Yeah. I fell for you and I was quite sure of what I felt. I wanted to believe you did too.

However, it will just remain a wish. You have a lover now. It saddens me that I cannot make music for you anymore; that we won’t be making music together.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=234

The Motion for Reconsideration (MR) was filed today, Nov18 at the Comelec. We will wait for the Comelec’s decision to reconsider LADLAD’s accreditation to run for party list in the 2010 election.

Comelec has the option to sit on this and let time pass until LADLAD, due to technicality, will not be able to register to run in the 2010 election because the Comelec has only a few days to finalize the list of party-list groups that would be included in the ballot.

WE NEED TO PRESSURE THE COMELEC TO COME UP WITH A DECISION.

JOIN US IN SAYING WE ARE NOT Immoral AND ARE NOT a threat to the youth.

JOIN US FIGHT FOR OUR LGBT RIGHTS!

As Amnesty International would say,
- ALL HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL!!

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. JOIN THE PROTEST ACTION ON WED. NOV 25, 2009
Because of Manny Pacquiao’s motorcade on Friday, Nov.20 around Manila, Ang LADLAD decided to move the rally to next week.

TENTATIVE DATE: Wednesday, Nov. 25
ASSEMBLY TIME: 9:30AM
VENUE: COMELEC

Your group can send your message of solidarity & support to LADLAD at their FB page or email at darnalipad_2000@yahoo.com, danton_ph@yahoo.com

Your group can bring placards, streamers, anything rainbow, be in costume on that protest.

imMORAL white shirts are being sold at P250. Contact Mj Yap thru FB or email her @ mjoyap@yahoo.com
- Send your name, contact info, number of orders, & t-shirt sizes. I think they have male & female sizes

2. LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN
Int’l Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), together with Ang LADLAD will have a letter-writing campaign to pressure Comelec to come up with a decision the soonest time possible.

We will inform you once we have uploaded the letter at the www.iglhrc.org website. You can copy & paste the letter together with the email addresses included in the article and send to the Comelec Commissioners, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) who have been so supportive of LGBT rights especially Atty. De Lima.

3. REPOST THIS INFO

Please inform of your intentions and again thank you.

Ging

Actually just about 2 weeks ago I got two exciting SMS messages on my phone:

Hi! This is alexei from the pr agency of nokia. We’re coming up with iac band features in pdi and we’d like to feature your group. May i have your emailaddy so i can send u the questions? Thanks

and this

Hi! Gud am. This is tricia fr0m n0kia iac. We’re currently featuring iac s0ngs on radio and we’d like to get broadcast quality material of ur s0ng wataris machine.

We still didn’t have Internet that time so it took a few days to send them email. (I did it while I crashed at Tin & Mad’s.) And they sent details promptly:

Hi Nono!

Radio stations included are Magic 89.9, Jam 88.3, NU 107, 99.5 RT and 103.5 Max FM.

Update kita sa schedule once we get it from the media agency.

Thank you!

plus this

Hi!

I’m from Bridges, the PR Agency of Nokia. We’ll be coming out with IAC band features every weekend in Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Super Section and we’d like to feature your band. Hope you could answer the questions below. Will also need a photo of the band

So I answered the questions as best as I could, sent them a good quality MP3 of my song Watari’s Machine and picked out some of my newer photos (taken by Erving Go) and waited for updates from Nokia IAC’s PR agency about the PDI and the radio features.

For those interested, here’s my Nokia IAC profile:

http://web-iac.nokia-asia.com/philippines/artists/nameless

Since last week two friends have already heard the song on radio: Cris aka Blend:er at Jam 88.3 and Kurlie aka Demolee at Magic 89.9. So I wonder when the PDI feature will come or has it happened already.

Please be on the lookout for my radio and newspaper feature. I don’t listen to radio by habit and I also don’t usually buy newspapers. Talk about living in another world, in a galaxy far far away. LOL.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=228

After a month or so of working out, I lost about 5lbs (from 163 to 158). Though it’s not a lot, it tells that your 3-hour workouts are effective. If I increase my sessions per week and if I also do aerobics surely I’d be leaner quicker. But that means I will live in the gym.

Sirens

No, not the police, fire engine or ambulance type but siren as in mermaid which is our city’s symbol. Not a lot of people know about the legend of the Mutya ng Pasig (Pearl/Siren of Pasig) but I won’t talk about that here. Holding that thought… much of the water around us has receded so we’re not in Neptune’s kingdom anymore. They put foot bridges here about a week ago. Thank you Pasig City government but we needed that more right after Ondoy when water was deepest and getting in and out was most expensive.

When the water recedes cleaning up is always fun. We had our share of that the past week. The best part of it is the present condition of the creek. Calling the attention of Brgy. Capt. Bobot Guevarra and Mayor Bobby Eusebio…

Since vehicles can pass most roads here, it’s beginning to be noisy again. I will miss listening to the chirping of birds during the day, the croaking of bullfrogs and the buzzing of crickets during the night, as the soundtrack of my days. Thank you for 3 weeks of silence in an otherwise chaotic neighborhood.

PLDT Woes

Phone has been restored yesterday but stupidly the repair ticket is still not closed. That means I cannot do a service request for DSL since they only allow one ticket at a time. It’s 3 weeks since Ondoy and it looks like I need to pay for Internet service that I do not get. PLDT has a knack for basing refunds on the date you reported the problem. Where’s the common sense in that? There is a way for them to check when you last used your phone and when you last logged on to the Internet. They’re just fucking lazy.

Cats

The other day Poo gave birth to 4 kitties but only 2 survived. One is calico which is automatically female and the other has two colors that I believe is male. (Yup I checked “there.”) Charlie, who’s the daddy, is not so thrilled about it though. So I try to comfort him.

