Sweet, sweet victory: Federer finally wins Roland Garros

Do you know that scene from that episode of Spongebob Squarepants, you know, the one where Spongebob and Patrick and everybody else are playing rock instruments, they're in a stadium, and they're singing "Sweet, sweet victory?" Well, that's my soundtrack, for today, Roger Federer has finally won the French Open.

Right now, I'm watching it, and it's so wonderfully beautiful that the Swiss Anthem is playing and a solitary tear falls on Roger's face.

Soderling just called him the greatest tennis player ever, and he's joking that nobody can beat him eleven times in a row. Fun stuff.

Now, for you non-tennis fans there. There are four Grand Slam titles that a player can win: The Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US open. He's already won every title out there, except for the French Open, because Rafael Nadal (then number two, now number one) has continually asserted his title as king of the clay courts. Well, until the world number twenty-five beat, Robin Soderling, came out of nowhere and beat him. He eventually beat Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Gonzalez to eventually reach the finals against Roger Federer.

Federer has recently lost his edge. If Nadal ruled clay, he ruled grass--and Wimbledon, but that also changed when Nadal won the title from here last year. (If you think about it, it's like they traded titles. Only Nadal battled Federer in a grueling five hour match to get it.)

Nadal is out, and has been called unfit to play for the Wimbledon warm-ups. Would Federer eventually reclaim his English crown in a few months?

Ever since Federer lost his number one ranking, I stopped watching tennis. It was just depressing for me to see my idol (HSB: The commentator said that it's a shame that Federer din't win it from Nadal. He will. He will.) losing. But I think I'll be spending a few good hours watching tennis again.

Found Out

Probably every week this summer, I'd ask permission to go to Yna's house. More or less, my parents (or mostly my mom) have the impression that we'll do nice stuff: play computer games, eat, watch a movie, talk, bake or play cards. My mom had this hunch that I go somewhere to drink, but she never found out where, and when, until now.

I went to my home town of Las Pinas and went friend hopping. Meeting with one group of friends, and then to the other.

With one group, Dean, a friend-bandmate talked about his ex-girlfriend. About licking her cunt in motels, about her Chinese ex-boyfriend who claims that his parents have allowed him to date Filipinas, about a night they spent drinking booze you barely thought was alcoholic, about how'd great it'd be if she were in the band, and about how he plans to come back to her. He meshed emotional drunkenness with a couple of glasses of beer and some nasty shots of raw rum. We ended our time together by walking in the rain, him still talking about her. At one point, I told him, keep talking about her while you still can. Tomorrow, you shouldn't. Why? It's an excercise, I stupidly answered. We walked up to the church so we'd pray for forgiveness. He pissed on a tree. He chased after a cat, and after humorously failing to catch it told us, "I miss eating pussy." He threw the rest of the booze onto sidewalks, walls and plots of grass. He held us, telling he loved us, and I told myself I'd never forget this. I took a bottlecap, remembrance.

With the other group, it was with Yna and my usual group of friends. Only this time, Nikki was around, and she taught as a couple of new drinks. After all, we needed something new after we've been drinking sprite vodka and beer (Well, I'm the only who drinks it.) all the time. On the trip to get the stuff for the cocktails, they were all joking about sex. (Yes, Sinangag Express.) We did our usual things of playing card games: pusoy dos, go fish, crazy eights and if we wanted to, we could've played bullshit. We watched a couple of funny videos on You Tube: the wiener dance, the yes dance, Yu-Gi-Oh abridged, urban ninja and Dr Tran. I had to hurry up, because I promised the previous group of friends I'd hang with them again. (Mostly because we thought a lady friend of ours would come; she didn't.) I had to leave after helping them have sex. Err, buy from Sinangag Express. I missed out on cookies and eating with them, but hey, I got a hug as consolation. I took a bottlecap too, remembrance.

And yes, I forgot to talk about my mom, up to this point.

(At this point, I have to apologize. Whenever I begin to talk about my family, especially my mother, it just seems like suddenly, a headache suddenly comes into my head, and then everthing becomes a blur.)

She got pissed. I took too long. I was supposed to be back by eight. I got there by eleven. She took the wheel from me, and drove as fast as hell. I was clutching onto seatbelts, a little scared. When things began to slow down, she began to sermon me. Everything she said, I was able to rebutt, or at least, soften. To some point, I've already programmed myself to answer to every one of her sentences, but it all just happens in my mind, and the only response she'd usually get is stiff silence, with the occasional 'yes' or 'no.' Yes, after she blazed through the streets of Makati, fuming mad, in my mind, I didn't care.

