I've been busy lately setting up stuff at my room. I just recently bought a 32" LCD TV and I'm using it now as my desktop monitor. What I like about it is that it's big and yet it saves space. I finally got rid of my old CRT TV that was hogging a lot of real estate.

This is my new Panasonic Viera C10X2. It's an old model (2009) but I'm not complaining since I bought this dirt-cheap. So far, it hasn't disappointed me yet. I'm not really that into picture quality and such - I'm okay just as long as I have something to hook my PC/PS2/PS3 (soon) onto. 

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One of my brackets (dental braces) went loose. I don't know how it happened but there it is now, hanging on for its dear life.

I'm going to visit the dentist again this weekend. Hello again, pain.

To spend or not to spend? I've read somewhere that if everyone were thrift and were always hoarding money (like me), our economy will crash. We need to keep the money circulating - Hmm... nice try.

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I brought my PS2 back from the grave. Like a zombie, my PS2 lives without one of its vital parts - its lens. I found a way to make it run from the hard drive alone. Anyway, reviving my PS2 is part of my decision process for buying a PS3. I need to make sure that I can still be a gamer while balancing work and life. I'm going to test that by playing all the good PS2 games that I never got to play. If I can still do that without it affecting my daily routines, then I'm okay with upgrading.

I'm not sure what's up this month but I've been running into several college friends lately. I'm usually an introvert and I don't really enjoy reunions so it's kinda weird that I'll be meeting with some of them this week. It makes me a little bit uneasy.

* * *

After speaking with Prince the other day, I'm now convinced that I should be buying a PS3. It's about time. I was a gamer and I've been all my life until a few years ago when I stopped playing WoW. I want to play Final Fantasy again but I'm not sure if I really want to spend loads of money for it. Besides, I have a really great distraction at the moment which doesn't require me to spend money.

But still, I want a PS3, a big screen TV to play it with, and a new GPU for my desktop PC. It's really hard being poor. Haha...

I'm not really the bestest friend anyone could ever have. I'm not even a good friend to begin with. I guess you just realize it once you get mature enough that, sometimes, you really need to be humble to be able to take care of your friends. It's sad that I realized this just now. All these years I've been envious of my friends. I would really get jealous over their achievements, money, fame and many other stuff to that point where I consciously avoid giving them compliments and affirmations.

I despise crab mentality. I now know that I've been a crab not by pulling my friends down, but by not pushing them up instead.

To all my friends from past to present (you guys know who you are), I owe you beer for being such a jerk. Life is too short for all these nonsense. Haha...

I no longer feel pain from these braces. I still can't eat solids though as my gums are still swollen.

Do you know how we sometimes joke about inanimate objects getting jealous over other inanimate objects? Like how an old pair of shoes would feel bad because all your attention goes to your new pair of shoes? I think this is happening to me. I think my back is getting envious of all the attention I'm giving to my mouth. Last night, my back clearly made its point that it can inflict much greater pain than my teeth. I literally can't move without cringing in agony. I had to take deep breaths just to turn to my side. All the toothaches I had were nothing compared to what I felt last night.  It still hurts a little bit up to now - especially after spending a few hours on the couch watching TV. Alright, alright - I will affirm you, back pain. You are the best pain-giver I could ever have.

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I saw P.S. I Love You in Star Movies last night. I cried. Thrice. I love both sappy romantic movies and post-apocalyptic zombie movies with a passion.

I was mentally composing a blog entry on my way home and I remember being excited about it. Now that I'm in front of my PC, I completely forgot what it was about.

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I've finally decided to have my cross-bite and my crooked smile corrected by wearing dental braces. Today is my 5th night wearing them and, god, do they hurt! They hurt so bad that I wake up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain.

It's painful to chew with these braces on so I've been living on soup and porridge for the last 4 days. Adding insult to injury, Mark brought and gave away Peanut M&Ms at the office. Of course, being the person who can't say no to freebies, I still took some and ate them like seeded tamarinds. I sucked on the chocolate and threw away the nuts. Hehe...

Everyone noticed my new dental appliance probably because I look stupid on it. Beng joked that it would have been nice if I wore it with a back brace for my scoliosis and a headgear to match. I would have been the next Ironman.

