I’m so busy, jumping from one call to another, jumping from one story lead to another. I was still sending emails at 8 pm…I still don’t feel the holiday spirit.

My brain is fried. Good thing the barbecue ribs I made was 👌if I may say so.

I made a dry rub first and left it to marinate the meat for an hour or so. Then I poured bbq sauce on it (the American kind) and then set it on the trivet inside my Instant Pot, added water at the bottom to create pressure. I set it on High for 25 mins. After releasing the pressure, I removed the ribs from the trivet and transferred it to my air fryer and added more bbq sauce to caramelize the surface of the ribs.

It was divine. It was perfectly caramelized on the outside but juicy on the inside. It was the falling-off-the-bone kind of loveliness so you don’t have to struggle with getting the meat out of a difficult cut.

I forgot to take a photo because we were so hungry. Twin I said she loved it, while Twin A finished her big bowl of rice.

I did all the cooking in between editing and calls.

It’s almost 4 am and I’m purchasing games on PS Store and that damned Sony still wouldn’t allow Philippines – based gamers to have its own PS Network/Store. I initially tried locating my region to Singapore, which worked initially for free to download games like Minecraft, Roblox, and SIMS4. But when I was trying to buy the ones that needed credit cards, I couldn’t register my credit card because I couldn’t change the billing address to Philippines. It stubbornly clung to Singapore as the ONLY billing country.

So I had to create an account again that is located in Indonesia so my Philippine-issued credit card will be accepted…

And guess what, it pushed through! I was able to buy games at a discount because it’s Black Friday: Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, God of War, Sonic Frontier, and WRC 10.

The annoying thing about being able to purchase from PS Store Indonesia is that it has limited games compared to Singapore. Final Fantasy VII Remake is still unavailable and you can’t play FF VII Rebirth without playing Remake because it’s a three-part saga. You have to start with Remake, then you proceed to Rebirth. Rebirth is only SGD 69 on Black Friday sale while it is being sold for PHP 14,000 here in the Philippines because it is a physical disc sourced from abroad! 😱 How ridiculous is this?!

I now have a time sucker in my hands. I now want to have a larger TV screen. 🤦🏻‍♀️ And I played WRC 10 until 5 am. I want to buy another controller that costs PHP 4,200. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

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It’s almost 11 am, I haven’t done any cooking. 😑 Still in bed.

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I jumped to one event to another just within Makati but I needed to drive because my street parking meter is running down and my car would be towed away if I didn’t move it. Anyway, I was able to accomplish two missions.

I attended an early Christmas party yesterday, too. Corporate Christmas parties start early because once you get past Bonifacio Day, it will be hell on earth. Next week will be carmageddon. Well, Christmas rush super heavy jumbo traffic has already started. No one will be happy to attend Christmas parties by mid-December, a time when everybody will be spending 5 hours stuck on the road.

Then I won a PS5. It was a super random raffle draw and it was funny because I’m lucky when it comes to things like this. Several Christmases ago, I won an iPhone 13 or something. When they were drawing the names, I told Twin I to do a raindance to drive luck our way. Lo and behold, we did win! I sold that phone and bought a new Panasonic fridge instead.

But this time, I am keeping the PS5 because my girls are old enough for this. Plus they can now control themselves; they know they can’t skip studying and doing homework just to play games.

I would have wanted a Nintendo because their games are more my jam but of course, a PS5 is also welcome. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Sonic, God of War Ragnarok… A long time ago I had my PSP loaded with Diablo but nooooo, it’s not for me. My carpal tunnel syndrome worsened with God of War back then so I sold everything to my brother—including all the games I had loaded it with (bought from Greenhills).

This time I have a more ergonomic controller and have a higher capacity box. But the PS5 extra controller and games themselves are expensive though… 😅

I was already in the Rockwell area (I edited stories while in their sort of food court) so might as well do my Christmas shopping for things I wasn’t able to get online.

Mission accomplished.

