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In a few days, I’ll be celebrating my 25th year on Earth. I feel old but I also feel very young. Weird. 25 years. Man. Them’s a lotta years! A lotta stuff can happen in 25 years. And it means a lot of stuff can and will still happen.

It’s nice to look back into the things that happened to me in the past 25 years. I spent my early childhood trapped in a small world of my family and relatives. I was in a Catholic school for most of my childhood. I played with toys imported from the US. I also played with mud I created with the water from our faucet and the soil from our small backyard. I played sports when I was in elementary. I stopped playing it in high school. It took me more than 6 years to realize that I do not mix with sports.

I’ve visited Thailand, Hong Kong, and the US. Technically, I’ve also been to Japan since it was a stop-over to and from the US. I’ve been to Cebu, Palawan, and all over Luzon. It was a great joy and privilege to visit these places. But the best part of these trips is the part where they end. Yes, the best part of a trip for me is when I finally get to go home. I’ve never been big on leaving my comfort zone.

I’m from Sta. Rosa, Laguna. Born and bred. Well, technically, I was born in a nearby town. But basically, Sta. Rosa is where I was raised. I stayed 1 year in Holy Rosary Academy for junior kinder, and after that, it was Canossa School all the way to high school. It’s where I organized a small group of “writers” who were intent on sticking it to The Man. In our case, The Man was the school principal. A nun. It’s where I discovered my talents. It’s where I found out that my talents were not really talents. Creative bursts fueled by hormones is what they are. It’s where I first fell in love and had my heart broken. Or so I thought. Teenagers have a lot of drama in their lives. Punks. High school was the best four years of my life. Until I went to college.

UPLB. Just saying those four letters gives me the feeling of coming home. In UPLB, I got the taste of the “real world”. I found kindred spirits. I found polar opposites. I gained a lot of knowledge. Most of it useless. I made a lot of friends. Only time will tell if they’re for life. I discovered what real love is. And it’s not pretty. I became a leader and a follower. A nice guy and an asshole. A smart thinker and a dumbass. I made love to a few special ladies. I fooled around with a lot more. I swore off alcohol and cigarettes in my early years. I became an occasional alcoholic and a chain smoker in my latter years. I insulted guys who wore braces. I had braces installed a couple of years before I graduated. I almost gave up on my dreams. I’m so glad that I didn’t.

After college, I spent 3 months in a small office working on websites, and 8 months trying to be polite while irate Americans tell me I’m an idiot. I’m not the one who doesn’t know how to turn their frickin’ phones on. Dumb fucks. In a few weeks, I’ll be leaving all that crap behind and do what I want to do. A job that I really want. And it feels so good.

I have lived 25 years of my life and I don’t have the slightest clue what the next 25 will bring. Life is erratic. Liable to sudden and unpredictable changes. Sounds good to me, for I am quicksilver: cool and willful one moment, utterly fragile the next. Okay, that didn’t really make sense. I’ll shut up now before I turn this into one of those stupid Friendster Profile About Me sections.

I’ve been on the web since 2001 (I think). I started out with simple HTML pages. I improved on my HTML skills (?!) by maintaining a static personal website. I besmirched the Internet with all of my crap including essays, poems, personal pictures, and whatever cool crap I can find online. I then started to work on my student organization’s website, which became the new official one for our org. I increased the craptitude of my sites by learning Photoshop and Flash. That fact led me to believe that maybe I did choose the right course which is BS Computer Science. And there I was, thinking that I should have taken BS Food Technology instead because, you know, I kinda like food.

Manually updating my sites was fulfilling, but it was a pain in the ass. And then I discovered online picture gallery and blogging services. And it was heaven for a sloth like me. And the age of BigBaddie Sites of Craptitude began.

I maintained several blogs (not at the same time) throughout the past couple of years. Some of them are still online, some of them are lost in the big black hole of cyberspace. I also maintained two online picture galleries which were the default stash of my org’s pictures. My crap was all over the web. Until I discovered Multiply. Well, actually, I’ve signed up with them several months ago, but I forgot all about my account until recently, when I was forced to relocate my picture galleries to another site. Fotopic and its “one account only” policy. Pfft.

I’ve lost a considerable amount of crap from my old sites, but I managed to salvage most of them and place them in one crappy Multiply site. I spent several days moving my pictures from two galleries and blog posts from five (five!!!) blogs into one site. And I saw that it was good. And on the seventh day, I rested. Haha!

If you can’t get enough crap from my LongBox blog, check out the rest of my crap at Craptastic!, and I assure you, the level of craptitude of that site is mind-boggling.

“I believe the internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference.

I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet, and on companies to stop helping them do it.”

This is the pledge of Amnesty International’s campaign for Internet Freedom. A pledge that they will present in November 2006 to the governments and companies from all over the world in a United Nations conference that will discuss the future of the Internet. A pledge for freedom. A pledge against repression. A pledge that I took when I signed up for the campaign, and I think you should too.