Well, until she found those remembrances.

(And here's where everything becomes a blur.)

She storms into the condo, putting the bottlecaps on the table and asking me for an explanation. I mumbled that we (lie) drank them at Yna's. (She didn't know I'd meet Dean.) She asks me who taught me to drink, and she bangs on the door and shouts at the maid (who used to be a frequent alcoholic), accusing her of teaching me how to drink. I go to my room, and I fall to the floor, back against my cabinets. I close my eyes, and for a moment, I was caught in a void, where muffled voices and bangs could be heard. I locked my door, but she got the key and opened it. She asked me more questions, this time, more angrily. I go out of my void. A part of me asks, why'd you go out? Question after question after question; the easy ones answered, the hard ones received with silence. She asks me something. I knew that if I'd answer it truthfully, that if I let out those simulated conversations in my mind, I'd win. I wouldn't win against her, but I'd win something. And so I do, and it silences her. Barado, maybe. And then she begins again, and things begin to slow down. (Somewhere in between these events, I was trembling to answer why I wouldn't tell her things and ask permission; it all goes back to that night when I suggested something, and she banged the car furiously, angrily--and I was just paralyzed. Forgive me if I can't remember. As I say, some things are blurry.) The conversation ends with her as meek as a lamb.

After washing up, I come up to her room and apologize, and she answers, in a gentle voice. And now I wonder, what'd I win?

The Internet

Listen:
The internet is lethally addictive.

No, you will not die like those epileptic children who got killed by watching Pikachu's yellow lightning. Instead, you will die, wasting your time, and rotting away running through the Multiplies, Plurks, Twitters and Facebooks of your friends. Sure, I admit it's a good thing that you can keep up with your friends, but come on, why not try to meet them in person?* Most likely, the friendship you've built is made with real time.

Let me tell you why I don't like chat. A study shows (I'm referring to this study if you're about to point that where's-your-source finger at me.) that over 40% of what you say is lost in e-mails. Chat's more or less the same thing. Sure, you've got that :)) smiley, but how many of you are really laughing when you animate that yellow bugger that keeps laughing (when its jaw should be falling off already)? Do you really LOL when you say LOL? Or are you just smirking, or being polite?

Okay, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that it's a good thing that you get to talk to your friends, but I'm gonna go back to my suggestion that you should spend real time with them. (For the record, if ever you hang, I don't want you to spend time in malls, but that's another story.)^ When you talk to them face-to-face, consider this:

A landmark study, out of Cal State LA in 1967 and proved a bunch of times since then, it says 55 percent of human communication is based on your body language, how we stand or lean or look each other in the eye. Another 38 percent of our communication through our tone of voice, the speed we talk, and how loud. The surprise is only 7 percent of our message comes through our words.

(Quoted from Rant by Chuck Palahniuk)

There's this one webcomic I read (If I recall right, it's Shortpacked.), with a strip that points out how anybody can diss anybody on the internet, but when you're together in person, you're all polite. It's either behind a mask of anonymity, you show your true, rabid self, or with yourself bare, you show your fake, polite self. Or vice-versa.`

The internet is here to stay, and a single blog entry with a couple of considerable statistics is not going to change things. Well, I'm not going to stop you either if you want to live your life, rotting**every minute in front of a screen. I just want to tell you that there's plenty of good stuff outside the net. Like what? Hmm. Like the real world, I guess.

Footnotes:
* A good way to find out if you're not close with somebody, or if you dislike him/her, is when you talk to that person only in cyberspace.

^ Personall, I'd like to live in France. Why? Not a lot of malls. Bookshops, cafes (No, not you're goddamn Starbucks or coffee chain, but actual dens of intellectuals, where geniuses like Camus and Sartre used to hang out in.), if you're lucky, there's a river to go to or what not. Personally, I think malls are manifestations of how people are becoming more materialistic and becoming dumber. (Though to be fair, book stores in them make me feel otherwise, but if a place is riddled with Twilight books, it knocks off my good spirits.) Every week, besides from going to church, people go to malls. It's like a religion, and like most faithful, (or faithful) they listen to the gospel of Nike, Bench and Timezone, without examining it.

` You can think of it like a fight club in cyberspace. Only, it's retarded when you notice that punching is trolling, and the bleeding stops whenever you hit the disconnect button.

** Remember, your eyesight's always the first to rot. Brain's second. If there was a study that proves that brain activity slows down when you watch TV, how about the internet?

~ A special thanks to Yna for having me write a decent entry after a couple of weeks and being my proofreader.

P.S. Want an edgier take on why the internet is making your life suck?

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable