Fun Fact #5: I only have a handful of true friends and I'm willing to go out on a limb for them too.

You know what you call those people in your life that you can't remember meeting?

FAMILY.



Knowing I would eventually end up a misunderstood loner with walls comparable to that of China's, God knew that it was vital for me to meet friends before I began putting my guard up if I ever stood a chance at having close personal relationships. I was blessed with several cousins that inevitably became my closest friends till this day.

This is my dude-guy Harvey. We can stay up all night talking about anything and everything. I remember when we took a trip to the Big Apple for a wedding and I got piss drunk. Harvey came out to the side of the building where I was regurgitating my guts out and made sure I didn't die. Good looking out dude-guy! He is one of the smartest and most disciplined people I know and is well on his way to becoming a drug pusher. The legal kind of course.

This is my partner in crime Aion. When we got tired of shooting each other with air-pistols, we would sit on our Tita's balcony and take aim at kids that passed by and annoyed us. I know, our bad. We were rotten spoiled kids. They must have deserved it tho since karma had plenty of chances to get back at us but never did. Like when we would build our own miniature canons with A LOT of fireworks during new years. I'm so glad I'm typing this post with 10 fingers right now. Every time I kick it with this guy I'm guaranteed numerous laughs.



This is my buddy Harold. He has probably been one of the biggest influence in my young life. Who do you think got me into basketball? In his prime, no one can touch this guy on the court. Second only to MJ himself in my book. Who do you think got me into fashion? Dude was rocking flannels and snapbacks way before Urban Outfitters made it your generic hipster's/hypebeast's everyday uniform. Who do you think got me addicted to Dr. Pepper? You guessed it! He would force feed me that stuff by the gallon! Just playing. One sip and I was hooked. My Kuya Harold is exactly that, a big brother to all of us cousins.



I've been fortunate enough to have my cousins for all these years, but as we all know, few things lasts forever. Its not that our friendship is coming to an end, its simply being tested by distance. Harvey is now attending grad school in Sacramento, Harold is enrolling in a nursing school in the Motherland (As if I didn't have enough reasons to hate school, now it's taking my homies away from me. It's evil I tell you), and Aion is seriously considering enlisting in the Army.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't saddened by all this, but I'm not too concerned. If you haven't figured it out by now, my relationships with these guys were established long before I built the walls around me so naturally now they're trapped inside of them (muhahaha). I have no intentions of letting them out of my life. We closer than handicapped parking ya dig?

Akalain mo yon?

Play by the rules.

You've all heard it before; "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." I don't completely agree with that, but sometimes one doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

The family headed over to Vegas this past weekend to celebrate Aion's 21st.



It was the greatest time he'll never remember.



He walked into the club, but was carried out of it. Mission accomplished. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PINSAN!

On the other hand, some things refuse to be forgotten. While strolling the Vegas strip... I walked into a street sign. Sorry, no one got it on film. Thats one of the few advantages of being the the camera man, you kick it behind the lens. So HA! suckas.



Damn bump was on my forehead all weekend. You should see the size of the one on my ego. Ouch.



This was probably the only time everyone was sober. Now "you ladies have a good night."

Akalain mo yon?

KIT.

As all of you have probably noticed by now, I am no longer present on your top friends on myspace. Its not a glitch in the system, stop emailing the site's support team. I deleted my account. Allow me to explain.

Ya'll got lazy.

Remember the days when your close friends came running to you as soon as something crazy went down? If they couldn't physically get hold of you, they would blow up your cell phone until they woke you from whatever state of slumber you were in. Then they'd begin to relate their astonishing experience with all the necessary embellishments that will undoubtedly make you regret ever staying at home to watch the Mythbusters marathon, e.g. "DUDE! all the girls got butt naked then jumped into the pool... OF DR. PEPPER!!!" Damn you Adam and Jamie...

Thanks to these networking sites, very few people do that nowadays. We can now passively keep in touch with our friends. We simply post up pictures and expect everyone to discover our latest antics on their own. This will not do. Yes that is coming from a blogger.

I lost the popularity contest.

I got kinda close, but I don't think I'll ever catch Tila. I think I managed to get somewhere between 120 - 140. I don't know a third of those people. How many does Tila have?.... what?!!!

I got a facebook.

Before you frantically send a request, its only for my family and friends in the Philippines. International texting and calling are expensive. Messages are free! I'm enjoying actually reading and caring about the posts in the news feed.

