Sam Needs Help

A couple of months ago, I received a text message from a so called "Sam". She said she's an information management major from Bacolod and wants to go to Manila (so badly) to work but can't afford the fare. So she asks for help and said that she's willing to do "anything" in exchange of my help.


So I did the most logical thing any decent person would do. Delete!


And I thought that was it. But then, weeks later I received a follow up SMS from this Sam. I found it a little odd to get a follow up spam. I deleted it again of course.
And so I thought that's the end of the story. Or so I thought... I received another follow up weeks later. Then last week, another one. This time, I thought to myself, okay, I'm not gonna delete this one. This is starting to get annoying, why do I feel like somebody's playing a prank on me?


There's no way I would respond, I kept it in my inbox so I could post it here, the exact SMS:


Gud am po, c Sam po to, ung girl na humihingi ng tulong makapunta ng maynila.. M22lungan nio po b ako? Gagawin ko po ung kapalit na hhngin nio, para lang makapunta npo ako ng maynila.. Parang awa nio napo..

Yesterday I received 2 more messages, the other is another plea for help while the other one is a short profile that says she's a DOST scholar.

First of all Sam, I'm not a dirty old man.

Second, if you're a wise girl, you know better than I do, that there are million ways to get here than randomly asking for help from someone in exchange of "anything".

Third, this is really beginning to sound like some kind of prank. Whoever you are, I'm not gonna fall for it.

There, now that I blogged about it, it's time to clean my SMS inbox. Sorry Sam, it's not gonna work. Anybody interested to help her, contact me and I'll give her your number when she send another follow up.

Here's another text message that reminded me of the Oooold days and made me smile from ear to ear!

"They said that you didn't pass childhood if you didn't have a taste of Santan's nectar"

Bwahaha! Why is that I asked? I don't remember starving to death. Why in the world would I go for a raw flower's nectar. Maybe because of my brothers. Tsk! They had so much influence over my behavior. I haven't seen any Santan flower since high school...

80s and 90s thingie...

I received a forwarded text message from a friend that goes on like this:

Are you part of the late 80s and early 90s era?

- you know Shaider, Bioman, Maskman, Masked Rider Black and Optimus Prime

- you know the Nano-nano jingle

- you played 10-20

- you know the universal song "uwian na" (it's time to go home")

- you danced Macarena and Boombastic

- you know the meaning of "time first"

- you put Pritos Ring in your fingers

- you have a pencil case with so many buttons to press

Then that means you're old!

Hell yeah I'm getting old and I don't realy deny it. I have to admit that I hate it though. What makes this notion really depressing for me is the fact that at this age, I'm still a nobody. I haven't achieved anything that I can really be proud of. Oh well...

I'd like to put some other details about the text message though

- I also watched (and liked) Turbo Ranger, Fiveman, Machine Man, Poseidon and various Ultraman series

- I really liked the Nano-nano candy especially the purple, orange and green flavor. They tasted like umeboshi (sweeeeeet, sour and salty....what it does to meeeeehhh... nano nano, nano nano...)

- I also played chinese garter despite the fact that I really sucked on it hehehe

- I didn't dance Macarena or Boombastic but I know the dance steps since they were really popular that time

- Damn those pencil cases, they were like a status symbol of the students LOL!

I also realized that before I got addicted to anime, I've watched a lot of them during this era (Voltes V, Daimos, Cedie, Mary and the Family Bontrap, Sarah, Remi (boy version), Peter Pan, Heidi, Georgie, Charlotte, Poly Anna, Anne of Green Gables, Romeo, Marco, Julio & Julia, Robin Hood, Zenki, B't X, Saber Marionette, Sailor Moon, etc.)

Oh yeah, I've got addicted to komiks other than Funny Komiks before. I just can't remember the titles because I don't really follow any series back then. I read one shot stories. I remember when I was in grade 4, I save at least P1-2 from my allowance so I can go to the public market after school and rent komiks. There were stalls in the public market where you can sit and read various selection of komiks for only 50c/issue. But I cheated because I read more than what I paid for since there's really no way that the vendors would know because there are too many customers. Back then I really enjoyed fantasy stories. I think I owe my knowledge about the Philippine myth icons (manananggal, duwende, engkanto, tikbalang, etc.) from komiks.

It's a little frustrating that this form of Phil. Lit have died. I think cable TV killed it. There are a lot of local comics available nowadays but most are really trying hard to capture the manga (art and story) style. I'm addicted to manga but what's wrong to use our own style? I mean the komiks style.

My friend, who is a teacher, tells me how she could feel the generation gap between her and her students. She told me how different students are nowadays. They hardly ever read the books for their assignment, they always realy on the internet and that they are too caught up with their mobile phones and gadgets. When we were on higschool (we're not classmates but we're from the same era), the bonding moments of different groupies would be playing guitar and singing. And who can forget the "songhits". I never bought one back then but I remember borrowing from my classmates hehehe....

How can life be so simple back then?

Text Chronicles

I’m a Globe handy phone user. Ever since Globe network adopted the unlimited texting scheme (all thanks to Sun Cellular Network), I’ve been a sucker to this unlimited message forwarding. Be it quotes, jokes, anything is “possible” hehehe. Hell, for 3 months I’ve accumulated 65K+ messages SENT. Though I’ve recently withdraw from this practice, I still get various forwarded messages from other Globe users in my phonebook. I suppose that if you have such friends, you’ll be updated on the latest text jokes in town. Whoever is not aware of the all time Erap-jokes which I don’t really find funny at all? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a pro-Erap. Politics is just out of my system. I just don’t find it amusing at all, period. And then there’s the text chronicles. By chronicles I mean those jokes that are connected to the other, there’s something common and connection from one another. One example would be the Tagalog homonyms of various English words or phrases (e.g. If rain [efren] Bata Reyes, Recharge [Richard] Gutierrez, etc.). And then there’s this series of jokes that starts with such serious quotes only to find out it was actually quoted by… say a balot vendor, a shit, gas price and almost anything irrelevant, even a smiley! Now the lastest text chronicles that a texter can find is the “Inday” chronicles.

As we all know “Inday” is a common household maid name. And yes, she finally found her way to stardom through SMS hahaha. Our protagonist this time is no ordinary maid. She speaks English well. That’s the gist, a helper who speaks excellent English. Inday expresses simple thoughts in complex English statements that would make average IQ individuals nosebleed*. What makes it really funny (at least for me) is her interaction with other persons. At one time Ederlyn (another famous text figure hehehe) confronted her, then a guy Dodong is asking to court her, there was even this instance when her employer finally noticed her excellent English skills. Her biodata was also spread, and boy talk about high caliber credentials minus her employment as a helper of course. So I wonder, when will Inday finally let go of her job and look for another promising one? She should try call centers hahaha!

*In Filipino context, nosebleed denotes that a person is having difficulty in understanding what another person is telling him. But in Japanese context, nosebleed is actually associated with perversion.