My first gig... in McDo 12:47 AM

Song Bite
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez

Not exactly Araneta but I guess you have to start somewhere! :)

Smacking me with balloons 12:44 AM

Smacking me with balloons
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez

I don't think I deserve this type of abuse!
Mean and ungrateful children!
Behave!

Getting out the Funk 2:02 AM

Feeling really, really depressed after a big loss?
Work really bogging you down?
Want to release some of that negative energy but drinking is not really your thing?
Here is a short list of alternative activities to get you back to happyville!

1) Junk Food Binging

Ahhh... say hello to my best friends! Sour Cream & Cheddar Ruffles and Sour Cream & Onion Pringles! Get those gastric juices to work and fall prey to the quick satisfaction of potato chips and artificial flavoring. A can of cherry cola or cream soda will be a perfect compliment!

2) Flinging & Breaking

Every formulaic dramatic movie scene has this and it is indeed very therapeutic. Get those old jugs and jars out of the top shelf and start pitching them out an abandoned lot! Add some matching profanity directed towards the object of stress for full effect!

3) Self-Mutilation

Sometimes you really want to hurt somebody but you can't because it's... well, not cool. So, why don't hurt yourself instead! Pounding ones head on a wall or self-inflicting flesh wounds would usuqlly do the trick. The pain and the bleeding might be a downer at first but the street cred you'll get for the bruising and stitches will surely make up for it!

4) Get on the Rebound

Random hookups are creepy and uhm.... dangerous. Be on the safe side. Look around your office or campus and offer yourself up for charity to the next geeky kid you see! Think of it as giving back to society. Who knows? You might end up inspiring the next Steve Jobs or Condoleeza Rice!

5) Blog about it

Hell.. it works for me!

Sword and Sorcery: The Year in High Fantasy 2:17 PM

The Dark is Rising
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

StarDust
One fateful night, Tristran Thorn promises the most beautiful girl in the rural, English village of Wall, Victoria Forester, that he will retrieve a fallen star for her from beyond the wall that borders their village and separates it from the Faerie realm. Tristran bravely sets out to fetch the fallen star and therefore win the hand of his love, along the way encountering witches, faeries, and unimaginable creatures.

The Golden Compass

In The Golden Compass, the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, a young girl brought up in the cloistered world of Jordan College, Oxford, and her dæmon Pantalaimon learn of the existence of Dust, a strange elementary particle believed by the Church to be evidence for Original Sin. Dust appears to be less attracted to the innocence of children, and this gives rise to grisly experiments being carried out by Church-controlled scientists on kidnapped children in the icy wastelands of the distant North. Lyra and her dæmon journey to save their best friend Roger Parslow and other kidnapped children from this peril, with the aid of the Panserbjørne (armoured bear) Iorek Byrnison, John Faa and Farder Coram, leaders of the Gyptians, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby, and the witch Serafina Pekkala.

Simpsonized! 8:57 PM

I am thus immortalized!

"NOT MY DAUGHTER... YOU BITCH!" 4:18 PM

Go Mrs. Weasley!

A New High (or a new low?) 1:06 PM

Platinum Elitist

Wow. I really thought it was a myth achieving this status. Would I be sitting beside the pilot on my next flight now? I guess it's a testament of how much traveling I've been doing. I need to put this new status to the test. Tingnan natin kung ma-upgrade ako for an international flight. I seriously doubt it though.


Federer-ation

Good clutch play Roger! He almost had you. It was certainly a psychological blow for Rafa. 4 more for Pete's record. Hopefully I can catch the Cincinnati Open this August.

Shipping & Handling

I recently bought something online that had to be shipped from Hong Kong. Bad experience. I ended up having to pay tariffs and handling almost half the cost of the items I bought. No wonder why online commerce hasn't caught on here in Manila.

