I had this freaky dream last night where I got this voice mail on my cell phone from the future, and it was my own voice saying “Shit! I almost forgot” and then screaming in horror.
Then a few minutes later while I was waiting for an elevator, a girl reminded me that I had to be somewhere. I said “Shit! I almost forgot” and stared at this girl who was with me in disbelief. Just then the elevator opened up to an empty shaft, and as I backed away, something from the ground pulled me down the shaft, and I fell…
Then I woke up, thoroughly shaken. It was about 5 in the morning, and I just had about 2 hours of sleep. Crud.
Have you ever come to the point wherein you just couldn’t find anything interesting to talk about? Currently, that is my situation. Funnily, I resort to writing most of the time when the other things in life get the best of me; I mean here I am writing about emptiness, right? I really should stick to this job. My writing projects as we speak are getting bigger and bigger and I’m sort of neglecting some of the stuff that needs to be finished in the other areas of my life, but I find refuge in speaking my mind even at times I have absolutely nothing to say. Here is writing exercise number 22.
I hate to use this title as an example but today I was faced with one of the more challenging problems I’ve ever encountered.
The issue was between two sisters fighting over a guy. Now the guy is your typical ass. The rich, accomplished guy who sleeps with both women causing trouble within the family. I couldn’t help but tell them both to do the impossible — which was to leave the jerkwad alone, but the elder sister made a point and she said, there must be something about the guy that’s doing this to them that makes him worth it.
Why do I say this? I’ve been to a similar situation from years back. It was between me and my buddy Lloyd but, then it wasn’t as serious as this although the girl was really something — more of, I didn’t let it get too serious. Her life went downhill after getting hooked on drugs. Surreal but true.
I just told them both to think hard of the repercussions of this as I can’t really tell them what else to do, except what I had already told them which was to find a better man for each. At the end of it all, family should always come first. But that’s me.
I remember the time that my best bud’s wife had just given birth to a healthy baby girl. And I thought it was just amazing seeing the baby. At first, I didn’t know how to react of course, I was his best man if you want me to cut to the chase, so there’s the default happiness although the long hand story says I was shocked out of my system when I had been told that Lloyd was getting married. Marriage is a different thing to me. Knowing the stats of however many couples split up every second.
I’ve loved children since I started practcing in this field, they are the significant proof of purity in this world full of different people who give my character a new dimension sometimes. See, being a counselor doesn’t always make you a nice guy. Many parts of it have to do with knowing what’s right from wrong and more often than not my moral meter is being used by different people. But at the same time, my patience gets tested A lot.
So one day at work, Lloyd comes up to me and tells me we needed to talk. And I thought, hey he must’ve broken up with Anna — I was seeing what I wanted to see, I wasn’t looking at what he really wanted to say. I kept my ear open for the news, and he simply said, “Anna and I are having a baby.”
That was it. I couldn’t function. It felt entirely different all of a sudden. Not like those who come up to me to tell me they’ve finally made it as a couple and what a great thing it was to finally have a child after trying all this time, no. I was dealing with the guy whom I treated like my own brother after all these years, the man who almost reflected every inch of me. And it would be childish to say, but all the plans had shifted to a different phase. I had to find another fool that could take his place at the apartment, I had to get along well with the same fool, too.
The wedding followed in between the pregnancy. It was a small gathering of 30 people. It was one of those weddings that I really liked since it wasn’t your typical garden wedding, but a church wedding, very non-traditional one. Anna’s family was there, I was there and later on 2 of our buddies caught on to the event. I was happy for him, but I knew him best, above all that.
That was 5 years ago. A week ago, my wife told me that she’s 3 weeks pregnant and that I’m going to be a father soon. I know that at one point this was going to happen, but when I told Lloyd the news about it, he sprung out of the seat and told me that it was one of the best things that ever happened to him.
I seem to have been a better person these past couple of days due to this realization. I am doubly a more patient guy, and I take every word I say as carefully as breakable glass. I didn’t know these changes would take place, really. I want to be a good example to my child, that now I couldn’t just eat Goober from the jar without thinking that I have to show my child something he would follow. It stems from the simplest things and it was just something that opened my eye the stretch of the golden gate. This photo was the best father child photo I’ve ever seen, by the way.
