Sunday, September 13, 2009

On Feasts, Splurge-fests, atbp...

I normally title these kinds of posts as "Random Thoughts from the Week/Weekend". But I wanted to change it up a little. LOL!

Anyway, on to all my scattered thoughts and my attempt to portray them in all my over-verbose-ness (if that's even a word).


Feasts


It's about 8:00PM on a Sunday night right now. I just came back from a mother of a meal in Joey Pepperoni. They just opened a branch less than stone's throw away from my appartment building. I had this sudden craving for piles and piles of carbonara. So Joey's was definitely the way to go for dinner. I'm way too full though because I ordered mushroom soup, carbonara AND pork with rice. Geez, I surprised myself some times at how much food I can consume when I'm really hungry.

I've been going to Malcom's quite often to gorge on their very sumptuous Wagyu steaks. Those things are huge! I keep on ordering it even though I end up having about 1/3 of it wrapped so I can bring it home. Well, at least I have an awesome lunch and take home for an awesome dinner.

I've been feasting a lot these days. Weekends are spent binging on ice-cold beer and good food. I've been gaining weight because of it. But it's fine considering that last last year I dropped 20-30 pounds. Now I'm slowly creeping back up to my weight back then. But who cares. Not really out to impress anyone. Feasting just plainly puts a smile on my face each and everytime. See like this like this. :D LOL!




Splurge-Fests

I have knack of getting interested in expensive gadgets every so often. However, the past few months, I haven't really felt like buying anything huge. I suppose there wasn't anything that came out that I felt I absolutely have to own.

Earlier this week was a deviation from the norm, I dropped a considerable amount of money buying up stuff that "I absolutely had to have".

I bought the preorder of this new online game called Aion. My friend Jhonjee got me so whipped about the game, that I couldn't wait until the game would go commercial live. However, in all the effort I put in to buy the preorder, download the game, unpack it, install it, and patch it, the damn game wouldn't run that well on my PC. My video card would black out on me even though I could hear the game was still running. Aion works somewhat on my laptop. So I guess that'll do for now. Damn, my PC is too old (5-6 years old already). Must buy a new one. It's about time really.

The thing with me and new PCs is that I always feel like getting the best of what's out currently. I walked on over to the PC Express earlier today and found out that they were closed. I found that odd because the last time I went to that shop was on a Sunday afternoon as well. I guess I'll just come back some time during the week before I head to work. Say hello to some Quad-Core processor, dual Crossfire video card, 1.5 Terabyte hard drive luvin'. I calculated how much I will end up spending for my monster rig. And I'm perfectly fine with the cost.

I bought Wii Resort and 2 Wii Motion Plus add-ons for, of course, my Nintendo Wii console. Some friends came over and we tried Wii Resort out. Wii Resort is definitely Wii Sports Part 2. The new Motion Plus technology really capture more movement nuances that the Wii-Mote doesn't capture on its own. I plan to buy two more Wii Motion Plus units. So that 4 people don't have to pass around 2 controllers. Hope I can pull 3 people to come over my place often like in the past. I see my Nintendo Wii as a multiplayer machine. I rarely play it on my own. It's just plainly more fun with other people.

The mother of all hefty purchases I made this week was buying the Zoom H4n Hand Recorder. I bought it primarily because I want better bootleg recordings of our gigs. I've been using my Belkin Tune-Talk attached to my iPod to record gigs for the past 2 years now. And although it does decent recording, it has started to come loose off of my iPod; meaning it at times doesn't record any audio when it comes loose. And depending on the placement at the gig venue, and the volume levels of the amps and speakers, it clips the recording. I have recorded a lot of our gigs that I don't bother uploading online because of this.

