Bing...the new Google?

Apparently not. I first read about Bing today while browsing blogs for work. Bing is the new Microsoft search engine which came at the heels of its less successful sisters MSN Search and Windows Livesearch. Techie bloggers already think Bing is old news, but I'm no techie and as far as I know its still on the Beta stage, which means its not as stale as people may think. I was just surprised that with all the time I spent online, I have not come across Bing. It's probably because I get my news from Yahoo and Google is my prefered search engine. I tried it though (googled...er, binged my name), and I think I like Google's results better.

For all its worth, Bing is pretty.

One interesting thing some bloggers like to point out: if Bing ever hits it big, we might start using it the way we use Google as a verb (as in, "I Googled you yesterday!") but it will be more like--" I Banged you yesterday"..doesn't quite have that ring to it, does it?

A much delayed post about the Kabulakan Festival 2009

There's really nothing much to say about the Kabulakan festival, except for the fact that the day before I experienced one of the happiest moments of my life, and the day after that, I experienced one of the saddest days of my life... that is pretty much how I will remember the Kabulakan Festival for 2009. The festival was held on May 23 and had the different contingents from Daro, Calindagan, Poblacion, among others, dancing in the streets.

I got to take pictures, something I promised myself I'd do every time the festival would come around. Its not everyday that I get to see colorful floats covered in foam and paper mache flowers parading the streets.

Discovering the Beef Wrap at Mamia's

Mamia's is a little coffee shop on Rizal Boulevard that offers the most delicious little cakes and pastries as well as an assortment of sandwiches and pasta. The girls have been frequenting this place since a few months back, when meeting on the 15th was still a regular thing that each of us looked forward to. Now busy schedules (or sheer laziness, take your pic) have made those meetings less frequent, but we still manage to drop by Mamias for a quick chat or two when we get the chance.

I got a chance to sample their quesadillas ( I love the ones in Lee Plaza, even though no one else does), one evening when it was too late to get some from Lee. Not too thrilled about the quesadillas, since they were not served with a dip. I had to make do with ketchup, which did not do the trick at all.

I got the chance to try the Mamias beef wrap though, and it was pretty deliscious-- beef slices with cheese, shredded cabbage and lettuce, pepper and cubed tomatoes, wrapped in something that looked like pita bread. This one went way better with ketchup, and for less than a hundred pesos you get four tasty slices... it was practically dinner for me!

Mamia's beef wrap
Writing this post is making me hungry...
too bad it's two in the morning!

After the rain...

I've always liked the rain, especially in the evenings. But rain that lasts the whole day is always good too. When I have nothing planned for the whole day, a sudden downpour is always welcome, a legitimate reason for me to stay homebound, for that day, at least. Or else, downpours like this could mean that I have to go out with one of those big ugly umbrellas (all the foldable ones are broken).

I woke up at around 10 am, expecting to see the sun, but the weather was overcast, and the world was sporting this bluish-gray tinge, even when I looked outside. Sure enough, rain started pouring the moment I turned the TV on. And this is not the kind of rain that sprinkles drops of water on you and moves on to green other pastures. This is the strong kind of rain, the one that soaks you in minutes if you stand outside, even with an umbrella. This kind of rain pours diagonally, so that you see diagonal lines of water out your window, and coats the window glass with a very cool, thin film of mist.

I vaguely remembered hearing something about a storm that supposedly made its exit the night before. Perhaps the rain was that storm's last hurrah before moving on to wreak havoc on Taiwan or wherever its next destination is.

The good thing was that the rain stopped just in time for me to take a shot of raindrops on the leaves of the mango tree on our lawn.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

--Mevlana Rumi

The Unexpected. And then some.

I cannot believe that the beginnings of one of the encounters that would make a deep impression on my life was first noted in this blog. True, a wise man told me you have to make it a habit to expect the unexpected. And so far that has been my motto. Expectations can only do two things: give you soaring fits of ecstasy or punch you in the gut so hard you will be seeing whole galaxies in your pain, not just stars. Expectations, no matter how reasonable they may be, are just that. They happen, or they don't.

You can expect something to work out because nothing seems to be standing in the way. Then out of the blue everything changes, and you are left holding the broken pieces, wondering how the path that seemed to be so straight could take such as drastic turn in a direction that you never expected, much less even dreamed off.

Is it ok to expect? Even when things are going so well and you think that there is no way anything wrong will ever happen, they do. So the whole process of expecting, of anticipating that somewhere down the road you'll have your happy ending becasue you are seeing everything so clearly even from so far away, all of that was just a monumental waste of time, a huge distraction from the catastrophe that was just waiting to happen.

After a few months of giddy, intoxicated happiness came the crash. This must be what addicts call the 'come down'-- you come back down to earth, where the usual routine is the usual, and where you desperately seek the company of friends who are going through the same thing as you are-expecting the expected and the unexpected, only to be disappointed in the end. It is only now that I realize I have let go of that motto, that for a few months I crossed the other side of the road, where I spent every day for the last few months in happy anticipation. Of course, there were good days. And there were days when everything seemed so perfect I felt like I could honestly relate to all the love songs that talked of freezing time because they wanted nothing more than than to stay in that moment forever. But one day, in just one minute, one wrong word, a few lines of baseless accusations and words said in anger and confusion, and everything can go up in smoke and disappear in a few minutes like they were never even there.

I guess we all have to realize sometime that although it is good to expect, it is never good to expect TOO MUCH. At the least, we have to allow for a bit of leeway or flexibility in all our plans.

The Aftermath

Things that happen too much too fast can seem like a dream. You feel like your feet never touched the ground the whole time you were in that whirlwind of emotions, that vortex of happiness and giddiness and ultimate perfection that it is impossible to think of a time beyond it, that it can end and leave you broken, hurt, betrayed and disillusioned.
But that time has passed and after a whole lot of crying and soul searching the answer is clear: there is something out there, there is something beyond this. I will just have to wait for that time to come.