Melvin D.

22nd Year of Existence!

Melvin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:06:58 +0000

Time flies real fast. I’m now 22, really? I’m sure that people will still make the same mistake thinking I’m some 16 year old college kid. But that’s not my problem.

Oh well, another year, another chapter. The only thing that’s the same every year is I’m blessed! I’m always blessed and I’m grateful for that.

Potipod Island Escapade

Melvin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:14:52 +0000

A trip to Potipot last week with the CS boys. It was a good trip, very challenging I guess.

Unhealthy Living

Melvin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:02:02 +0000

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been consuming an unbalanced diet. For six straight days, I had hotdogs and bacon + rice as either my dinner or breakfast or both. Then I ran out of hotdog, for the past 3 days I’m on a Spam + Bacon combo. I finally broke the trend by not consuming bacon and just essentially replacing it with a pack of noodles which is full of preservatives. Oh, what do I know?

One of my goals for this year is to bulk up more but do so in a healthy way. So far its hard to see me working hard enough to achieve that goal. :-\

Hot Air 2012 Pics

Melvin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:54:32 +0000

Pictures from the Hot Air event this year. Disclosure: Most of them are not mine.

Haven’t Had Time to Blog (Personal)

Melvin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:05:26 +0000

Last year marked the time when I haven’t had much time to work on my blogging ventures. Thanks to this, most of my blogs and web properties have kind off dropped off.

This year, it seems its time for my personal blogging time to suffer. Oh well.

All I can do these days is to listen to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Let You Down.

Things that I Learned in 2011

Melvin — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:45:32 +0000

2011 was one of the more challenging year for me. From my responsibilities as the eldest kid of the family, to me starting living independently, getting into some affairs, struggling with my office workload and etc., 2011 has made me more mature while also giving me a good deal of headaches and depressions.

I don’t want to ramble more and more and more, so for year 2011, I learned :

Its possible to earn money more than your age even when you’re not brilliant
Its hard to speak english everyday
Life is more than just money and things
I can gain weight and its not just a myth for me
I can consume two doubledown in a row
I’m in love with Taylor Swift.
I can be more patient than what I thought I could be
how to do laundry
how to cook myself
how to map the floor
how to do your own groceries
how to do your own budget and more importantly follow strictly to it.
how to clean your own bathroom
how to dispose your garbage properly
That riding cabs is not as harmful as what your parents tell you
That jeepneys really suck although its a nice test for your patience.
That I can stay really late outside home and its not that harmful really.
That eating in fastfood can really increase your weight
Jollibee’s breakfast steak is delicious
That I love KFC doubledown more than I love some people
I’m still one of the lowest paid employees in our company.
That I’m still good in playing NBA 2006 in PC
Derek is an awesome man since he achieved everything he wanted.
That my colleagues are cooler than what I thought of them last year.
That our company forces employees to resign rather than fire them
That San Mig light is really really delicious
That I can drink a 350 ml bottle of Gran Matador in one sitting
That my blog still gets lots of search engine traffic despite not giving any effort.
That I look better when I’m above 120 lbs.
That my colleague Erwin is the fattest person in our office
That you can get 40,000 for not having any sick leave for one year
That I have allergic rhinitis and I’m goin to have it forever
That Shilah is a wonderful woman
That Krish is just a dream woman that will never ever be mine
That I have better patience than most people
That I’m very very professional that people would not even notice I’m mad or pissed off.
That my highschool friends are the best.
That my college friends are the most approachable ones
That college friends are the most humorous ones.
That highschool friends can be your friends forever
That my neighbor sucks
That Ely Cruz just like any human, gets offended as well.
That for me to enjoy food consistently, I need to learn more about cooking
That KFC chicken while delicious and addicting, is still “nakakasawa”.
That EDSA is the most absurd place ever.
That earphones, just like cars, need some burn in.
That I look good with slim-fit clothes.
That I look good sporting the shirt and shorts attire
That I’m smarter than the average person
That some people stink because they’re destined to stink
That I suck at communicating to other people
That I do better with written English rather than speaking English
That I love my family MORE THAN ANYONE
That I miss my family every week
That I care a lot for them
That it takes more than what I currently have to be a role model to them.
That novaliches bayan is still one of the shittiest place ever
That the word ‘maby’ is just normal for some people and not just my boss.
That work from province is possible if you’re a ‘province man’.
That the NY Knicks actually care about winning and not just having the hgihest payroll.
That I can write an absurd personal blog post like this.

Sooo that’s it. Cheers!

Year Ender Post – 2011 Recap

Melvin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:36:27 +0000

Year 2011 has been a good year to me although I would consider it as one of the toughest as well. I was able to experience many many things that have left its mark on me and that I would never ever forget.

My intention is to keep this as short as possible so here we go…

January – March. I started off the year well. I was fully occupied since I have some SEO clients and other freelance stuff alongside my main marketing job at SplitmediaLabs. Its also worth-noting that I got some increase in compensation in my work in exchange for bigger responsibilities which is understandable.

