a year in retrospect

its time again. the year is ending again and its time for the "year in retrospect" blog post. So here goes.

1. work

wow, that was easy.

but instead of recalling the year-end, I'd like to recall a christmas memory of my younger years.

back then, my family spent the holidays visiting my dad's relatives and spending christmas eve with my mom's family. i'm the oldest cousin on both sides so for a while i didn't really have anyone to play with except for my aunt who was fairly close to me in age. we'd raise all types of hell and get into a lot of trouble. well, she'd get into trouble because in my grandparents eyes i could do no wrong.

that year was really no different. the plan was usually to stay over, eat noche buena and open presents on christmas morning.

i usually had trouble sleeping so my aunt and i snuck downstairs to the kitchen and made some warmed up chocolate milk with some bread. this was extremely corny because late-night snack in the philippines usually meant some deep-fried something with powdered sugar dessert but i was happy with the milk and bread that my aunt always made me. we'd eat and plan to sneak a peak into our presents.

it was extreme ops. we'd run around the house pretending to be ninjas, jumping into shadows, ducking under furniture while making our way to the fake christmas tree guarding the presents. we'd open the presents with a scalpel (when you have a family of doctors a scalpel is usually a readily available tool... that, and a pickled pig fetus), take a peek and carefully rewrap the presents. we'd wake up the next morning pretending to be surprised with what we received.

i still miss those days.

i used to get depressed over the holidays because i longed for our family back home. i still miss them, but the thought of me (at my age and size) trying to acrobatically jump through furniture to surgically and secretly open presents just makes me smile nowadays.

santa clause is coming to town

during the holidays, work comes to a grinding halt. i tend to pay more attention to forwards. here is one that has circulated in the office.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

better [ !pout -a !cry ]
better [ !shout ]
cat /etc/why
santa_claus < north_pole town

cat /etc/passwd | awk 'BEGIN {FS=":"} {print $1}' list
/usr/bin/check list
/usr/bin/check list
cat list | sgrep naughty /dev/coal
cat list | sgrep nice /dev/presents
santa_claus < north_pole towo

who | sgrep sleeping
who | sgrep awake
who | sgrep bad
who | sgrep good
for goodness sake;do
be good
done

better [ !pout -a !cry ]
better [ !shout ]
cat /etc/why
santa_claus < north_pole town

lord of the talk-a-lots

To the stupid f*cker(s) in the movies,

christmas spirit my ass! i really don't appreciate you constantly talking behind me through a 3 and a half hour movie. i think it's quite rude and you should be hung and have your head put through a guillotine (just to make sure you're dead).

i also don't appreciate having to constantly turn around and "remind" you to stop talking whenever legolas comes on the screen. i would probably understand the situation a bit better if you were a 12 year old girl talking about how "dreamy" he is but you're not a 12 year old girl, you're a 19-25 year old boy probably having closet wet dreams about his "bow and arrow."

lets also talk a little bit about seat etiquette. simply put, stop kicking the back of my girlfriend's seat. i know how uncomfortable the seats are. i am sitting in the same ones. my only suggestion is to sit the f*ck up and stop slouching. don't you think that this might be the reason that you're completely uncomfortable in your seat? i'm taller than you are and my legs are far away from the seat infront of me.

thanks (i hope you burn a fiery death in hell),
ritchie

ps. it's also rude to talk in your native language while pointing at other people. granted you might be making fun of the poor person that tripped and spilled his popcorn. it's still rude.

pps. trying to "stare" me down after the movie is also not cool. this might work while hanging around the mall by mcdonalds. in this case, you're "homies" aren't there to rumble with you. kicking your ass would be my pleasure.

i can't think of a clever title for this one. so settle for this.

ahh, excel sucks and apparently power point makes you dumb. i'm sure its all part of bill gate's plan to rule the world.

and pinder beat me to my santa claus post.

did you see the news today? they captured Santa! then the medic picked the lice from his hair and ate it.

dave kim crazy!

my friend is crazy. totally flipped out of his mind. he's planning to ride his bike for over 7 days and (hopefully) 585 miles from san francisco to los angeles. that falls under categories most people would call clinically insane.

this is the person who managed to smoke a pack a day while on vacation in vancouver's cold weather in torn up khaki shorts.

all joking aside, i would love to see him accomplish this and i know that he's fully capable of doing it. so spread the word, and donate to the cause.

i'm not dead

contrary to popular belief, i'm not dead. trust me. i've been hiding behind paperwork and other various tasks related to bah-humbug holiday festivities. these things include:

• kitchen renovations
• work
• boogienet
• teaching
• stupid shopping
• a non-existent social life

yay me! i have nothing better to do this holidays but work.