Fac ut Vivas

– I –

Two nights ago, I went home to Laguna. After staying up until 10pm, I decided to hit the blankets early.

1:18 am, with bloodshot eyes, I woke up suddenly. After several attempts to regain my interrupted dream cycle, I went down finally after a concentrated dose of unhealthy reading.

5:30 am, barely 30 minutes after, songs from a distant alarm clock reached a crescendo.

All I could think of that time was: 8 years of college life wrecked my biological clock.

– II –

I once dreamed of receiving a decent 85 on my biology exam.

Days later, full of confidence, I approached my teacher to receive my paper.

Nothing could be farther from the truth: the score written on the upper-right corner was 58.

– III –

It seems that HP Lovecraft is unavoidable these days. This month, I managed to obtain a collection of his short stories. Those two books are perfect for the rainy days ahead.

As to why Lovecraft was unavoidable… when I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - Dead man’s chest (with meg of http://megoybytes.blogspot.com), at the precise moment the Flying Dutchman appeared onscreen, I can’t help but remark on his disturbing resemblance to depictions of Cthulhu

I wish I had a more interesting one-liner that time, maybe something like:

Dael: You know that Dutchman! What a Cthulhu! and that Cthulhu creature? totally ineffable!.

"Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn."

– IV –

Is it coincidence that strange things have happened in the past few days or were there precedents in history?

In one of my aimless wanderings in the metropolis, I picked up a unique history book. While browsing through it’s contents today, the following entries caught my attention:

July 17:
    1674 bones of two boys locked up in the Tower of London were recovered
    1793 French patriot Charlotte Corday is guillotined
    1872 Mexican President Benito Juarez dies of a heart attack

July 18:
    AD 64 Nero burns Rome
    1610 Michelangelo Merisi (aka Caravaggio) dies
    1869 Pope Pius IX proclaims doctrine of papal infallibility
    1936 Franco signals the start of the Spanish Civil war

July 19:
    1799: The Rosetta Stone is found in Egypt
    1870: Napoleon III declares war to start Franco-Prussian War

Today, July 20, some years ago in 1944, a plot to assassinate Hitler failed.

– V –

Less than a week after they were shouting Il Campioni del Mondo! on the streets, protesters were shouting farce in Turin, Rome, and in many parts of Italy. The reason? Four top clubs in the Italian league were judged to have been involved in a match-fixing scandal. All four incurred heavy penalties and three among them were promptly demoted.

A sad day for football fans.

– VI –

Elsewhere in other parts of Europe, notably in England and Spain, club owners, managers, and coaches are preparing for what looks like "the maddest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of" football by selling/buying players to/from penalized the teams.

Not that all of it wasn’t understandable, but to put things in perspective: 8 players involved in the France-Italy final play for Juventus, the team that was hardest hit by the verdict.

– VII –

I dreamed about you.
When I wondered about it,
I saw shooting stars.

I wrote the above lines years ago ( … and would you believe, managed to publish it online?). I can’t believe how incredibly cheesy it was and how I managed to write it in the first place.

– VIII –

Any moment now, "water" will start appearing on my battered thumbs. Recently I’ve acquired a PlayStation2. Gamer’s Thumb that’s what it’s called.

Can’t get enough of Soul Calibur, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, and Winning Eleven 9.

– IX –

The Rat is dead. Long Live the Rat.

I’ve improved my overall rat-kill-rating to 5 (confirmed kills) because two nights ago, I bagged 3 of them.

How? via an instantaneous delivery  (proportional to the 2ND-derivative of the displacement of the instrument of justice) of a metallic rod to the bulbous cranium of the animal (Rattus domesticanus). Death was in a matter of seconds due to extreme physical trauma.

Prior to the application of the instrument, high pitched sounds were heard or picked up by nearby sonic wave detectors, though witnesses were unanimous in attributing it to the high-velocity gaseous matter escaping through constricted hollow conduits within the rat’s body.

Minutes after the incident, enterprising doomsday experts expressed belief in the episode as nefarious omens to future disturbances of cataclysmic proportions. In particular, those "of the type that would warrant the kind of behavior similar to rats leaving a sinking ship".

The Lab is sinking… The Lab is sinking, group yourselves into ..