So what was the reason?  I just had to take a break… what, too vague for ya?  It’s just that – a one-week break.

Anyway, what happened so far since I stopped posting blog entries?  Nothing much… just work, music, social gatherings and the occasional video game or DVD.  What I really want to put on this particular blog entry is what to expect for the remainder of this year… so that you can call me out when I appear to be slipping on those particular “things” I need done.  Not that you would mind much, anyway.  I mean, who really reads these things anyway?  (Well, except for those who actually like the daily Tagalog words I put up here.)  But if you are one of those people who like what I write, I invite you to read some more.  To steal a popular phrase from Stephen King, I encourage you, Constant Reader, to keep reading and see what bogeymen are running around in this disturbing liquid container I call a brain…

* * * * *

New Year’s Eve in New York

I’m gonna be spending the last few days of 2009 (and the first couple of days of 2010) in the Big Apple.  It’s my first time going there.  Ever.  I’ve been in the United States for almost 13 years non-stop, and I haven’t even been anywhere east of Michigan (which is really kinda silly since the state that is directly east of Michigan IS New York).  So yeah, my first time in the Big Apple, and my first time being outside California on New Year’s Eve.

So what’s the occasion, you might ask?  I mean, aside from it being New Year’s Eve?  Well, I’ll be visiting my youngest brother, Rodell, and reuniting with my other brother, Rommel, who will be travelling south from Montreal, Canada with his daughter.  The last time us three brothers have been together (much less celebrate a holiday together) was in 2002.  So it’ll be a real treat for us to be celebrating the holidays again.  And of course, my mother would be ecstatic about it.

Aside from that, the other reason is to watch and listen to my brother sing opera.  Sure, sure, those who know me are probably asking “hey, haven’t you watched your brother perform opera enough times already?”  Well actually, you’re right.  There’s only enough you can stand listening to arias in German, Russian, French and of course, Italian – especially when you had to listen to them for years coming from the room beside yours.  But this one is a bit different – my brother just debuted at the famed Metropolitan Opera House in New York.  Yep, that’s right, he’s only the second Filipino to be performing there (after Evelyn Mandac, who did it way back in 1975, which was ironically his birth year), and the first male Filipino opera singer to actually perform there.  Ever.

(Why this isn’t up there with Manny Pacquiao and Arnel Pineda is beyond me…  damn pop culture…)

Anyway, we’ll be watching him perform in the opera Les Contes D’Hoffman, and it’ll surely be a treat.  If you are an avid opera lover, and you’re in the east coast, and you are anywhere near the tri-state area, check out the performances at the Met – and make sure to look up Rodell Aure Rosel.  You can check his website if you’re interested in knowing more about my overly talented little brother…

Maybe I’ll see you there this New Year

* * * * *

The End of P90X… for now?

This week will be the homestretch of my 90-day workout routine, popularly called P90X.  Ever since I lost almost 40 pounds in a span of seven weeks last July, I have been trying to add more definition to the “lanky” frame I ended up with… For those who don’t trust infomercials, or are wary of workout ads that promise the world but deliver otherwise, I can safely say that this one works as advertised.  I’ll be making a separate blog entry for that one as soon as I’m done… obviously, I’ll include pictures… and some commentary… maybe a short song as well… or if I’m drunk, I can also put a clip of Richard Simmons singing “Relax”…

On second thought, let’s not…

* * * * *

Site Renovation Galore

My technical support site, Open Tech Support, once one of the major hubs in technological cyberspace and garnering a top 7,000 site ranking with Alexa a few years ago, is now just a shadow of its former self.  Currently ranked 189,000 (and still falling), it is in MAJOR need of CPR.  Hence I am now making it go back to its roots…

OTS was started as an independent tech support site for games made by Blizzard Entertainment (y’know, Diablo, WarCraft, StarCraft, etc) in 2000.  Yeah, that was nine years ago!  It has eventually progressed into a general support site concentrating on broader categories than just gaming.

