The ever virus-free laptop which had three virus cases in three months.

My laptop’s working full steam now. My ever virus-free laptop which had three cases of virus “infections” for the past three months. One month a virus, probably. The last case was regrettably my fault, since I downloaded some codec or whatever and I accidentally downloaded an “anti-virus” program suspiciously offered after my laptop got the virus – which of course is the culprit. I never thought that among a thousand, or probably a million viruses hanging around the Internet with all those hideous names, one is tricky enough to disguise itself into an anti-virus.

Probably the coolest Windows Theme I got (courtesy of Alienware). Click to magnify.

I would like to thank Gian, that virus-buster friend of mine – a servicemate, our beloved Sports Writer (ah, the days of being a humble Layout Artist), recently-branded Valedictorian of his batch at my alma mater, now an Atenista in the making – for the impossible help and assistance. And for luring me to play Call of Duty again, of course.

Again, that’s a paid advertisement. After a thirty-minute restless argument we had about this advertising thing (since I practically want a kilo of rice than twenty pesos) – I finally agreed a twenty-peso deal to blog about him. LOL. What’s with rice prices these days?

I am very much excited to blog about the two books I finished yesterday (Haruki Murakami’s “After Dark” and John Le Carre’s “The Constant Gardener“) but due to my clumsiness, the three-page book review got lost after I accidentally deleted it inside my flash disk. And, just so you know, my flash disk – though it has a free McAfee Anti-Virus software (not bad), a Sudoku and a Mahjong game to flaunt – it still didn’t have its own recycle bin. And I didn’t have a copy of it in my laptop.

How cool is that? I thought about that book review for two days – made it as thought-provoking as it could be, even quoted remarkable quotes delivered by the Takahashi or by Justin Quayle, and edited the entire review to perfection!

Maybe at the back of my mind, I intentionally erased the file. But as far as I can recall, I haven’t thought of that.

Anyway, after a while I slightly promised to my laptop not to cause harm towards it ever again. I would not allow project-making, flash-disk overloading third parties who would infect my laptop! Not now. Even if I installed it with a Spybot Search and Destroy, a Crap Cleaner, a Avira AntiVirus, and a Norton AntiVirus 2003, I would not – despite the tight security – allow anyone to infiltrate unscanned softwares and hardwares in my laptop.

That’s why I’m not subscribing to any Internet service for now. I’m writing this in a Notepad, save this in my flash disk/drive, go to the nearest computer shop and post this, and then I make way for DoTA mode. Heh. Better grab the opportunity while I’m still on vacation!

Discerning where one thread ends and where the other one begins.

“ASA NGA! Hindi ikaw yung tipong lalakeng dapat seryosohin, no.”

Of all the pair of eyes that would tell me that kind of sentence in point-blank frankness, yours are the misaligned and the imbalanced of them all. Maybe because once when you were young, you’ve had a cancer in the eye. That makes your left eyelid slightly protruding – somehow a hindrance to have an unbiased opinion of your beauty – but I’m afraid that the smear, the irregularity of such in your face makes me look deeper than the surface and the skin.

We became one of those love teams among the members of our college organization, but of course those love teams are nothing but bluff – intentionally made for entertainment; intentionally made to curiously touch those emotionless hearts to eventually produce a spark. We were one of the victims. We were fooled by the people. And it turned out that we were fooling ourselves too.

Sometimes you would throw a cheesy line or two on me, and I would excitingly continue it with another, until we have woven an intricate mesh of lies and rehearsed quotes. The talk would go on forever, or until one of us decided to quit the playing and snap back to reality.

But it became as often as our general meetings.

I suddenly thought about our conversations: it is acquiring much depth and much emotions. All I thought we’re doing this simply to entertain our friends; all I thought this is nothing but bluffs and jokes. Of course, I’m playing numb again, but I can’t distinguish where we are standing right now. I started asking myself how can I feel where one thread is ending when I don’t even know – with all the spinning and the weaving – where one thread ends and the other one begins? It became a carpet of lies to cover-up everything and for me, this is going nowhere.

So I started throwing you questions in a calm, serious manner – just to ensure that my question’s out of the script and not made to fit the audience. Are you feeling something towards me, are you getting serious about what we are doing, are you somehow confused with what both of us are doing? No, no, no.

“Okay. I’m sorry if I have to ask you that – I just want to check how’s things.” I just want to check how’s things behind the limelight – behind everyone’s stares and entertainment, behind everyone’s laughter. But since I want to quit the jokes, I decided to quit the job. Hindi na ko sasakay sa mga trip nila, I once told you.

The next thing I know, after two months of not seeing each other (ever since summer vacation began), I haven’t seen you. We haven’t texted each other. We identify each other as friends, or so I thought? Maybe we both have hit bottom, and maybe it’s time to quit the play.

“Di mo ba ko mamimiss, ha?”
“Ano namang topak ko para mamimiss kita, ha?”

Again, we have started another unannounced scene of our drama with spontaneous scripts generated on our minds. But this one, I felt, was true. The questions aren’t delivered with the same flirtatious tones – your face magnified your eyes smeared not with irregularity, but now with honesty.

“Ba’t ba kasi lilipat ka pang Diliman?”

We were on our way home from a summer outing. The jeepney habitually slows down due to traffic along McArthur Highway – the traffic builds up since it was seven in the evening: time for the workforce to go home and eat supper with their family, and, maybe – time for us to settle everything before one of us leaves. After all, this might be our last minutes together.

“Di ah. Ba’t naman kita mamimiss – siguro mamimiss kita kasi ikaw ang pinakabanban kong kakilala sa DoTA…”

She uses Lina Inverse a lot since she’s – according to her – “hot”. We usually play on the same side, and I oftentimes teach her what button to press when an enemy hero crosses her path. I’d always tell her to push T first (Light Strike Array to stun the enemy), then S (to do damage – Dragon Slave, that is), then G (to finish the enemy with the Laguna Blade).

“Alam mo bang ngayon na lang tayo magkikita? Hindi mo ba naiisip?”

“Kumana ka na naman sa mga pick-up lines mo. Magtigil ka nga! At nakakahiya – kapag humihinto yung jeep, ang OA ng pagkakadikit mo saken! Seryoso – daming nakatingin saten kanina..”

“Ano namang paki nila!?”

I sat on the other side of the jeep to get away from her side, and perhaps to see her face for the last few moments. What I saw, back then, was a sparkling set of eyes, and this time, she means it. Her eyes are on the verge of pushing tears down her face, and I just looked away from her for a while – scanned the rows of cars and every night sceneries the Highway can offer for a bastard like me.

Until now, I have not yet discerned the real deal between us. I guess it’s one of the mysteries I would dare not to unravel.

Ba’t ko to sinulat, ewan ko lang. I rarely write non-fiction.

Header post courtesy of this link.

UP@100: Capturing 100 UP Moments!

Along with a group of UP bloggers, we have come up with a special project for the UP Centennial Month this coming June. It’s called “UP@100: Capturing 100 UP Moments“ – It is a Music Video Project which will compile 100 photos and videos from participants consisting UP alumni and students. It aims to capture 100 unique UP moments from 100 different points of view in the past 100 years of the University’s existence.

We are inviting YOU to join us in this endeavor.

Mechanics: How to submit an entry

I. Who can participate:

1. Any University of the Philippines alumni.
2. Any University of the Philippines student.

II. How to submit your photo or video:

1. A participant can submit at most two pictures of himself/herself (alone or otherwise) taken in UP or during a UP event OR a 15-sec video of the participant taken in UP or during a UP event.
2. Each entry should have the the following information:
   • Name
   • Student Number
   • Degree and Course
   • Two to five words describing the event (include the year the photo/video was taken)
   • If it’s a group photo, please indicate your position in the picture.
3. Entries could be submitted by doing at least one of the following:
   • Sending them with file (photo/video) attachments to up100[at]googlegroups[dot]com or utakgago[at]yahoo[dot]com.
   • Posting the photos on their blogs and leaving the URL as a comment on this official UP@100 post.
   • Uploading the video on a file sharing site and leaving the download link as a comment on this official UP@100 post.
4. Only ONE of the entries submitted per participant will be selected.
5. The deadline for submissions is on June 19, 2008. A day after the UP Centennial Anniversary (so that photos from the centennial celebration could be included).
6. The launch of the video will be on June 26, 2008 on all the organizers’ blogs.
7. A microsite will be created for the project where all (part of the 100 or not) the submitted photos & videos will be posted in sync with the video launch.

Here are more UP@100 coordinators: Coy, Juned, Benj, Fritz, Ederic, Poyt, Karla and AJ.

We are very excited in this project and I hope many of you can join! Looking forward to your great UP moments!

DISCLAIMER: The UP@100 Project is in no way related or connected to the official Centennial Activities of the University of the Philippines. This is a volunteer effort and project by several UP students and alumni.

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Now I need to e-mail a lot of UPLB friends that I know (Shinji, that would be YOU – my only DevComm friend, and Bulitas – my only CommArts friend!). And I’ll tell them to spread the news. That’d be later – after my sunbathing later at DreamWave resort. Here I come!

Header post courtesy of this site.