We all know facebook, right? Well, if you don't, I'm pretty sure someone in your family or circle of friends might have a clue what is it since you began isolating yourself from the world and living under a rock these past few years.

But if you do know facebook, well, in are in luck. Today's topic of conversation is about communication via facebook. Ohhh, I can already see how excited some people are about this. So, without further ado, let's begin.

I'm one of those few people who would only add people they know. Yes, I know there are probably millions out there who would just add anyone who so happens to hit that 'request as friend' button. Alas, I am not one of them. Since I don't really add strangers or people whom I haven't had a real conversation with, I feel awkward when people ask me to confirm them as friends.

I have this girl in facebook who had requested me to confirm her as a friend. I took a look at her photo and I knew I didn't recognized her eventhough she was a mutual friend of most of my other contacts. So, I sort of ignored her request (not delete, but just ignored and left it there).

Days passed.
Months passed.
Maybe a year passed.

Then, on one unsuspecting day. A day no different from any other day out there; yesterday.

She wrote me a message asking me if I had forgotten about her and her request.  I thought long and hard. Have I truly forgotten her smile or the days we had spend together?

Her sad words made me think of the days long gone. Her faint words echo into voices suddenly causing ripples to emerged in my memories.

Very small ripples....

No, I don't remember her to be honest. I looked at her photo again to see if I could remember the face of the girl whom I had somewhat had some sort of a relationship to before. The feeling was the same as asking me to explain the significance of the pi.

I decided to consult my yearbook and in it, found the answers which I seek. She graduated in the same year as I did although not in the same major.

I still wondered if I've ever talked to her before. She seem like she knows me. Maybe she does. Perhaps it was I who had forgotten about her.

I quickly replied her back apologizing for the late confirmation of her request and hoped in my heart that she wouldn't be offended. A man must know when to strike and when to bow down and this time, I must be the man who bows.

I felt relieved when she replied the next day.

She asked me how I was. Apparently, she had spoken to another friend and he told her that I was no longer working in design but had moved on to running my own restaurants.

........

I thought long and hard. This other friend of her which is also someone I knew but never really spoken to, more so, spoken to recently. Why would he tell her that?

I decided to leave it as it is and went downstairs to watch some telly while in the back of my mind, I tried hard to make sense of the madness which I had just experienced.

Maybe I might had made a white lie sometime ago to impress her. I could have told him and then he told her, right?

No, it didn't clicked together. Something was off. Was this friend of hers pulling her leg? Was the topic of my career something that was thought up out of thin air?

Then, it finally clicked. The other answers now pale in comparison to what I conjured up as my final deduction.

A simple solution.

A simple answer to a grave situation.

It seems that she must have gotten me mixed up with someone else that had a similar name with mine.

Someone who doesn't look like me nor sounds like me.

Someone who doesn't even wear glasses.

I haven't thought of what to say to her yet in reply.



Someone please tell me I was right not to have accepted her request in the first place.

I got WH to help me out today after a last minute change of plans with YF. No worries. It's a good thing WH didn't really had a problem with spending his Sunday morning with 7.95 and me for a car ride to a place that none of us has ever gone to. 

Dog Graduation School. BLAM!

Of course, I had my worries. I originally didn't know if I was going or not last week and looking for people who wouldn't mind sharing the car with a huge slobbering dog wasn't going to be easy.

The smell, the fur; definitely not something for the masses.

And did I mention what my biggest fear was?

It was what would to happen if he wasn't going to behave himself on that day.



I swear to God, that was playing at the back of my head. Well, maybe not exactly. Actually, no.

I guess I decided to go for closure and went anyways. Besides, WH had no problems going so I guess it won't be that boring as compared to me going alone. And did I mention that he himself made it quite clear that he was a photography genius like Peter Parker?

I wonder if he was talking about the way one would take pictures like they do for newspapers.

You know, in case something bad happens.   

Something bad that would make the front page.



What is this, Parker!? I send you out to get the scoop on that criminal Spider-Man and this is the best you could do? I'll pay you 5 bucks for all of this. Get your check from the front desk. NOW SCRAM!

So, we got in the car and left. Pretty uneventful apart from 7.95 moving all over the backseat. Guess it's been about 2 months since he last sat in my car.

Guess it's also been about 2 months since I had to clean my car from his drool.

That place we were going to is also a training centre for dogs. I was expecting a graduation to be where we just sit around and wait to walk up some stage to collect our certs. You know, like the ones I had to attend.

Probably not so in the case for dogs.



That's your stage right there, folks. It's okay, your dog won't know the differences.