I'll admit, facebook is better. I do however have some suggestions to prevent it from becoming the same experience as myspace. Lets start with those ambiguous friend requests. Ok, some of them are simply that, a friend request. But if you have more than 200 "friends," lets face it, the majority of them have other motives. To assist you in distinguishing, I present to you... REAL TALK ICONS!

For those people that you never hear from after adding:

For those smooth talkers that you've been skeptical about from the very start:



Of course you don't want to come off as a jerk, so heres a REAL TALK way of responding to these perverts:



Disclaimer: All characters previously presented in this post are strictly fictional. Any similarities (no matter how uncanny) to actual people are purely coincidental.

I gotta let go.

I didn't know it at the time, but I've sent my share of stalker friend requests. Whatever the cause, you're bound to lose friends. Some of which you could care less about, but there are those rare friends that force you to trace your actions to figure out where it all went wrong. The damage is done. It's funny how we attempt to hold on to certain people even if it is just virtually. Did I say funny? I mean unhealthy. I'll just do like Little Michael from now on:

At the end of the day, keeping in touch is a two way street. I had the same opportunities to keep in contact but for whatever reason I didn't. Truce. At least now I don't have to pretend like I don't know what's going on in your life if/when I see you. No not you,... you. One less game to play. Now please excuse me as I go outside to tan before someone accuses me of being emo.

Akalain mo yon?

Mega Pics

My cousin Ian spent his last week in America here in California before heading back to Philippines. He's a photographer and you can check out his work on his site. Dude's got skills. We took him to several spots during his stay so he can snap awesome pictures. All of the pics in this post was taken by him except for the few crappy ones, those were all me.

First on the list was Santa Barbara.



Meet Kuya Ian.





The original plan was to go kayaking, but that didn't happen so we hopped on one of these...





I still haven't learned my lesson about going off road as it was my idea to go on the grass. Strike 2.





That was fun for about 30 mins, then it just turned into a work out.

We headed over to the pier and took full advantage of our photographer and his fancy camera. muhahaha.























Next up, Griffith Observatory.







Yes, we like to jump. BTW, be on the look out for Aion's calendar. Its gonna be hot.



On to Santa Monica Pier.







Thanks for the visit cousin! Hope you had a great time!



Akalain mo yon?

I want one.

Let it load. It's worth it.



Akalain mo yon?

Fun Fact #4: I'll laugh if you fall, I'll stop if you don't get up.

It really doesn't take much to get me to LOL. It can be irony, satire, wisecracks, anecdotes, or simply stupet people and, as the title indicates, seeing someone eat it (provided that no one gets hurt... too badly).

So if you fall and you know that you're not hurt, don't stay down acting like you broke something just to get sympathy and save face. Just get up, cuss out gravity, walk it off, and let who ever saw it have their laugh.

You've probably already seen this video, but its the best example of what I'm talking about.



Thats how its done folks.

Now it wouldn't be fair of me to laugh at other people's misfortunes without offering one of my own blunders to be ridiculed. I'm not really in the habit of documenting my stupidity, but this particular incident had to be.





No this was not a planned photo-shoot. I drove my front wheel drive whip right into sand.



I was all up in there for a good 2 hours before a tow truck freed me from the embarrassment. Good times.

At the end of the day, you gotta be able to laugh at yourself because if you don't, someone else surely will. My favorite laughs are the ones that catch you off guard and just explode from the bottom of your stomach. Here's an example of one such moment:



Akalain mo yon?

Mr. Alabat

Looking back at the time when I was planning my Philippines trip, I was very excited about all the events that would be taking place, the weddings and the other parties, but I can't remember being thrilled about visiting my family on my Dad's side. Don't get me wrong, its not that I didn't wanna go. Its just that, at the time, it wasn't a priority to me.

The visit took place during my first trek to Quezon Province right after my church's centennial celebration.







We played some ball on the neighbor's court.

















Then my Tita cooked some pancakes and my cousin bumped some OPM on his tiny speakers.









Family business.





At the end of the day, I can feed you countless euphemisms about my family's situation, but I run the risk of implying that I am somewhat ashamed, and that couldn't be further from the truth. The short time I spent with them was the best part of my vacation, hands down. I haven't felt peace like that in a long time. I don't think I have to tell you what my priority is when I return in 2010.



I'm with them. Better yet, they with me.

Akalain mo yon?