So I was having a conversation with my brother this morning over breakfast and we were talking about how the downfall of Friendster came to be. As we all know, the start of these social networking sites was single-handedly put together by the power of Friendster. We now have fifty more social networking sites that are functioning with their different purposes, most of them pretty much the same, with some even purely useless and redundant.
Now the top two leading social networking sites are Facebook and Myspace, according to recent surveys. As a consumer, I don’t see any other feasible reason for this, but it is perhaps the interface of Friendster that you can easily personalize. The network is indeed user-oriented — which appeals to many people, but it can also appear to be one of the reasons for this site’s plunge down the seas. Browsing thru the current users of Friendster, a lot has changed since its advent some five years ago. Majority of its users are now from Asia, and it seems the rest of the world have moved on to Facebook and Myspace. That takes up a huge sum of users altogether and now there is a huge gap the company has given up, they once tried to save, with no positive results shown.
Only the population of Asia versus the Europe and the United States combined is clearly a battle of big and small.This is of course just me speaking, but try it. Log on and see whos on Friendster. Log on and see whos on Facebook and Myspace.
Now here comes Socializr, another creation of the catalyst of social networking, Jonathan Abrahams came up with to redeem his name as the pioneer in social networking sites. I will come back for more information on this. See for yourselves.
I remember the days when I was still in University and I did a lot of poetry. Spoken word - I even did other people’s poetry for them just cos I liked it a lot. I remembered all this because I went to ibeatyou and saw a competition on the best spoken word entry. This guy was Filipino. He’s pretty good. Check the link out I’m going to paste it in here.
In other news, my appetite hasn’t been up to par these days. I think I’ve dropped a total of 3 lbs for this week alone, I dont know why - probably all the work I’ve been doing. I’m also thinking moving to another company. I’ve saved up pretty well anyway I’ll probably take a break, and find a lesser stress-induced job. My eyes are bloodshot too. Its mostly reading these days, I want to brush up on my psych.
Yep, that’s right. I shot myself in the foot. I volunteered to take care of my sisters kids today, and they are jumping on my back as we speak. They also like to press on things like what does this button do and the like. I like kids, but today was a mistake. My back hurts. Like a bitch.
I thought I was done making lists, but its been such a great aid to all the stress I get from work. I have a bunch of videos for you today that I’m not so sure many of you will get, but it is a personal list, anyway. I encourage everyone to make their own list. Although I may not put any ranking to my videos, there are 5 of them here, with one thing for you guys to do: enjoy.
I Ran - A Flock of Seagulls
Oushiza Rhapsody - Kirinji
Komponent - Apparat
Mushaboom - Feist
The Carnival is Over - Dead Can Dance
These are some of my favorites. You know, it is a requirement for me as a consumer to like the song and the video both. This medium of advertising music is a double-edged sword, though. It can easily make or break any artist. Most of the bands here I truly started to like because of their videos.
Now with the way things look, as cameras and video editing apps are becoming more and more accessible, I am guessing that in the span of 2-3 years the face of music video making will change, as well as the avenues of viewing them will. Just Watch.
You do not have to be tagged to play along. This game is simple and so are the rules.
1. Copy from *Start Copy Here* through *End Copy Here*
2. Add your site(s) to the list. Just be sure to post the “Big Bang” at each site you add.
3. Tag or don’t tag, your choice, however, the more tags you create the longer the list will grow.
4. Let me know your blog’s name and url by leaving me a comment HERE. I will add you to the master list. (If you would like a scroll box code, leave me your email address and I will email it to you.) Scroll Box Example. (I decided not to use the box for the Big Bang for ease of copying.)
5. Come back and copy the master list back to your site, often. This process will allow late-comers to get as much link benefit as the first ones in. Once you are on the master list people who have participated earlier will update their bookmarks and help everyone lower than them out on the list.
aldwin marcus | 
04 29th, 2008| 