The Internet was meant to have no borders. Everyone should be free to speak their mind. We should be free to talk about our lives. How we live it and how we want to live it in the future. We should be free to talk about how we think our government sucks. Or how we think our president is a liar. Or how we think being tagged as “destabilizers of the government” just because we graduated from a state university is okay and nothing to be ashamed of. The Internet is possibly the greatest medium for free speech, and now it’s under attack. And I think we should tell the attackers to shove it.

Several countries are now being repressed on Cyberspace. Countries like China, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Israel, the Maldives and Vietnam are regulating access to the Internet through filtering, licensing, and content removal. People are being arrested because they’re having online chat debates about freedom and human rights. People are being punished because they’re talking smack online against their government.

Here in The Philippines, we are lucky because we don’t have the government busting down our doors whenever we say “Gloria is a big fat liar” on forum boards or during chat sessions. Well, at least for now. Our government may not have enough resources right now to track and regulate all of our online activities, but what if they do? What if they decide to track and bring down the “destabilizers” who rant on Friendster about how Gloria cheated in the past election? Will we find baranggay tanods in front of our houses shouting “Lumabas ka diyan, Isko/Iska! Napapaligiran ka na namin! (Namin! Namin!)“?

If it’s okay for you to let Kuya (a.k.a. Big Brother) make you his bitch, just move on with your online life. But if you want to support Internet freedom, then join the campaign and be irrepressible.

September 11, 2001. The day that will live in infamy. The day that changed the world dramatically. The day that changed how we travel and live our lives. Before the 9/11 attacks on America, the word “terror” was not that big of a word. It always felt distant from public consciousness, especially mine. I always associated it with professors who need to get laid more. After the Twin Towers fell, “terror” became a household term. It began to have a life of its own. It became a living, breathing threat to our daily lives. And then we declared war on it.

I remembered exactly when I heard about the attacks. I was walking along the dark streets of UPLB with my blocmates. We were on our way to one of our blocmates’ apartment. I heard from a TV in one of the houses we passed by the news about an aircraft crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers. The first thing that came into my mind was “That pilot. Pfft. What an idiot.“, and then I strolled along.

When we arrived at our blocmate’s apartment, we saw the news again on her TV. At the time, the authorities were still not sure if the crash was caused by mechanical error or pilot stupidity. We went on to switch the channel to find something fun to watch. We spent the night like the happy and reckless youth that we were, totally unaware that the world was changing during our laughter-filled discussions about scary teachers and ugly classmates.

The next day, I came back home to Sta. Rosa. Lo and behold, the attacks were all over the tube. The truth set in. The most powerful country in the world was just punk’d by goat-raping terrorists.

For days following the attacks, I religiously watched the news. I also went online regularly to search for pictures of the attacks. Each and every image I found sent shivers down my spine. I just can’t believe something like that happened. During my life time. I can’t imagine how New Yorkers felt. And I hope nobody else in the world will ever feel the same way again.

Every time I remember 9/11, I wish superheroes are real so they can kick the crap out of those who live their lives just to bring terror to other people’s lives. Fuckin’ goat-rapists.

I’m just a young man fresh out of college. Moved into a strange town full of strangers. Weird strangers. Met several of them while I’m moving most of my stuff into my new house. A house that resembles a nuclear bunker. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic. After settling in, I managed to throw a housewarming party. The booze flowed like hell. Wanting no more than to work and earn a lot money, my life aspirations didn’t really involve finding love in strange places. And in that alcohol-filled party, I met her. Jessica. Suddenly, climbing the corporate ladder didn’t feel as important as it was.

We slowly got to know each other. Then came the hug. Then the kiss. Then the dirty thing. In a hot tub. Rock n’ roll all night long! Before I knew it, she’s already moved in with me. And the fun really started. Turns out, she’s game. And when I say game, I mean show-me-another-hot-girl-and-I’ll-make-out-with-her game. Awesome!

We started scheduling threesome make out sessions in the hot tub outside my house. We tried it with different girls. But there was this one girl who stood out. A redhead named Beth. Several naughty nights (and days) later, Beth decided to move in. The smile on my face is infinite. And then Jessica and I found out that Beth has a twin sister. Naughty thoughts overload.

I was promoted within a span of a few weeks. I was living with 2 gorgeous ladies who often find time to make out with each other while I watch. Things are going pretty good for me. But all good things must come to an end, right? And for me, it certainly did. How? I got Jessica pregnant. Beth moved out. My job got boring. Jessica got bloated. The bills kept coming in with no signs of stopping. And oh yeah, I killed our cleaning lady because she’s so hot and she wouldn’t make out with me. Suddenly, I don’t know my aspirations anymore.

The Sims 2 is the best game ever!