Scammers, Schemers, Spammers, Phishers

Today, I received a strange email from a friend's old email account. In it, he claims to be in Nigeria for the "Tinapa Opening Ceremony". The email continued that his money was stolen at the hotel by some armed robbers and that he had no money left. He asked the recipients of the email to please send him $2,500 for his mounting hotel bills that he will repay once he's back home from his travel.

Armed robbers supposedly stormed his hotel room and yet the hotel still charges him his daily hotel stay? I just laughed because it sounded ludicrous aside from the fact that in the Philippines, Tinapa is a kind of dried fish. Either he was sending a practical joke email or his email was hijacked by a Nigerian scammer. Hours later, he sends an email from his newer email address warning us that his old email address was hacked.

A few days ago, another friend looking for an apartment via Craigslist.org called me asking for advice. He said that a Pastor and his wife were subletting their apartment for only $600 while they were outside the country. It was such a good deal that my friend actually called the number in West Africa and spoke to this "Pastor". He had a heavy accent and was supposedly in West Africa (read Nigeria) with his wife on a prolonged stay. In the Craigslist posting, he said his wife was in Canada. Anyway, he couldn't show my friend the place because they were both out of the country but would send him the keys after he sends the money for the deposit and rent. This one smelled as bad as the "Tinapa Opening ceremony". I told him to continue looking and stop wasting his time with this "Pastor".

A few months back when Hubby posted something to sell on Ebay, he was contacted by someone who supposedly wanted to buy his item but would send him an international money order for an amount bigger than what he was asking for, but asked that Hubby give himself a big tip and return the balance to the supposed buyer via another international money order. The tone of the email had the same kind of writing that usually came with the original Nigerian email scam promising millions of dollars in a secret European account of a dead relative to a person who can pay for the processing fees to have it released. It has just evolved into many other forms.

These scams are now widely publicized, and have even been exposed by NBC Dateline. They even got a few of these scammers to come and meet them in London and Amsterdam for the "hand-off" of fees in exchange for part of the hidden millions. Everything was filmed via hidden cameras. Amazingly, a lot of people still fall for it - those hoping for a windfall of some sort.

Who doesn't want to get rich? I definitely wouldn't mind it. But if a business transaction sounds too good to be true, chances are, it is!

Who Am I? (Tagged!)

I was tagged by Charl. I think this is the first time I've ever been tagged or responded to a tag. I've added a couple of things, as well.

Here goes...

I AM … thinking of what the heck to write in this post.

I WANT … to pay off my debt.

I HAVE … the most talented friends in the whole wide world!

I WISH … to go to Bermuda.

I ENJOY … humourous banter.

I LIKE … quiet wit.

I HATE … arrogant people.

I FEAR … not fulfilling what God put me on this earth for.

I SEARCH … for my niche in life.

I WONDER … if gas prices are ever going down.

I REGRET … the ungodly choices I've made in life.

I LOVE … buffalo chicken wings.

I ALWAYS … try to look at the bright side of things.

I AM NOT … the same person I was 20 years ago.

I DANCE … to keep my muscles loose.

I SING … to get away from reality.

I CRY … at a drop of a hat.

I WRITE … to help me sort my thoughts out.

I WON … my husband's heart by being a goofball.

I AM CONFUSED … by people who don't think they can learn from others.

I NEED … to be surrounded by people who I can learn from and make me think.

I SHOULD … really moisturize. *scratch scratch*

THE LAST THOUGHT I GO TO SLEEP WITH IS … "Thank you, Lord."

That's it. I now tag Gigi Posadas, Ralph Pena, and Ariel Reonal. You're it, guys!

Becoming Coupon Crazy

I used to only use the coupons for clothing, drug, book and electronic stores. I found that those were the ones that offered worthwhile discounts when we shopped, be it Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Borders, etc. Lately, I've started to pay more close attention to the grocery store coupons that I receive in the mail, especially after I saw a special segment on America's Cheapeast Family - the Economides, a family of 7 living on a $35K a year with no consumer debt.