I’ve been working my ass off since Monday and today was particularly rough. I got scolded again by my boss for raising a concern during a semi-townhall meeting because there seemed to be some miscommunication or misunderstanding on what we can or cannot do in terms of coverage. She told me it does not look good to raise that in public, I should have just raised it to her directly instead…

But the problem is she and I don’t really understand each other 🤦🏻‍♀️. It’s language barrier or I don’t know, there always seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding.

I should always remind myself to keep my mouth shut. Just do my work, forget about shitty stuff around me, then get paid. That’s it.

It’s Thanksgiving week in the US but I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. What I’m targeting is the Black Friday sales online. I don’t really do Cyber Monday sales because shipping electronics from the US to the Philippines is a lot of hassle. More or less I already have what I need and want when it comes to gadgets and whatnot.

Fashion accessories, however, are another matter. I just went crazy buying stuff online and I am now partially regretting my expensive purchases. How bad has it gotten? Well, I’m now included in the mailing lists of Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks on 5th, Bloomingdales, and even Macy’s. Oh, also Dillard’s. Why all these department stores? Because I was tracking down a particular style that has gone viral on social media, which is always sold out. When I finally was able to check out the item from my Neiman Marcus cart, my Philippine-issued credit card wouldn’t go through. I emailed Neiman Marcus several times, complaining about their technical glitches.

But long story short, I ended up buying another style from the brand’s official website. The same Philippine-issued credit card had no problem. 🙄

To assuage my guilt for having committed some unwise Black Friday-related financial decisions, I bought more ETF shares again. Good thing the share prices are lower than when I last purchased them, when I was racing to the bottom.

I should stop rewarding myself too much. 🥴

Is it only me who is not into content creation? Like everyone is doing all the social media content creation, trying to be an influencer or just plain feeding one’s vanity.

However, I do understand the content creators who do that for marketing their own businesses, like this amusing Aonsomrutai from Thailand. The character she created—as a socialite whose lavish shopping sprees are entertainment for the rest of us—is funny and you can’t really get angry or jealous of her because she is sweet. The funniest thing here is that she does her shopping in her own stores—but of course it’s not revealed in the skits (she owns luxury brand consignment shops in Thailand) as a way to promote her business. If you’re not aware of that fact, you would really believe that she buys out the entire stock of the stores she visits.

She is a brilliant marketer, that I have to say. She is lovely, too.

But you know, it seems like the all the people on social media are content creators in one way or another. I have not joined the bandwagon to create my brand, as some journalists are doing nowadays. I believe in the old fashioned mantra that journalists shouldn’t be the news, that we are messengers and not the message.

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Instead of spending for things that don’t add value in my life, I decided to go the National Gallery and see art on my day off instead.

And oh boy oh boy! 🤦🏻‍♀️ I should have brought my press ID from a long time ago because journalists are free! They give complimentary tickets to journalists, like in Europe. I could have saved SGD 20.

But it was all worth it in the end. I saw some Luna, Hidalgo, Amorsolo, Botong Francisco, Ang Kiukok, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, and HR Ocampo. There were very beautiful art from Indonesia, Myanmar, and Cambodia as well. The Southeast Asia exhibition art runs until March and it spans 14 galleries.

Then I saw a couple of Amorsolos.

I loved the paintings from Myanmar.

I also liked the ones from Cambodia and a few from Vietnam.

I liked Georgette Chen’s style that I bought one print of hers from the souvenir shop. I will have it framed along with the earlier prints I acquired last year.

Meanwhile, more Filipino artists were exhibited across several galleries. The one below is a mural by three artists. A rare collaboration.

There aren’t much from Malaysia—they only apeared in the latter galleries when the time period was modern/contemporary. Same with Thailand. It’s probably because there aren’t many in the hands of private collectors that were lent to the National Gallery of Singapore or they don’t allow art to be shipped out of the country.

I wish I had more time to browse and go to other galleries but I had to go back to Chinatown to eat. I was famished.

This is the reason why I booked a hotel in Chinatown even though the rooms are tiny. I want to have foot massages but not have to take the train anymore to return to my hotel. I find the old Chinese uncles to be the most effective in easing away my aches.