before i write them or press "send", thereby correcting myself before i make my statement on paper) make this mistake very often. for the record, "they're" stands for "they are", "their" is a plural possessive pronoun, "you're" stands for "you are", and "your" is a singular possessive pronoun. this mistake is not limited to those two pairs of words.

the next error would be the evil taglish. file conyotica (i made the term up) under this as well. the most annoying form of conyotica/taglish would be the "make [insert filipino verb in present tense]". that just goes to show that you're either 1) conyo, or 2) just plain half-assed. anyway, i hope this form of talking would be abolished. if you're going to speak english, speak straight english, and if you're going to speak filipino, speak freaking straight filipino. if you don't know how to, magpaturo ka.

the last one, which, i believe, is not as grievous an error as the above five, is the typical misspelling of words. "receive" becomes "recieve", "believe" becomes "beleive", "strength" becomes "strenght", so on and so forth. although i will admit that yes, the rules of spelling are confusing to some extent, you should practice your spelling so that these kinds of typos will be successfully avoided.

those six are the most common errors in english grammar that i observe all too often, and those are just the basic mistakes (don't get me started on political correctness). i praise the few who manage to keep their english clean and correct (myself included :D). i assure you it isn't very easy to do, but if you have a mother that bred you to have good penmanship (for a guy, at least) and knows how to edit your essays, you're well-off. but for those who don't have such a mother, all it takes is practice, anyway.

good evening. ;)

file this under "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

we had the junior-a class mass this morning not before bell, but during the first period. why? i don't know. i do know for one thing that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the way it was before, and we've wasted a good AP period due to that schedule.

what's wrong with the freaking school?

for my reference

10-hit combo 1

1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 1, 3

10-hit combo 2

1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 1, 1

jaguar step, to cobra clutch, to cobra twist, to reverse DDT

3+4, 1+4, [1, 4, 2, 3], [2, 1, 1+3] (hanggang doon lang ako)

jaguar step, to cobra clutch, to sleeper

3+4, 1+4, [3+4, 3+4, 1+2] (i rarely get to human necktie)

sorry... i'm addicted to king. :D

we are the champions

i now realize that if i didn't have that one last bit of optimism in me that told me that maybe, just maybe, my parents will allow me to the reunion, i would've been wallowing in my own misery last night here at home.

so you see people, optimism/hope goes a long way. walang mangyayari sa mga pesimista sa inyo. moving on.

i arrived 30 minutes late to the party. everything was set up, except that everyone was playing tekken 5 with just one controller. that conundrum was quickly solved when daniel found the second controller. awards go to:

best juggler: jose c/o marduk
best winner [by way of cheap tactics]: chris c/o hwoarang
most improved: tie between me (c/o king) and francis (c/o raven)
rookie of the night: fozzy c/o xiaoyu

the night was mostly spent on tekken, but it was around 9 that people (including myself and leiron) decided to swim (which raised up the question, "where was giselle?"). we had a water wrestling match (because buoyancy in the water is so much fun), but the pool's water tasted like poison, the jacuzzi was colder than the pool, and i could swear the water was eating my skin.

leiron: "dianne, inom pa!"
me: "we don't want her drunk!"

sadly we discovered that the real fun of the night began when we fired up the magic sing. wowie and fozzy were the high scorers of the night, both scoring 97 and singing "my sharona" and "how do i live without you" respectively. ('course i joined in with fozzy in her song.)

me: "i would like to invite all of s-b to sing along in the next song."

*"ulan" flashes on the screen followed by cheers*

we also sang "we are the champions" (hence the title, and it fits our class), "shape of my heart", "i don't wanna miss a thing", "because i got high", "it wasn't me", and "crazy for you". i thought that i had lost my voice, but it was still with me because i could still sing "lonely no more" on the radio going home.

the other highlight of the night was us finding a song called "boobs" and juts singing it. the magic sing was wrapped up when the last song "to be with you" by mr. big was sung by wowie and i. i had almost forgotten my memory card if it wasn't for my quick thinking.

of course, an event like this deserves a reflection from me. here goes.

being in the party was like stepping into a time machine of some sort and ending up back at last year. i don't know about the others, but for me, it was like i had forgotten that i was from junior-a. i guess that we are such a closely-knit family that whenever s-b would gather, no matter what section we are in, we still remember that we are s-b, that same class that rocked.

also, we had a small discussion over dinner. we were discussing the dramafest (agaaaain, yeah :P) and resolved without question the following fact: "even if it is not on paper, we were and are the best section/play/whatever." not to be so arrogant, of course. you just gotta love being with guys like this ;)

remember what i said about us? yeah, that one? i'll say it again, if you don't mind.

"we are THAT damn good."

flirty-homophobia

we ate dinner in burger king tonight, and here's something interesting that happened to me.

the cashier was gay (or to be more politically correct, homosexual) and his/her/its name was AJ. (yeah, as in the backstreet boys AJ. but definitely the two are very far away.) anyway, over the course of the meal i went on to refill our cups (you gotta love burger king's refill feature. i mean, it's very rare in the philippines, while it's very common in the U.S.). dialogue goes as so:

me: "sir, parefill nga po. yung isa apple, yung isa rootbeer." (of course i had to call him/her/it "sir" because as it stands, he is a guy after all)
aj: "yung isa apple, isa rootbeer? okay." *goes over to the drinks machine and sets, and while he waits for the drinks to fill...*
aj: "saan ka nag-aaral?"
me: *nods, not understanding it the first time*
aj: "saan ka nag-aaral?"
me: *pause* "sa zobel." *gets drinks and walks away*

look, if i didn't know any better, i'd say that aj was trying to get to know me more. at least i was able to cut off the conversation at that.

the de-evolution of lindsay lohan's bustline

DISCLAIMER: content may offend you. turn away now and come back another day if boob-related stuff offend you.

The De-Evolution of Lindsay Lohan's Bustline
Have you seen Lindsay Lohan's body right now? Isn't it thin and disgusting? Join me in a tour where we document the fall (or rather, contracting) of Lindsay Lohan's bustline.

As you can see in her video "Rumors", her bustline is as robust as ever and just about ready to break free from her loose clothes.

After a short period of time, we were given the music video "Over". In the aforementioned music video, her bustline has shrunk a bit but remains robust, though not as robust in "Rumors". This bustline has retained in her latest movie "Herbie: Fully Loaded".

While we have waited for "Herbie: Fully Loaded" to premiere, we have learned that Lohan has dyed her hair blonde and seemingly gone on a hunger strike.

In her latest music video, "First" (wherein may I mention that the catchline of the song ["I wanna come first"] denotes a second meaning), her bustline has shrunk to the size of an average girl who has just reached puberty.

Due to the disgusting nature of this process, there has been a site that is petitioning to feed Ms. Lohan to re-increase her body fat and regain her famous voluptuousity.

HELP THIS WOMAN NOW! DONATE A DOUBLE-QUARTER POUNDER!