I’m Still Alive… and Insane…

Yes, yes… I am back. Alive and well. Still lazy though. Anyway, here is my first post for the year. Hopefully, it won’t be the last. This one’s a doozy, so bear (or bare whichever you like… wink wink) with me.

I sometimes, okay always, envy some people I see. Texting with their iPhones and Blackberries (<— funny… Blackberries… tihihi), photographing with D300s, driving with BMWs. They have such a good life. Either really hard working with a very rewarding job, won a contest or have a “sponsor” for thier needs and wants. I would like to have those things. The rewarding job, a winning lottery ticket and a “sponsor”… no wait, I meant the phones, cameras and cars… Right… phones… cameras… I do have a phone, I have a camera I can use, a car whenever I’m in Davao but it feels that I am still wanting more. More specifically, I only want particular things. Expensive things. Why do I like expensive things? I don’t have the faintest idea. I mean, of all the brands out there, why do I seem to go for the branded and usually imported ones? Of all the hobbies I could waste my time on, I happen to pick the ones where it would not only cost me a huge chunk of my life doing but also cleans my bank account in an instant? Of all the food that is available, my taste buds like the ones prepared and cooked by chefs (*sweatdrop* the first word I thought of for the plural of chef was “cheves”…) who had to take culinary arts for 20 years (and no, not because it took them 5 years to learn to boil water)?

*** WARNING!!! Long, boring, filled-with-rants article up ahead. Read at your own risk. ***

Though, mind you, our perception of what expensive is might differ. If you find lighting a Cuban cigar with a P1000 bill is as common as blinking, then you might want to stop reading now. For me, expensive is P1000 for 4 pairs of socks; P600 for a haircut; P400 for 3 pieces of sushi. Or it could also mean that there exists a similar but cheaper item (like, say item A costs P500) and the other (item B) costs like P100 more (for those mathematically challenged, that’s P600) then item B, for me, is expensive. So if you find that my view is similar to yours or if you keep an open mind or have nothing else better to do, then keep reading. Or not.

First point: Clothes. It’s not that I don’t like the affordable(read:mass produced) brands but it just so happens that I haven’t a single skin cell that feels remotely comfortable in most of the local’s textile options. It’s either too thin, too thick, too heavy, too see through, too static electricity producing, or it simply causes me to have goosebumps whenever my skin comes in contact with a piece of lint from the hem of the underside of the collar. It might sound that I am too hard to please… well, I am. But it’s not my fault (and not the point)! I am just this way. My skin has 500 times the sensitivity to these kinds of things. Let me ask you, “Would you wear something given to you for free but you have to focus your mind just not to notice that the material is driving you nuts and is complelling you to take all of it off just so you’d remain sane?” Huh?!? Would you? WOULD YOU?!?! I guessed not. So you see, it’s not like I’m the Devil who only wears Prada, it’s just that I have weird skin. Also, call me old fashioned or plain or whatever, but I really don’t see the point of putting glitters, sequines, rubberized letters, paint splatters, skulls, and farm animals on shirts, pants, jackets, caps, socks, and shoes and g-strings. I like saw that design on a 5 year old’s shirt (I said shirt. Shirt. Not g-string you sick bastard). Yeah, all of those things on a single kid’s shirt. Okay, maybe minus the skulls but I can’t be too sure since the shirt had too many things on it. I can stand a few letters here and there, a brand logo, plaid/stripes/checkered on shirts but that’s about it. I don’t need nonsense words emblazoned in gold letters. I don’t mind words that make you think (seriously) about it, not those that say, “Press to have a fun time” and an arrow pointing to a nipple. I don’t think sickly pink and bright blue should go together either. I mean who in their right mind would put this two together? It might look cute on a 3 year old girl, but generally, it’s just a poor color choice. This, if you haven’t noticed(in which case I have to ask you which rock you’ve crawled out from), is very common among affordable brands. So you see, from just those two things that I need to have satisfied, my choices have narrowed significantly. In this point of my payslip… errr.. I mean, life, I currently have a handful of brands that I buy from. For pants, I generally stick to Jag, Giordano, Dockers, Loalde, and some Bench. For shirts, I stick to: Loalde, Giordano, Van Heusen, Adidas and an occasional Bench. Shoes/Flip-flops/Sandals: Adidas, Converse, Crocs, Sanuk. So as you can see, I have limited choices. They’re not THE really expensive brands, but I can only manage to buy 2 or 3 new articles of clothing every 3 months or so because of my limited… uhm… resources. It could be 2 or 3 every month if only they were cheaper or I was richer. If it were up to me, I’d buy a P3000 shirt but then people might notice that I don’t eat or that I wear the same shirt everyday. So why, do I like expensive clothes? I guess it’s because they have the right material and the common sense not to design their clothes like someone puked on it. The second reason might give the “affordable” brands an idea as to why the expensive ones have thriving businesses.