Everything about me is big and bent a little bit to the right. I'm big boned and I've got dextroscoliosis. I've got big teeth and my bite crosses to my right. There's one more part of me that's big and pointing towards the right... and that's my heart. Why? What did you have in mind? My feet aren't crooked, mind you!

Karma is finally catching up to me. We just recently took out the car from Honda's service center after having the fender, the bumper, and the hood (damaged from a major collision) replaced. Not a few days later, here we are again, filing another insurance claim. Just this morning, on our way to the grocery, a motorcycle suddenly came out of nowhere and hit us right at the front. The bumper, all shiny and new, got damaged again. In addition to that, the hood, which was also brand new, had some dents that will need retouching.

Although I wasn't at fault and I don't need to pay anything for repairs, this is still a major inconvenience for all of us.

I'm sorry, karma, for all the wrong things I've done. It's just been really hard these past few weeks.

I hope this ordeal gets over soon - again. How many more ordeals should I be getting?

I've once read that there were studies confirming people who read blogs, whether informative or not, are more intelligent than those who don't. If I remember correctly, it's because blog readers get to exercise their brain by digesting all the small trivia and other useless junk from the blogs they browse. Who knew reading all those useless information and endless rants can make you smarter.

I love you Yahoo and your homepage news. Thanks for making me smarter even if I use Google for searching. Today, I found out what 'honeymoon' means and where it originated. No, I will not share that information with you guys. Go google it yourself. Today, I'm one trivia smarter.

I'm on to you, Kuya Kim. (Fingers making the 'I'm watching you' taunting gesture.)

I've been thinking of playing WoW again over the past few weeks and when I finally got to install all the patches needed to play it, I suddenly lost interest again. Maybe I'll just wait for the new version to come out before I try again.

* * *

My teeth hurt from all these separators. I wish this ordeal gets over soon.

Liana, an ex-officemate and WoW player, gave us an Enjoy Card as a gift. Man, did I have fun with this. I have only used up 3 coupons in the span of a month but I've already gotten up to P2,000 worth of freebies (mostly food). Of course, the downside of this is that I get to spend on unnecessary purchases. I'm thinking of having this renewed for another year - but I'm still thinking about it. It's not easy being poor.

I have a new toy. Haha.... This will probably be my last purchase this year as I've officially run my bank account dry. With this, I will have to start saving luxury money from scratch again. I guess I won't be buying a gadget this year. Poor me.

People who think and act like they know a lot are really usually the ones who are lost in the dark.

This is probably why Nat Geo, a society focused on educating people, chose the slogan "Think again." for their ad campaigns. 

This is what we should be doing - thinking again. Things may be the exact opposite of what we think we know. 

When we see people alone by themselves, eating, smoking, or just plain sitting alone, we usually brand them as lonely losers. I wonder how much truth there is to that. Are they really lonely? Think again. Maybe, contrary to what we believe, our fear of being seen alone really makes us the lonely losers. We should envy the ones who can eat alone, walk alone, or do stuff on their own since they have enough self-confidence to do so. 

Maybe it is us who are the losers since we can't survive even a single minute alone? Desperately clinging on to people around us, getting their attention and their sympathy. 

Maybe by saying 'us', I really mean 'you'. Think again.

Tenenenen-tenen-tenen-ten.

What is a true friend? This question has been asked thousands of times already and we grew tired of trying to come up with cheesy answers. So instead of asking this, let's define something better instead.

What is a true enemy?

A true enemy is someone who:

• thinks of you every minute of every day with deep-seated anger
• is thoughtful enough to go out of their way just to pull you down - even at the smallest opportunities they can find
• stays patiently, prowling like a stealthy predator, waiting for you to expose your weakness
• always tells the truth when it comes to your secrets or any other information that can cause damage
• doesn't stab you at the back, and instead stabs you at your sides and sometimes at your front so that they can see your pain
• never lets go of your hand until all of its bones are broken

There are many other ways to define a true enemy. The bestest enemies you can have are those that are humble enough to make you believe that they are not your enemy - those are the ones worth keeping.

Inspired by Liana's wedding site, I would also want to share the demographics of my blog visitors.

If you are continuously taking time to read my blog posts, you are a:

• friend or family who wants to be kept updated
• new acquaintance who wants to know more about me
• cyber-stalker who is obsessed with me
• psycho bitch with too much free time

Which one are you?