Faces

My dream of passing the creative torch to the new-bloods died yet another painful death this year, and the task of designing the station's christmas card falls on my lap, again.

It all started when I heard the station wishing for a more personalized greeting card to replace the UNICEF cards it customarily gave out on Christmas. In between research work, I played with Photoshop and Pagemaker, and submitted my first design.

It got approved (aha, madali palang i-please mga tao dito. haha!), marking my first break into (extremely) amateur graphics design, and my unofficial designation as the station's designs/layout artist. It was only a few years ago when my job description got revised to include those functions.

The task gets gruelling each year: now I have to fit 43 people into a half-letter size postcard while trying to make it pass for a decent greeting card. The pictorials get more complicated (thus messier), the designs more demanding, and the deadline more toxic than ever.

I have to find someone to do this next year! *reminder entered*

Anyway, there's (always) a certain high with designing the station's christmas card, however simple or amateur. Labor of love, maybe, and the chance to see the faces of people I hardly get to even talk to in this workplace -- taking note of the new faces, how the old ones have changed, and remembering those who were once part of this station's motley mob.

Looking back: a draft of my first proposed design. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy of the finished product.

Funny: Of dog poo and HP 4

There's a game I love to play, even if I lose all the time. I'd stare at the ashtray and try to will all the cigarette butts away. I'd grow tired, step outside, and do the same thing with the dogshit that greet us every morning at the doorsteps with its ghastly poo-pee combo stench.

But, as I said, I always lose.

In the end I would have to scrub the dogshit off the doorsteps, and throw away the cigarette butts -- as I would the rest of the rubbish in the house to keep it inhabitable for the next five days.

Funny.

Because we don't have a dog.

And I don't smoke.

Ron Weasly is funny. The Weasley twins are funny. HP and the Goblet of Fire is (and most likely will stay) the funniest of the HP movies.

But life... is hilarious.

"Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten" -- G.K. Chesterton

Priceless

October 27, aboard Superferry OLO Medjugorje.

My big brother, my best man, sure knows how to make every moment memorable, and he's not about to let our 15-hour ship travel pass without a little sideshow.

A master marketing and salesman he is, he wove his magic and had the ship's staff list me on their videoke challenge at the last moment.

It wasn't that painful singing Gary V's love song in front of the crowd. It helped that it was sudden enough so I had no time to panic, and that I was inspired enough to sing that kind of song.

And that I already had two and a half pitchers of draft beer.

I didn't win first price, of course. The lady that sounded like Sarah Geronimo deserves the Superferry travel bag and cap more. I'm happy with my Superferry fan and travel soaps.

The trip has been delightfully surreal so far -- the waitress who looks like Jodi Santamaria, my brother getting drunk and swearing that he's going change our wedding plans (gasp!), and me just smiling and smiling and smiling.

I'm excited, and terrified to the core, about my coming pamamanhikan. My brother was first to express his opposition to some of our plans, mostly on logistics, citing practicality to support his recommendations. I shudder at the thought of the possible barrage our wedding plans will face from my fiancée's family.

Anyway, despite our opposing views, I feel happy knowing he'll be with me on Sunday.