For about a year, I had been receiving coupon books from BJs, a wholesale club here, but due to my impatience to browse and cut coupons, I never paid attention to them and it went to the trash as fast as it came, along with all junk mail. A few weeks ago, inspired by the Economides, I took the time to flip through the booklet and cut coupons of the things I thought I might need. I brought them along on my next visit to the store. At the checkout line, I was amazed to find that I actually shaved $20 off our final bill after scanning in all the coupons I had!

I now use the pocket inside my bag to store all coupons and gift cards I have so I can pull them out at a moment's notice. I also google coupons online when I intend to make purchases. Getting the most out of our money is as thrilling for me as it is practical. With the price of oil inflating all other prices, it is worth the few minutes it takes me to check for coupons to get 5 to 20% off any purchase price! That's a few more dollars in our pockets and why wouldn't I want that? :)

“Third Party” Legislation – Homewreckers may become legally liable

Usually, a messy divorce follows an affair where the husband and wife duke it out in court for children’s custody, possessions, etc. while the person who is the cause of the break-up can walk away without much consequence.

Now, it may actually be possible for the wronged individual to also go after their spouse’s paramour for damages. Apparently, South Carolina is mulling over a law that would enable someone to sue the third party who caused the break-up of their marriage.

I think it’s a brilliant idea. A lot of people will think twice about something if it can hit them right where it will really hurt – their pockets. If a jilted spouse can prove that a person was the cause of the upheaval in their lives, then I think the homewrecker should be made to pay, literally.

In fact, I would bring it a step further. It should not be just the spouses who can sue but the children that come from the broken home, as well. Boy, I could think of a couple of women I would have happily taken to the cleaners. Their money and possessions in place of my stolen childhood. It still would not have been a fair trade but I would have taken it, nevertheless! :)

Our Madonna on Britain's Got Talent

Oh, anong say n'yo, mga kapatid???



Go, Mado! Ang luha ko umagos ha!

We'll be praying for you. :)

Leaving Comfort Zones, Embracing Change

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

I've loved this quote for years and have often chewed on it. But years before I read it, I instinctively knew that change was something I had to welcome and embrace. Somehow, I had drummed it into my brain early in life to use change as a means to explore as many open doors as I can. My circuitry shorts at the thought of “What ifs.” “At least, I tried…” is a more satisfying musing for me, whether I failed at the endeavor or not. Whenever I get too comfortable and life’s humming along, I wonder sometimes what I’m missing out on. That’s when I try to stir the pot and see what comes up – a new hobby, a new place to see, and a new opportunity. I never close a door to a possibility until I feel that I’ve fully explored it.

In my late twenties – I was living in a Makati city condo, had a full-time live-in maid, working in a great-paying job, very comfortably entrenched in my family, social and work circles. I was getting a lot of singing and acting jobs, had another steady job and had an incredible network where I had a good standing.

Then change presented itself – an incident happened at work and I quit the following day for integrity’s sake. No matter, I trusted that God had a handle on everything. Besides, I thought I could better focus on my gigs. A few weeks later, a friend of mine told me that her sister, a huge Disney Exec, was asking for recommendations for representatives from the Philippines for a Millennium project that they were doing. She warned me that I was overqualified for the position and the pay wasn’t big but she thought she’d run it through me because she knew that I wanted a short break from hectic Manila life and live and work somewhere else for a couple years. “What the heck...” I thought. This was an opportunity I would truly wonder about all my life if I didn’t do it. Pondering on that and the other things it would have led to would have been utter torture for me. I figured that if I didn’t like suburban Florida, I could always go back to Manila and re-enter its lively, cosmopolitan scene.