Not a happy camper... 9:31 PM

Motivation
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez

It has been raining hard since the start of summer
I was hoping to play tennis; What a bummer
Looking at the skies, it'll be a while before it stops
I'm not optimistic; I'll give it three to four days tops

Been looking for stuff to do indoors
Like washing dishes and some other chores
I'm rolling on carpet when it should be on grass
While thunder disturbs walls and sliding glass

Rolling Hills 4:56 AM

Rolling Hills
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez

and Smokey Mountains...

Hovering 10:09 AM

I'm hovering
In every sense of the word
I feel like it's ending
I know it's absurd

I know you know
Why I'm around
I might tell you straight
But you won't like how it sounds

I become a different person
When I'm alone with you
You make me do things
I won't normally do

Yes, I'm hovering
Yet I won't say a word
Of an ending I'm writing
For a life deffered

Science of Approximation - The Apophis, part 4 3:45 AM

August 22, 2021.

"And you are?" The elderly woman on the stage squinted as she searched the auditorium for the young man calling her attention.

"Mike. Michael Sanders ma'am. We met earlier."

"Yes." Mrs. Miranda Rodriguez-Devreux acknowledged reluctantly. "The eager one."

"Yes ma'am. You said in the presentation that an impact is unlikely for Cobalt-12 and 2017 UC271." Mike paused. "What about for 2004 MN4? The one they call Apophis."

"The Apophis is something close to the heart of my late husband, Mr. Sanders." Miranda looked away for a second then walked to the folder of transparencies she had on a side desk. "I may have something here that would show the exact trajectory of the said asteroid."

The auditorium went dark again. An black and white image of a stone mass in empty space flashed into the projector screen.


"That thing is huge." The young man beside Mike whispered.

"There's more to this asteroid than that, Peter." Mike confided.

"You were saying something Mr. Sanders?" Miranda shot a look directly at two men chatting.

"Yes, ma'am. Isn't it true that it is mostly made up of solid osmium?"

Miranda raised an eyebrow. She was visibly impressed. "You did your research young man."

"Yes, Apophis is made up of one of the densest and most toxic natural element known to man. They say, even without hitting land mass, its entry burn in our atmosphere would easily kill half the living population of the northern hemisphere in 2 weeks."

Everybody in the room fell silent.

"But of course." The lights in the auditorium came on again. "With a 7 million to 1 chance of impact, we will be lucky just to see it with our telescopes. Now with the study program, I will be asking everyone to..."

"Ma'am." Mike raised his hand again.

"Yes, Mr. Sanders." Miranda spoke sternly now.

"Is it true that an assistant of Professor Devreux once alerted the district board of Arizona regarding a flaw in this impact probability. He said with the tail asteroid, the impact chance was more like 4500 to 1."

"Mr. Sanders." Miranda motioned towards the stage exit. "Meet me backstage in 5 minutes. Class dismissed."

Uncle Pat 11:26 PM

Uncle Pat, originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez.

Saw Mackie, Ivan, Daisy, Pat & Sophia today!
Wow.. Can't believe it has been almost 2 years!

Same old people, same old fun!

Got you this time... bitch... 12:39 AM

Finally... out of the funk and in the Rafatard's face...
C'mon Roger!

Emo Mark 5:19 PM

Out to buy a new phone?
Make sure it can do SIP calls over WLAN! You can then download Gizmo to make free calls over the internet! And then of course you can just buy a Windows Mobile phone and download Skype for it. Make sure you can download Yahoo! Go on it as well. Mobile yahoo messenger is fun! Don't even get me started on the importance of GPS.

There was 'e'... giving us email, ecard, eHarmony...
Then there was 'i'... giving us ipod, iphone, itunes...
Then came '2.0'... giving us Web 2.0, Skype 2.0, Firefox 2.0...
I introduce to you now 'HD'... giving us HDTV, HD DVD, HD Radio, HD Photo...

WTF is emo?
It's music. It's fashion. It's personality.
It is guys wearing this haircut.
This is funny.
I grabbed the wikipedia definition of an emo personality and it somehow matched my general mood these days.


