I’m officially an old-year old (30)

Title.

I’m no longer young, but I still have youth. I’m a year closer to death, and I’ve never felt more alive.

Thank You for Everything, Dear Avanza. We’ll miss you.

February 10 2024, 0415 pm.

Dad finally sold his 10-year old Toyota Avanza to a rich family in San Antonio, Makati, looking for a car to customize.

That car took us a lot of places and served as a great vehicle for emergencies. It felt like asking someone else to be the owner of your dog because you were too old to care for it. In a lot of ways, it was that one car you were familiar with and couldn’t wait to ride because it felt like home.

Even sadder: my dad will be 65 this year and he’s driven and favored manual transmission since he was 18, despite owning two other automatic transmission cars.

It only dawned on me that the Avanza would be the last Manual car he’ll drive.

He had me take photos of it with him, he even hugged it. I saw him giving it one last wash and wipe and he was whispering something, perhaps he’s saying thank you and sorry.

Best friends

When the new owner got it out of the garage, he couldn’t help but look at it with such fondness and sadness. He was joking around and laughing it off when the new owner asked if he wanted to take one last picture, but I knew he just wanted to get it over with.

The car left our house and he didn’t take his eyes off it until it made a turn. He went inside, head down, deep sigh.

It was bound to be sold anyway, especially since he’s the only one who likes to drive stick here, so we thought might as well sell it while there’s still value. It was an “E” and we sold it for 250k.

It was a company car given to mom, but we inherited it when she retired.

It’s well maintained. It’s never been banged or hit by anything other than the occasional “gasgas” by bikers.

We always had it serviced and replaced with original parts done by a former Toyota mechanic for all 10 years. If not for the old style body, you wouldn’t think it was a decade old. This mechanic became a family friend and was our “middleman” for the sale.

I wanted to take remove this as remembrance, but dad said it would damage the dashboard. It was from Regina Rica and it’s about as old as the car. The new owners were also okay with it since they were Christian.

The good news is, we sold it to car lovers. They were planning on giving it a major makeover as a gift to their niece who’s about to start college in UP. So at the very least, it’s in good hands and is likely parked under a roof.

It would have been heartbreaking if we delayed the plan to sell it until the only buyers would be junkers or chop-chop mechanics.

Thank you, friend. I hope your new owner loves you as much as we do ❤

She’s gonna get fucking married next year and I don’t know how to feel

I heard about it last month from a common friend and I felt miserable then, but time passed and I thought it was a moment of weakness.

Then the same friend told me I should look her wedding photoshoot on vimeo and I literally don’t want to because she blocked me and I’m trying to mentally block her, so I need to respect that.

But fuck.

Fuck

fuck

I haven’t been able to work well in the last two hours. I’m still thinking about it. I WANT to know what she looks like right now and how beautiful she must be, but I can’t let my personal wants overcome my respect for her decision to hide her life from me.

It’s been 10 goddamn years, Robert. WHAT THE FFUCK is up with these FEELINGS.

I buried them! I BURIED THEM! WHY ARE THEY BACK?!

Goodbye, Pinoy Exchange.

Leaving my mark. Will keep it short.

I stumbled onto Pex back when I got banned on Ichiraku for using hacks on a dumb 2D game. I needed online friends, so I looked up “Pinoy forums” or something. I eventually settled with two:

PinoyUndeground and Pex.

PinoyUnderground (or PU) was like Pex, except it had a lot of illegal downloads for software and hacks. I also went to one of their annial EBs in Padi’s Point along Shaw, Blvd. way back in 2009. Idk what happened to the forums in 2010 because I was already glued to Pex. All I know is it eventually died when Facebook took over, but I digress.

John Wick: Chapter 4 Review (Spoiler Free)

Summary:

Certified best film of the four. Jaw dropping from start to finish. Wonderful story, action, and world-building, plus an open-ended conclusion that satisfies both major fan theories.