So off I went, leaving everything that was comfortable and went to a place where I had little money, no family support, no social network or standing and a totally different way of living. It was tough adjusting in the beginning and breaking the stereotypical myths people thought about me and where I come from, but I didn’t care much as I still had the adventure I intended to have. I had my few sad moments but they were outweighed by my discovery of who I truly was outside all the influences I had been living under all my life. I saw the kind of person that I was even when no one was watching. This was the point in my life when who I am became solidified. The greatest gain I had was growth, and in a way I never could have had I chosen to stay put.

Change is a short but much feared word. At some point, all of us want and need change and we have different attitudes towards it. There are those that are ready and itching for it, those that are fearful but curious, and those that are using every excuse not to do it - a person that they don’t want to leave, age, weather, etc. - refusing to admit, whether consciously or subconsciously, that it is fear and pride that paralyzes them from going into the unknown.

I believe that there is more to fear in not reaching our fullest potential in every way. It’s been said time and again - no pain, no gain. No risks, no rewards.

One day, we’ll look back at our lives and inevitably think of the opportunities – those that we wasted and those that we seized. Will we shrivel in regret or be bursting with thankfulness? I guess that will depend on the choices we make in the present.

Physician, Heal Thyself

It is funny that just a couple of weeks after I wrote a blog about hate, I came across an article featuring a psychiatrist and his opinions about current events in Manila. He was an object of hatred of mine for sometime. It was almost like God reminding me to test my heart whether I still harbored those ill feelings. And yes, I felt a shadow of my old rage at first but it slowly dissipated as I thought of how God used those years to patiently and lovingly work things out in my heart and make me who I am today.

I still shook my head at the very sad fact that this person ,who crossed professional boundaries and helped destroy my family, is now sought after for his "valued" counsel by the media. I once considered legal action against this man to strip him of his license to prevent him from hurting any more people. I had evidence, too - records I kept of goings-on, witnesses who were ready to corroborate and tell the truth, his own fellow counselors who had sanctioned him, notes he had written encouraging someone to harrass other people through text message and phone calls, etc. A friend of mine still holds it all in safekeeping back home. However, with the legal system being the way it is in the Philippines, I felt it would prevent me from moving on. It would be costly, too and it's not like he had anything then that I could sue him for. He was nobody and had nothing. I had wasted years being manipulated and hurt by this person that to go through a legal process that would take more years would just prolong a very unpleasant episode in my life. I felt that what remained of my life was just too precious to waste. Lucky him. :)

My hope is that all those years between our incident and this present time, he has sought healing for himself and his own deep psychological problems - that he has found his own answers which is what, in fact, drove him to psychiatry according to him. I hope that all that took place before he became visible in the media because if not, then he has a loftier place to fall from when his own problem rears its ugly head again.

In my life, God had turned what someone meant for evil, their own very selfish gain, into good. That's the reason why when the grudge comes unbidden into my heart, I find it hard to hold on to for more than several minutes. I quickly realize that if God has forgiven my own sins and restored me, how dare I begrudge someone else that? I like where I am right now!

God deals with us all in His perfect time so I leave that in His hands. In the meantime, I'll work with my God for all my own issues.

A Time To Hate

It's hard to hate. No, let me rephrase that. It's very easy to hate, but extremely exhausting. It zaps all our energy and turns us into a person we don't like. It takes over our soul until we eventually turn into the very person we hate, or worse.

We may all enjoy a little hating here and there, to an extent. Schadenfreude, I guess. Anyone who says they have never experienced Schadenfreude has to take an honest look at their hearts. At times, we take pleasure in someone's misfortune when we feel they have it coming. But that can turn ugly, and I don't mean just for the object of our hate, but also for us.

Is it worth it? Some will say yes, and for a time it may seem so. Revenge is sweet on the surface but it can turn sour eventually, and even deadly in some cases. I think the reason why God tells us to leave it to Him, is because we don't see the damage it does to our psyche, whereas He does. He encourages us to seek, pray and cry for justice to Him and I guess through the proper earthly channels. He will deal with it with a timing that is perfect - whether it be in a visible manner or not. People have often called it poetic justice, I call it God's justice.

