.:2011 In Retrospect From My POV:.
Well, wow. This was quite a year. For the past how many years, I've always done a top 5 or top 10 people I'm most grateful to, but I think that with everything that's been going on, there's just way too many people for me to thank. Let's just put it this way... if you're mentioned in this MASSIVE post I'm writing right now, then yeah, I'm thanking you for being a notable enough part of my year for me to actually make mention of you. If I manage to, maybe I'd even itemize that list after the post to thank you all. Whatever, really. It's my blog, so I'll write it as I see fit.
I wanted to recap how 2011 went through my eyes. This is, after all, a rather autobiographical blog. Always has been, it's just been masked by the fact that I do a lot of navel-gazing and projection when I go through with it, and it ends up being of relevance to other people in general. It's just a case of good fortune, I guess. I'm kinda tired of actively trying to be profound, so I'd happily settle for profundity in the midst of banality.
January: Not on the right foot...
Except this foot, I guess.
It was a pretty unpredictable start to 2011, as it appeared that love was on the horizon, especially given the first post I made for 2011:
the wedding proposal for no one. Alack and alas, things weren't meant to be, and I started off the year with quite a downer of an opening, despite the fact that I went to
CamSur and even attended
two separate weddings. At this point, I lost one of my best friends. And at the rate things are still going to this day, I think I lost that person for good. The sad part? I actually feel better this way, than when I pretended we could still patch things up.
The only thing that gave me a semblance of sanity was my
Project 52 2011, where I covered music videos that caught my fancy during the week in question. It was a pretty good idea, even if I sometimes couldn't write as much about the music video as I really wished I could. Nonetheless, that project took on a life of its own, and really brought to life the old adage: every song tells a story. And oh, what stories they told!
January also opened with the sad news that both Bamboo and Sugarfree, two of the best bands in the past decade,
were disbanding.
Indeed, January didn't quite start off on such an auspicious note, but hey, maybe February was going to turn out better, right? Right?
February: My life was complete...
Yes. Yes, it was.
Well, yes, admittedly, my Single Awareness Day was
far from perfect, but not only did I have my first date with
Jazminne, but for the first time ever, I met the one and only
Kim Chiu. I think that would pretty much be one of the highlights of my year, if not
the highlight.
February was pretty depressing, but Kim Chiu more than saved it, to say the least.
March: Rocking my world...
This was the night the music died.
March was marked by the
earthquake that hit Japan, more than anything else. Sure, there was talk about the
National Blogger's Association, as well as the whole brouhaha over
Manny Pacquiao and Willie Revillame. Things were definitely coming to a head, and the Jan-Jan issue just exploded from this point on, really.
Things were definitely cooking, and the craziness that ensued from the whole Willie Revillame drama still reverberate to this very day. What wasn't cooking, though, was rice. For me, at least. I gave up rice from my diet during Holy Week.
Sugarfree's
farewell show brought tears to my eyes that month.
April: We were all April Fools...
I am a Patriotic Filipino®!April was the month of iBlog 7. I wrote about
day 2 since that was the only day I attended, but there were laughs to be had about the stuff that went on during day 1, to say the least. It was pretty hilarious to hear cries of "cyber bullying" from the very same people who used their blogs to attack and malign the reputations of people because it's "their blog, their rules." Ah, yes. The maverickness of it all never ceases to be a source of amusement.
Nonetheless, iBlog 7 was indeed interesting, but so was
Willie Revillame's tirade. He dissed everyone from Aiza Segeurra to Lea Salonga to Jim Paredes, and it was just... wow. Unfortunately, his disappearance from the airwaves didn't last too long. MVP has invested too much into this guy to just allow him to disappear from his network for keeps.
Of course, in celebration of the logical fallacies that littered the landscape, I made
a series of posts to address these logical fallacies. Needless to say, it was a pretty amusing time, and it didn't take long before a lot of people started responding to the discussions I directly or indirectly instigated. On top of this, I even went to Nagsasa for a nice weekend of peace and quiet, which was my only respite from the hurly-burly of the year, come to think of it. Quite a crazy month, really. It was only going to get crazier.
May: The geek Is fighting...
On this month, Randy Savage stopped the end of the world. Maybe on October 21, then?
I started going to
Geekfight in May. It was quite an experience, and certainly changed my life, as far as making new friends would be concerned. Of course, it was really fun to be doing standup comedy on a regular basis again, as we started off in Tomato Kick, and I managed to meet some new open mic people. Couple this with a few performances that happened in Merck's as well, which definitely made the comedy scene get really hype.
On top of that, the
RH Bill started getting a lot of mileage at this point. People were debating about it left and right, and needless to say, I found myself firmly on the side of the pro-RH. It was pretty awesome as I slowly worked those little bits and pieces of my personality into my standup comedy, all the same.
