Shoe Guy

In the hit TV series Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw has an online alias of "shoegal" since she loves shoes so much. At one point, her friend Miranda calculated that over the years, she spend approximately $40,000 on shoes.
I don't spend that much on shoes since my disposable income (though slightly higher than some) does not allow me to buy Manolos (or its equivalent, if any, in men's shoes).

But yes I still do buy shoes every once in a while. Everytime I go to the malls, I instinctively go to shoe stores but just the normal and reasonably priced ones. I still can't bring myself to buy a P7,200 boots from Alberto's even though I just love how it looks.

I graduated from buying shoes worth P500 or less. (In college, I bought this rubber sneakers which costs P300. I wore that shoes for more than 5 years and would have continued wearing them had my mother not given it away).

From buying P500 or less shoes, I went to buying P1,000 or less (the types you can buy in SM). Then an acquiantance told me about this shoe store WADE and I immediately levelled up to P2,500 or less. Then when strolling in Rockwell, I found this shoe store ALDO which sells really nice and fashionable shoes for P3000 to P5000. I was itching to buy the P3,200 shoes (on sale) but the available sizes were too small.

An officemate told me how he bought shoes in PEDRO'S (an affiliate of Bench). I went there once, loved the shoes, bought one for P3,000++. I would have bought more but my conscience kicked in.

Right now, I own about 18 pair of shoes.

Girbaud. Bought them on sale. I wear them when I feel like wearing shoes on Saturday instead of sandals. Leaveland. Looks a little big. But these shoes have served their purpose. This is one of my "safe" office shoes that I wear quite often when I can't think of which shoe goes well with which pants.
Pedro's. I thought this was made of snakeskin and ostrich leather. The salesman said this is made of cow leather.
Bench. I like. (the color combination)
FILA. I'm not a great fan of shoes that markets itself as sporty (I'm not sporty and am not a sports fan) but when I saw this brown shoe on sale, I bought it.
Wade. I just love brown shoes.

W. Brown. Bought on sale in SM. I wanted to buy an ox-blood colored shoe (this is not really ox-blood but the color is close) at the time to wear with my black pants.

Wade. I shoe that I wanted to buy before in Mall of Asia. However it seems a little expensive for me at the time. A few months or week later, I went to Trinoma and found it on sale 20% off. I had to buy it. Maritalia, an affiliate of Rusty Lopez. I liked how it looks like the woodgrain design.

Leaveland. Design is a little different from most. I am looking for different looking shoes. The sales lady told me that I'm their first customer to buy this.

Leaveland. A little too big for my feet.

I still haven't taken pictures of my other shoes.

"Jewellery" Box

This is a "jewellery box" that I bought in Baguio (Mines View, in particular).

And yes, the " " are necessary since right now, it doesn't hold anything of real financial value.

Its current contents are:

- "Silver" cufflinks (yes the " " are also necessary). I think this costs P399 or P499.
- A wrist watch from Unisilver (this at least has sentimental value since this is a gift)
- A wrist watch which came free from buying Chivas Regal in Duty Free
- A wrist watch that I bought from SM and costs P399.
- 2 neck wear (not really a necklace). These have black sort-of rubber string with metal pendants. Both costs less than P200 each.
- 4 neck wear that I bought in Baguio - all with black threads and cross pendants, in different designs, made of kamagong wood (or that's what the seller told me). I don't remember how much each costs but they're somewhere in 3 for P100 or 4 for P100.

Sometimes I also put there silver necklace (also has sentimental value since this is a special gift) but that doesn't happen since I'm always wearing it.

I was hoping that someday, someway, someone would give me something (a real jewellery, or an expensive watch) so that my "jewellery box" can transform into a Jewellery Box.

Picture of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This is a picture that I don't remember taking.

I really don't know what or who I was taking a picture of.

Anyway, looking at it, I think it looks like a male sex organ.
I think so.

I showed it to someone and he also thinks so.

And I did not even told him what I thought it looks like.

Butterfly

When we were in La Union for work, I chanced upon a butterfly (or is it a moth) clinging still to the wall of the hotel-resort where we were staying. I took a picture of the insect but didn't get much time to appreciate its beauty.

On looking at the picture, I finally appreciated its beauty.

* * * * *

Butterflies have been used in gay pride parades and other gay-celebrations. I think a butterfly is one of the symbols of the LGBT community.