From Wikipedia:

Emo Personality

When referring to a person's personality and attitude, most definitions of emo hold that an "emo person" is candid about their emotions, sensitive, shy, introverted, broken-hearted, glum, and often quiet.^[6][9] Emo personality is also often connected with writing poetry, which addresses confusion, depression, loneliness, and anger, all resulting from the world's inability to understand the author. Emo poetry uses a combination of any of: a highly emotional tone, stream of consciousness writing, a simple (ABAB) or nonexistent rhyme scheme, references to the flesh, especially the heart, heavy use of dark or depressing adjectives, concern over the mutability of time and/or love, and disregard for punctuation, grammar, and/or spelling. Themes such as life is pain are common.^[10]

Some definitions of emo hold that typical "emo persons" are likely to inflict self-injury, most often by means of cutting, burning, or otherwise mutilating themselves.^{[11] [9]} Some assert that it is cool within the emo subculture to pretend to be suicidal and self-harm,^[12] or that participants self-harm purely for personal enjoyment.^[13]

Emos are also stereotyped to use depressing Internet screen names that sometimes contain straight edge X's, often using ironic sloganry, a poetic sense or cliché (eg. xmourningafterx).^[8]

The word emo can be used as either a noun or adjective.^[6][9]

Adjective (1): All my friends are emo.
Adjective (2): I feel emo today.
Noun: That person is such an emo.

Ok. I am not suicidal and I am not a big fan of burning, cutting and mutilation. But it's neat that there is a cool term to associate me with now. I thought I had mono.

WTF is mono?
Ok. Seriously. Read up. This term is so 90's.

Melancholia 12:39 PM

I don't know how to say this but I think I'm clinically depressed
I have no motivation to do anything
I tire a lot
I turn to books, to games to become what I'm not

I set my alarm for 8 and delay it to 10
I wake up in the middle of the night not knowing where from when

I look to others for distraction
I lie about how I feel
I sometimes wish things were different too much that
I don't trust my eyes to see what is real

I feel there's something wrong when in fact all is fine
I don't deny that at times I wished all these false sorrow were not mine

What has happened to me? Would you know?
Is this a phase that will pass in a week or so?
I continue to this day with drugged induced sleep
For awake I'm alone and in dreams I weep

Yuppies in the Outfield 8:26 AM

Yuppies in the Outfield
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez.

Spring is here and it is already 80 degrees Fahrenheit!
Summer should be scorchin'!

Are you ready to jump? 9:56 PM

Jump!
Originally uploaded by Mark Ordoñez.

More of Boracay 2007: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markordonez/sets/72157594578195417/

Look Up - The Apophis, part 3 3:05 PM

April 12, 2029.

The night sky was clear at the lookout point in Cimarron Hills, Colorado and Peter Jenkins made sure that he had the best spot for him and his girlfriend. On the way up Heather Lieberman was busy finding a radio station with romantic music. The bend on the hillside prevented good reception. Heather settled on a news broadcast in the meantime.

The reporter's voice blended with wisps of white noise with every turn.

"...impact this time around has been ruled out but the the possibility of the asteroid passing through the gravitational keyhole is still relatively high. With this, the scientific community is still not ruling out an impact on 2036. On other news, celebrity entrepreneur and now astronaut Michael Lee Sanders is scheduled to hold a press conference at midnight prior to the deflection mission launch in Florida. The mission code named 'Omega Priori' is the brain child of State Secretary for Space Research Jacques Devreux, former..."

"Just turn it off Heather." Peter blurted in irritation. He always felt she had a long time crush on pretty boy Sanders. He pushed down on the accelerator.

"Would you cool it off?" Heather sighed as she switched off the radio. "Don't you want to hear about Mike? He is your best friend."

"Was." Peter pointed out. "And I heard enough about him

Silence broke into the car. Heather knew what was up and she decided to just let it pass. She opened a window to let the night breeze in.