I also got myself an
iPad 2 on this month. Any time I felt like playing on the go, my PSP had to settle for being my second choice at this point.
I got into OGM around this time. Best decision I ever made.
May also marked the month that Bearwin Meily
betrayed the magic community. Also, this was when Mindmaster was in full swing, and of course, I ended up writing for
The Filipino Freethinkers the minute he started doing seances. It was really an embarrassing time to be a magician, what with all the infighting and the outright charlatanism that was being peddled as legitimate on national television.
June: For the lulz...
That's my... girl?
By this time, I had a
sylvans rival sandwich, and it was heavenly. Nuffnang had its
family day, along with a few other events, all the same.
This month was when my addiction to
Cracked went into full swing. I am an avid reader of their articles, and over time, my writing style was inevitably influenced by them somewhat, especially when it comes to making stupid captions on pictures. It was highlighted by stuff like
Abante plagiarizing a satire article, as well as some hilarity involving
Gerald Anderson and Supot.ph. I also continued to write for
The POC, and made sure to discuss homophobia with a very contemptuous tone.
Of course, I hosted
Toycon as well, which was quite a highlight for me, especially since Jazminne actually won. Pretty amusing how that turned out.
And, oh. I started doing
Just Another Magic Monday in June, because I kinda missed writing about magic, which also means my Project 52 in 2012 will
definitely not be about magic, since I can just keep doing that as is, anyways.
Truth be told, June was a pretty happening month. With all the comedy shows I was taking part in, who knew I was going to end up doing even more soon enough?
July: The laughs keep on rolling...
No captions needed.
July was the month of Fabio, as he challenged the Old Old Spice Guy, Isaiah Mustafa, to a mad libs duel on YouTube. Needless to say,
it was a total riot. I was on the losing team, though, since the Old Old Spice Guy ended up getting the nod. I was hoping to see the Old Spice Girls, though. This month saw me do the most blogging in 2011.
I started opening for Mike Unson in Capone's in June, but the succeeding months, I just ended up doing more and more of them. It was quite an experience, to say the least, and I'm glad that Mike went ahead and took me under his wing. I couldn't thank him enough for it, to be honest. Considering that I opened for
him and the Itchyworms in the same venue on successive nights, I really felt honored that these people have been asking me to open for them. I've been a huge fan of Mike and the Itchyworms for years, after all.
Of course, Harry Potter 7.2 came out this month, too, and I wrote one of my best posts about the franchise when I wrote about
Snape and his unique way of showing his love. In Snape, I felt a kindred soul.
July also marked the month that the Morning Rush would celebrate its 15th year.
I went to the celebration, of course. It was really one of the most awesome times, ever, seeing so many old faces that day.
And, oh.
Sara Duterte and Vicki Belo grabbed some headlines at this point, too.
August: The Explorers, triumphant...
Because you can't go wrong with a hidden goatse.
Geekfighting was extra fun in August, since my team, the Explorers of Uranus,
hosted our own Geekfight. I even came up with the questions for one category, the Fighting Games category, which was, admittedly, a pretty easy one. My friends from the Comedy Cartel actually participated in that one, which amused me to no end.
Also, in August, the Freethinkers
won in the Globe Tatt awards, and I was very happy to have been a part of that success, no matter how minute.
A minor controversy about language cropped up this month as well. I wrote
a retort, which, unfortunately, remained unaddressed by James Soriano, which was a crying shame, really. Nonetheless, I was pretty proud of how I did that article, because I think it provided a very succinct and civilized counterpoint to James's haphazard attempt at being contrarian. There was a bigger hubbub over Mideo Cruz around this time, but I didn't feel the need to throw my hat into the discussion as much, despite having met the man in person. I was far from offended by his artwork, but I simply wasn't impressed. I've seen it before, and I've seen it done better. At this point, though, the National Artist F. Sionil Jose had something to say against Mideo's work that made me begin to take stock in the man's blowhard attempts to posit himself as a still-relevant authority on anything. This was going to come to a head in later months.
Of course, on the lighter side of controversies,
Christopher Lao happened. Sorry, but I'm backing the dude. He didn't deserve the flak he received. At all.
August was the first time I ever met
Rex Navarette. This was really awesome, and became the opportunity that allowed me to host his second show in the NBC Tent later on during the year. I still am not over that. It was, in my book, the milestone of my year.
So I broke my one picture per month rule. So what?
I also discovered why having a stalker sucks at this point. But let's not dwell on that.
Oh, by the way, the world-famous magician, Shoot Ogawa,
went to the Philippines in August! He wouldn't be the only big shot magician coming to the country this year, though.
September: Wake me up when September ends...