Truth has a funny way of rearing its head even when people do their best to hide it. Maybe it won't be in the swift manner that we want, but it will. Proverbs says fools get trapped in the snare that they themselves have set up. I've witnessed that happen. They don't need our help, they will do it to themselves, one way or another.

One very good reason to try not to focus on the hatred we feel is that we will miss the other opportunities for happiness that are there because of our seething and devising. A classic example is a person I know who turns off men that she meets because she habitually spews out vitriol, through opinions and jokes about men. She thinks it's funny but it scares them off. There are times she exhausts even me, when I have to listen to her rant and rage. It is sad to witness her continually ruin her own chance at future happiness because she refuses to let go of the past.

Yes, there's a time to hate but we should try to keep it as short as we possibly can, for our own sake. We do ourselves a huge favor when we finally choose to let it go. Holding on to hatred is like trying to hold fire. It will eventually burn and consume us and those that we love, if we hold on to it too long.

On Cruise Mode

I sit at my desk tonight pondering - a million thoughts go through my head but nothing sticks. I begin with a thought but cannot process it thoroughly. Such has been the state of my mind the past three months. There are so many things I want to express but I can't seem to have the energy to work them all out in my mind. This morning when Hubby and I were having our usual discussion over brunch, I found it very hard to verbalize a point. I know how I felt about a particular topic we were chewing on, but I just could not put it into words. I struggled and gave up. I just said that maybe I haven't really thought about it hard enough.

Come to think of it, I haven't had the time to really delve into my thoughts lately. That's the reason why my blogs of late have been more about events rather than thoughts and opinions. I've been so busy just trying to get by on my schedule that I haven't had that much time to just sit down and ruminate. And when I try, my body tells me I'm too tired. And believe it or not, that is just what it's doing right now.

I miss being able to just sit and have the words flow out. My quiet times are so much richer when my mind is more eloquent. One day, it will hopefully come back, but for now I'm leaving this as is. I need to go get some rest.

President's Day Broadway Weekend

We celebrated George Washington's birthday in New York City. We took this time to do what we haven't done together in a long time - spend a weekend in Manhattan and see as many Broadway shows as we can.

We booked ourselves right in Times Square and lined up two shows to watch - The Lion King and Legally Blonde the Musical. I had seen the last on its opening week with friends, Lito and Sheila, and I had such a great time that I wanted Hubby to see it and enjoy it with him. And enjoy it, we did!

The Lion King was something we couldn't get tickets to in its first couple of years of showing so we gave up. These days, even if it still doesn't appear on the TKTS show list, it's easier to get tickets as long as you book them a few weeks in advance. Its artistry is really something to see. I've heard it talked about and to finally see it is really quite an experience.

For Wicked, we were hoping to do the lottery since we could never get tickets online for the President's Day weekend, but alas, we didn't get there on time to list our names during the matinee we were free. So, we took a chance and went to Golden Theatre to check out Avenue Q and were fortunate enough to snag a couple of tickets. Hubby loves South Park, and since the brand of humor is quite the same, you can imagine how much he (and I) laughed in this show!

Next on our list was the limited engagement of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and Anika Noni Rose. However, we found out that our TheatreMania discount doesn't apply for the holiday weekend. Paying full price after already seeing three shows wasn't that appealing so we bagged the idea and just treated ourselves to a nice dinner at the original Benihana in New York.

I'm just hoping that the show's still running when we go back in May to meet up with some friends!

Too Many Hats

For about three and a half months now, I've worn three hats at work. In December, I was doing that, plus a musical. By Christmas, I was so burnt out that I spent the whole Christmas week sick - physically and figuratively. I was sick with a bad cold, as well as sick of thinking, talking and socializing that I went through the holiday season barely talking to anyone to wish them good cheer. I reserved that energy for the few family and friends who lived in close proximity and that I would see during the season. All I could manage for the rest were emails. Writing one was less exhausting than a face-to-face or vocal (over-the-phone) encounter where I would have to exhibit facial expression and vocal inflection to go along with my words. I was tired. I still am.

