Rooms Of Doom

I was still in grade school when I first played this side-scrolling platform game in my Tito’s computer. It is Froggman’s 1993 version of the DOS game, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, or simply, Dangerous Dave 2. I’ll never forget the countless hours we spent playing this game, laughing and screaming at the same time… and my Tito’s frustration whenever he gets smacked by a zombie or get sliced in a pit full of knives. It would take hours for skilled gamers to finish this game, though up to now, we haven’t. :3

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Rooms of Doom

It was not the typical warm Saturday afternoon in Lutherville.  The sun had attempted to burn off the thick morning fog and failed.  It now shone as a moon-like orb through the thick unnatural mist.  Steam rose off the scorched blacktop and swirled in the air.  It was suffocating and surrounded you like a hot wet blanket making it difficult to breathe.

Jake and his little brother Mikey walked slowly along the long, twisted country road counting their catch from Mr. Melville’s pond.  Mikey had caught most of the fish.  Mikey always caught the most fish.  He always ran the fastest and always knew all the answers in school.  Parents were always telling their children, “Why can’t you be more like Mikey!”

Mikey was very special, the perfect little boy, except for that unusual birthmark.  When he was born the doctor said it was nothing and that it would go away in a month or two, but it never did.  It only became more defined, more detailed, like it was slowly being burned into his skin as a sign…or a warning.  It looked like a four pointed star with an ‘X’ in the middle that seemed to turn as you watched, but it really didn’t.  Though it was beautiful, it was equally scary.

As they rounded the bend past old Mrs. Hopkins house, a cool, eerie breeze greeted them.  The stifling air was gone for the moment.  Mikey had felt that strange breeze before.  He and a few of his friends would play in the trees around old Mrs. Hopkins house and strange things were continually happening.  There was an eight foot fence all around her house with heavy steel gates that were always locked.  She said it was to keep her ‘pets’ from getting away, but Mikey had never seen any dogs or cats.

Jake had told Mikey many times not to play around old Mrs. Hopkins house.  There was something about her that made him feel very uneasy. Jake had learned to trust his instincts
when he was in the Marines.  There were many times overseas when all he had to rely on was his instincts.  Right now they were telling him loud and clear that old Mrs. Hopkins was trouble.

Just like the day old Mrs. Hopkins got a glance of Mikey’s birthmark.  She became very friendly to Mikey that day, too friendly.  She said Mikey’s birthmark was a XENOSTAR, a cosmic symbol of the four basic elements; Earth, Air, Fire and Water.  Legend had it, old Mrs. Hopkins said, that a child would be born bearing the mark of the Xenostar, who would bridge the gap between the world of the living and the world of the dead!

People paid little mind to what old Mrs. Hopkins said.  Everybody said she was crazy.  Some people believed she was a witch.  They even said her house was haunted.  It seemed that several people had died mysteriously during its construction many years ago.  There were supposed to be many different floors and hidden rooms, even a dungeon.  No one really knew for sure.  No one had ever been in her house.  Old Mrs. Hopkins really didn’t like people all that much.  But she sure seemed to like Mikey.

On the way home Jake and Mikey picked up a bucket of fried chicken and several horror films for a little Saturday night entertainment.  16 pieces of chicken and four movies later, Jake was sound asleep, dead to the world so to speak.  As he slept, dreams of ‘Maniac Mansion,’ ‘Satan’s Offering’, ‘Horror Hotel’ and ‘Psycho Village’ began to mix and mingle in Jake’s tormented mind.  But Dreams without peace are Nightmares.  And Jake would have no peace tonight….

After a series of agonizing dreams, Jake suddenly awakens.  Confused and disoriented, he finds himself on the outside of old Mrs. Hopkins fence.   He’s alone, standing in front of his pickup truck.  “This can’t be happening,” he thinks to himself.  He struggles to clear his head.  Is he still asleep?  Is this just a dream?  Just then he hears a scream.  Its Mikey!  The gates are locked and he can’t get in.  Dream or reality, it doesn’t matter.  He grabs his custom grip double barrel shot gun and with a strange and new-found power, leaps over the fence yelling, “I’m comin’ for ya Mikey!”

