I’ve never really known what it feels like to have someone dear to me pass away until today. It’s a very numbing, debilitating feeling, that really doesn’t quite sink in even when it happens right in front of you.

My grandfather passed away today at 1:47PM at the age of 99, peacefully, with a heart as strong as anyone out there regardless of age. He joined the Creator 4 days after my grandmother died 27 years ago.

He was critical since the past week began and lost the ability to speak early as they had to do a trach to help him breathe. All week, they put a bunch of tubes in to help pump medicine into his system to fight off his pneumonia, as well as feed him. For the past 10 days he had been bombarded with a variety of drugs and he had a blood tranfusion on both his arms, but his heart was still pumping so hard. I had asked him early this week if he wanted to let go and leave us, and he would vehemently shake his head even though he couldn’t speak and open his eyes anymore.

I stood there watching the machine that told us all what his blood pressure was and what rate his heart was beating at. The doctors said it should only be a matter of time as his kidney had failed because of all the meds pumped into his system and his pneumonia came back. But everytime one of us would go speak into his ear and try to wake him, all his vitals would shoot up and his heart would keep beating and beating. The elders decided to whisper to him that it’s time to let go and that we would all be okay. One by one they did it, and that was the only time his vitals slowly dropped, until he passed away peacefully this afternoon.

Angkong is going to be so missed by our entire clan as he was the reason we would all get together on Sundays and on festive occasions. Without him, we all probably wouldn’t be as close as we all are right now. We are very thankful that he was able to have lived such a fruitful and happy 99 years here with us.

It has always been a rather “touchy” but funny issue when you hear of guys who would take care of themselves more than what is in the norm. Guys who would take more time grooming themselves with something more than just a comb and gel and those who would actually put moisturizer and under-eye cream on their faces to improve their everyday look! But guys who do these things used to be called GAY, even if they really weren’t, but when shows like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” came out, it revolutionized the way the modern man looked, and it totally changed the way a lot of men and even women behaved.

Metrosexual was the new buzzword at the time, but now it’s a word people use and recognize everywhere. Guys who would take longer than women to prepare or have daily routines of grooming like putting wax or clay on their hair or even shave that almost-uni-brow or arch off their eyebrows, aren’t always labeled GAY anymore. What a relief! Ha ha! Now we’re, err… THEY’RE called metrosexual… and it’s a much better term, right?

So with the maturity of the modern man and woman, a lot of magazines and shows have popped up educating the public on how to better themselves in terms of how they look and act even more. And while channel-surfing this morning, I chanced upon a very appealing looking show called “The Duke” on AXN. The show’s tagline… “So what makes a REAL man?” Indeed, what does?

The talk show is hosted by a Singaporean girl named Eunice Olsen and the 2 Clunks (apparently means clowns and hunks, hehe) who finished 2nd in the Amazing Race Asia last season, Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez. Both are ridiculously funny and are “typical” of the modern man today. The show was very entertaining, to say the least, and it explores a vast majority of topics like politics, sex, finance, wellness, but more importantly about the finer things in life in a smart, sophisticated, and stylish manner. And the Duke, as the same suggests, is about men that stand a class above the rest. And who wouldn’t want to be in that class?

The show premiered on AXN last February 9, 2009, and airs every Monday at 8PM (SG/PH time).

I also never really ever noticed what kind of handbags women carry around with them. A bag is a bag, right? Obviously, not. As oblivious as I was back then (back then being fairly recently, around early this year), now I can’t help but instinctively look at what kind of bag a girl carries around every time I’m at the mall, or anywhere else for that matter. And in terms of handbags, Louis Vuitton is definitely one of the most popular brands here in the Philippines, and seemingly everywhere else in the world. And yeah, they really ARE that nice.

Because of that, I kind of noticed that almost everyone who goes to the mall totes an LV bag! So I started asking myself how that’s possible considering these handbags literally cost an arm and a leg to own. And these girls I see who own them really don’t seem to quite have the means to have one, if you know what I mean.

