2010 was a good year for...

Travel. Bohol, Bacolod, Baguio, Nasugbu and Tagaytay were some of the notable places Mav and I went to this year, and I loved every minute. Baguio was particularly memorable: until recently I've gotten sick of going there because my mom insisted on going at every possible opportunity without giving me freedom to explore on my own. Not this time. Even though Baguio is "Manila in the mountains" nowadays, it still has hidden gems worth seeking out.

Car racing and trackdays. I had to take 10 months' hiatus off racing due to other priorities, but it was always great. I hit my personal best lap record in Subic International Raceway (58.93 sec), learned my way around Batangas Racing Circuit (2:20.8), and sampled the tire-destroying long track of the Clark International Speedway (no lap time).

Health and exercise. I was able to stick to a gym schedule for six months. I also participated in a new hobby: running. Tentative efforts around February and March began to stick around October until the present, where I started competing in my first 3K and 5K races - both with respectable first-attempt times. In 2011 I'll aim for a couple of 10K events. I may not have lost much weight, but I'm proud to say I'm in a better state of fitness than in the past few years.

Filipino movies. Mav's efforts to steer me toward Filipino movies have paid off. I've learned to appreciate them for what they are, even discovering some legitimate gems along the way. I enjoyed "Cinco" and "My Amnesia Girl." I'm just hoping we move on from the rom-coms.

Formula 1. And here I was thinking 2009 was a brilliant season celebrating the underdog. 2010 was genuinely dramatic, with five men in a position to win the driver's championship up until the penultimate race of the season. I don't like Red Bull Racing's raceday impotence, I don't like Sebastian Vettel's prattish attitude, but they both deservedly won their championships in style.

2010 was a bad year for...

Car clubs and forums. Not worth my time these days. I've done a respectable run over almost 7 years. When the headaches and gossip over blown egos outstrips the pleasure and advantages of participation, I think it's time to throttle back or let go altogether.

Work. Most of the people I started working with have left and I think I've realized why. My environment no longer supports my professional development. It's one of the only things that's kept me anchored, and even that's disappeared altogether. I'm not sure I can wait until September. The time to act is probably now.

Personal websites. See how badly I've neglected my own blog? Enough said.

Personal real estate. It's been frustrating looking at condominiums and houses for sale. At my current salary and the rate I'm going (see Work above), I'll never be able to pay off a house or condominium of my own - not now. Right now all I can do is concentrate on investing more and more into my current savings bond.

2009 was a good year for...

Car modification. The mods themselves were few and far between, but their utility made a very big difference. Already I can say the Recaro SRD seats and BRIDE RO-type seat rails are the single best modification I'd ever done to Aibo, as they increased my comfort greatly and laid out a solid foundation for developing my driving technique on the racetrack. However, I am most proud of how I did a lot of these modifications myself.

Watching Formula 1 racing. 2009 will forever be remembered as the year where the traditional Ferrari vs. McLaren rivalry took to the back burner, replaced by new blood filling the podium steps in the form of Red Bull Racing and Brawn GP. While I am happy that Jenson Button is now finally the world driver's champion, I am equally impressed at how the leveled playing field has shown the talents of so many drivers who are championship material themselves, notably Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Participating in racing. It's no secret that I love cars and I love driving them virtually in video games such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport 2. Driving on a real racetrack on a trackday, however, beats the pants out of that. 2009 was one of the most fulfilling years for me as a driver because I picked up the kind of confidence that I never would've had if I stayed driving on the streets, culminating in a personal-best 59.14-second lap time around Subic International Raceway. The pungent smell of burnt rubber while dashing at 120 km/h...ahhh.

Singing. While my participation in choirs has waned a little, due to the departure of my mentor and friend Nelson Albano, I've expanded into a new area as a wedding singer. By no means am I the best at it just yet; all my gigs have been amateur ones. I relish the chance to become better, though.

Video games. After eight years of soldiering on without one, I finally landed a hand-me-down PlayStation 2 from my cousin JB. This time I decided to do things the right way and bought all my games legitimately. In all that time however, the PS2's game library has never shown signs of slowing down. It still has lots of great games on sale and it's very reliable as a console, unlike the frustratingly fragile Xbox 360.

Relationships. Every day I spend with Mav, I seem to be breaking a record for the longest relationship I have had yet. We have our spats and arguments, but I can't see myself in love with somebody else - cheesy perhaps but it's the absolute truth.

