.:Enriching The Mind:.

Anyone who can e-mail me a picture of last Saturday’s gathering, I will be highly appreciative of it. I’d like to post it here, that’s why. Thank you very much in advance. :)

So with all things being said, I was pretty much happy with how my weekend turned out. I took Sacha up on her invitation to go to her house and have a supposed “game day” which didn’t see a single game being actually played, in spite of the presence of Chess boards, Mindtrap, Taboo, Game of the Generals, and other such games. I suppose considering a good deal of us have met for only the first or second time, it was a better idea to just engage one another in random conversations. I realize I don’t count much as a geek, considering my very basic technological knowledge, but I sure count as a nerd, if only for the studious aspect of it. Granted, though, that I still am quite atypical of such a stereotype because of the things I happen to go for…

Nonetheless, it was an interesting day, to say the least. I went there with Peppy, who has obviously been there several times already. Regardless, the people I ran into were pretty nice people… the one who stood out the most was Dominique Cimafranca, whom I seem to have read about quite a bit on Sach’s wiki. There were a few other people, although I have to double-take to associate which name to which person. I know their names and I know their faces, but I can’t seem to pin those two with one another correctly…

Just as Dominique and I were about to engage in a bit of Game of the Generals, Sacha’s elder sister, Cathy, I believe (Apparently Sacha is the only one who looks the way she does in the family…), suggested that we move to the rooftop. After all, we intended to cook our food (Cathy’s idea, too.) to keep things interesting. Capital idea, no doubt about it. Of course, that likewise meant that we had to go shopping for ingredients. It was pretty fun because relatively speaking, Diane and I were already the most adept at going to the grocery, and that’s not saying much. As for cooking ability, it would appear that Cathy was the best-suited for the job, as our menu consisted of Pita bread stuffed with mozzarella cheese and sliced tomatoes, sometimes topped with spicy salsa, some green salad, roasted potatoes, and of course, the steak. It was a steak and potatoes dinner, after all. The food was just fine, but I felt pretty good that in spite of my being the only one there who was not technologically inclined aside from Cathy, I still held my own in the conversation.

Topics were really varied, from high school/college memories all the way to conceptualizing the newest Japanese anime that might come along in the vein of Beyblade, Crush Gear, and Super Yo-yo: an anime about Hula Hoops. Imagine the hilarity of it all when someone does the anime, produces merchandise for it, and then sends it to the Philippines for dubbing.

”Ibang klase ang balakang niya! Napakabilis umikot ng hoop sa kanyang pagkendeng!” (“His hips are in a class of its own! The hoop spins so fast when he gyrates his hips!”)

”Ikaw! Kaya mo bang gamitin ang ‘Super Giling Technique’?” (“You! Can you use the “Super Hip-Grinding Technique?”)

”Maniwala ka sa kapangyarihan ng iyong balakang! Ang iyong mga kaibigan ay nandito para sa iyo! Gamitin mo ang ‘Hula Demon Spirit Technique’!!!”

The whole episode was even complete with actual hip-gyrating demonstrations by yours truly. You can tell that this was bound to be a big hit in Japan, and eventually the Philippines… I can see it now.

The jabronis had fun trying to solve my lateral thinking puzzles, all the same. Sach already solved the ones I’ve been asking, but these guys took a relatively short time to solve the “Girl With The Matchstick” puzzle, even if they haven’t seen the actual film that it was based on. Really quick on the uptake, these people are… of course, they have pretty skewed notions about my masculinity now, considering all the yaoi humor I was tossing at them. Pretty conflicting, considering the fact that most of the notoriety that precedes me is based upon my infamous CP list…

Peppy asked Sacha to say “Chii”. Once she did, Peppy and I have established that Sach is a missing Persocom…

The conversation about Filipino exotic food was pretty amusing. Americans tend to be pretty queasy about duck embryos (We call it balut.) and fried frogs, among other things… apparently, Cathy was a pretty well-traveled person.

These guys are a veritable gold mine for intelligent conversation. Of course, with all the corny jokes we’ve been cracking at one another, the brain cells we killed off more or less just balance with the ones we’ve nourished well. I swear, all those puns we were throwing while cooking the food just had to make a lot of us groan… nonetheless, I don’t mind. I was in good company, and for once, I didn’t feel the least bit out of place in a fairly large group (Anything beyond three people is large to me…). I’m glad they didn’t just talk about computers throughout the time, or I would’ve simply been lost.

I’m particularly happy seeing these people, and I can’t help but hope that we’d be doing it again soon.

.:Campus Central:.

I guess I really wanted to do better than how I did yesterday with Campus Central. It’s so hard to do my portion without any interaction from the DJ on board, considering the fact that instead of giving tips or talking about events, I instead talked about campus urban legends. There was the one in UP about the headless passenger, one in the Ateneo about the man who exits the bathroom with a handprint across his back, and one in Saint Paul about a mysterious occupant in one of the cubicles in the girl’s restroom. During the first hour, it was pretty much fine, if only for the fact that Brian Gomez really interacted with me. He seemed to be genuinely spooked by the UP Urban Legend.

When Tom Alvarez came along, though, it was a different story. Not only was my airtime cut since he didn’t insert me in the conversation, he didn’t even react to my delivery of Campus Central, as such, it was all ruined by the time I got around to it, as I had to do more than my fair share of ad libbing, which is something I was used to doing only before, and usually given limited language.

Frustrating, but I know I can do better next time.

.:Ang Isda, Nahuhuli Sa Bibig:.

As the saying goes, “A fish is caught by its mouth”. I met up with one of my (By now, former.) CP’s, Ces Lao. Long hair actually suits her, but anyways…

Marcelle: Hi, Ces! How’s your boyfriend?

Ces: How did you know?

Marcelle: I have my ways…

To be honest, I didn’t know.

Apparently, I managed to nab Ces there. So I guess she now has a boyfriend. Good for her, though I hope she fares better than her friend, Kellda. Ah, well. I guess that takes her out of the CP list, but the number still stands at twelve, though, because one of them is coming back into the list, unless if I also take out a new addition, which I just might do…

.:Little Bits And Pieces

I had a few more things to talk about, but I guess I just have to keep those one waiting… I wanted to talk about the most expensive date of my life and all… idiotic computer corrupted my file…

OB is getting some activity lately. That thread I started, the OB awards, has everyone buzzing lately…

Lastly, even more violent than “Kill Bill” is Fudoh… disturbing is an understatement...