Tito and I are now certified athletes. We even have the papers to prove it. No we’re not part of the SEA Games. Last Sunday we joined our first badminton tournament. It was funny, we had minimal sleep (actually, Tito didn’t have any) because we had a gig that ended late the night before and we got scheduled to play at 8:30 AM.

Our first game was at the main court. That’s where the officials are, and most of the crowd watches. You know what? We massacred our opponents. We played pretty good. Our coverage of the court was fantastic, defense was tight, and our shots were working.  What a rush! Even the announcers were amazed. They new we weren’t morning people. They kept asking us on the PA if we were already awake. After the match they commented that we should just play in the mornings. We’re better that way.

The day went on and we played our third and final match. We lost. They didn’t win, we lost it. We were committing so much errors we practically gave the game away. Everyone thinks we could have taken them. We’ll get them next time. I think fatigue finally caught up with us. We’ll be more prepared and well rested for the next tournament. That was a bummer really. To enter the semi-finals, we needed three wins to continue. We only won two. Had our last opponent lost their other match we would have made the semis by points.

It was a fun experience. I think we’ll still get medals for winning the team category (not sure yet). Not bad for our first tournament.

TITLE: SMASH – GOO GOO DOLLS

Everyday I find myself doing the same thing. I get up, watch TV while checking mail, look for any of my friends to chat with then eat. Once in a while I also retreat to the comfort of my bed. There’s got to be more to this.

I got to get my butt moving. I actually have a lot of things to do; one of which is renew my license. I’ve been driving expired for two months already. I need to shake myself awake. I feel I’m turning into jell-o (I probably look like it too). Let’s see if we can find more activities to partake.

TITLE: LAZY DAYS- ROBBIE WILLIAMS

I’ve had a lot of discussions recently with friends about topics ranging from relationships, career and life in general. What I notice is that everything can be made better by trying to stick to one rule; keep it simple.

Keeping things simple was always a thing of mine. I don’t like complications. I find that I get into trouble when things get too complicated (just check my blog posts from two months ago). What do I do then? Reverse engineer the situation and bring it to its simplest form. That way I can iron out the problem or simply cut it off.

This works with every situation. It’s a simple truth.

TITLE: SIMPLE KIND OF LIFE – NO DOUBT

After three weeks I finally got my iPod back from Apple. They replaced it with a totally brand new one. So now I have a pristine 4G U2 iPod. Too bad it didn’t make it to Boracay but I’m happy nonetheless. Now I need new headphones.

TITLE: BRING EM BACK ALIVE – AUDIOSLAVE

This is my second attempt to write the long overdue Boracay trip blog entry. I started one this afternoon but decided to scrap it because it was way too long on the first day alone. I decided that I’d do it over and just put the highlights in (actually this is even shorter than I planned because Word crashed on me; I had to recover the text making me even lazier to write a long entry).

This was my much anticipated first trip to Boracay. Luckily, Jay Server (who will now be known as “the leader” henceforth) sponsored the entire Overtone. He was throwing a Capone’s Anniversary party there and wanted us to be one of the bands to play. It was good of him to spare no expense and he flew us in style. We were booked to take Corporate Air to Caticlan. Corporate Air is just so choice. They have their own lounge that has food and drinks for their passengers. The lounge is also much cozier than the domestic terminal’s departure area. Start of the trip and we’ve got style already!

“Nice! Nice! Not thrilling, but nice!” is what my first impression of Boracay was. I said that as I got my shorts wet getting off the boat. At least we were greeted by the leader and were already offered drinks as soon as we settled in. The rest of the day was spent going around eating and drinking. Well, that’s what we did for most of the trip. The routine was basically: wake up, grab an alcoholic beverage (of which there were a lot of), eat, drink more, play Frisbee, cool off in the water, drink, drink while playing Frisbee, drink while cooling off in the water, drink while eating. We did go to the different bars there; particularly Club Parao, Cocomangas, Jony’s, Pier One and Hey Jude. Did a lot of dancing (well I did anyway) and danced while drinking. Of special note is Nigi Nigi’s (did I spell that right). There the whole Capone’s/Yaku troupe took over. Happy hour was dang happy. Buy one-take-one on every drink in the list. Jay and his “ladies” drinks got everyone sloshed (a few of us had blue tongues as well).

We only had two gigs over there; at the White House during the first night and at Pier One on the second. The White House gig wasn’t much of a gig really. More like a relaxed jam while everyone was chilling out on the beach front. The second gig was much better. The Capone’s (and to a certain extent the Yaku gang) group invaded Pier One. It was a Capone’s band fest; Velcro, Overtone, Craig Davis and the New Waves, and River Maya. Every performer was drunk on stage. We were swapping members mid set. Tito was forgetting lyrics and bass lines; I on the other hand couldn’t do fills. That was fun. The only crappy band there was Freeverse. I swear that the vocalist is majorly gay (no offense to gay people). He doing the Beyonce thing is just plain weird.

Our supposedly three day trip became a five day trip. We decided to extend and moved out of the White House to a dinky hotel called Isla Gecko. The setup there was a little uncomfortable because I had to share a bed with Jay. He snores like a jackhammer! He has a knack of also being the first one to sleep so you’ll really endure the aural pounding.

There were some tense moments (which I won’t elaborate on), and some moments where I had to be responsible; but on the whole I was pretty much carefree and just enjoying myself. One thing though, I missed my friends. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t text of call one of them. I’m sure I would have enjoyed Bora even more had they been there.

So if you ask me know what I think of Boracay I’d tell you that it’s the company that makes the place great. Remove that and to me it’s just a nice beach. Luckily my first trip there I was with enough friends to make the whole thing a blast. I’m going back in March and hopefully my closest friends will be with me. That would just be perfect.

You can check out some of our pictures at Jay’s multiply account.

TITLE: ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE – PHIL COLLINS

I’m way behind on updating the blog. I’ve been lazy to do it because I’m still on dial up (fricking PLDT), and my mind is still in Boracay. I promise I’ll write about the Bora trip soon. I’ll just have to pry myself out of bed.

Now I go take a nap.

TITLE: LATE – KANYE WEST