slap me! or, the anatomy of an afternoon conversation

"Nice things cost money".

Indeed, I must say. :)

i was stationed at my regular post this afternoon browsing the newspapers while talking to my officemate-friend who happened to be light of office workload so she managed an afternoon tete a tete with moi. It was a pleasant distraction as I wouldn’t have wanted to spend an hour with the newspapers and drain myself of socialization fluids I so crave for these days. It might seem that socialization is an idea that is a far cry from yoga, relaxation, and massage that have been the previous entries in this blog, but come to think of it, if you really enjoy a good conversation, it too can be a form of relaxation. Where does massage figure in, you might ask. well, when you talk, doncha kinda massage your tongue in the process? Hehehe.

So we had this conversation that was somewhat propelled by my declaration that nice things cost money. We are about to attend a lunch-after-a-baptism thingy by another officemate on Saturday, on account of her child Alec’s baptism. Initially the office friend and me are to give separate gifts but later on we decided against the idea to save money; we just decided to pool our resources for a grander but much pocket-friendlier gift hehehe.

So how did this nice-things-cost-money mantra came about, you might ask, as a follow-up question. And what is the relationship of the newspapers to it? This is turning out to be serious detective work, if you ask me. hehehe. well before her arrival, I was browsing thru the newspapers to kill time. It was my tour-of-duty at the monitoring desk, checking for books to be checked-in and interviewing clients topics of their research. In other words it is Gentle-in-G.R.O.-mode (G.R.O. as in “guest relations officer” but in the Philippines it has come to mean another, much nastier thing, as well. hehehe). now if I have been an intellectual with an insurmountable thirst for news articles relating to the current situation of world stock markets or the state of political affairs in the government, you would see me thumbing the front pages or the editorial section; but since I am a penniless tech geek, it is the tech section for me.

Indeed the tech section is bursting with to-die-for gadgets I could only put my hands on in my own sweet dreams! Cellular phones, laptops, the works.

I am not much of a celfone addict. i can pretty much survive with a celfone that has the basic call and sms functions. What really interests me are the PDA functions that come along with the state of the art celfones coming out these days. That, and the wide crisp screens bursting with color which boast of the new windows mobile interface that, when you use one inside the train would pretty much shout out : slap me, I am a tech yuppie! Hehehe. not that I am complaining of the capabilities of my Samsung E200. its suits me just fine. But having a Samsung Omnia wouldn’t hurt too. :) But then again, given the environs here in the Philippines, I should probably be content with my E200 phone lest I want my hard-earned Omnia ending up on the second hand fone stalls just weeks after purchase. hehehe.

Imagine yourself writing in your blog in the comfort of your room using your hp laptop. An officemate recently bought one and its been the object of my affection ever since. tho i really am not particular with the specs of a new laptop, but the mobility of owning one just amazes me, as one could practically carry it wherever one goes—in posh tea and coffee shops, clicking away while sipping one's genmaicha green tea. Ahh. tech heaven it is.

Snap! you suddenly realize you were just in the middle of a lucid daydream and a client is handling you her claim stub for her things. hehehe. then you suddenly remember one of those one-liners you used to memorize from the movies : that of oskar schindler having a conversation with his accountant, saying, "nice things cost money".

So when my friend arrived and talked of the upcoming baptismal gift to give to baby alec, being the ilocanos that we are, we decided to play it cheap by following oskar's advice. :)

There you go.. a hodgepodge of gentle musings brought about by an upcoming baptism, newspapers tech articles and a nostalgia for Hollywood movies. My hour-long desk duty in the monitoring section ended with me swirling with a thousand things on my mind. made me giddy enough to blog the anatomy of an afternoon conversation right away.