Priorities. It's hard to say if I'm successful at this yet but I've held out on spending on myself to save for a long-term investment purchase: a condominium unit of my own. There's still a long way to go before I can call myself independent, but I think I'm on the right track.

2009 was a bad year for...

Car clubs and forums. I've basically sworn off most of the car clubs I've participated in because there are people who either cannot admit that they are wrong, or cannot see past their huge egos. My only remaining car club is HCP and I have no plans of involving myself with any more.

Exercise and fitness. For the second year running, my fitness has gotten progressively worse. While I was able to get myself involved early in the year, my changing work assignments have shot down any plans of keeping a healthy exercise routine. I'm heavier and fatter than ever, and I'm beginning to think that perhaps pumping iron isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I weighed my lightest when I was aerobically active. It doesn't help that my metabolism isn't as quick as it used to be, as well.

Work. As much as I was complaining about Barclays, my current internal assignments are all fish-out-of-water things that have dealt me quite the amount of pain and frustration trying to adjust. No matter how nice the people are, the work just doesn't suit me as well as it used to. I've lost most of my motivation for work, although I know I should be grateful that I even have a job.

Personal websites. For the most part I haven't been able to update this blog as frequently as I would have liked, nor have I paid much attention to my Multiply account. I guess I've just been too busy.

People and things that came to an end. Patrick Swayze, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Brittany Murphy - all of them died this year. A few other things bit the dust too, such as T3 magazine.

Calamities. Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng dumped the equivalent of one month's rain in one September day. Enough said. Some kids are currently spending their holidays with at least a few inches of floodwater in their homes. And if that wasn't enough, Mayon Volcano is also rearing its ugly lava-spewing head as I write this.

Time to rebuild, perhaps

Things used to be a lot simpler back in the day. People met online in forum websites purely for discussions' sake. People logged in, made friends, networked, reached out to other friends.

Nowadays there just has to be the odd profiteering gesture thrown in. There just has to be the odd fragile ego that has to be crushed by nothing more than an honest remark. There just has to be the proverbial bad apple in the basket making life miserable for everybody else.

This is the year when I realized I've had my fill of that. Frankly I'm sick of it already. I'm not going to break away and make my own forum because let's face it, that's just going to lead to the very same thing I was complaining about.

Perhaps this is the long-overdue signal for me to get off my ass, stop it with the Internet and just look for a quiet hobby I can enjoy by myself without worrying about inflated egos and over-commercialization. It turns out I had one all along.

After a year of doing other things, I found myself going back to my work-in-progress, my MG Zeta Plus C1 model. I had planned on painting it with my own colors, but somehow I never got it done because I got discouraged by a few mistakes I had made with putty and painting. Funny enough it took a power outage for me to get back to doing it. I just ordered a new kit to replace my botched parts, while I continued putting Tamiya Fine Surface Primer L on the assembled parts.

So far here's what I have to show after 60% of the kit has had primer sprayed on.

2008 was a good year for...

Love. Mav and I have been together for three and a half months at this writing...and every minute has been a blast so far. My waiting seems worth it because I really don't want anybody else. I love you my baby.

Cooking. Not so long ago I learned how to cook my very first real dish, and even served it to my colleagues soon after. With great results, may I add. Here's to more culinary capers.

Saving. I set myself an ambitious financial target with the Bride Digo seat, and I've proven I can discipline myself enough financially to reach it. The funny thing is, no matter how hard I've saved up these past four or five months, I'm still nowhere near buying the damn thing because so many other expenses got in the way. The final nail in that coffin was when I went to Auto Circuit a few days ago, only to be told they didn't have stocks. No matter, the "Digo fund" has gone to good use---mainly revolving around car maintenance. And I'm still saving.

My car. Boy, was my Aibo spoiled: new wheels, hub-centric rings, Work RS lugnuts, rust removal, repainting, detailing, and the promise of new modifications around the corner. He even got his fifteen seconds of fame by appearing on Honda's Challenge Magazine. This was also the year I appreciated the peculiarities of washing a car properly.

Knowing who my real friends are. I've had a lot of bullshit come my way this year, but I take comfort in the fact that my real friends have stayed with me despite the pain. Even though some of them have left me behind, their presence spurs me to continue living forward.

2008 was a bad year for...