As Jake approaches the foreboding house, he feels a cold deadly presence.  All those things old Mrs. Hopkins had said with such conviction were flying through Jake’s brain.  “Was it true?” he thought.  “Was Mikey actually the Bridge between good and evil.”  The idea was more than Jake could stand and it scared him to death.

A bone chilling dampness meets Jake as he reaches the front porch.  The sweet smell of dogwood is gone, replaced by the sickening stench of rotting flesh.  One zombie patrols the entrance.  There was no way around him, or should we say, around IT.  Just then another scream pierced the deadly silence.  Mikey is in danger and Jake wasn’t about to be polite.  He levels both barrels and fires.  The zombie explodes into piles of bloody decaying meat.  It was unmistakably clear that it was time for Jake to clean house.

Jake cautiously moves into the front room, checking everywhere for his brother Mikey, firing countless times into the bodies of the walking dead.  There are sparkling Crystals everywhere.  The zombies use them.  They seem to focus the Crystal’s glow to give them power, to keep them in the world of the living.  Jake picks up one crystal and feels an instant surge of strength.  The kind of strength he knows he will need to survive.  As the power of the Crystal surges through his body, Jake feels invincible.  He knows he must be unrelenting and grab every Crystal, if he ever wants to see Mikey again.

As doors are opened, stairways climbed and dark passages visited, Jake faces hazards unknown to mortal man.  Along his path are scores of decomposing adversaries.  Hordes of zombies stalk his every move ready to punch his brains out.  Countless witches fling razor sharp knives at his skull.  And this is only his First challenge.

Once past the easy main house level, Jake enters the dark, stuffy attic, lit only by candles.  Here the air is warm and heavy, heavy with the smell of death.  The ever present zombies and witches are now joined by a very slimy creature.  Jake has to be very careful since this slime dissolves human flesh.  He must also watch out for large brown creatures walking on the ceiling because they could be deadly.  They’re Tarantulas!

With all the garbage removed from the attic, Jake cautiously enters the basement.  Some of the tunnels are lined with sharp blades awaiting those foolish enough to attempt to pass through, but which one’s safe?  If Jake didn’t have enough to contend with, a new, frantic horror awaits him…Werewolves.  Unfortunately he must face these perils alone.

His search has led him to a secret room off the main house and Jake must now face a giant obstacle.  A big ugly GIANT lumbers toward him spewing flaming spikes.

Somehow Jake manages to defeat the giant (with a little help from about 20 double-odd-buck shotgun shells) and enters the Widow’s Walk.  Ghosts and goblins abound as Jake desperately tries to make his way to the top.  To hamper his trip to the top is the continual flow of zombies, witches, slimmers and werewolves.

As he plunges off the top of Widow’s Walk, he has no way stop his fall as he enters the Well of Souls.  If you thought things might get a little easier for our hero, think again.  Just when Jake thought he had seen it all, out pops a FLAMING SKULL.  He must be careful, VERY CAREFUL!  Nothing seems to kill this demon!

By the skin of his teeth (and the hides of a few werewolves) Jake manages to survive another level of horror and pandemonium.  All he must do is find his way through the Maze of Dungeons.  Every type of monster and demon he has faced is here, waiting for him.  It can’t get any worse than this can it?  CAN IT?

It certainly can!  All these almost impossible adversities are child’s play compared to his final stand when Jake ‘Faces Death.’  Mikey’s life hangs in the balance as he floats high above in his Mystic Sphere prison.  Can Jake defeat all the beasts and demons of the nether world?  Will Mikey survive his unearthly prison?

Only YOU will know!