We still miss you, AJ.
I normally am very pessimistic about September, being my birthday month and all. But who knew it would suck so much, really? If one month could be struck out of 2011 in the vain hopes that it never happened, I wish it was 2011. Seriously.
It started off okay enough, when I met
Roderick Paulate during the Zombadings premiere. Things were even more awesome when I first met Marybeth, one of my favorite co-hosts of all time now, and hosted Best Of Anime with her, which led to me
getting "married" to Jazminne. It was all fun, but I think the bad still outweighed the good, even if the Disenchanted Kingdom also celebrated its second year of existence this month. Yes, even if
Michael Ammar went to Manila.
First of all,
F. Sionil Jose happened. This was quite a frustrating thing, because I ended up losing a so-called friend who apparently valued some person she doesn't know more than someone she's been friends with for almost half a decade. That was disheartening, to say the least, but y'know what? She can go dunk her head in the water for all I care, at this point. She's dead to me, at this point.
So yeah, that was pretty lousy, and so was the whole thing about
bloggers getting a worse and worse rep in general. But you know the worst thing about September? This was the month where
the blogosphere became a far less fabulous place. We lost AJ Matela, and his loss came with a heavy price, both emotional and financial.
The blogosphere came together in a way that could only be called phenomenal, but if we could undo all of that to have AJ back, I'd have happily made the trade. I'm sure a lot of us would have wanted the same, as well.
We still miss you, AJ. A lot.
October: The less said about this...
I still say the show title had a lot of unfortunate implications, though.
Well, first, the awesomeness: I hosted
Alodia's Fantasy. It was a great honor, and it's good to know that Alodia has a lot of faith in my ability to host, as she entrusted me with the hosting duties for one of the biggest nights of her career thus far.
Of course, this month also marked one of the least well-contemplated big decisions in my life. I think a lot of it owed to the wedding I attended on this month, and the surrounding circumstances, but now, looking at how things are today, I must say that it was a monumental waste of time.
I think I've had more good memories with my X-Box Kinect (Which I bought in October.) than that other thing.
See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. Who knew
this post would turn out to both be relevant and prophetic to me in the months to come?
November: Right place, right time...
Not pictured: the pepper spray cops.
I met Hillary Clinton, then on the same day, I hosted Rex Reloaded. What more could I have asked for? It was, to put it simply, just a great career month for me. Aside from that, I even performed with the Itchyworms on their
fifteenth anniversary. It was, without a doubt, an awesome time to be a performer.
I think I can bask in these two paragraphs at this point and call it a month, because I couldn't have asked for anything more from November. Instead, things were, on hindsight, even better, because I undid something stupid from October. Thank heavens.
I also met a new friend this month, during the TOEI show, which was, to me, a homecoming of sorts, since it was my first ever hosting gig for cosplay, five years ago. Kristell Lim is one of the most awesome new people I have met in 2011, no questions asked. I have a soft spot in my heart for TOEI.
So overall? It was actually a good month.
December: Lost in the reverie...
Did you know Kurt Angle inspired my blog's title?
So aside from Piolo and Mo Twister, December was pretty quiet for me. I was surprised to see myself
nominated this month. It was for the Personal and the Society categories of the Philippine Blog Awards. Lo and behold,
I won for the latter. I was pretty shocked because I was doing voice over duties during the event, so winning was the farthest thing from my mind.
Nonetheless, with all the reverie of the year, I was very delinquent with my blogging, to say the least. It was fine, though. I still managed to do my Christmas shopping properly, and I even squeezed in a bit of hosting during the Christmas ToyCon for one stretch of the program, where I conducted the auctions.
I also saw something happen to me in record time. Let's just say that I found it funny because it just exposed all the lip service for what it was: lip service and nothing more.
Thought it didn't directly affect me, the Sendong typhoon really sucked, though.
I think the weird thing about this year was it was bookended by the very same person who started my year off on the wrong foot. I don't harbor any ill feelings towards her at this point, but I won't let myself be used again any longer.
All in all...
... It was your average year, although the new Sales Manager in Nuffnang certainly is quite a game-changer, work-wise. I'm guessing it would be for the better, though. Some weird firsts happened in my life, including the first time I ever got a sermon from my own mom about my lovelife, but overall, I can't really say this year was significantly better than last year, save for the fact that the one-two betrayal punch I received in 2010 from a certain someone probably won't be outdone by anyone else for a long time. That shadow hovers over me to this day.
2012 is a year for hope, regardless of those stupid end-of-the-world predictions. Despite that, I'm rather cynical now, so I don't put much stock in this hope any longer.
Pardon me while I burst into flames. At least, 2012, if I'm going down, I'm going down in a blaze of glory. If not, then I can be your firework.