But now that I have had a chance to reevaluate the site, I have decided to make it go back to its roots.  Blizzard Entertainment still makes great games (really an understatement if you consider the fact that World of WarCraft is still the biggest MMORPG in the world, and StarCraft II and Diablo III are the most anticipated titles for next year), and the only way for OTS to really get back on its feet is to re-explore its roots.  Right now I am on the last stages of content updates and planning, and hopefully I can update the site’s “philosophy” before Thanksgiving and give the site a much-needed jumpstart…

(And I hope you don’t see me crossing my fingers on the verge of cramping)

* * * * *

Lovelife?

Errrr… yeah, like I’m gonna talk about that here, hahaha!  Let’s just say that the future looks very bright, but whether it’s the light at the end of the tunnel or a freight train heading my way remains to be seen

* * * * *

Odds and Ends

Since I’m gonna be on holiday hiatus for the latter part of December, I’ll be queuing up some Tagalog words in advance, so that they’ll show up every day while I’m gone, without me actually having to go to a computer to write them (Wordpress iPhone app, notwithstanding).  That way, you won’t miss a Tagalog word fix while I’m freezing my ass off in sub-zero New York…

And I’ll be once again doing the P90X routine from January to March, dubbed “Phase two” … now that I am kinda lean, I’ll try to go for size, but not too much…  oh, and I’ll also try to stop smoking again…

(Yeah, you heard right… I’m gonna stop smoking once again… how long that lasts is still up in the air, but hey, you better start somewhere, right?  Even though it’s like, what, the hundredth time I tried to stop?  As they say, the hundredth time’s the charm… uh… yeah…)

Wow, a recap post for the week became a pre-end-year forecast…  Well, anything that can make me get back in the groove right?  And if you’re still reading up to this point, I’m sure I made it interesting enough for ya.

So, as always, stay tuned, and keep reading… Constant Reader

* * * * *

Technorati: blizzard, met, metropolitan, new york, open, opera, p90x, recap, rodell, rosel, support, tech, tolitz

It’s kinda weird finding yourself in the same place you started… more than ten years ago, I planted a little tree in a tiny corner in cyberspace and called it “Pinoy Angst in America”, thanks to the then-fledgeling little service called Blogger.Com.  As you can probably tell by the name, I was not the happiest person on the planet during the time.  It was just over a year since I moved to America for good (1998), and I was a stranger in a strange land, like that Heinlein book… all the people I knew, all the people I loved, and all the things I liked were left in that tropical conglomeration of islands we all know as the Philippines, and I was depressed like you can’t believe.  But instead of experimenting on the sharpest object I can take near my wrist, or delving into a Howard Hughes style seclusion and peeing into that two-liter diet coke bottle I always had in my room, I sought an alternative type of release.  Being the Leo that I am, I registered a domain after my nickname and started putting my cynicism, boredom and depression into words… 

Thus “Pinoy Angst in America” was born, and in the first couple of months, I treated it as some sort of morbid diary – not full of suicidal thoughts or anything, but rather a cacophony of little demons that I had in my head that sought release.  And release them I did, and I am sure that in the first two months I was the only person reading my own weblog (yeah, I still call it “weblog” and not the shortened “blog” word we all use nowadays, the same way I still type http:// when I wanna visit a site).  Well, okay, a couple or more other people might have been reading it too – my girlfriend during that time, and a couple of my cousins.  But the point is, I didn’t promote it, didn’t mention it, and didn’t even take it too seriously.  It is, after all, an exercise in narcissism; a self-absorbed act of enjoying the sound of one’s own voice (or in this case, the sight of one’s own words).  I was writing it for myself, and for those who are interested in knowing me, and how much I hated being in America…

Suffice to say, that all changed when the years lost the “1″ and started with a “2″ … I have adjusted to (prolonged) life in the States.  I became “institutionalized” to the ways of America, so to speak. And my demeanor also changed as a result.  My long dormant dry humor found its voice again, my sarcasm gained more bite, and my cynicism lost its Filipino accent… my weblog changed from “Pinoy Angst in America” into something silly like “Astigmachism”, which was the ultimate exercise in shameless narcissism (for those who are wondering, it stands for “Astig na, Macho pa” which, for the Tagalog challenged readers, means “Wickedly cool with a great body to boot”… neither is true, of course, but then again, not everything you read on the Internet is necessarily an epitomy of veracity, either…

