Mugshot Justified, Money Stolen

People have been pestering me, these past few weeks, as to why I’m using the mugshot pic above as my Gravatar, my Multiply avatar, my Writerscafe avatar, my deviantART avatar, my YIM and MSN avatar and my avatar on this blog. Whew! That’s a lot of sites.

They’ve been telling me that it’s giving off negative attitudes. The unkempt hair and the whole attitude scream, “Hey! Look at me! I just woke up and I haven’t taken a bath!”. At least, that’s what they tell me.

There are those who like it though. Some of whom for a fact that it’s quirky and humorous.

Just to remind everyone else, I didn’t run my sister over. This photo was for my Civil Service Commission fact sheet and its official. 

Honestly, I like the photo. Why? Well, for one thing, it’s not the usual “pa kyut” face [fake smile to impress the opposite sex and fool them into thinking it’s going to be fun shacking with the guy] that I make to survive the horrors of contemporary nit picking. It’s not the usual formal look that screams, “I must smile so my boss will think I’m not going to steal cookies from the office cookie jar”. It’s not the same boring old photo style that we’re all used to.

No. It’s actually a “deviation” from the norm [Uh, oh. Do I smell deviantART influence here?].It’s actually an identifiable photo that screams, “Hey! I’m Jofer Serapio! Look at the hair… Yeah… That’s my trademark.”

Okay… So it’s not really anything. It’s just a lame photo done as a lame requirement. Not a big deal. Why criticize it? I just like it because it’s something new, not to mention funny, and that’s nothing compared to Britney shaving her head bald.

[Okay, enough Britney jokes… She’s trying to get a new leash on life… >_<]

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Speaking of something new, I drove to Iloilo yesterday and got my money stolen. No, not by some homeless guy who justifies his thieving ways with screams of anguish at his forlorn predicament. Actually, my money was stolen by Orlando Bloom, Will Ferrell, Robin Williams, Cody McFadyen and the Nintendo Company.

I, actually, didn’t want to go to Iloilo that Friday since I had class. However, thanks to my incessant need to be a better man, I skipped class and faced the inevitable duel with my old girlfriend, that Ragnarok Account Hacking Hack. Talk about too many ironies.

So, there we were, within the confines of SM City’s Kenny Roger’s Roasters, face to face and with me wanting to just die right there and then. We reminisced, talked about our future plans and said our apologies for making each other’s lives identical to a living hell. Since I didn’t do much except break up with her, my apology was short. She, however, had the longer apology. From hacking my Ragnarok account to cutting my underwear, she covered them all. I almost snorted gravy through all of it. 

The truth was, I forgot most of those things. I’m not the guy who keeps grudges. No, that’s Euben Concepcion. 

Anyways, after our little lunch date, we said our goodbyes and parted. I still had a lot of free time before my bus leaves for home so I paid a visit to three of my favorite stores in that mall: Circuit City, Astrovision and National Bookstore. Okay, so I’m also a frequent visitor of Toy Kingdom, Quantum Arcade and the wallet killing Penshoppe branch but I strayed from the latter three this time around. I wasn’t expecting to actually buy anything so I only took a few bills with me. Truth be told, I was trying to be cheap.

Unfortunately, for me, I was pawned by commercialism. That and I had nothing better to do. Uh, oh. Now I sound like a girl. 

My first stop was Circuit City. I thought I’d only be windowshopping, checking the Wii’s price so I could devise a plan on getting one. The pull of the Nintendo next gen console was too hard to resist. As I tried my earnest to not buy it, since I was actually suffering from a short of personal economics that time, I shifted my attention from the Godly invention to the lowly Game Boy Advance cartridges. From Fire Emblem to Marvel Ultimate Alliance to the Pokemon Series, the small stall had everything that was, to me, as valuable as the Philippines itself. Overexaggeration aside, I tried to maintain my composure. Then I bought a Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed copy. Don’t rub it in.

Next stop was Astrovision. Again, I tried my best to resist temptation. There were tons of amazing CDs and DVDs there. From the childish farce, that we are all fond of regardless of age or maturity, to the epic heart attack inducers, which we strangely love even though it may become the cause of our deaths someday; from the heart warming stories, most of which are all the same anyway, to the eardrum bashing blood spillers, Die Hard 4.0 FTW; it was amazing that movie theaters still exist. In the end, ElizabethTown plus Dead Poets Society plus my beloved movie of all time, Stranger than Fiction, equals more stabs to my wallet.

Third and final stop was the National Bookstore. Being cheap didn’t cross my mind as soon as I entered the place. It had always been my sanctuary, my second home. Unfortunately, thanks to buying the CDs and the cartridge before hand, I was left with nothing but compromise. I found three amazing novels, okay one was like a novellete, that I wanted to buy right there and then. I was torn between My Mookie Got a Life by a well known Filipino writer whose name escapes me right now, the novelization of the film 30 Days of Night with the same title and Cody McFadyen’s Shadow Man. Except for 30 Days of Night, not one of them seemed familiar to me. The Mookie novellete caught my eye because, well, a Filipino wrote it and it wasn’t the same joke book or feministic love story that most wrote about. I’m planning to break that fad by writing a horror/supernatural/psychological thriller. The previous statement was also the reason why Shadow Man caught my eye. I’ve never heard of it but the summary sounds cool. I bought the latter and left the other two hidden from sight. Maybe some other time?

Curse you, Intranet Dream Crasher Science Dude!

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Meanwhile, on the LevelUpGames - Flyff landscape:

Read about my latest article here: SAINT MORNING

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Grand Chase Closed Beta Accounts have now been released. To those who applied for the epic opportunity, check your inbox or your Bulk/Spam folder of your email. You’ll see the Account Details in an email by the Grand Chase Team.

You can download the GC Closed Beta Client at the following sites:

http://ftp.levelupgames.ph
http://torrent.levelupgames.ph

For more info, check the official post here: GRAND CHASE CLOSED BETA UPDATE

See ya there!

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G-Potato/Gala-Net, the publishers of FlyFF in the US, have recently announced that they will be launching FlyFF V12 this October. This is exciting news since FlyFF Philippines has just started testing v12 and we’re scheduled to launch it this last quarter of the year. We’ll give you the dates once we finalize it.

Flyff Version 12 features information here: GM TRISTAN’S ONLINE HUB