"It's so nice out. I'm glad we went out Peter." Heather held Peter's hand on the steering wheel as she looked at him.

Peter did not respond.

"Your mom called today. She said you did not call on your sister's birthday like you promised. She's worried something happened to you and..."

"I'm okay, alright." Peter said sternly. "I don't want you or my mom worrying too much about me."

Peter steered the car into his favorite spot on the lookout. He turned off the engine and gazed up out the windshield.

"I know you're jealous of Mike. I know you think I like him." Heather said suddenly. "There's nothing between..."

"You got it all wrong Heather." Peter cut her off. "You it got all wrong."

Heather looked concerned as she saw Peter's face sadden.

"I spoke to Mike this morning. He wanted to greet us on our 2 year anniversary." Peter looked down as he spoke. "He also wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Distress could be heard from Heather's voice.

"He said that with the load of the spacecraft, the fuel will not be enough for a re-entry. He knew about this for sometime now and was asked not to tell anyone."

"What?" Heather was now crying.

"I asked him.. begged him to walk way. He said it was too late. It has always been his dream to become a hero. I was angry. I did not know what to do. I pleaded for him to come home. His mind was set."

"Does his parents know?" Heather's voice broke.

"He asked me not to tell them." Peter paused. "Heather, before the call ended, he did tip me on something. He said it was his present to us on our anniversary. On the asteroid's first pass, he said it will be carrying a number of small meteorites."

Peter got out of the car. Heather followed.

"What time is it?" Peter asked.

Heather looked at her watch. "11:36."

Peter smiled under the tears and pointed to the sky. "Look up."

Heather sobbed and held on Peter as spears of fire blazed into the night.

To be continued.

Red Lights - The Apophis, part 2 12:41 AM

March 4, 2007.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The computer on the east corner office of the Arizona State University Highland Observatory has been bellowing the same sound for about 20 minutes now. Down the other side of the building on the reception desk, Johnny Polanski was frantically dialing the home of the District Dean for Inner Space Research. He got through. After three rings, a recorded message played.

"You have reached the Devreux residence, we are curre..."

Johnny skipped the recording and went ahead to leave a message.

"Professor, It's Johnny. I need to talk to you as soon as you possible sir. I think we made a mistake in our earlier calculation. I had Lomax verify the trajectory. The NLDL program is now projecting a 1 in 4500 chance of impact. I don't know what to do next sir. Please call.

Johnny stayed on the line and stared into the dark corridor leading back to the corner office. Two minutes passed and the line dropped as it reached the end of tape.

To be continued.

It Came From The Sky - The Apophis, part 1 5:57 PM

April 13, 2036.

The dawn breaks into another beautiful day in sunny San Francisco. Heather Lieberman makes her way home driving her 2 year old SUV. She was still wearing her ER overalls coming out of her last operation of the night shift. "And so it ends today.", Heather murmured under her breath as she waited on a stoplight to change in an empty intersection a few blocks away from home. There was an eerie silence as she peered along the street into one of the houses that was boarded up. The street lights went out. Together with them, the stoplight lost power as well. "I guess that means 'go' for me then."

Heather was one of the last people in the city . A number of them were still in the hospital in Durham East and most of them were patients. They were those who wished to be left behind. Heather braked in front of a fallen sign post . It was lying in front of her driveway. She contemplated on moving it but tiredness struck and decided against it. Instead, Heather switched off the car engine and sat quietly for a few seconds. She slowly glanced at the time on the dashboard as the seconds on it flickered brightly. 6:43 am. A little over 4 hours before impact. There was a short beep that came out of her mobile phone after that. 'No network coverage', her mobile phone read. And now she was truly cutoff from the rest of the world.

Darkness came.

Heather got off the car and looked up. What she thought at first was that a dark cloud was covering early light. But blood immediately left her face with the realization of the truth. It was the asteroid right on schedule blocking the sun on its wake.

To be continued.