If there’s a nitpick, it would be how the film pretty much abandoned its close-to-reality take on fighting, shooting, and taking hits.

Then again, maybe that’s just part of the mythos that is John Wick: A man of focus, commitment, and sheer fucking will.

Unkillable and unstoppable, Mr. Wick truly is the one you send to kill the boogeyman, and then some.

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SPOILER-FREE Review

I felt how to love again at Hornby Lighthouse

Typing this on my phone after a botched Royal National Park attempt (muddy trails). Time check 1503, Friday.

Gonna cut this short, but last October 25, I met a woman I’ll call “N” at Hornby Lighthouse, at Watsons Bay. She’s a foreign student from Denmark, and she’s only here for a semester. I Googled her and found that she’s about 24-25 years old.

Admittedly, too young for me. I also found out she has a boyfriend, so there’s that, too.

Anyway, we walked back to the ferry together and all in all spent probably no more than 40 minutes.

But, it may seem really stupid, I felt what it’s like to fall in love again after almost a decade, after I told myself to hell with that feeling. What happened? A heart break, but that’s not why I’m writing this.

I’m writing this because up until I met her, I was doing fine. I was happy about my Sydney trip, going to all these amazing places.

Then I met her and I’ve never been happier. She was easily the highlight of my 13 days here.

However, that came with a terrible consequence.

I now have to live with the memory of a happiness I may never experience again.

We parted ways shortly after our ferry arrived at the Quay, and right there my heart sank. I went home thinking about her, looking at the selfie we took, and contemplating a sudden trip to Denmark for a small chance to bump into her.

I worked on my laptop that night and I ended up with a small mental breakdown.

I felt love again and it happened at a lighthouse in one of the most secluded parts of the world of all places.

I’m not in love with her per se, but she made me feel love again, and that was enough for me to end up brooding over something that was simply a chance encounter.

I missed this feeling and I didn’t know I missed it until she/fate reminded me.

I guess you can say I feel empty because the feeling was there, then it was gone again. It’s like someone offered you a cold glass of water out in the desert after years, so now you remember that you were thirsty and it hurts.

I don’t know where Naja is right now, but she did tell me she’s headed back to Denmark this November to complete her post graduate in business.

To N. S.

I just want to say, thank you for letting me feel love again, N, even if it wasn’t for more than an hour. I want all the good things to come your way and I pray all your dreams come true.

You will always have a home in my heart and perhaps the Philippines if you decide to visit.

I hope you are well and I hope to see you again.

With all my lonely heart, Robert, the awkward Asian friend you met in Sydney.

3 Reasons Why Leni Didn’t Beat BBM in 2022

As of this writing, BBM is leading by at least 12+ million votes over Leni. Also, a bunch of crime-sauced senators are in the top 12, but that’s expected. This is more on why Leni’s team lost to BBM’s team.

The Damn Surveys

I voted for Leni, although in the back of my mind I knew BBM was going to win. I did it anyway for my conscience and for that tiny hope that things will turn out fine.

Before all this, I did some election history review and the surveys only f’d up once, and it was when FPJ ran (though it came out that PGMA did Hello Garci and all).

Basically, the damn surveys were always a strong indicator, regardless of how we feel about them.

We can say they BBM’s camp cheated, but that would be like patting ourselves on the back for a participation trophy.

Maybe there was some mind-conditioning involved. Likely the government did something in favor of BBM, but no matter how we spin this, there’s no denying this election was for BBM to lose. Here are 3 reasons why.

Why #1 Echo-Chambering

I think Leni supporters online were pretty much the same people who went to her rallies. Supporters echo-chambered themselves into thinking they got majority votes, because they thought online presence/trends = what’s happening on the ground.

As it turns out, the ones who would have shifted the balance were probably too busy to be online, participate in rallies, and read blocks of text why Leni is the best.

Instead, they preferred 1-minute tiktoks and clickbait YT videos, and BBM capitalized on it.

Why #2 Poor Marketing

#1 was strongly enforced when pro-Leni users would mock and alienate instead of convert.

