Lights still lit two years after

June 25, 2009

I’ve always wanted to live in a large city. You see, in Cavite, there are no more people on the streets when the clock srikes nine. The effect is quite eerie, especially after I’ve just come from Manila. When I left the capital at eight, night—and for a lot of people, day—was just starting. When I cross the boundary to Cavite the streets are dark (in places where corrupt public officials conveniently forgot to put street lights) and everyone has gone to sleep, or is watching the primetime crap on television. I dislike the emptiness and the isolation. Most of all, I hate the absence of civilization.

 

So, I’ve always wanted to live in a large city. Now, I am.

  

“Something about city lights attracts me like a moth to a gasoline lamp.” I wrote that here two years ago. I’m glad that I still feel the same because now I live in the center of a city full of lights, lights emebedded in tall buildings and moving cars. I am in what I believe to be my natural habitat and as shallow as it sounds, it makes me happy. Believe me, it doesn’t take a lot.

I’m breathing inside a glass partially filled with water. No, really, I am.

June 22, 2009

I had one of my weird dreams last night. In my dream, I don’t remember what I did but I got an old man who lived in a hotel angry. I wanted his big fat smelly pig. So, since the the old man and his pig are both quite frightening, I asked Robin Padilla to ask him not to be mad at me. Well, the old man got so mad that he threw the pig at me and Robin Padilla while we were in a river. The pig landed on my side and turned into a bloody mess upon impact, effectively killing Robin Padilla on the way down. I woke up in cold sweat. Scary shit.

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I have two very exciting things lined up for this week. My main problem is what I’ll be wearing to both of them. As usual though, I won’t blog about them here. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really blog about what I’m up to here. It’s for pretentious mind stuff.

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I have this amazing superpower. Guess what it’s called! Not Caring. Apathy. With it I maintain my happy little bubble of existence where few things ever go wrong. How? Because I never know when they do!

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Seriously, shit. My nose hurts. It really hurts. Humidity is too low in this office!

Blandly Afraid

June 15, 2009

Sometimes, like now, I feel a very strong urge to run away to an exciting foreign country like Paris or China. I would sell all my belongings, take out all my savings and then fly off to a strange part of the world with no place to stay in, no money to spend, and no plans about anything. It would be The Great Adventure Of My Life. I would probably die of cold or starvation but it would all be so fun and so reckless that I bet I wouldn’t even know what hit me.

 

I wish today was like the past when people travelled in ships without passports. All they would bring are a few belongings like their clothes (no toothbrushes and facial wash of course) and underwear, a loaf of bread and a slice of cheese. They would pay for passage on frail wooden ships that may sink without warning, that will probably not take them to the place they intend to reach. They would smell the salty sea air and retch as the planks rattled and creaked on top of a rolling sea. They would probably die, but they would have lived—they’ve had The Great Adventure Of Their Lives, on board a crickety ship with no toothbrush, no insurance and no SMS.

 

I wonder how it’s like to live in the past, in a time of high adventure and exploration. Back then, if you wanted to know things, you traveled to experience them. You go to a small country halfway around the world to see how the natives worshipped their crude god. You go to Paris to see art, Amsterdam to smoke pot, Germany to learn philosophy, China to harvest opium, Japan to see the samurai, India to eat chapati, America to stake unclaimed land. You travel on ships, horses, donkeys, oxen, and/or on foot. You worry about pirates on sea, brigands on land, and disease everywhere. Imagine that. Imagine all that.

 

Now, well, everything is bland and ascetic. Most of the planet has been discovered and explored and the parts that haven’t been under scrutiny yet can be found by anyone with a decent internet connection through Google Earth. If you want to know something, you go online, inside your house. There is no more adventure as the risks have been drastically decreased with the invention of disinfectants, penicillin, and more stringent laws. We live in times that are no less turbulent from the past and yet we are safer and thus, more docile.

 

The fire has gone out and I’m afraid it might have happened to me.

Convenience as a commodity

June 5, 2009

The world today is such a busy place. There are still so many things to do, even though we’ve created wonderful concepts and machines to do them for us. No one has time to go out of their way to pick up milk from the supermarket or bread from the bakery anymore. Everybody is rushing, everybody wishes they have more time and more energy for all the important stuff we need to accomplish before we die. Time and energy. These things have become a commodity. Now, however, we don’t only get paid to expend them and pay to consume them—we pay to save them. Hence, convenience as a commodity was born.

 

I planned to give you a lot of rhetorical crap about this shit but really all I want to say is, I dislike convenience stores. I dislike them with a passion. Why? The stuff they sell are ridiculously overpriced. Say, a block of cheese can be bought for P20 in the supermarket right? They sell the same thing for P40. Milk that costs P63 pesos in the grocery sells for P100 in those shitholes. A packet of sandwich spread costs P30, half the price more than the SRP.

 

It’s driving me crazy. You would have noticed by now that I’m a very price-conscious person. Well, I am, and it’s not something I’m embarrassed of. I strongly believe in paying for the exact worth of a product, and 50% more than the SRP is just pushing it. Yes, convenience is a commodity, and is bought as such, but 50%? Okay. Look. I understand. Convenience stores like Ministop and 7-11 are usually located in areas with high foot-traffic. Since the rent is also exponentially high, the space they rent is small, and can only store a limited amount of products. The owners also pay for staff, airconditioning, maintenance, and franchise fees. Hence, the prices are jacked up. It’s not like sari-sari store aspirants can put up shop in Strata 100 or RCBC.

 

So yeah I totally get it. Convenience is a luxury, and luxury items are expensive. We’ve established that. However, as a smart consumer with limited resources, we should explore other ways to consume convenience. Shop at the supermarket, christ. Do it once a week or every two weeks. Clean up after yourself because it only takes a minute of your precious time, instead of hiring a cleaning lady who charges P300 an hour.

 

I think we’re better off expending time and energy than paying to save it. It costs a lot less.