* * * * *

So anyway, “Astigmachism” took on a life of its own.  It started as a weblog on Friendster, then migrated to Multiply, before settling in its own patch of cyber-land independently.  And I wrote whatever was on my mind – music, movies, politics, TV shows, sports, cartoons, pornography, and other random musings.  My range of topics ranged from dissecting international reaction to 9/11, to ranting about stupid drivers using cellphones in the freeway, to recounting my experience when I sneezed and was feeling myself up in front of a pretty lady coz I was frantically making sure the booger I just expelled wasn’t plastered in front of my shirt…

But anyway (again), that went on for a few years, until a series of unfortunate events happened less than three years ago, one after the other.  I’m not gonna bore you with the details (that is, if you’re not already bored enough reading through this diatribe), but it involved radical changes to almost everything – employment, lifestyle, and lovelife.  Suffice to say, posting things in my weblog was the least of my concerns.

So I stopped writing… and stayed away from the blogosphere for almost three years, because I felt I had run out of things to write… no wait, that’s not it… I lost my “will” to write, and for someone who loves writing as much as I do, that was like a death knell, the last proverbial nail in the coffin… or so I thought.

* * * * *

Wait a minute, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing all this stuff, when I’m supposed to be writing about something funny.  Something interesting.  Something that will make it worth your while.  I’m gonna be honest with ya – the first post in any blog is considered a “throw-away” entry, something that probably won’t be read by anyone except myself and a few search spiders.  So this is where I am supposed to write about what this weblog is all about.  What you can expect to read, and possibly make you come back and read it again.  And of course, the irony is, since very few people will probably read this entry, it doesn’t really matter what I write.  

Well, let’s just say that if/when I get famous (and I’m crossing my fingers so hard here, it’s almost cramping), and people start asking me how I got into blogging, I can always give them a link to this entry, instead of telling them “Well, sit down sonny, grab a beer and some chips, and let me tell you a story that took place a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Sure, I can spend my time recounting all the notable entries I had, all the wonderful feedback I got, and all the good things I learned and all the bad things I did… hell, I can even link an article written about me (oh wait, I just did, hehe), but that’ll take too much virtual real estate, and I am sure you would agree that this first entry is turning into the first chapter of War and Peace…

Besides, I didn’t import my old webblog database.  It was a hard decision to make, but I decided to start from scratch.  What is present is the future, and what is past is prologue… and like any other writer, I’m one of those who groan at the sight of my early written attempts.  Have you ever picked up an old picture of yourself – young, hairless, naked, crying, with snot gushing down your flat nose and probably eating your own feces, too – and smiled in nostalgic glee?  No, I didn’t think so either…

* * * * *

So WHY did I revive this weblog?  I can think up a very convoluted answer, and use really big words to drown you and either (a) make you think I am an awesome writer, or (b) make you think that I’m so full of shit that you can’t tell if I’m breathing or farting.  But the answered can be summed up in one word – serendipitious enlightenment.  Okay, so maybe that’s two words, but the point I want to make is that things change, and people change.  After two months of self-discovery in a little state called New Mexico, I came back with enough insight to know that I, as a person, suck.  And I hate being sucky.  And in order not to be sucky, I have to stop being sucky.  And that meant I had to change… not overnight, but gradually.  And to do that, I have to examine my thoughts, and what better way to do that than to read about them, in my own words.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be an asshole from time to time… there are just some things that take a lot more time (and effort) to change

James Michener once said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”  In order to rewrite something, it has to be written down first.  And that’s what I will be doing.  This is not the depressing “Pinoy Angst in America”, nor is it the narcissistic “Astigmachism” project.  This is just me, just TOLITZ.COM … I have rediscovered my love for writing, and I hope that in the process, I will rediscover my love for everything…

Thank you for sticking around and reading, and I hope you join me once again when I give you something more to read…

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”
~Richard Wright,American Hunger, 1977

Technorati: america, angst, astigmachism, blog, pinoy, rosel, tolitz

For those who didn’t get or don’t have access to last weekend’s Sunday Inquirer, here’s the link to the online version:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20081116-172496/The-Blogging-Life

And just in case the article gets nuked in the future, I’m posting the entire content here:

—————————————————————————

The Blogging Life 
By Marlet D. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:58:00 11/16/2008

MANILA, Philippines – From Pinoy Angst to Astigmachism: That’s how Roselito “Tolitz” Rosel’s blog has evolved—and so has his life. Rosel, 35, is one of the early netizens who discovered that writing your life and thoughts online, when blogging was still insipidly called “online journal,” can be entertaining as well as a good communication tool for readers.

