THE TEENAGE HELGA FILES (PART I, PERHAPS).

October 29, 2008 at 5:55 pm | Filed under the helga manual

I have come to the conclusion that when I was in my late teens, I was a complete asshole. It’s a wonder I had any real friends throughout my college years (and I know that they’re real cos these are people I am still friends with) so I’m guessing that these friends must’ve either been complete assholes, too, or people with low self-esteem who didn’t mind being friends with an asshole so long as they have someone to call a friend. The former were probably people I’d refer to as My Bitches, something I wouldn’t put past 17-year old me. The latter, folks I’d call My Little Lapdogs. To their faces. Because that’s how I roll.

Look at this— snippets from my personal site’s profile page from five years ago:

I am a very boring person. It’s always the same with me: coffee, cereal drinks, alcohol, cigarettes, books, clubs, bars, school and the occasional boytoy. Yep. That’s basically my life’s story. Nothing new ever happens to me. Which is good. I’m so vulnerable I don’t think I could handle change.

I’m so vulnerable I don’t think I could handle change.??????? I just gave myself goosebumps of horror and disgust. That is, like, the most un-Helga-like declaration ever and I would like to justify that with the fact that when I was 17, I was hanging out at my neighborhood Starbucks, reading Jean-Paul Sartre, doodling on my arms with my neon pink Stabilo Bos because it seemed so indie and so cool, and having meaningful and important and college-y conversations with people who juggled existential crises on a daily basis.

I like starting my sentences with “I” or “My”. I am God. I am worshipped. I have more brain activity than you do. My my my, what do have here, an idiot! Of course, I have days when my narcissism takes a backseat and I actually begin my sentences with “You”. You moron. You dumbass, you. You little shit.

What an extremely embarrassing paragraph and I just had to put that out there to give all of you the go signal to poke fun at me for being such a conceited, self-absorbed fuckwit. Your tittering and jeering shall be my repentance for being so…lulzy. It would’ve been forgivable if I was trying to be funny, but I think I was dead serious and completely delusional back then.

Quick, I need validation that I am no longer that person.

Chronic pimple poppers (like me) should find this interesting: acne scar treatments.

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START-OF-THE-WEEK SPLURGE.

October 27, 2008 at 1:46 pm | Filed under camwhorage

It’s not the Canon PowerShot SD1100 that I originally wanted to get (it’s leagues below that lol), but this Sony Cybershot S750 will have to do.

I had three options: this pink Olympus model that was cheaper than the S750, the S750 (second cheapest cam amongst the Sonys, lol), and a Canon Ixus 80IS. I almost went with the Ixus until I remembered I had a Vaio back home and a 2-gig Memory Stick Pro Duo from the boyfriend. I’m no poster girl for Sony, but I like keeping things simple.

I’m a happy kitty with my purchase. A couple of shots (no pictures of tire chains, though, huhlolz):

My very handsome baby boy, CB (stands for Crybaby). I’m going to miss him when I move to the apartment this week (quite possibly tonight).

And my no make-up I-just-woke-up I-was-up-coughing-all-night I-could-possibly-gag-on-you-stay-away face:

Scary, and that’s the face that the boyfriend will be waking up to for the rest of his life lolz.

I’m now thinking of re-starting my Project 365.

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‘LAUNCH’ IS A FUNNY WORD, AND OTHER THINGS.

October 24, 2008 at 3:33 pm | Filed under the helga manual, the internets

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased the domain manilabarbie.com on a whim. I was at the office and doing my usual pre-actual work internet dilly-dallying (checking Smashing Magazine and other career-related sites) when I, for no reason other than it has a nice ring to it, googled ‘manila mania’. And because my brain works in such a way that random things pop up at the same time, I thought “Hey, Manila Barbie sounds nice”. I plurked about it and people told me to go ahead and get the domain.

And so I— with no clue what to do with it— did.

Setting it up took a week; I got hosting from my e-friend Jon over at kinohost.net (a very affordable $5/year, I get 5gigs of space and unmetered bandwidth) and I modified one of my older pre-widget themes and came up with the very girly and very pink(!!!) design.

I launched Manila Barbie a week ago and until now, people are still asking me what my plans are for it. Truthfully, I still don’t know and what it basically is now is my uncontrollable spending in blog form. A fledgling shopping blog, if you may; eventually, it would also make sense to start blogging about fashion since most my purchases are clothes and such. Except…

I’m no fashion maven, I don’t follow and obsess about what’s trendy or parrot stuff I see in magazines. My taste in clothing and objects in general have remained the same since time immemorial (let’s just pretend my funny t-shirts and YRYS phase never happened): I like pretty things with a bit of an attitude (or a dash or double-dash of funky). I feel most comfortable in a miniskirt and flip-flops which is something the boyfriend has criticized in the past. He says he’s a fan of shoes and I am, too, especially heels. But I do a lot of walking (and I walk fast) and though you can find me in my pink and white Nikes most days, I still hate the goddamn things. I’m a middle-class shopper (a term my friend Sanya used last Saturday when we were making fun of each other’s spending problems) with my 1000-peso jackets from FnH and bought-on-sale tops from Mango. But even if it seems like I’ve been exercising all my best efforts at looking disastrous, I’d still like to think that I’m not a fashion fiasco. Or something like that.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that there’s always room for improvement. Lolz.

Another thing I’d like to put on MB is my love for (Metropolitan) Manila. There is much to hate about the big city (crazy weather, stupid people, traffic, pollution, perverts etc etc) and many days I find myself wanting to pack my bags and move up north to San Juan. Thankfully, Manila’s sub- and cultural diversity is enough to make me stay put (at least for now). I don’t know how I’ll go about doing that, having no decent camera at the moment, but I’ll figure something out.

So, check out Manila Barbie and maybe add it to your Netvibes or Google Reader, ya?

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GOOGLE’S FILIPINO TRANSLATION OF MY BLOG BOGGLES ME.

October 20, 2008 at 4:09 pm | Filed under the internets

Last Saturday afternoon, I was in a meeting for the Philippine Web Design Conference (website coming soon, hee) and during our off-topic moments, Shari mentioned that Google’s Filipino translation of sex and boobs were iyotan and boobella, respectively. Iyotan, I somehow understand because as far as I know, that’s the Ilocano term for sex (which still isn’t Filipino). But boobella?! Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t boobella gay lingo? I wouldn’t be surprised (but I’d be appalled) if Google translated whatever as churva.

Of course I had to Google-translate my blog. As expected, it barely made any sense and it was a barrel of lulz. Some screencaps:

This Google, What A Funny!

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AN INVITATION TO A MINI WEB DESIGN CONFERENCE.

October 16, 2008 at 12:49 pm | Filed under events

Filipino web designers and web enthusiasts are invited to join us in a mini web design conference this October 30. Details, taken from Mae’s site:

What:
Mini Web Design Conference
Theme - design! (color theory, typography, grid, etc)
(It’s BarCamp style, meaning anybody who wants to talk can talk. And it’s really casual. For us, by us.)

Who:
Anybody!

When:
Friday, October 30, 6:00 PM

Where:
G2VC TechBar, Orient Square Building, Emerald Avenue, Ortigas Center (the building where Standard Chartered Bank is)

How much:
FREE!

The event can only hold up to 50 people so sign up here if you haven’t. It would also be appreciated if you could take the time to fill up this survey so that the <form> function() & .class organizers (yes, that’s the conference’s very geeky and excellent name!) could better prepare the list of topics for next year’s big conference.

The conference logo:

Hee! Also, who woulda thunk that KVM switches were spendy?

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