Its also worth mentioning that Taylor Swift held her concert February this year. It was pretty much documented on this blog as I wrote series of posts regarding my experience with the concert.

April – June. We took a week to Bicol where we rekindled with our old relatives that we haven’t seen in ages. It was a pretty rough travel since we had to spend 6 hours on a vehicle and around 12 hours overall. But it was fun.

I also rekindled my friendship with people that I haven’t seen/enjoyed in a while. Namely highschool friends like Shilah, Dray, Rek, Sarah and a whole lot more especially when I celebrated my 21st birthday last April. It was a blast. There were some other things that I’d like to include here but would not do so for private reasons..

Another thing that happened was that I invested some of my money to build a “bigasan” kind of business. It wasn’t really mine but more for my parents.

July – October. I would like to call this month as a month where I faced my biggest depressions. Of course I would keep it private but it was a really tough month since I had to keep my self sane and avoid drinking too much alcohol. I also closed down my Facebook account for 2 and a half months but reopened it when I greeted Krish for her birthday.

This was also the month when I started doing freelance stuff and blog stuff anew. I allocated at least 2 hours a day to be able to do some ‘sweat work’ that I needed to do for my online business and for my clients as well. Keep in mind that at this point in time, I have been staying in office really late since I was ‘needed’ for some late night tasks..

November – December. This was the most stressful period of my SplitmediaLabs life. I stayed late up to early morning for almost every single time. I did some weekend work which is fine with me but overall it affected my *other* life since the time really took away everything. It was very very depressing since I would’ve easily been 10X richer had I choose to just allocate exactly 8 hours a day to office tasks. I could’ve at least spent 4-5 hours more to other stuff that would bring me more money. And we’re not talking about time for family and friends yet so its kinda disheartening to say at the very least…

On a positive note I was able to save a good amount of money for myself and my family since I’m really ~~a tightass~~ financially responsible. It certainly does help that I don’t struggle with buying whatever expensive stuff since I was never interested with those. Another positive thing is that I gained enough weight to have me removed from the ‘underweight’ category for the first time since my existence. I’m close to 140 lbs which is something that I have never ever thought would happen. Fucking awesome!

2011 is awesome. Every year must be treated as an awesome year!

Surviving the Cash-Strapped Week

Melvin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:53:37 +0000

Last week I faced a very unique situation while staying in my apartment. During the last three days of the week I realized I was strapped out of cash. As in a very very serious lack of cash on my end.

Late Wednesday I realize that I only have 40php in my wallet and this is bad considering that I have to pay for my transportation everyday going to office and for my food. To make matters worse, I dont have any food stock in my apartment and I’m running out of water to drink as well. With that in mind, I tried scouring every possible store thats still opened late (11pm and late).. The twist there is that they have to accept credit card as form of payment. Unfortunately most stores here in my country DON’T. Imagine, KFC, McDonalds, Jollibee don’t accept credit cards. Mercury Drug, 7-eleven, Ministop, etc. don’t either.

So what I did after I came home was to scour each and every piece of coin that I have to make sure that I have enough left for the next 3 days (until I reach my original home). Luckily the 40php piled up to 140 some but it still wouldn’t be enough since I have to pay for my food for the next 3 days.

So what I did was woke up early the next day and went to the Supermarket so I can buy all my needed stuff and the best thing is they ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS. so there ya go. I saved my money so I can use it for transportation and bought everything I possibly could using my credit card so I don’t have to worry anymore about buying something and further more decreasing that 140 some budget allotted for transportation and other miscellaneous things. And as I was typing, you can say that I survived.

That’s it. Lesson learned? Be thrifty and wise. I am wise myself but there are always going to be times where you’ll be tested with different situations. The key is not losing your composure.

Today is Krish’s Birthday

Melvin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:14:12 +0000

Happy Birthday Krish!

Krishtalyn is my college crush and one of the very few ideal woman that I ~~want to marry~~ think exist. We’re friends although I never had much contact with her since college because all my stalking skills have gone useless.lol. Also she seems to be enjoying life now both career-wise and relationship-wise. Of course, that makes me happy more than anything else.

Either way, happy birthday again and best wishes!

I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this?

Melvin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:43:09 +0000

If someone you are following on Twitter sent you a DM like this: “I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this? {link}”, then never ever click the link. That is yet another Twitter phishing attempt by those bad guys that will then steal your information and then use it to spam other people using your account and do other more scary things.

So how this thing works is that someone you know already will DM you the statement “I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this? {link}”. If you click the link, you’ll be taken to a fake twitter page asking for your username and password. If you are stupid enough to get persuaded that it came from Twitter, then your account is hacked. Workaround? Change your password, look at your settings and see if its still the same.

So if I sent you ‘I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this?”, will it be interesting enough for you to click it?