My car and its accidents. My stock wheels got damaged by a huge rut along the Sta. Rosa SLEX entry point. Friday July the 13th really bit hard into my and Aibo's ass when a bus-shaped, bus-sized suppository came crashing into my life. Aibo got white paint droplets from careless painters at my workplace. A few days ago, one of my 16" wheels suffered damage due to a runaway piece of dense, chopped firewood that snaked across the SLEX. Everything's been repaired now, but really, how I wish Aibo and I could have avoided all of that expense and grief!

Reconnecting. Getting in touch with Dynee Balleza-Sheafor was the sole highlight this year. Everything else went sour quickly, to the point that there are some people I do not want to see ever again.

Health. I can't count the number of times a simple cold managed to complicate itself this year into something more serious. This year had me suffering from more fatigue than ever before, too.

Exercise and fitness. There are a number of reasons why I was a failure at keeping fit this year. Perhaps I've lost my motivation. Perhaps I've pushed myself too hard at exercising to the point that I actually got sick after a taebo session. Whatever the reason is, I have a fitness goal to work on in 2009.

Work. I'm still thankful I have my job, but it's definitely become much less of a pleasurable experience than it used to be. The atmosphere in my workplace resembles a garrison sometimes. It doesn't help that most of the colleagues I've held dear have left for greener pastures, either. I'm beginning to wonder if I can last the number of years I promised myself I would.

CHRISTmas 2008: No time for long faces

Christmas sure isn't doing me and my stomach any favors. With food being served left and right, it's a major challenge just trying to keep control. Some dietitians say people shouldn't deprive themselves or exercise too much control over their diets over the holidays, but the scary truth is, a lot of people seem to die in December or January due to hypertension or heart attacks. Until I can shed these Christmas calories, hot tea is my friend.

People say us Filipinos are a lucky bunch in these times because we hardly feel the effects of the global economic recession that's torn chunks out of every other country. Whether it's due to Philippine economic factors such as low production of exports, or the opinion that "we've been in shitty times before the recession anyway" is debatable, although both are valid. In the US, though, things are pretty bad (or are they really? The Americans have a habit of exaggerating and living in the extremes, right Dynee?). People are waiting with bated breath over the future of their careers; not even my beloved Uncle Butch's tenure is bulletproof now.

I know I frequently criticize Fr. Ramon Ramos' overly long homilies and repetitive themes, but his sermon today was really on point. So much of the things we say and sing about the season aren't really related to Christmas itself. It's not about overflowing food and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, or dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, and it's definitely not about being broken-hearted or having gifts. The real reason we're celebrating today is because the Man Upstairs loved us so much that He wanted to see how it was like living as one of us. That very thought alone is cause for a lot of celebration---so despite the so-called recession, let's not have Him catch us with long faces. Let's not forget Him in our revelry, either.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

2007 was a good year for...

Technology. I can describe this year in two words: "gadget pr0n." The sheer amount of time I spent ogling technology and gadget websites...bliss. Doesn't hurt that I bought a USB-capable DVD player and head unit, and the Nokia 5310 rounds out that list.

Cars and modification. I traded up to the Jazz and swapped my head unit, horn, steering wheel and headlights when all of them developed faults. Speakers are next...and, when I have the money, a fully adjustable coilover suspension to address the Jazz's stiff ride. That's my dream mod because it's so damn expensive.

Choral singing. I learned a lot in how to be a better tenor this year. I can proudly say I've learned how to control my voice better from the "harmonized hollering" I used to do back then, because Ate Edith confirms it.

Badminton. Paolo C. and I won our first tournament ever, and we've started training to improve our footwork, shots and ball-handling.

Reconnecting. I found the company of my college friends again, especially my dearest friend Denise. Surprisingly, my ex Pam and I have started talking again after five years, and it's going better than I ever expected. I'm generally happy for her and the exciting life she's leading now.

2007 was a bad year for...

Shoes. I think I wasted money buying pairs of sneakers that were just fit too tightly for my feet...especially my half-size-larger left one. I might have to stop being so excited about Puma's sneakers...

Gunpla. Save for the excellent MG ver.2.0 Zaku II(-S), many of the Master Grade models this year were disappointments. The new Gundam 00 lineup looks very, very promising though.

Relationships. Regulars on this blog already know why. I promise I'll relish being single. Women have no idea who they're overlooking. Their loss, not mine.

Vices. I don't want to get into too much detail, but this year I lived pretty dangerously, thinking with bodily appendages that aren't anywhere near my brain. This has to stop.

Health. My resistance to sickness tanked after the toll of OMR17 in October and November. Chalk that up to insomnia and overfatigue.