Charlie also finds it boring that we still have no Internet at home. So he uses my laptop as a pillow while waiting.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=218

As of this moment most parts of Pasig, especially the area around and near the floodway system, is still submerged in 4ft (average) of flood water. The only way in and out is via makeshift rafts/boats. In my “boat ride” out of my part of the city I saw that the deepest was still above the waist.

Reaching our house via “raft”

One of the deepest parts a couple of blocks
from old Pasig downtown and our house

Pasig city hall area

The situation above caused us to lose a client when she decided to refund her deposit for use of one of the units we have for lease.

I experienced how relief operations went about and how it brought out the worst in people. It’s heartbreaking watching those people queuing up for small bags with rice, noodles and canned goods. I mentioned that we live in a Class B/C neighborhood and I was blatantly reminded how lucky we are that we didn’t have to be down there. I also heard of stories of people tearing the bags of those who were lucky to have received so that they will not be able to cook the rice.

Relief Operations at our place

We do not see the situation in Pasig City improving anytime soon. The last time we had a flood like this it took months for the water to completely recede. However if the government does something about it (like letting water out of Manila Bay once in a while and slowly) our recovery will quicken.

I try to stick religiously to my program. After three weeks of doing so, it starts to get less challenging. I was tempted to increase the weight but the trainer discouraged me. He said that I will gain more weight if I do so. Since my program is weight loss, I need to increase the repetitions in increments of 5. I will increase my reps after/during my 4th week of training. Once I reach my ideal body weight, I could move on to weight training to develop my upper body.

These are the routines I do for weight loss (plus 5 or so stretching exercises and 15/20 minutes on the treadmill/bike/transport before and after):

Machines (3 sets of 20 repetitions)
Inclined chest press
Lateral pulldown
Seated row
Lower back
Leg curl
Leg press
Calf raise
Tricep pushdown

Dumbells (3 sets of 20 repetitions)
Bicep curl
Lateral raises
Shoulder press

Mat (3 sets of 30 repetitions)
Crunches
Obliques
Leg raises

Killer much??? (I only wrote from memory, I might have gotten some routines wrong.)

I am also trying to change my diet slowly, weaning myself from too much white bread and rice. My tendency was to pig out also after workout and since that will not help me I started having choco drink after workout to curb my appetite. If I am really hungry then a trip to Bodhi might be good or visit that fresh fruit salad at Sbarro. But I have to confess I drink San Mig Light (with some chips) around 11PM. Otherwise I won’t relax around midnight and will be awake til 3AM.

Will keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime, it’s gym day again.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=183

In an online chat with another friend, we had touched on Romanticism (and how Hollywood has messed up our concept of such) and its cousins Fatalism and Nihilism because of a “stupid” question I had asked about romance. I actually felt lectured on, but I took it as consequence for being nosy.

Now let’s talk about the product of my last bout with personal demons. I can’t remember the exact date for this composition but let’s just say late August when I wrote the song and early September when I finally got around recording the demo. Personally, I was not so impressed by the product as I experimented with a slightly different production and singing technique. (Maybe I am just being too critical of myself.)

Here’s the rough vocal demo of Requiem that I composed for my project names are for tombstones. Comments always welcome.

Requiem
names are for tombstones

And it started with a dream
Living here inside my heart
You tugged the heartstrings
Made me love you
Now I’m standing here alone
With a requiem for love

You’re living in another world
Always be there out of reach
I thought that someday
You and I
Will share a simple life
You never held on to my love

Now you’re in another’s arms
Tears become my only defence
All I can do is romanticize
The love that never was
Now it’s dead inside my heart
Love is dead inside my heart

[If the player does not display, please click here.]

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=150

From 34% to 24%. Now I’m just fat!

Today was the start of my full workout and my program is for weight loss! Duh. I felt like a weakling because I had difficulty completing some routines using free weights (dumbells) and the leg raises while lying on a mat. I also didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to because didn’t sweat enough even after using the treadmill. The stormy weather made the gym a little too cool. To add insult to injury, my shower cubicle didn’t have hot water!

The best part of going back to the gym is eating afterwards. Haha! There’s this kiosk in the food court that sells maki and gyoza. I had 9 pieces of maki and 5 pieces of gyoza! Forget about weight loss. Nono should be fed!!!

I am tired but in a good way and might crash too early if I don’t do something about it. Also, I am expecting to be in agony tomorrow.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=142

First thing the trainer did was weigh me while asking my medical history. Lo and behold I am now more than 160lbs (73kg) — my heaviest so far. I only swung between 140-145lbs in recent years (but I guess I have better appetite nowadays). He also asked my height (I’m 5′10″ or 178cm).

Now here’s the funny part. After taking measurements of my arms, legs, waist (32″ or 81cm and want to trim down), biceps (that he said need work and I agree), wrist and chest, he measured my body fat index. There’s this machine they use for doing so where they input some measured values then you are asked to hold it eye-level while gripping it with both hands. It was found out that I am “obese” since I got 34% which is more than 2x the normal index of 15%. So my trainer said I need to lose weight. I laughed. There must be something wrong with the values he entered.

There was this stretching exercise that I cannot do just by looking at a poster (spine stretch/twist something). So I had to try contorting my body (while laughing) and asked if I am doing it the right way. Also I was only able to do 12 push ups in succession and gave up even before my muscles actually failed and before the 1 minute limit was reached. Pathetic, right? But I did fine in the crunches.

I should brace myself for the real workout on Wednesday and I will be expecting serious soreness right after.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=129

Read more here.

From: http://blog.noelacosta.com/?p=106