I thought that staying at home rejuvenating during the weekends would help lift my spirits. I was wrong. Three weekends ago, Hubby and I went to the White Mountains to do some long-overdue skiing. After a couple of tentative runs and we were back in skiing, and falling, form! We managed to get some outlet shopping done, as well, before and after. The weekend was tiring physically, but it really resurrected my spirits. Next weekend, we are planning a trip to New York to watch a few Broadway shows and visit with family. It's given us something to look forward to these very hectic days.

I thought resting and vegging was the only antidote to very stressful workdays, but having fun, even if it's physically tiring, seemed to have done more for me. I guess the key to keeping sanity when you're working very hard, is to "play" equally hard. It did wonders for my spirit, definitely.

Good Knight, Sleep Well

I was having a conversation over the phone with our Business Support Manager and in the middle of our discussion she exclaimed, "Heath Ledger died! They found him in his apartment!" I asked her if she was sure that she wasn't pertaining to Brad Renfro who died last week. She said, "No! I'm reading it in CNN!"

At first, I was sad. Brad Renfro, the former child actor who debuted in "The Client" and Oscar nominee, Heath Ledger, both young, promising actors following the steps of that other tragic figure, River Phoenix. But the more I thought about it later on, the more mad I got rather than sad. All that talent, life, possibility, opportunity and future gone too soon because of poor choices.

Is it another case of having too much too soon? It seems to be with a lot of these young celebrities. These unnecessary deaths should serve as a warning to the others who seem to be headed down that same path. At least, something good would come out of this tragedy.

Who would have thought this Knight's tale would have such a sad ending?

Snowed In

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland - so we donned our warm clothes and started shoveling. It was coming faster than we could clear the driveway and pathways so we both decided to work from home today. Actually, only I am working from home. Hubby's company declared a snow day so he's scot-free, just hanging out here at home while I am stuck to my computer - working. I have never had a snow day ever since I lived here in New England. I've been very "lucky "to work with companies who have been sticklers for working even when there's a blizzard outside and it's the first time I've stayed at home because of snow.

As I write this, the snow is still falling and it has not let up. Everything's white and beautiful outside. That won't last long, however, especially when the salt and sand start to melt everything. It gets slushy, muddy and very slippery. It can be a nerve-wracking ride going up and down our hill during these times and we don't intend to attempt that today. That's the price we pay for a brief moment of breathtaking beauty.

It's 2008 already!?

I don't know if time flying is more of a modern day phenomenon because of the frantic pace of life these days, or if every adult in all the generations past just feels this way the older they get.

2007 came and went before I could really sit back and enjoy it. Yes, there were a few moments of relaxation here and there, but it was mostly a blur. Maybe just taking off on long weekends and not taking a long vacation of at least 1 or 2 weeks during the year is to blame but there were hardly any STOP signs as far as our life was concerned this year.

Nevertheless, there were a lot of things to be thankful for - the energy and health to work throughout the year to be able to pay our bills; Katy and George, our two quadrupeds who have brought a bucketful of fun and cuteness everyday in our lives; doing the King & I and making new friends at the last quarter of the year; securing a job in a great line of business in the company despite the restructuring; family members in generally good health, etc.

No doubt there will be the same kind of blessings and some surprises in 2008. I just hope we remember to take the time to reflect and thank God for all His constant lovingkindness.

A blessed 2008 to all!

'Twas Two Days Before Christmas Eve

-my successor remains unnamed,
-projects at work remain undone,
-the tree and house remain undecorated,
-the Christmas shopping list remains unchecked,
-the house remains cluttered,
-my energy remains unreplenished,
-the spirit remains unfelt.

Stop, time! I'm not ready for Christmas!!!