Well, I'm happy to report that there wasn't any headline news today. Not even close. I'm surprised myself. There wasn't even a single bark coming out from him. I suppose maybe he's just as surprised as I was.



Was he happy? Was he bored? Was he tired? The dog on the other hand looks excited that he's graduating.



Dog chow, hmmmmm yummmmy. Every dog's gotta at least have one of these dreams before, right? Scooby snacks.

However, there were other dogs there that behaved exactly as how I would have thought 7.95 would. WH told me that maybe the reason why my dog wasn't barking at the other dogs was because they were bigger than him and that he realizes that he's just a small fish in the sea.

Maybe.

It's could also be that he seem to be awfully tired from the long car ride and the hot sun.

It could have been anything.

I'm just glad he was well behaved. 'Nuff said.



Juggle the cert, juggle that big bag of dog food, hold on to that furry hat, hold on tight to that leash. Now, shake that man's hand. Easy, right?

So, in the end, we left about a few minutes after 7.95 got his cert. My name was only called quite close to the end after most of the other people have already left. There were a lot of dogs graduating so I guess it's just pure luck that our names were placed in that order.

And that's it. We headed home with a bag of free dog food, a cert, photographs and an extremely heavy panting, saliva dripping rotti at the back seat. All is well.



Does the furry hat comes with a furry cat? Why yes, it does. And it tastes absolutely fabulous.

I received a sms today. It gave me the chills and the cold sweat.

It was regarding my dog's Graduation Day. Goodness me. How could I forget?

Then again, I guess I was expecting a bit more during my last time at the class; which so happens to be the OB test. I mean, it just ended with the test. There wasn't any real follow-up.

I was expecting maybe a call.

Or maybe something like "the certificate is in the mail."

Perhaps, even a message over at their website.

Nothing, Nadda, zip.

Felt kinda like a one night stand. Cold, confused and empty.

Honestly, I didn't expected this sms. I began to think of all the things that can go wrong with my dog.

You see, bringing the old 7.95 out to public places can be quite a challenge.

Bringing him out to public places that has other dogs is even worse.

I am thinking of whether I should bail out on this one or just stick it up and go for closure.

Risky business, this.



Duh, does the furry hat comes with a furry cat?
 

With my bottle of water by my side and my head still spinning around, I struggle to write about my birthday today. Every year, I try to take a different approach to celebrating where I eat or where I would like to spend my birthday.

This year, I felt old and thought that maybe all those thoughts were just thoughts of a naive young lad yet to reach that point in his life. The point of oldness. I actually thought of staying late in the office and then going home to a quiet dinner.

Turns out what started off as a simple house pizza birthday party like what we had a few years ended up as a drive down to a German restaurant for food and beer.

Yes, in the end it was rather different and I think being able to talk trashy, stupid stuff while drinking beer is a plus too. At least people won't look at you and think you are some sort of weirdo. They put the blame solely on the booze. Public humiliation never looked so easy.

Thanks YF and WH. Guess we'll be partying in a few weeks time again, eh?



C'mon, tell me. Who loves birthdays?

I went to a chiropractor today about my sore back. It's something that's been bothering me for quite some time off and on.

Whenever I think of chiropractors, I think of Louis from Jacob's Ladder; how he twists and snaps people's bones back into place. What a sensational feeling it must be. An Guardian Angel!

Oh so I thought. Nobody told me about those needles.

Nobody!

It feels like someone went and drill holes into your eardrums.

Over and over again.

Damn it, Louis. You were supposed to be my Angel.



I'm sure we can work this out, eh, Louis? Ummm.....Louis? LOUIS!!!!

So, we did it. After months of training followed by last week's grueling worth of intensive practising (okay, maybe not so grueling), 7.95 made it thru basic OB class.

Out of an initial class of (let's see, zack, zeus, tiger, bailey, tintin) 6 dogs, I was the only one who turned up for the test. There were 2 other handlers there as well from another class who took the test. I guess the other people might had dropped out halfway through the course.

The first part of the exam consists of heel work followed by a trick which was to be done individually. Then there was the recall section and the sit stay exercise which was to be completed together at the same time as the other dogs.

I was the last one to go for the first half of the exam. The other dogs did really great for the heel work so as you can guess, I felt really pressured since I know how easily distracted 7.95 can be. Well, the examiners did mentioned that we shouldn't be so worried about it cos it was more of an assessment rather than an exam. Well, tell that to the me that had problems sleeping the night before.