A Filipino based in Los Angeles, California, he started blogging in 1999 with an online journal he called Pinoy Angst, which basically contains, well, his angst during his early life in the United States. He moved to the US in 1997, and has changed blog providers quite a number of times. He began with Blogger, moved to Wordpress, to Friendster, and finally he settled on Multiply. Rosel’s blog is wittily called Astigmachism, (www.astigmachism.com) a contraction of “Astig na, Macho Pa.”

Having taken up communication arts at De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Rosel took a special interest in computers and taught himself web design. He is now a freelance web designer and a financial adviser. The time spent in front of the computer has enabled him to go online 24/7. He practically lives in a virtual world where most of his “close friends” are members of online communities, websites, and true-blue netizens.

“I have always actively participated in online bulletin boards, sharing my thoughts with other people,” he says. “While searching the Internet for a specific topic one day, I stumbled upon a couple of online journals. I found the idea very interesting, and being that I had a lot of things between my ears that I wanted to put into writing, I went ahead and started my own.”

Adjusting to a new life with no friends but only families to interact with had never been easy, and this was reflected in his posts. Later, he realized that relatives and friends back home are always curious to know about how and what he has been doing. “It’s a cheap and convenient way to keep in touch, so to speak,” he adds.

His posts can go from a two-paragraph note to a 15-paragraph narrative. For Rosel, writing a blog could take as short as five minutes or as long as five hours. “It really depends on the subject matter, but normally it would take me 30-45 minutes to write a blog entry.”

“For a long time it was random musings about everything ranging from music, movies, and games to politics, current events and even psychology. Sort of like an online diary of what I see and what’s going on inside my head,” he explains. In previous blogs, he detailed his growing up years with pictures from childhood to high school. He now posts his current pictures with family, friends, and bandmates. “My friends liked my blog,” he says. “They appreciated the dry humor in it, and enthusiastically respond to the issues I raised. It’s a great ego-feeder too.”

When he has free time on his hands, he posts once a day, just before midnight. On weekends he is able to post as often as five times a day. The interaction with readers reacting to what they’ve read or inviting a discussion on a specific topic makes blogs not just a fun way to communicate. Rosel realizes that he has somehow grown closer to friends that he left in the country. There is no specific sense of urgency, but it does create a healthier avenue for discussion. “It sometimes comes to a point where you forget that they are thousands of miles away, on a different continent, and in a different time zone. It’s surreal to say the least,” he says.

Through almost 10 years of maintaining an online journal, Rosel has witnessed the evolution of blogs. Blogs are now multipurpose tools of content dissemination, he explains. Gone are the days when blogs were used by people only to write about how their day had been. Hundreds of commercial blogs have sprouted, and even news sites now have blog editorials and blog columns. It has become an indispensable tool for publishing content and encouraging feedback.

A natural comic, Rosel usually injects humor in his blog. He believes that a blog with a sense of humor would be a good place to start. “A blog that actually asks questions that visitors can reply to would also motivate people to participate,” he says.

And Rosel intends to keep blogging forever. “As long as the Internet is still around, and as long as I still have thoughts I may want to share with my friends, family, and anyone else who gets lost on the Internet and stumbles into my little piece of cyberspace, I will continue to post blog entries and share my thoughts, my musings, and my personality to anyone who likes to take the time to listen to other people talk about themselves.”

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Thanks to Marlet Salazar for the article, and for giving me this brief 15 kilobytes of fame, haha

Technorati: blogging, daily, inquirer, life, marlet, philippine, rosel, salazar, sunday, tolitz

But in a way of speaking, the title is apt.

As very few of you know, my Friendster blog “began” a year ago, September 4th to be exact.  It had a dinky name called “Tatak Tolitz” for about two weeks or so, before I changed it to its current name…   But if you notice, I have posts that go as way back as 2002… which would be impossible since I just started the blog at Friendster last year, right?