Starry, Starry Night

No wonder his name sounds familiar… Vincent Van Gogh was first introduced to us by our third-year English teacher Ms. Princess Soriano, the Starry Night – a painting of Van Gogh that inspired the composer of the song Starry, Starry Night, Don McLean. I also remembered a painting of sunflowers by Van Gogh that has been stolen by the Kisugi sisters in one of the Cat’s Eye anime episodes.

Here are some of Vincent’s famous paintings.

The Siesta

The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum

Starry Night

Sunflowers

The Sower

Shoes

Potato Eaters

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now. - Starry, Starry Night, Don McLean

SMS Scam: New Roaming Number

My SE Aino greeted me not with a good morning but a “Musta na kau jan? e2 new roaming # ko” message. It’s a puzzle of who would send me a message when I just changed my number and that only a few persons knew my new number. I asked my brother about it and told me it might be a scam. These scammers send SMS messages to random numbers targetting cellphone users with relatives abroad (OFWs). If the message happens to be received by a person who has a relative abroad, he/she might fall to the scam. The sender will ask the recipient to send him/her prepaid credits and the user, unknowingly, may do so. As I try to figure out why I received that kind of message, I decided to play along with it, thinking that I can reverse the situation and put the sender in a psychological stress.

+639166942936: “Musta na kau jan e2 na bagong roaming # ko mgpa2dla ako jan nxt wik,mis ko na kayo txtbk.”

Me: “Cno ka po?”

Not having a reply, I must prove to the sender that I know him.

Me: “Tita jing ikaw b yn? Musta turkey?”

He then quickly replied…

+639166942936: “Ok lng nman,kau jan?”

Hahaha. Now I am sure that this person is a scammer, my next move is to let him know that I have money.

Me: “Opo aus lng nman kmi d2, napromote c ate chixie sa trbaho kahapon kya celebrate kmi ngaun ikaw kumusta k nman mis k n rn nmin d2! Uwi kb s pasko?”

+639166942936: “Hnd ko pa alm,pakiloadan mo muna ako 200 paubos na kc load ko,congrats sknya..”

Haha, this scammer knows what he is doing… BEING STRAIGHT TO THE POINT!

Me: “Nsan k now?”

Of course I know that his number starts with +63, the Philippines’ country code, but I do not know how roaming works.

+639166942936: “Asa taiwan ako”

Hehehe, I just asked how is Turkey and now he is in Taiwan? Now I am talking to a rich traveller who can’t afford prepaid cards…

Me: “Hahaha anu trabaho mo jn ngaun?”

I asked, wondering what alibi he might make that will make my day. But, I got no reply. Now I have to keep him/her thinking that we will contact him whenever and that the only thing he needs to do is to discard his sim card.

Me: “Tita tatawag jan c mama bukas”

I failed yet again to get a reply for a few minutes. Wishing that my message got him nervous, I need to get him panicking.

Me: “May problema daw asawa m, ntanggap m n ung load? Ikaw na lang daw tumawag kay mama bukas!”

Believing that this might work, I get a reply.

+639166942936: “Roaming ang gamt ko hnd pwdng twgan,paki loadan muna ako jan 100 lng paubos na load ko. Wala pa ako natatanggap na load.”

Realizing how persistent the scammer was and how dedicated he was to his mission, I called his number. I lost hope as I am being told, “The number you have dialled is incorrect.” Damn.

I do not know up to this point what to reply to his message. Do I need to continue my psycho-masochistic desire to inflict pain on his hypothalamic-pitituary-adrenal axis or to stop this nonsense and just say… if you don’t have the time, don’t do the crime? xD

Yellow, red, white, and blue

It’s already hot when I woke up as I check my indoor plant, Pachira aquatica, dying. I don’t know if it is, but because its green leaves slowly turn yellow each day, I assume it is. I went outside to eat breakfast, ang ulam? Hotdog na may manok, carrots, sibuyas, tomato sauce?, at madaming tubig. Masarap, madami nga lang tubig. As I was eating my breakfast, I asked my brother what he is watching, he said he doesn’t know because he just turned it on. I saw students grouped together waving Philippine flags. I waited for clues when the reporter mentioned U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Ah, yung forum!” I exclaimed, “Ngayun na pala yun?”. I finished my breakfast just before the reporter, Pinky Webb, asked a question to a familiar face in the crowd. I know who he is! Jun? At that moment, I was proud. Chemical Engineering bida ka na naman! Due to excitement, me and my brother did not hear a word he said. Hahaha! After Jun said, he is from the Chemical Engineering Society, I asked my brother, “Anung sinabi niya? Anu yung tanong niya?” Hehehe.

