1.) On Atheism: if you wanna read about atheism, science and religion
most popular entries:
a.)Agnosticism vs Atheism
b.)A more comprehensive atheism FAQ

2.)Lighter stuff/Humor: read about how quirky eccentric minds view the world
most popular entries:
a.) THe gentleman's guide to the MRT/LRT
c.) Of dignity and men

3.)Youtube vids: self explanatory
most popular entries:
a.) Pirates of the caribbean 3 review
b.) THe pirate with the ginormous zit

4) Philosophy/society/politics Ramblings of a more serious nature
Most popular entries:
a.) I hate Filipino Culture
b.) Free will is an obsolete concept

Check out my other blogs

Manly stuff in general: A blog about games, gadgets, babes and manly stuff in general

Lord of the atheists: a blog about atheism, debates and philosophy

 

The internet has become a record keeper for all sorts of personal information, from the most trivial to the most intimate. Wittingly or unwittingly, almost everybody has left a left a trace on the internet open for google to find. If a person mattered then there might be an article created for him/her by those whose lives he/she has affected Or he might be a subject of an entire article on wikipedia if he affected the lives of a lot of people. If a person wants to matter then he may create a dent on the internet himself by creating a blog like the one you’re reading right now.

Every year, my family gathers in a small patch of land somewhere within the forest of crosses and tombstones of manila north cemetery to commemorate the life of a person we lost 11 years ago. Her name was Catherine. We called her Cathy. She was the 2nd youngest of us four siblings.

She had a lot of things going for her. She was pretty, she was smart, she was studious and she had the gift of gab. She was too young to have decided on a career path but my mother used to suggest to her a lot that she be a dermatologist (I think she had expressed some interest in the idea as well). One, because it’s a lucrative career. It’s common knowledge that dermatologists are professionally trained to suck every peso out of their clients’ wallet. Two, so she could cure her own skin problems.

She had a lot of infectious and unique mannerisms. I think she started the trend of babytalking in the family. Both of my other sisters do it now quite extensively. She also was into the habit of inventing words. A habit which I think I may have picked up from her. Whenever she would watch TV, she had this weird mannerism where she’d face the tv sideways and she’d watch from the corner of her eye. Whenever I would try to access an image of her from my memory, the image of her watching tv always stands out as the clearest. It’s funny how the habits that I used to think were annoying are the ones that I remember the most.

She was born on the 6th of December, 1984. She succumbed to asthma on the night of September 17, 1997. She was just about to turn 13. I remember waking up to the sound of commotion. My mother was panicking and cathy’s struggle was quite audible. My parents tried to calm her down (because stress would just aggravate her asthma) and then they rushed her to the hospital
I tried to ignore it but at the back of my mind, I had a very strong feeling that she wasn’t going to make it. I also had suffered from severe asthma attacks in my youth and I knew the feeling of fighting for every breath to the point where you feel like you don’t want to anymore.

It was like drowning but, in some ways, more torturous. When you’re drowning, your ordeal would just last for about 10 or so mins and then you’d pass out and die. My worst asthma attacks lasted for almost a month and the apex would last up to 5 days, during which I’d be bedridden and any attempt at exertion would leave me close to losing consciousness.
I saw what she went through and I knew that it was worse than anything I had ever experienced. That night, before my parents rushed her to the hospital, I heard her say “ayoko na” (I don’t want to anymore)

I think the call came at around midnight. I think It was my mother who delivered the news. I remember vague details about what happened exactly.  My youngest sister was playing jackstone. I was on my bed. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events but I think I slept again after I heard the news. Maybe because I wanted to wake up and realize that it was all just a bad dream or maybe because I wasn’t quite sure how I would react yet and I wanted to postpone it till morning.

It was strange because I felt sad but I didn’t feel as sad as I expected to be. I got a bit teary eyed but I don’t remember crying. The full impact of what happened didn’t catch up with me till much later.

