Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Tale of Tagaytay

Come, gather 'round people wherever you, roam for a tale of Tagaytay I have to tell.

It's not often I'm caught entirely by surprise, as such it's a rare treat I tend to relish. So far it's happened twice already in 2011, once when my dear brother bestowed upon me the magic of PlayStation, and then again last weekend when a dear friend sprung heinous trap.

Saturday, March 19th. Mabie had talked me into coming with her to play the bongos this weekend (don't ask), it sounded like fun, so I agreed. First Mistake.

Second Mistake? Not bailing as soon as I sensed something was up. We met at a little coffee shop in the mall at around 3pm and were there till 5pm. A little late I thought, but maybe the bongo festivities start at night?

Third Mistake? Getting into the car with Will and Bryan, Mabie's co-conspirators. As soon as we hit the highway, Will said "so wants to break the news?" Cue ominous laughter. If you've ever seen the scene in The Lost Boys where Keifer Sutherland takes Jason Patric's character out for a night time ride on the train tracks, you probably have a good idea how I felt.

In the end? We made our way to the mountaintop town of Tagaytay, where one of Mabie's friends was having a birthday bash for friends and one gate crashing Nigerian. Fresh air, lots of food, lots of booze, and some good conversation capped off a truly fun night, as you can see from the pics below. Also, I got a bushel of fresh lettuce to take home :) Did I mention the party took place at a lettuce farm?

So.. thanks Mabie. Watch your back.


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A major "life transition"

Recently I've had to start coping with one of the most difficult "life transitions" I've ever known. It came unexpectedly and I wasn't at all prepared for it, but so far I'm coping fairly well. I am of course referring to the fact that the "confirm" command on my new Asian PlayStation 3 is mapped to the circle button instead of the Western standard "X", which in turn is mapped to cancel out... jarring stuff.

For some this means nothing, but to me it's been a major change, one that's difficult to adjust to after more than a decade and a half of doing things the other way round. Commands I once performed using muscle memory alone have become labored exercises forcing me to stop-think-execute. It would be great to be able to carry this philosophy into my day to day. As Obadiah Stane put it, "no more of this ready, fire, aim nonsense".

I'm stealing time out from my lunch hour to post, I must confess I really feel like firing up my PS3 (brand new, courtesy of the bro) to play some Mass Effect 2, but I think I'll settle for preparing a ham sandwich and some music.

PS. Is the background of my blog a tiled image of a frog for anyone else?