Sec. Hillary Clinton arrived just before 9:20 am. She answered several questions from students of various places and media. She was asked about almost anything ranging from poverty to the Pacquiao-Cotto’s fight, of human rights to terrorism and the conflict in Mindanao, of the new Foreign Policy Agenda of the Obama administration, of the U.S. steps of reversing recession, of free trade, corruption, climate change, and world hunger. She did a very good job of addressing all those important questions. Though indirectly, she made it clear that her visit to the Philippines is something to be thankful for.

I wonder if PGMA would do something like that.

Cried for no reason?

Bloody morning

Early this morning, I woke up full of hope that I can get my professors to endorse me in finding a job. There were three persons in my list: Ma’am Bernadette Duran, Ma’am Philipina Marcelo, and Engr. Josefin De Alban. As I was leaving the house, my nose bled, it bled that it ruined my shirt. I entered the house again to look for a roll of tissue paper. I’ve been idle for about 10 minutes with a tissue paper stuck in my nose, thinking if I should change my “ironed” shirt or not… not. After this blood bath, I do not want to waste anymore time so I left for school. It was nice to be there again after several months.

Shocked

I met Sir Chao and asked if Ma’am Duran is available, he said “Teka, tignan ko.” He invited me inside the faculty room and told me to come up and meet her. I did and I am very happy to see her again, she’s very busy answering problems from a book. I asked her if she could endorse me to my employers if I happen to dazzle them with my lousy resume, she obliged. While she was filling up my post-it pad disguised as a slam book, she asked if I took the board exams. I told her I did not. “Pero sabi nila nag-apply ka daw,” she said.  “Yes ma’am,” I answered. She told me with her signature worrying voice that I should’ve taken the board exams because I was counted as one that took but failed. Kinabahan ako bigla. I told her that I really do know that I was considered absent that day and that I am not counted as one that took. “Hindi, hindi.. kasama ka pa rin dun..” she said. Namutla ako. Patay ako nito sabi ko sa sarili ko. Even though she ended my day early, she is still our sweet and very thoughtful Ma’am Duran.  I thanked her and left. I love you Ma’am Duran.

The moment with Sir De Alban

I wanted to see Ms. Philip Marcelo next but they said she’s not there yet so I decided to look for Sir De Alban. The Dean’s Office is always a busy place and I asked if the Dean was there, the man behind the counter said “Oo, kausap si Regent.” I waited outside of the Regent’s Office and waited for Sir De Alban. As I was standing outside, Ma’am Duran’s powerful words keeps marqueeing through my head like Jollibee’s electronic machine that slides “Welcome to Jollibee.” I felt very guilty as I was thinking how the Department struggles to bring back its glory like the old times, of our batch’s goal to up the UST’s ChE Board Exams as we celebrate its 75^th year of foundation, and above all this, my incompetence. My eyes were teary what the hell, I tried not to cry.

Finally, Sir De Alban’s business with the regent is over so he invited me inside his office. “Yes?” he asked. I don’t know what to say. I asked him if he could give me his contact information for my invisible employers. He said “Ok.” with a question mark look in his face. Realizing that I need to introduce myself, I told him that I am a chemical engineering graduate and I am one of his students before in PGC (Philippine Government and Constitution). His face brightened, he asked, “Wa, haha, kumusta ang board exams?” I don’t remember how I responded but I know I was crying. I told him how I was feeling of not taking the board exams and that my incompetence made my department a little less proud – that’s what I think. He did a good job of cheering me up; he shared to me a line in his speech written on a paper when he was appointed Dean, my mind was preoccupied with a lot of things at that moment that I forgot what it said, though I know it is for the engineering students who did not do well in the Board Exams, lol. I thanked him as he advised me to take Spanish lessons.

Our cheerful Regent

I talked to the Regent next. I never thought that the Dean’s Office is a very cheerful place to be. He cheers almost everyone in the office, and the students. He was leaving the office so I tried to catch him – not “to catch” literally. When I finally caught up top him, “Father, pwede po ba kayong makausap?” I said. “Bakit gusto mo na ring mag-pari?” he asked. “Naku hindi po!” sigaw ko, hindi ko alam kung bakit pasigaw ang reply ko. I told him about what I’m feeling that time, and asked for his advice on what to do to make up. As we where going downstairs he was met by a group of students who probably knows Father since the beginning of time, just kidding. I didn’t get any advice but he assured me, “Hayaan mo kakausapin ko si Ma’am Duran.” Naku father wag po, wala po siyang kasalanan!, sabi ko na naman sa sarili ko. I saw that he was busy with other things so I said thanks and left.

Philippines

I was looking for Ma’am Philip, so I decided to visit kuya Jay’s lab and ask somebody. I met kuya Jay and told him everything that happened, he’s always our kuya Jay, lol. Kuya Jay wag ka na! Hahaba pa kwento ko o! He told me to visit TARC and see Ma’am Philip for myself. I did. I went to TARC but I am doubtful that she is in the unversity so I called Paolo, and asked for Ma’am Philip’s number.

“Hello, Paolo?”

“Ui, Armel! Anu ng nangyari sa’yo?”

(Madami) “Wala. Andito ako sa UST, may number ka ba ni Ma’am Philip?”

“Oo”

“Pa-send naman Paolo ha? Thanks. Bye!”

“Ok bye!”

I called Ma’am Philip but no answer so I texted her. Hello Ma’am Philip. ^^

God..

I don’t know where to go to, so I went to the chapel to reflect. I went inside and sat at the front. I cried. I said sorry many times. Sorry that I doubted. Sorry that I never asked for His help. I thanked God… thanked Him for my family in ChE that continues to support us even after our failures, even after our graduation. I remembered what I said at the Mr. ChES Personality Q&A on what to do if I win the competition. I told them that I’ll motivate other ChE students to be active in ChES activities. I won, but I never did what I said. I promised to do something for my ChE family, to my fellow chemical engineering students, to the people who put their trust to us, their encouragements, and their little push at the back that keeps us moving. After an hour of recurrent flashbacks, and guilt, I did a big genuflect and left for PRC.

Please Reconsider Cir

I went to PRC to inquire about what they do to determine the passing rate of the Board Exams. I asked if they include those who applied but did not take the board exams. Simple lang yung sagot nung mamang napagtanungan ko, “Hindi, hindi kasama, absent ka lang.” I told him about what I went through earlier in the morning. “Talaga po?,” I said waiting for his assurance. “Oo, ang tanging hindi lang pwede eh yung application, wala ng bisa yun!,” he assured. I said, “Umiyak ako kanina sa harap ng Dean, daig ko pa yung bumagsak sa board exams.” Tumawa siya. I felt relief. Smiling, I went straight home to write about this, still on my bloodied shirt.

The Unlikely Blogger

He never thought this day would come… starting a blog. What to blog? Why should I blog? I tell you… he doesn’t know… He doesn’t know if its okay – to waste time writing some things about him you don’t want to know, his point of views, the things he hate, things he like, etc. He doesn’t want to bore you with these things. He wants to share, inspire people with stories about O Henry, or Van Gogh, or Shakespeare, or about this person who struggles to find a deeper meaning of life, who is now facing reality, and is completely clueless of what lies ahead. It is not like him to make this up, and you may not believe that he is real, but then you are right.