26!

I know that it would be so vain to blog these much things about me but hey it’s my day so spare me with this one. The following are facts that some of you may already know, hate or love about me.

1. Though I don’t believe in astrology, I find it cool that I’m a cuspian. That is I was born in a cusp. A cusp is the midway point between two signs of the Zodiac. If you are born on a cusp, you will incorporate the energies of both signs. Whatever the hell that is, hehe. 
2. I’ve been to 6 schools already. Two of them when I was in elementary, another two during my high school, one for my college and another one for my masters. If you will include the schools I’ve worked with, it will be a total of nine.
3. I never been bald or tried to dye my hair – yup, never. I guess I’m too afraid to experiment with hair. Here’s another trivia, I’m having the same haircut for more than a year now!
4. Arms cast twice – the first one was when I was 5. I was playing one of those Biokids (Dang! I can’t find a reference in the internet) moves in an old abandoned house. My hands slip while hanging in a pipe and *crack*, next thing I remember was being inside an operating room. The second one was during my fourth year high school, I trip (I know, how can I be that utterly stupid).
5. first line of 7 – I cannot forget how furious my mom was when she laid her eyes on my report card that day. Then she reminded me never to have low grades again. And I was reminded. Ouch.
6. I was not christened until I was 10. According to my mom, my father wanted me to decide for my own faith. And for 4 years I was confused with my religion.
7. Comics’ collection – I’m a HUGE X-men comic book fan. I collect two main titles, Uncanny X-men and X-men.
8. My first email was jhoeforth@usa.net.
9. I’m terrible with remembering dates. The only dates I can remember are my son’s birthday, Christmas and paydays, Hahaha.
10. I have never been to a plane. And I’m hoping to break that curse with our Bohol-Cebu trip that biyahe_group is planning this December. Can’t wait.
11. Psychology was my first choice in college.
12. I’m not big fan of cheese. In fact, sometimes I hate cheese. I usually take them off in cheeseburgers which is stupid because I should just order hamburgers.  Go figure.
13. My contacts in my phone book are of complete names.
14. Bistek tagalog – is my all time favorite viand. You can’t go wrong with me on this one. Add some steam-hot rice and ice-cold coke, Life’s simple pleasure.
15. I’m the youngest in our family.
16. Right now, as I have mentioned in my previous blog, I have only two physical activities in my life, jogging and badminton.
17. I’m a movie addict. I usually watch 5-8 movies a week.
18. According to an online test, empathy is my one of my strongest traits. Empathy is the imaginative projection into another’s feelings, a state of total identification with another’s situation, condition, and thoughts. The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without explicitly articulating these feelings.
19. As I have repeatedly said I am clumsy. Everybody knows that.
20. Bilbo Baggins of the Shire and I share the same birthday. If you have seen the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring: Lord of the Rings (DVD version), Bilbo himself narrated that it was “22nd say of September, in the year 1400″ that day, which was his birthday.
21. Most of my colleagues know that I’m a Microsoft enthusiast.  And I get easily irritated every time people say things against Microsoft.
22. My nickname, Joefort, is from the fact that I am the fourth Jose in our family.
23. I’m not a frequent early riser yet sunrise is my favorite part of the day.  And sunrise from the window of a vehicle is something to die for.
24. I do freehand drawing. My doodles have Western comics influences (Marvel). Some of my favorite pencilers are Jim Lee, Joe Maduriera, Andy Kubert and Whilce Portacio.
25. Traveling is therapeutic for me.
26. Apparently, I have some poet blood in my veins. That’s according to a friend. For almost a year now, I’ve been keeping another account here in 360 where I hide my poems. Meet Walk Shattermourne, my alter ego. I have decided to reveal it because there’s no more point of keeping it secret. Somebody taught me that Walk should not exist for only one person. And I agree, Walk will no longer exist for one person. Feel free to add him up, .

badminton!

Tomorrow, I will officially start another physical activity in my: Badminton. Aside from jogging, typing keyboard and clicking mouse is the closest thing I could get to physical activities. It’s not that I don’t like sports, I love watching basketball and boxing, but I guess I’m too lazy for them. I tried basketball when I was in elementary but it really never went off. My next encounter with sports is during my PE days in college.

And then there’s bowling. During my first job as a college instructor, I was required to attend our Intrams and play with the students. It was my first time to play bowling and I thought that I would really mess up. But I didn’t. In fact I did pretty well. Then I thought of playing tennis, but tennis is too expensive for me. At least for the moment. Maybe I’ll do tennis when I’m 40. When I’m having one of those mid-life crisis that they’re talking about.

So right now, I’ll settle for Badminton. According to a friend, Badminton is great sports. And I am g0ing to find out, wish me luck guys!

360 wishlist!

I know that 360 is one of the coolest social community sites around but since it’s still in beta, I thought it would be a good idea to compile all the things I would love to see here. 