I used to call her “bispringe” (bestfriend). Cathy and I were quite close when we were much younger but we weren’t in good terms when she passed away. I think we weren’t speaking for more than a year. It was a long time ago so ¬I don’t exactly remember what started our fight but I remember calling her “ketong” (leper). Cathy had allergic dermatitis which caused certain areas of her skin to form scabs. We were calling each other names at the time. She brought up some of my insecurities so I thought it was a fair trade. But of course it wasn’t and it was really insensitive of me. She cried so to say that she was affected would probably be an understatement. I never got to say sorry. We never got to make up.

She was already a young lady when she passed away but my clearest mental image of her is when she was much younger, when we were still quite close. She didn’t have a lot of pictures in her latter months and we didn’t get to interact much so it’s hard for me to remember clearly what she looked like. I remember that she grew her hair longer, her skin improved and she got slimmer. (she was chubby when she was younger) but it’s hard for me to assemble a full picture in my head. There’s very little to remember her by.

I never got to know what kind of life she got to live in her latter months. She kept a diary but due to a misdirected gesture of sentimentality, we never got to read it and we never will. Her thoughts and secrets were buried with her literally.

She passed away before the internet went mainstream here in the philippines. She never had a friendster profile, no myspace, no facebook, no blog. You won’t find any picture of her online. There’s no record of her thoughts, no record of her hobbies, her favorite movie, no record of whether her status was “single”, “in a relationship” or “it’s complicated” when she passed. No information about her will appear in any google search.

There is no significant record of her existence outside the memories of her immediate friends and family. I’m not even sure if her friends still remember her. She may just be a tiny speck of memory to them now. All we have left of her are the very few pictures that she left us and memories that get more and more vague as time passes.

When I first created this blog, I wanted it to be a shrine to me. A record of my existence that exists outside of the people who know me. A depository of my thoughts at different stages of my life that I (or anyone interested) can look back to someday. It doesn’t matter if anyone cares to read it. It’s for me.

I write this entry now for her so that the memory of who she was would not just exist in our heads and in our old photo albums. So that if you’d search for her name, it would appear somewhere within the deep recesses of google. As a record that she existed and that she mattered! …a humble shrine to her existence and an apology that is 11 years overdue. It doesn’t matter if anyone finds it or cares to find it, it’s for her.

Her name was Catherine and this is her online memorial(Read More)

This is a temporary blog post to let people know that this blog and its author are still alive. I didn’t realize that It’s been almost 2 months since my last update. I’ve been lazy

Also, If you don’t see me online very often, it’s not because I’m avoiding you. It’s because of my quarter-life-crisis-triggered, 3 week long depression compounded by my newfound addiction to youtube. I rarely log in to ym nowadays. It’s hard to find time to interact with people and update your blog if you’re busy appreciating the finer points of being emo while watching dozens of 20-minute long youtube videos back to back

Anyway, my hiatus is now over I think. Expect another entry bashing Filipino culture and an entry entitled “why I would prefer a world with religion” within the next few days.

In totally unrelated news, my hair is now long enough to be tied at the back. Here’s a pic of me with my hair tied behind my back

In keeping up with the spirit of randomness, I will now show you a video of me playing the guitar.

Also, check this out, it’s the song from my sassy girl. This jaywalker, what a sissy boy

 

 

I have another blog. The blog will be about, as the title might suggest, babes, gadgets, games and other stuff that may interest the modern man. there will also be tips on how to be a manly man.

Give it a visit: MSG: Manly stuff in General

....TItle sounds cheesy. might change it when ii come up with something more creative

This is probably the last subject you’d expect to read about in this blog, given the author’s impeccable manliness. I’ve given a lot of tips to my male readers. Tips on how to be a proper man, on how not to be a sissy and anything concerning the man code in general…. but I know that I also have a lot of female (and female at heart) readers and it would be an atrocity if I didn’t also give them tips as well.

So to the aforementioned group of readers, are you looking to better enhance your aesthetic appeal? Do you have sensitive skin and are conventional cosmetic products too harsh for you? Well then let me point you to liz’s blog, She’s selling mineral make-up directly imported from the US.
What’s mineral make up, you say? Mineral make up is made of natural ingredients that won’t irritate your skin. It also lasts longer and the colors are more vivid.