Now I know that the rainbow represents the whole spectrum of gender and sexuality but I'm not sure of the symbolism for the butterfly.

Maybe it's a symbol for the metamorphosis that one goes from being a straight-acting person during the day to a different person at night. Or maybe it's a symbol for the coming out of the closet, like a butterfly leaving its cocoon to spread its wings.

On Buying Clothes

Last Saturday, I went to Makati Cinema Square with a friend to buy some DVDs. When we were there, we went to Plaza Fair's department store to look at clothes and shoes.



When looking at the clothes and shirts, my mind immediately assumes that my size is medium. I have forgotten that about the time the Philippines transitioned to Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS) from the old generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), i myself have transitioned from being size medium to size large. Like most Philippine companies finding it difficult to accept that the simple GAAP has now become complicated, I found it hard and still finds it hard to accept that the medium shirt I used to buy are, in most cases, no longer acceptable. Wearing them makes me look like a suman wrapped in coconut leaves and bulging in the wrong places. I stick out from the crowd in the same way that an FS today prepared using the old GAAP will be looked at in a not-so-favorable way.

And for me, wearing large sized shirts has somehow become a standard, not just generally accepted, except in certain cases.

Developments

It's 4 days to go before Christmas and yet I don't feel like celebrating. Things seem to go wrong. It's like that law where if things have a possibility of going wrong, they will.

Ok, to start off, there was an audit group meeting, which I did not attend since I may be the spotlight of the meeting due to my unarchived accounts. Turns out that the meeting wasn't that bad.

I intentionally did not go to work due to this meeting, hence, I no longer went to our group Christmas party last night. No big deal though. Seems like these days, nothing seems to matter. Not Christmas parties, not work, no nothing.

Then, I checked my email last night and what do you know?!, the job in the Channel Islands I was applying for did not materialize. The email said "we are unable to further process your application". Oh well, that's life. Maybe in a few months or so I will appreciate that I did not get that work, which requires me to move to Channel Islands in January. As Evita said, "Call in three months time and I'll be fine I know. Maybe not that fine, but I'll survive anyhow."

Early this morning, I received a text from Chard saying that the apartment that I was eyeing (or thinking of since I haven't seen it yet) was already promised by the landlady to someone who already gave a deposit. He said that the prospective lessee may still backout. Until then, all I can do is hope. I don't want to look for a fucking apartment.

And then, this morning, I opened the gift that I received for our exchange gifts (the gift giving happened last Tuesday night, but I was not there on account of my interview for the Channel Island job). And what do I find?! A fucking paisley tie!!! It was fashionable. . . like decades ago!!! Am I supposed to resurrect this pattern, which the most brave of designers refuse to put on their signature labels?

What a way to end the year! But all is not lost. I can hope that things will turn out for the better. In my life, it seems that they always do. Bad things happen for a reason. And these reasons ultimately turn out for the good.

On Busy-ness - Musical Bottles

I am bored most of the time. I need to have a project, something where I can channel my creative energy - if I still have this. And I tried several things to take my mind off boredom.

My most recent unsuccessful try involves creating musical bottles.

A few weeks ago while I was cleaning the apartment, I got annoyed at all the San Mig Light and Cali bottles at the apartment. Don't wanna throw them out as I may need them when I buy SML or Cali again. Then I remembered that back in high school, I created musical bottles. It was then that I got the idea of creating musical bottles using all these SML and Cali bottles. Being the lazy person that I am, it took me two or three more weeks before I could get enough will and determination to put this plan into action.

And so, I got the first bottle and put water enough to fill the whole container. I struck the bottle. The pitch sounded high, much higher than I expected. After pouring water in the second and third bottles and striking them using a wooden spoon, I was disappointed to find out that the tone hardly varied. It was almost the same high-pitched tone as the first bottle. And so, with all hopes dashed, I abandoned this futile exercises and did what I almost always do at home - watch DVD movies.

I remember creating a set of musical bottles back in high school for our Music class. It was easy, just pour water into bottles in different amounts and listen. Back then, I used Tanduay bottles, the so-called "lapad". It worked pretty well and the tones were almost perfect.

Oh well, effort wasted. I guess it has to do with the bottles. My friend said that SML/Cali bottles are proportionately thicker than the Tandua bottles so there is less room for the sound to vibrate, thus resulting in the almost-same high-pitched tone.

And now, I still have nothing productive to do at work and am still wondering what to do with all those bottles.