Well, maybe that’s because I’ve been weblogging since 2002 at my own personal site, Tolitz.Com, which had been in development limbo constantly.  If you visited that site, you’ll see the words there that say:

“Don’t worry, once Tolitz finds the time for himself and his site, this site will be up once again.”

Well, my friends, that time is almost here…  Yeah, I’m gonna be moving my weblog back to my site in a couple weeks, and I’m gonna be resurrecting my little corner in cyberspace once more.

* * * * *

What does that mean for my Friendster blog right now?  Well, I’ll still be using it, of course, but I will slowly wean myself off it week by week.  Does that mean I’ll be abandoning my Friendster blog after I get my site back up?  Hell no! I met most of my good friends in this place, so it won’t be going away soon.  But the posts will not be as regular or as constant as it will be on my own site when I move my weblog there.

What prompted me to make this move?  A lotta things, really. Friendster blogs, specifically the Typepad service, limits me in some way…  The fact that only Friendster members can reply to my posts is also a small part of it, and the pains I have to do in order to get around the pre-formatted design can be very unnerving at times.  I wanted more freedom – not just in content, but in aesthetics.

Of course, that would mean the people who visit my weblog would once again dwindle or start from scratch once again, but I was already used to that.  I’ve been weblogging since 2002 until 2005 with only a handful of people reading what I write, so it won’t be a shock to me

I do have to hand it to Friendster, though… the blogs here increased my readership by 500% from the time I started writing… no doubt thanks to the blog email notification spam, hahaha!

* * * * *

So expect an announcement from me, here, on when my site will re-launch itself. It might come in a couple of weeks. Maybe a month. But it will come. And then the hour of the wolf will be upon this little room I have in Friendster, where I share the dark, funny, often confusing thoughts that play around in the dark recesses of this thing I call a brain.

Will you miss me? I dunno. I sure will miss you guys, though

Technorati: astigmachism, friendster, tatak, tolitz

Well, not really… just thought I’d show some fake angst to start off this blog entry… how did I do? What, not convincing enough? What do you want from me? Get off my case, damnit! Don’t ever visit this blog again!

Actually, I don’t mean it… I’m glad you took the time out of your hectic schedule to revisit this little corner of mine in cyberspace. If you’re a return visitor, the better – although I would have to suggest getting your head examined if you actually like going back to a place like this.

Anyway, why the change in name? I dunno, after a couple weeks I felt the name “Tatak Tolitz” felt a little too serious or formal. Someone who sees the name would assume it has content that is actually useful, or something respectable, or something pertaining to Filipino values, culture and documentary-type posts… of course, I’d probably die of boredom if I went that route.

So I changed it into something a little more… err… apt. Something that matches the content of this blog. In other words, something silly, contemporaneous, and one whose very existence doesn’t make sense at all. Something that will make you say “what the fuck does that mean? It’s so stupid!”

Yep, that’s this blog folks. Sometimes you think it makes sense and has something of value to offer. But underneath you just notice how utterly stupid it all is.

* * * * *

So what does Astigmachism mean? Well, it’s the combination of Astig and Machismo. Astig is slang for tigas, meaning “hard” – or colloquially meaning “badass” and “tough” … Machismo is, well, machismo. And after the trip to Cerritos to get new eyeglasses, I just thought it was a nice play on words for someone like me who has high astigmatism.

I know you’re thinking that a word that means “hard” and “macho” would have some pornographic references. Not that I’m complaining, or anything. In fact, please go ahead and think so, especially the girls. My phone number is…

Anyway, that’s the reason for the name change. Will the content of this blog also change? Hmmm… Is Puff Daddy white? Uh huh, didn’t think so

So thanks for visiting this blog, and for those who have been here before and have religiously followed it day by day, I apologize for being incognito for the past few days. But if you’re in my friends list, isn’t it a nice break from the usual “Your Friend has Updated His Blog” emails you get?

What, you still think it’s a stupid name for a blog? Well… you’re stupider! You’re the stupidest of the stupid and…

Yeah… anyway… back to work…

Technorati: astigmachism, friendster, tatak, tolitz