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Originally, my 25th birthday bash was set on the night of my birthday, September 29th. But Milenyo (that stupid typhoon) got in the way. After two weeks of waiting for Miramonte to be cleaned up and to have power again, I finally got to celebrate my birthday last night. And thanks to Jelai (a.k.a. Nacky/Mamshie), my official party coordinator, and her assistants (hehe.), it was the best bash I’ve had so far. It was, as the kids these days like to call it, rawkin’. It was worth the wait. It actually washed away the terrible memory of Milenyo. Stupid typhoon.

I just started in my new job last Wednesday, so I had to come from Ortigas and be late for my own party. And I’m thankful again for Jelai and my other brothers and sisters in UPLB MASS for holding the fort while I was still on the road. I met up with Van, Madz, and Jeno (MASS brods and sisses) in Ortigas so we can go to the party together. I made a stop in Alabang to make an ATM withdrawal. It was stupid of me not to do it before yesterday because I totally forgot that it was payday and all ATM machines were like big summer blockbuster movies. Long lines are so totally uncool. We also made a stop at our house in Sta. Rosa because I had to get my stuff and Fucker (my Rav 4). I can’t go to my party without bringing Fucker. It’s like going to your own birthday party without inviting your bestfriend.

The party was the biggest one I’ve thrown so far. And it’s very gratifying that I financed it all by myself. Thank God for jobs. Billiards, videoke, swimming, alcoholic beverages, food, and friends. It can’t get any better than that. But of course, it wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t feeling very well, but I managed. And also, not all of the people I invited were able to come. But I can’t stress how perfect it felt for me. Good times, good times.

I’d like to extend my sincere gratitude to the following:

• Jelai - I can’t thank you enough, dude. Thank you for being my daughter (”nacky”), my younger/older sister, my mother (”mamshie”), my moni buddy, and sometimes even my jealous pseudo girlfriend. Hindi ako makapangchicks ng maayos pag kasama kita. Badtrip. Haha! Alabshu!
• Sui Generis - Van, Jelai, Madz, Mau, Bryan, and the now “lost” Jean. Dudes, thank you for making me happy especially when you’re all drunk. Hehe. It’s no secret that you’re my favorite batch in UPLB MASS. And it will always stay that way. Mehel ko keyong lehet! Hehe.
• E1 Dudes - Marcel, Oboy, and Dom. You guys rule! Thank you for all the moni sessions and all the serious, enlightening, hardcore, bastusan, kulitan, alaskahan, and weird conversations. Drinking buddies for life, yo! Dahan-dahan lang sa pangchichicks. Hehe. Rakenrol!
• Rosch - Dude, thank you for helping out with the party coordination. And also for taking care of Sui Generis in their whimsical drunk mode. Hirap mag-alaga ng mga lasing noh? Hehe.
• Jeno - Pardz (haha!), thank you for assisting me in keeping the party in order. We were comfortable because we knew that there was an adult around. Haha! Thanks also for introducing me and the E1 Dudes to the wonderful world of Tres Cepas and that delicious “wood”. Kitakits na lang sa Ortigas. Hehe.
• MASStig Brods & Sisses - Although I’m not really close to most of you resident members, I always enjoy the little moments that I get the chance to talk to you. Corny, but true. Good luck with all the upcoming activities! If you need help (preferably not financial. hehe. joke lang.), I’m just a text/call away.
• The eLBizen Core - Dina, Van, Mike, April, and Basil. Thanks for coming! I know you felt a little bit OP (except for Van. hehe.) because most of the people at the party were MASStigs, but I know you also had a good time. Well, I hope so. Hehe. For those Core members who weren’t able to make it, wish you were there. Hehe. Thank you all for the greetings and for helping me maintain yUPieLBi.com.
• Team Deck - Chel, James, Roselle, and those who weren’t able to come to the party, thank you for keeping me sane during the times when I was ready to pull out my hair (well, hindi na ngayon kase kalbo na ‘ko ulet. hehe.) because of our job. I’ll miss you guys and I hope to keep in touch with you.
• Those who were too busy to join the party - Losers. Haha! Joke lang. Thanks for the greetings. I understand why most of your were not there. But it would have been better if you were. Oh well, there’s always a next year. Hehe.

I’ve always wanted my 25th birthday to be more special than my other birthdays. And thanks to the people I mentioned above, it was. You all made me happy. So happy, in fact, that I almost forgot that I’m single. Haha! Alabshududes!

Now, before you say this is another one of those blog entries that say the author’s spirit/heart is broken and it needs mending/healing, I’ll tell you otherwise. The title refers to the things around me. Yes. The TV. The PC. And stuff. Things. My soul and my heart are fine. Thank you for the concern. I’m now dealing with the frustration of having stuff around me not working properly.

The first one to give out is my TV. It happened during one of the recent thunderstorms. I love the weather. Cold. Wet. Mildly depressing. Perfect for staying in and sleeping the hours away, or going out to have a few (okay, a lot of) alcoholic beverages with friends. But I hated the stormy weather when it caused these stupid electrical surges that made my TV go kaput. I have to slam it a few times before it works. Most of the time, it just gives me a white line across the screen and some audio. It’s not fun to catch lingerie shows on FTV with only the audio on.

Our family PC also went haywire, but not because of the weather. Or maybe it was. I’m not sure. All I know is it just stopped working. It was an old system. We have DSL, but most of the time, it worked like dial-up. It was probably nature’s (or technology’s?) way of telling us to get a new computer. And we did. Yesterday, I spent almost the whole day on setting up this new PC complete with a new LCD monitor, an 80 GB hard drive, 512 RAM, and a Pentium 4 processor. I had to bear hearing Christy Fermin’s voice while she’s on The Buzz (don’t ask) while I was installing a million things on this new PC. Hello, better and faster computing. Goodbye, old files. Sigh.

One other broken thing is yUPieLBi.com. I’m very frustrated with the website right now. With its first few months, all I had to contend with is the fact that I had to use my programming skills (hahaha!) to make the simplest of changes. But recently, due to high traffic and very busy site activity, I’ve encountered bandwidth and server issues almost weekly. The site suffered a couple of downtimes before I finally decided to rebuild it from scratch. It’s now temporarily dead. The site is a community site so even though I’m not being paid for putting it up (I’m actually the one putting out dough to keep it up), I’m obliged to bring it back and make sure it stays online because a lot of people feel the atmosphere of UPLB in yUPieLBi.com. And we eLBizens love our UPLB.

With all of these broken things around me, I get frustrated, yes. But not depressed. I’m okay with my TV being replaced by an old one (it flickers like hell and it’s in constant “sepia mode”) that was just lying around in my old room, but I hope it’s temporary. I’m very happy with the new family PC, eventhough I lost some of my files and bookmarks from the old one (good thing I have some of them backed up in the PC in my room). And I’m very optimistic that yUPieLBi.com will live again, hopefully in the near future.

Being broken is temporary. Broken things can be replaced, upgraded, and even completely torn down to be rebuilt again better than before. Can’t do that with your heart and your soul. Well, technically, with your heart, you can. But I’m going out of context here so I’ll just go back to work on yUPieLBi.com now.