Give it a try. Liz is selling them at a very reasonable price so you can test it first without burning a hole through your pocket. It is a well known fact in the Philippine blogosphere that Liz is an authority on everything make-up related so when she says that a product is good, it is good

“What is the meaning of life?” The question has been pondered about by countless philosophers for centuries. It makes me wonder why… because I think it’s a pointless question. But I don’t think the question is pointless because I think that life has no meaning. I think it’s pointless because the question assumes that there should be a general standard for meaning and that it has to be defined external to the person asking the question.

There was a commercial before by the World wildlife foundation which I found to be a bit intellectually substandard. The commercial was about wildlife conservation. I don’t remember the exact words, so I will paraphrase: “It is perhaps the greatest question man has ever asked. We know that plankton exist to feed the whales, we know that zebra exist to feed the lions, we know that (insert species here) for (insert species here). What about us? What is our purpose?

I didn’t like the commercial for a variety of reasons. One, because it states that the inane question “what is our purpose” is the greatest question man has ever asked. Two, because it seems to assume that there is a universal purpose for why we are all here

From a lion’s perspective, a zebra’s purpose may be to satisfy its hunger. But from the zebra’s perspective, the purpose of its existence may be to get through life without satisfying the lion’s hunger. Purpose comes from either the lion’s or the zebra’s intent to achieve its own respective goals -Goals that are diametrically opposed to each other.

One may say that the purpose of fire is to give us warmth or to heat our food. But fire didn’t come into existence to serve man. Fire existed and then man found purpose for it. But that purpose only exists to those with minds to see benefit from fire. From fire’s perspective, it doesn’t care what man does to it. Fire itself has no intrinsic purpose for existence except for the subjective interpretations of purpose that man assigns to it.

Meaning is de(Read More)

This entry will be about anxiety problems. Do you have anxiety problems? Does your tongue get stiff whenever you talk to people of authority or really hot chicks? Are there certain situations that trigger certain symptoms like: heart palpitations, shortness of breath, nausea and chest pain? Are there certain situations that you fear so much that just thinking about them makes you sweat?

I’m not here to make fun of you my dear reader, if you have anxiety problems. I’m usually into the habit of making fun of other people’s shortcomings or disabilities, but not this time… because, my dear reader,I also have anxiety problems. I suspect this may be a result of being bullied back when I was really small. I never got a chance to get back at my bullies. My current inability to locate the whereabouts of my bullies and pummel the sweet bejesus out of them is giving me chronic anxiety, I believe.

My anxiety problem is intermittent, meaning it’s not always there. But I always have to watch out, in case it decides to rear its ugly head

My anxiety problems are wreaking havoc on my dating life, which is practically nonexistent right now. I’ve courted a total of two girls in my entire lifetime. (The word ”courted” is being used very liberally here) The others, I just give them hints or flirt with them and hope that they would court me in return. But they never do. So I just wait and wait for them until they get snatched up by other guys

I've developed a few ways to cope with my anxiety problems. Here are some of them:

Be badass

If you’re badass people will respect you mo(Read More)

Currently feeling: exhausted, sleepy

You've seen "how not to play the piano vol1" wherein i horribly butchered your favorite classical songs. Today, i'm going to butcher sally's song from the nightmare before christmas. Because i love tim burton so much. THis time though, i'm also going to give you the chords so you may know how to butcher the song yourself.

It's a pretty simple piece. You should be able to learn how not to play it in a few hours. Just follow the chords and the playing style. If you don't know piano chords, search google.

The pitch is a bit off but i thought it made the song a bit more melancholic. Also, there were a few mistakes but those were of course intentional. This entry is not titled "how not to play the piano without mistakes" afterall

I have a new blog. The blog will be exclusively about atheism, science and philosophy. I'll also be posting a lot of excerpts from some debates i've had

I'm not moving. This is still my main blog.

Here's the link: Lord of the Atheists.