So I passed by JB Music in ParkSquare earlier this week, and I asked one of the sales guys there if they have a Zoom Hand Recorder. My drummer in RPSoc (That's my new side project band with some members from SunDownMuse), told me that JB was selling the Zoom H2. But to my surprise, the sales guys told me that something new just came in, and handed me the Zoom H4n. I was literally floored to see it in my hands. The sales guy told me I was in luck because what I was holding as only 1 of 2 units that came in just the day before. With my eyes all wide and glittery, I asked the sales guy without hesitation, "Do you take credit card?". Now, I hardly use my credit card. So this recorder was something I really wanted to get for me to use my credit card. Aside from the fact that I was too lazy to go to the ATM and withdraw.


Further Enjoying Music

Unfortunately, SunDownMuse is on indefinite haitus because our drummer quit the band for several reasons. No hard feelings with Jerrold really. He just wanted to take his music a different direction. The core members of the band decided to give SunDownMuse a rest for now, since we were already looking for a permanent lead guitarist, and now a drummer to boot. So we'll just pick SunDownMuse up some time later on. I'm missing gigging with SunDownMuse though. So many songs that I miss playing.

However, in comes Rolling Paper Society (RPSoc), which is really just a side project band we put together for the fun of it. Briggs and Islaw are also in the band, with Noel (drummer of Pinwheel), and Philip (guitarist of Dahon). The band's music surrounds around the literal interpretation of the band's name (just don't ask me to explain the band's name any further than that LOL!). We play purely covers. A big deviation from SunDownMuse because that band was all about originals. We've been gigging practically every weekend since we started and only slowed down just recently. You'll find us gigging pretty regularly in Tomato Bomb and Route 196.

I love this band. Not only do we get to play old tunes from the Beatles, Cream, Grateful Dead, etc., but we definitely gel as a band given that we're all drunkards and run with "feeling the music". This leaves a lot of room to extend songs and jam. There isn't a single vocalist in this band. Briggs, Islaw, and Philip all take turns singing and at times do back-up vocals for each other. They're trying to get me to sing as well (erm). But I really can't sing much when I'm focused on playing percs.

I've been bringing my darbuka as my main drum for RPSoc gigs, as opposed to my heavy ass congas for SunDownMuse gigs. My darbuka allows me to combine my invented djembe rhythms, and learned traditional congas rhythms. I also felt "bigger was better" when it comes to me wielding a drum at gigs. But this time, a smaller drum definitely feels good.


Having Funds for Happiness

I posted a speech that Ben Affleck made in the movie Boiler Room a while back. He talks about rolling in heaps of money by putting in hard work at some scam company called J.T. Marlon (Or at least that's how the company sounds to me in the movie). Two quotes that I absolute love from that speech are as follows:

"Anybody tells you that money is the root of all evil, doesn't fucking have any!"

"They say money can't buy you happiness, look at the fucking smile on my face! Ear to ear baby!"

Now this isn't me saying that I'm rolling in mounds of cash. I've gotten to a certain level of income that I'm not worrying too much about feasting and splurging. If I feel like buying something I just do it without hesitation. Of course, I'm nowhere near an income level that I can buy a yacht ala-"lifestyles of the rich and famous". It's plainly just nice to have the money wiggle room to indulge when you want to. Several instances come to mind that will explain my point.

-I helped my parents pay for long overdue house repairs. Since they were long overdue, the costs were pretty hefty. We had all the roof gutters changed, the driveway re-paved, replaced whole sections of the roof, and fixed leaks in the ceiling.

-I paid for an air conditioning unit large enough to cool both the living room and dining room.

-When I'm out with my band or friends, if they're short on cash to drink some more, I either lend them money or treat them. I plainly don't want the fun to stop on the account of low funds for the night.

Those instances aside from my personal feasting and splurging screams that being well-off is a good thing in one's life. I am able to not only bring happiness to myself through my hard work, but bring happiness to my family and friends as well. I'm loving it. ^^


END OF LINE...

3 comments:

Euri said...

Enge Carbonara.

"Do you take credit card?" -- nyahaha!

Euri said...

Ay, forgot to ask. Musta naman yung bagong PC?

sundowndos said...

I mentioned in the post that PC Express was closed yesteday afternoon. So I haven't bought my new PC yet. Hehehe