Second Point: Food. This is easier to explain. I like food. To those who know me or seen me in the corner of thier closed eyes, I definitely look like a guy who likes food. But not any kind of food. Though I like almost all edible things, I tend to stick to the “normal” side of the fence. So, no insects, eyeballs, testicles, hooves, horns, or even tongues for me. Anyway, I like burgers. If I could eat burgers all the time, I would but my doctor has put me on a lenient TRO on them. Anyway, when I was still in Davao, I would only eat McDonalds’ burgers. Back then, if I had the money I would go for Space Burger but they had expensive(since it’s not part of the meal) fries. When I moved here to Manila and I tried Burger King… well, let’s just say that I think twice buying a Mcdonalds’ burger now. Yeah, they’re only about P40-P50 more than a McDonalds but that P40-P50 could have been used to buy something else. Heck, I could settle for Burger Machine, and save a ton-o’-cash, but I don’t. I stubbornly only get Burger King. Grilled and the veggies they put feels like they can still be replanted and live. Pizza… only Yellow Cab. For now. I haven’t tried California Pizza Kitchen. I bet if I tried that, I probably forsake Yellow Cab. After careful calculations though(I pretended to push buttons on my calculator and nod with whatever was on the screen and made an an erroneous conclusion), I found out that Yellow Cab has the best square inch to price ratio. It sounds I am actually getting a cheaper pizza, but an 18in pizza for 2 people is not cheap. Sundae: Dairy Queen. Back in Davao, I didn’t like any kind of sundae. Even McFlurry. But now, after I eat at the heart clogging BK, I insist on buying the thigh enlarging DQ for desert. I could just go for the P15 sundae from MiniStop but they’re just not as satisfying. This is not much of a problem now. Since I have really costly clothes and hobbies(coming after this. You: GOOD GRIEF! There’s more?!?!), I tend to cut down on my food expenses but there’s still the occasional(like, once a week) P800 dinner. So why do I only eat the best out there? (Okay, I know the places I mentioned are just fastfood chains but I can’t really get into the bistro’s, resto’s, and other o’s out there as this might take a whole lot longer. Do you really want to read a another page worth of my food choices? Well, do you? Didn’t think so. Also, my first line said this would be easier to explain.) I guess it’s just the Remy in me. You know… Remy… from Ratatouie? I mean why eat less when you have the option to eat more and better… albiet more expensive.

Third(and last since this is getting awfully long. You: You think?!!): Hobbies. This, my fooli… uhm… patient readers, is the bane of my existence. I have poor judgement on the things I waste my money on. My first expensive hobby is reading. I love books. I would skip meals and sleep just to read and finish a book. Fortunately for me, Manila has a plethora of book shops. Unfortunately for me, a single book costs more than my day’s pay. Even if it’s softbound or paperback or reprints, these books don’t come cheap. I am sad to say to you great authors and publishers, I sometimes (more often than not) just rip you off and download digital versions of your books. But let me tell you, reading from a phone, laptop, psp, or any kind of PDF reading device is never and would never be as satisfying as reading from a thick, solid, paper book. The smell of new books and glue, or old books and dust have no fear of ever being becoming obsolete. That is unless they keep getting expensive in which case they should watch out. Next expensive hobby was gadgets in general. I wanted every new gizmo, dodad, and whachamacalits back then. Phones, PDA’s, laptops, netbooks, mp3 players, watches and all that crap. I wanted it. Bought my first MP3 player last 2005. It was P3000. I get only P500 per week for food and fare. Took me 3 months of occasional starving and brisk walking to save the money. That was not cheap for me but I had to have it. I never really got to buy anything else after that since I could not stop eating and walking only saved so much. Anyway, I have grown out of that now. I am happy with my gadgets and only seek to buy when it needs to be replaced or upgraded. The instinct to browse shops for gadgets is not gone though. Next hobby is photography. I have not yet succeeded in satisfying this thirst. I have camera’s to play with but… well, but. I love photography. It makes me happy way beyond anything else. Unfortunately, to play properly, I would need lots of stuff. Lenses, strobes, tripods, filters are just some of the stuff that eat through your savings. Though it’s not the equipment that makes a good photo, but it surely helps a lot. It’s the same with “Money can’t buy happiness”. Yeah, it doesn’t but it does a hell of a good job in making you think you are. So photography… *sigh*… I’m not giving up on you. Last and current obsession: Gundam Plastic Models. This might sound childish to you but guess what? An MG 1/100 Shin Musha: Sengoku no Jin is about P4600. Nothing childish about that. Besides, with that particular model, I highly advise against making an 8 year old build that model. Heck, I’d advise you to not let me build it. Kidding. Lemme at it. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Anyway, this hobby would be cheap if you just look to buy HG’s, cut, snap build and leave it in a corner. But for me, although I’m pretty much a neophyte in every aspect, that’s not the case. I want to sand left over gates. I want to remove seams. I want to prime. I want to paint. I want to top coat. I want to polish. I want to drill. I want to rivet. I want to scribe. These things will not be cheap, time- and money-wise. Painting alone will cost you at least P1000 for a mediocre job. But like any obsessive and eager neophyte, I want to get down and dirty(not really dirty… don’t like getting dirty…) with it. I want a P4500 air compressor, a P3500 airbrush, P5000 worth of paints and thinners, and P100000 worth of Gunpla’s to paint. A little bit overboard with the last one, but if anybody want’s to offer, I’ll gladly accept. So you see, my choices are not the best ones. It would have been fine if I had only one of these hobbies, but I have all 4. So why do I choose expensive hobbies? ‘Coz I find stamp and coin collection boring. I don’t feel the same satisfaction from making origami’s. Or probably because no one has piqued my interest in other hobbies.

So why do I choose to punish myself with wanting things that I know I can’t have? I don’t know, well exactly. Lot’s of reasons, I think. Maybe I’m just built that way. Or maybe I am actually adopted and my real parents are filty rich and I got the instinct to go for the best and expensive from thier genes? Dr. Evil Voice: “Riiight…” *Sigh* Why can’t I be happy with clothes that are literally off the rack and into the discount bin? Why can’t I eat “kanto” food like most people I see in the streets? And why can’t I be happy with just playing with straws, bottle caps, shadows, paper and pencil like when I was a kid? I need to get rich quick. Get a better job, win the lottery, or rob a bank… I don’t know. Anyway, go away now and leave me and my drool as we browse the net for more things we can’t have.