christmas meet-n-greet

 © Joselito Briones
more holiday get togethers.  some of my nicest friends since high school: (r-l) christie, cynthia (whose youngest is my godson, poor child), and joy (here with daughter nikki). they dropped by my parents' house when they learned (thanks, eric!) that i was gonna be there this holiday season.  last time i saw cyntch and christie was at eric's wedding last july, last time i saw joy before this was probably high school graduation day.  she seems a lot more down-to-earth now, and happier.  she has this spiel, poking fun on herself by saying that she breezed through high school because two of our senior year teachers just happened to be her parents.  first time she did it i searched her face for any indication that she might be looking at how someone reacts to this (if only to see if the intended audience agrees with the statement or not), then decided she really was doing this just for comic effects.

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more holiday chow-downs

clockwise from left: choi, butch, me, ogie, d.a., jim, jomel, rina, rene, faye, jan, manuel

izhikaya japanese restaurant (food was so-so, company was so much fun!) in wellington street with hong kong friends, just before christmas.

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sp2 christmas dinner

the occasion: office christmas dinner of sp2
the place: pierre II at the mandarin oriental
in attendance: mr. joseph fung and his guests: stover jenkins, paul lau, bing kwan, sk kan, nicholas wong, and anita mak; me of course, and the rest of the people who work at sp2: ligaya, david, maggie (with hubby saturday), eric (with wife sally), wing, raymond, carl, danielle, and karen.

stover, joe, nicholas

wing, karen, danielle, maggie, sat, david, eric, sally, ligaya, raymond

joe, paul, bing

tk, sk, stover, carl

anita, wing

karen, danielle

maggi, sat, david

eric, sally

ligaya, me, raymond, nicholas, joe

the usual suspects

 well i did say that i was gonna post more photos. so there ya go.

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resolutions

© Joselito Briones
not the new year's kind, timing's just a coincidence. it's more about this (link to previous post).

first one's long ago solved.  i couldn't remember the 4-digit PIN because, surprise - it's a 6-digit PIN. (how could i have forgotten this?) when i couldn't remember what it was, i looked at my secret place for PINs and passwords and such. it was there all along. i ignored it the first few times because i was looking for a 4-digit PIN.  doh. i actually had to convince myself to try the 6-digit one. how stupid is that?

as to stock photography, i've consulted my ever-reliable oracle in new york, source of high-wisdom and tips on the latest happenings at the local malls (do you know anyone who got excited upon hearing that target will soon have a fresh produce section?),  and the advice i was given helped me make a plan. i love plans. i don't even have to follow them through.  all i need is a plan and i'm in a happy place.

the third one - ah well, who cares.


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photo above is of course me, from our office christmas dinner last night, at pierre's in mandarin oriental.  i'll post more photos tomorrow. or next year. and no, that's not the happy place i was talking about. that's the constantly flowing wine.

paralytic

© Joselito Briones

numb started friday before last. i was standing in front of the ATM machine and for the life of me i could't remember my PIN. it's not like it's new, i've been using it at least once a week for the past year. i tried to clear my mind and get the first 4 digits that i could think of. i came up with the PIN of my atm cash card in berlin. the people in the line behind me were already making their impatience known so i cancelled the transaction and walked away. i made up another 4 digits in my mind and thought about it over and over until i was convinced that it was the right combination. the next atm machine, 3 blocks from the one i was just in, said it was nothing more than made-up memory. as it was a friday night, there was no way to get a new PIN until the following monday. a whole weekend without cash.

or maybe the symptoms really started three months ago, when istockphoto decided to impose the royalty cut on the contributors' share. i was uploading photos at the exact moment of the announcement and i just stared at it in disbelief. motherfuckers! helplessness came after anger then the one question that never got answered no matter how many times i asked. "what now?"

on whichever date it started, the effect is simple enough. general feeling of helplessness, lying on my bed just thinking about the same things over and over. obsessing over injustices i have to put up with (mostly imaginary, of course) recurring inability to move my ass to do something productive - something else other than lying down thinking - anything else.

worst attack (thankfully also the shortest) was thursday night. a good friend whom i'm visiting overseas in the near future, sent me an email saying a mutual friend might also be there at the same time. someone i had (an ancient) personal history with. i was paralyzed with i don't know what. i was up all night  thinking about it. when morning came i read the email again before calling in sick at work.  turns out i misread the message and we weren't gonna be there at the same time after all.  i went to work without sleep.

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some guys

© Joselito Briones

you know how sometimes you feel bad for not keeping in touch with people you used to hang out a lot with? john (photo, above) is one such person so when i learned that he's in hong kong visiting i invited him for dinner to catch up.  last time i saw him was twenty or so years ago, in mapua.  so he does mostly turnkey projects now and lots of golfing and diving and underwater photography and traveling and shopping.

so anyway we just walked around lan kwai fung and soho and non stop talk and had big ass yummy steak dinner in staunton street, then drinks in a bar in hollywood road.  don't you just love it when you see someone you haven't seen for a long time and it doesn't feel weird? fun night.

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p.s.
i remember we had a small group back in the days and we had a song! lol i've forgotten how it goes exactly but supposedly each of us represented a "type" in the song : "some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the brain, some guys have all the pain, etc. etc." silly song.