• Threaded comments – come on, I know you want it! It would be lovely if we could have our blog comments behave like those in forums and other blog sites. it’s kinda irritating to react on a particular comment if other comments piled up already.
• Themes: Save Me! – Ok, themes are pretty cool. Custom themes are heaven-sent. 360’s ability to create custom page is such a blast, not to mention you have your own nifty theme editor. But what’s missing here? The ability to save your own custom theme. Think about it, what if you have created your own theme and decided not to use it for a while? Wouldn’t it nice if you could set it aside and just “use” it later? Tell me I’m good, say it! Hehe.
• Blog Categories – Kiko pointed this out to me (Yes, we do have this kind of geeky conversation) that in some blog sites you can create categories for your blogs. This will make sense if you are maintaining several blogs, like us. You may ask why in the world should we maintain several blogs. Simply put, we can. Hehe. Kidding aside, I want to separate my technical blog from my personal one.

Extreme wishlist: The following may seem extreme but what the heck.

• More on Integration – Yahoo! 360 made an excellent job in integrating 360 in other Yahoo! services like Yahoo! Messenger (two thumbs up), Yahoo! Photos and Yahoo Mail. But if you guys are feeling generous, why don’t you have our Lists integrated with Yahoo! Services? For example, you can have our movie list integrated with My Movies in Yahoo! Movies, or our music list in Yahoo! Music. Well?
• Reviews – Including Yahoo! Movies reviews here will be an awesome idea.

don't miss it

Do you remember when you were a kid where taking a bath early in the morning is such an issue? I remember before my mom would literally drag me into the bathroom and, if necessary, bathe me. Taking a bath early in the morning was an agony for me. It was too cold for me. I was six then, so don’t get the idea of me still having the same problem, hehe. My mom taught me a trick about it. According to her, only the first gush of water is the coldest. The succeeding ones are not. So the trick is to ‘miss’ that one by pouring it behind you. Honestly? I believed it. Yes, its stupid but I can’t skip bath everyday so I just bought it. So every morning, for almost 6 years, during my bath, I pour the first bucket of water behind me.

You may find that funny but most people are still doing it when dealing with pain. Most people would just let the first gush “miss” them and hope that they will escape pain. Most of us, if not all, deny pain. Believe me, I still don’t have any idea how to deal with it, if I do “alam ko na ang sikreto ng buhay (I would know life’s secret) “. But one thing I could assure you there’s no preset way on dealing with pain. If there is then that would be the most abused drug in the world. Wrestle pain in your own little. But don’t run from it because you never can. Getting through pain in your own way is the right way.

Oftentimes, pain is the shortest way to relief.

the common good II: prequel

Speaking of common good, I should tell you a story where I am not the recipient but instead I’m the doer. Yup, there is. In fact, there are many. But this one tops it all. It’s my flagship when it comes to common good and near-stupidity experience. Read on. Warning: do NOT attempt any of the following acts anyplace, anytime.

It happened last year, while I was having a walk with one of my friends at Boardwalk. Boardwalk is one of the beautiful parks in Subic Bay. As you may have already figured, this park is known for its raggedy but ever captivating boardwalk. You should see Subic Bay at night from here, it’s gorgeous. We were in the middle of conversation when I noticed that a woman went straight into the beach. It was already late so going into the beach is little bit odd. The sea is low tide so I can fairly observe what the lady is doing. At first, it wasn’t that alarming, eccentric people do exist you know. So we ignored her for awhile. But I can’t keep my eyes, and mind, off the lady. Until such time that the water is already up to her shoulder! That’s when we started to panic.  She’s not going for a late-night swim, she’s drowning herself! Other people started noticing her too. We asked around what’s happening (nakikiusisa), and we found out the she is really trying to commit suicide. One thing I don’t want to experience in my life is to see someone die and not able to do something about it. It’ll haunt me. So I’m really troubled now, after a short debate with my inner-self I volunteered to pull the lady from the water. I asked someone from the crowd to accompany me just in case. Saving someone isn’t the most exciting thing to do. I’m feeling all jumpy as we slowly walk toward the lady. It all went away when the guy who’s with me asked “Do you think she’s pretty?” and I replied “What?”, I heard him but I can’t believe he was really asking me that stupid question. We were about to rescue someone else’s life and all he can think about if the lady is pretty or not.

A few meters away from the girl I started to feel the chillness of the water. She’s still walking but now slower. We were shouting at her to stop moving but she keeps on ignoring us. The water is now up to her chin so we started to move faster. A few more steps and I heard her crying. And when we finally reached her I felt sorry for the poor lady. She looked so ruined and lost. She was crying and all she keeps on saying  ”Ayoko na, pagod na pagod na ko (I can’t take it anymore, I’m so tired)“, It is one of the loneliest scenes I have ever witnessed in my life. She was resisting by words but I can feel that she doesn’t have the strength anymore. We brought her back to the shore and she was still crying. My friend tried to comfort her until the police came and pick her up.

The entire thing may look stupid but I felt good when I got home. I know that what I did does not guarantee that her life will turn out right but I’m just happy that I did it. Time will come that she’ll realize all it. There, some common good. From me.