But since there is this place called Greenhills, the proliferation of these fake LV bags has boomed. So now anyone can own a “genuine-looking” Louis Vuitton handbag at a fraction of the actual price! Meaning if the real thing costs around Php 60,000 (or $1,200), you can get a fake one for a mere Php 4,000 (or $85!). And the greatest thing about it is that very few people can tell that it’s a fake! So for a sourgraper like me, who worked his ass off to be able to buy a REAL one for his fiancee, I want to spread the word on how YOU can TELL if the person you see in the mall is carrying a real one or not, and how YOU can TELL if the handbag you’re buying is the real McCoy!

Next: How You Can Tell…

Ahh, the eternal question… how to be truly happy.  Of course, there really isn’t one answer, but depending on your life situation, at least one of these six points might just hit the mark… and that should be enough, right?   This was inspired by an article I read in “Good Housekeeping” (yeah, yeah! hehe), and there were a few points there that were quite applicable and really helped me.  So I hope to be able to do the same thing for the readers here.

Sadly, I’m part of the darker, gloomier side of things, thus the title of the blog.  I guess the situation I’m in now won’t allow me to be happy… just yet.  But I am optimistic that very soon, everything will fall into place.  Here’s what I have in my Happiness Loot Bag: I have a great job that I love, but I’m annoyed at how I need to be hands-on with everything for something good to happen.  I’m my mom and dad’s favorite and they would do anything for me, except support me in the most important event in my life.  My fiancee is the love of my life, but we sometimes argue like crazy about the smallest, most irritating things.

My happiness inhibitor is that I easily get dragged down to that sad state when people who are closest to me are really down.  It indirectly affects my mood because no matter what I do about it, I can’t seem to alleviate the situation.  So even if I try to be happy when I open my eyes every morning, it just won’t work. I’m a pretty optimistic and realistic person, which is the best mix in my opinion.  You don’t sell yourself short but you don’t expect miracles to happen either.  So I think I still have hope in trying to achieve the happiness that I’m longing for.  And there really are strategies that can help you along the happy road to life, and here are six of them:

Read More…

I am fairly new to the idea of being paid to write about something online.  When I purchased my own domain name a few days ago and started doing my blog, I wanted to do it for the sole purpose of being able to talk about things I love and being able to share it with anyone who would chance upon it.  After looking at other blogs,I started to see that I could actually be doing that and also get a chance to be paid fairly well for it.

A friend of mine advised me to try PayPerPost, and told me that it was a good way to earn a little money on the side, while being able to write about things you like.  So it got me curious, and I took it upon myself to try it out.  After reading what kind of opportunities there were, I wanted to find out if I would be able to write about something that was being offered.

I had also read rather lengthily, that there are quite a few bloggers who don’t believe in PayPerPost scheme, and some even say it is doomed to fail.  I totally disagree, because if you are a blogger, which usually says that you like writing about many different things, then it would be practically impossible for you not to want to write about something new.  The idea of reading up on something you know very little about, and then writing about it, expands your knowledge on that topic.  It also gives you a chance to want to know more about something and that is indeed something worth doing.

I would disagree on the premise of other bloggers that you would be “selling out” because you are writing a review or an opinion about something merely because you are being paid to do so.  That is just not the case.  There are many different topics you can choose to write about, which means that you aren’t being forced or coerced to write a positive review about something you don’t like.  That is why you are shown an array of opportunities in your page in PayPerPost, so you can aptly choose which particular topics you would want to write about.  If you don’t want to write about it, then don’t!  It is by no means a mechanism that forces you to write about something you don’t want to.  And that is the beauty of PayPerPost.  Sure, you get paid to blog about something, but what’s wrong with that?

In the end, it’s just like playing basketball in the NBA.  NBA players love playing the game, and the bonus they get from it, is that they get paid to do it.  What could be better than that?  It’s just like this.  Bloggers write about anything and everything under the sun, because that is what they love to do.  Being paid to do it does not undermine the truthfulness of what you have written.  It is merely a bonus. And that’s why PayPerPost is a great idea, and that’s why I’m part of it.

blog ethics