Came our turn and as predicted, he got all hyper sniffing the other dogs' scent and made me fumbled a bit during the heel work. Mind you, I really thought I had it in the bag with heel work since the sit stay and recall exercises were the ones that he was the weakest in.

The trick part turned out to be a stroke of luck. He managed to pull out a 'hand' gesture only after standing up whereby he could usually do with in a sitting position. I was quite surprised myself that he actually did it. Don't think he ever did it in class before.

Then came the second part of the exam. I was getting worried here. He didn't do so well for the recall exercise. Just like during the normal classes, he kept going behind my legs instead of sitting in front of them. Had a second chance but he did the same thing again. I heard that if you don't get it right both times, it's zero marks for that. Oh well.

For the sit stay, he managed to get it right. Perfect even. Well, almost apart from the 'down' command which he took quite some time before he actually did it.

So, in the end, we all passed. I was quite surprised that 7.95 got a whooping 87/100, bagging him the highest score among us three. Really caught me off guard there. Maybe they were quite lenient with the scoring. Well, I'm not going to complain about it.

A pass is a pass and that's always a good thing. Especially when you are a dog.





SQUIRRELS!

I hate people who clap their hands in the cinema after a movie. I mean, what purpose does it serve?

Unless the director or anyone who was involved in the making of the film was present (pro-tip: film distributors and ticket attendants are not these people, okay?), there shouldn't be any reason to slap those sweaty hands together, is there?

Now, I know what you are going to say about where I'm going with this. It's the spirit of theaters, isn't it? How people used to clap to show appreciation and approval for what they saw on stage back then when projected images wasn't a common thing.

Sure, but like I said again, the director isn't there. He can't hear you clapping at your seat. He can't see you getting all excited about his new movie which is coming out this December about blue aliens being chased by other bigger gray aliens while being shot at by humans. You know that movie, right?

Unless our director, oh, I donno, let's just call him JC, has some sort of mad telepathy skills, which could be possible, your best bet of showing how much you like his film would be to promote it outside of the cinema; preferably as far away as possible from me.

You know, like;

• telling it to all your friends.
• blog about it.
• buy multiple tickets of the said movie and watch it over and over again.
• turn down invitations to watch other superior movies so ticket sales for your favourite movie would soar.
• repeating the first step again.
  

Remember kid, every ticket sold equals to more money in the bank. Why, that's even better than a hundred hand claps.

A thousand even!

Well, maybe not but it sure keeps me from strangling those faceless clappers and stuffing them under the cinema seat. 

Boy, I hate exams. Exams always makes me nervous and gives me unnecessary stress.

I think the last time I had one was about 3 years back in regards to being work related. Non work related tests probably dated even further back than those 3 years.

Gahh, I'm beginning to feel nervous and tensed already. Think I'll try to think of happy thoughts for the rest of the night and not trip up come the weekend.

Bummer.... 

As seen on wikimapia.

I don't think there's anyone who was born around my generation who doesn't remember how Michael Jackson influenced their childhood days.

I think my earliest memories or perhaps identification of MJ was probably from his music video, "Billie Jean". I could remember him dancing on the sidewalk and it would light up; following his footsteps as he moved around. His fast paced and stylize dancing around that time reminded me of breakdancing which both my brother and I were really craze maniacs over that. We even got a breakdancing videotape courtesy of my Dad which we would watch and then try to spin overselves around the floor.

I don't think Mom approves of our behaviour.

My brother was the main music cassette purchaser (if that's even the correct term to use) back then and if it's got MJ, NKOTB, Tommy Page, Kylie Minogue, Rick Ashley and whoever pop sensation who would so graciously graze our teleboxes or airways, he's got to have it. I remember that 'BAD' was actually bought in our morning market.

Again, can't really say whether Mom approves of the cover art or title song for that matter.

Did pop stars back then gave us a bad influence compared to what kids these days are subjected to?

Frankly, I think kids nowadays have it even worse.

MJ's popularity was so great back then in high school and no Teachers' Day would be complete without a performance from our school's most talented MJ impersonator. I can't believe I totally forgot about this guy. Back then, he would only perform during huge events in school and if you missed out on most of the other events, chances are, this was the last time you could see him in action. After that, you gotta wait for next year's Teachers' Day.

Apart from his dances, MJ's songs were great. If you really could look pass the melody and listen to the lyrics, songs like 'Man in the Mirror' and 'Heal the World' were so groundbreaking and inspirational that you could swear that if we actually took a minute out of our lives everyday to listen to his music, we could perhaps be a happier person in life...

...kinda like the way he wanted his own life to be.