In marketing, you don’t get more consumers by making your buyers feel bad about their decisions, but that’s exactly what Pro-Lenis did.

Add that to the poor literacy rate, difficulty filtering fake news, preferring low-iq, easy to digest entertainment over discussion of serious matter, that Majoha incident, and just being “happily aloof” despite anything.

Leni stans dunked the Oreo too deep into the “magnanakaw” glass and couldn’t come up with anything new or exciting.

It’s like selling Mang Juan to Marty’s lovers without actually giving Marty’s fans something to be excited about apart from being new and different.

By April, the whole “thief” theme was running dry. The effort was there, but didn’t generate new leads despite casting a super wide net.

In any industry, it’s better to produce shitty stuff to get new customers in than it is to reproduce good stuff to keep current customers happy. Sure, it costs a lot more to get new leads, but new customers = potential loyal customers.

Leni stans caught a bunch of whales (celebrities, artists, geniuses, etc.), but they still only count as one vote. Meanwhile, BBM’s team caught a lot of herrings, along with some sharks. Not as big as whales, but one vote is one vote.

My point is: Leni supporters just couldn’t get out of the “magnanakaw” quick sand they dug themselves in. Rather, they chose NOT to get out, because they thought their marketing game was solid, when it only really touched on current customers and fell flat everywhere else.

Why #3 Historical Gullibility

The ultimate battle was between Leni and the gullibility of Pinoys.

Leni was a recent event, our gullibility started when we let Magellan declare the country for Spain. It’s hard to fight against something embedded in our DNA.

PNoy himself used the gullibility (being Ninoy’s son) as his golden ticket. He was never the most qualified, Dick Gordon and Gibo were. ERAP and FPJ were both actors.

Durterte also capitalized on gullibility, but he did much better because he already built an untouchable legacy in Davao that no one but Leila questioned, and she was imprisoned for it.

We also recently elected actual criminals in the senate three years ago, adding to the fact that name-recall and being “entertaining” trumps qualification.

Yeah, I’m certain some dark dealings were involved, but let’s not pretend the results weren’t par for the course of being a Filipino.

At the very least, it’s gonna be another Duterte for 6 years, so we know what to expect.

Personal Thoughts

I personally don’t love this country. Seriously, I don’t. If I tell you my social media handles, you can collect a bunch of posts/comments saying there’s no hope for the Philippines as early as 2015.

I’m supposed to be happy that Leni lost because I was proven right, but I just can’t. Not so much because my candidate lost or because BBM won, but because I feel like the country could have had real positive change for a moment there.

She is sincere, kind, and has a long history of just being there for the marginalized. Her own daughters represent just how good of a mother she is at the very least. I actually feel that she cares and would have been glad to be finally proven wrong about my take on Filipinos.

I believed and still believed in Leni, but things happen the way they should be, and any country deserves any government it elects.

PS: but if this is official, I don’t want Leni to ask for a recount. I’d rather let her finally be a private citizen and rest on her laurels.

I dreamt about Tracey

Just the title. It was a short dream, at least as long as my brain would allow me to remember. In that dream, we were talking to each other what I think was in a coffee shop in Paris.

I say Paris because I saw an old photo of her from Paris a week ago and the atmosphere and the color of freshly varnished wood and soft yellow light enveloped both of us; her back towards the window of what seemed to be a busy noon, with people and bicycles going left and right.

In that dream, she seemed to have lost a bit of weight, which I attribute to her weight loss efforts. She seemed quite pleased to say the least, as she was smiling and displayed vibrant eyes as if we were reminiscing an old memory. I also remember her wearing what looked to be mascara, but I didn’t ask her about it.

And that was the dream.

I couldn’t hear anything because I think I was surprised to see her and it just filled my head with wonder. All I knew was I jolted awake at around 4 AM and I tried so hard to “get back in,” but I couldn’t. The only thing I (now vaguely) recall was her face and how she still looked great, better even.